 Neo-Confucians always discuss li in relation to qi, vital energy. If li refers to patterns of coherence, qi is the stuff in which those patterns inhere. This distinction has functional similarities with Aristotle’s distinction between form and matter, but the force of activity and change is with qi rather than li. That means that li must be immanent in qi in some sense. The precise ontological status of li and qi became one of the main metaphysical disputes among Confucian philosophers. One could easily claim that the distinction between patterns of coherence and the stuff that follows the patterns is conceptual rather than ontological. That is close to the view seen in Zhang Zai, for whom qi is active and inherently patterned. For Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming, though, li has ontological priority over qi. Zhu Xi writes: