 Zhu’s notions of stimulus-response and transformation and change are noteworthy, for they are counterparts to the concepts of causation and change in Western science. Construing phenomena as resonant and sensitive, perhaps perceptive in a rudimentary sense, the notion of stimulus-response reinforces the interdependence of things. Assuming a resonance among things in terms of parallelisms among their forms, and affinities among their qi, this notion presents phenomena on a biological model and conduces to an ecological rather than a mechanical outlook. While providing an interactive way of talking about phenomena, it doesn’t open the way or impel the inquirer to uncover the nuts and bolts of causation and change. Also, since the idea of stimulus-response was usually tied to the aforementioned sets of categories and associations, it was often vague and applied in arbitrary and superstitious ways. As might be expected, Zhu’s notions of transformation and change also reflected biological and human-life models, with transformation indicating gradual change, as in the growth of a child or the passage of summer, and change indicating a sudden transformation, as from a caterpillar to a butterfly or from summer to winter and life to death. From the standpoint of developing science, by making change seem to be natural and inevitable, these notions of transformation and change tended to make further inquiry appear to be unwarranted. In contrast, Western ideas of eternal substance and inert matter, for example, made the observed changes on the earth and in the skies problematic and in urgent need of further inquiry and explanation. More pragmatic in spirit, the Chinese were concerned mainly with registering and grasping the observed patterns and sequences of change in and around them so as to be able to adapt their lives to the ever-changing circumstances. (The Book of Changes was a guide to making such adaptations.)