 In his masterly essay, “Probing the Original Goodness” (Yuanshan), Dai identified expediency as one of the characteristics of the pervading common virtue of “goodness” (shan): “Because of its coherence with changes, it is called the norm of expediency” (Chung-ying Cheng 1971: 68). This appreciation for change was transposed epistemologically into Dai’s preoccupation with meticulous examination of the origins and developments of multifarious things in history: ancient pronunciations of characters, attire and costumes, changes in place names, implements of the artisans, nomenclature and categories of fauna and flora, mathematics, musical instruments, and the like. The principles and meanings of the sages, and indeed the Way itself, had to be found in the actual “statutes, laws, institutions and measures” (Dai DZWJ: 145), that is, things in the historical records.