 Hence, Tan Sitong (1865–1898) believed that the central Confucian virtue of humaneness (ren) is not merely an ethical, but also an epistemological term that determines the social function of the basic stuff of which everything is composed, namely of ether, which makes it possible for people to experience circulation (tong 通), i.e., one of the principal components in the process of comprehension. In accordance with this mechanistic understanding of concrete reality, circulation provides both the inner and external conditions of perceiving, comprehending and transmitting reality. In terms of inwardness, circulation makes the harmonic, coordinated operation of the senses (wu guan 五官), brain (nao 腦) and nervous system (nao qi jin 腦氣筋) possible. Tan Sitong was one of the first Chinese scholars who accepted the Western notion that mind and consciousness arise from the brain and not from the heart (xin), as was widely believed in traditional China.