 In the eighteenth century, when the kaozheng (evidential research) movement held sway, the common consensus was that learning must be concrete and empirical. The ultimate goal was to retrieve and restore, via philological explications (xungu), the pristine and unadulterated meanings of the sages’ words, so that their moral meanings (yili) could come to the fore, crystal clear. Qian Daxin said it well: 