sentences:  Already in his 1976 Ph.D. dissertation on Li Zhi, Billeter had already raised crucial issues about the way Chinese modern history should be construed.The tragic fate of Li Zhi points to aborted development of the autonomy of the human subject, a principle that lies at the heart of the Reformation and which led to the Enlightenment in Europe.In other circumstances, might this new spirit have eventually prevailed in China too?