In reflecting on the canon of texts in the Confucian tradition, Zhu Xi finds in the first chapter of the Great Learning (Daxue, 大學) what he regards as the basis of a Neo-Confucian program of self-cultivation for followers of the Confucian Way: Those of antiquity … wishing to cultivate themselves, first set their minds in the right; wishing to set their minds in the right, they first made their intentions true; wishing to make their intentions true, they first extended knowledge to the utmost; the extension of knowledge lies in the investigation of things.
