Regarding Lun Heng, Wang Chong used his own words: "It is even more insincere to hurt the vulgar writing, so it is the book of Lun Heng." In other words, the purpose of his book Lun Heng is to refute those works that are false, absurd, dishonest and popular in the world. The so-called "fake books and vulgar writings" mainly refers to the prevailing theological Confucianism at that time, especially the so-called divination. Divination was originally used to explain the six Confucian classics (poetry, calligraphy, ceremony, music, Yijing, Spring and Autumn), which originated in the late Western Han Dynasty, but later developed many superstitious contents such as predicting good and bad luck. Liu Xiu, the first emperor of Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han Dynasty, began his career as a diviner. It is said that at that time, Chen Wei said, "Liu Xiu sent his troops to drive the way, and the four barbarians gathered in Longdouye, and the fourth stage was dominated by fire", predicting that Liu Xiu would overthrow Wang Mang's new dynasty and restore the Han Dynasty. For this reason, since Liu Xiuqi, most emperors in the Eastern Han Dynasty believed in divination, and even listed 8 1 weft books as official academic classics for people to learn. Most of these books are full of all kinds of strange and absurd superstitions, which have a more serious impact on the social atmosphere at that time.
The main purpose of Wang Chong's writing Lun Heng is to get rid of these superstitions. There are a lot of contents in Lun Heng, such as Preface to the Book and Confucian Zengpian, which criticize many grotesque and unreasonable historical books. The article on material potential criticizes the theological teleology of "Heaven gives birth to man" and "Everything gives birth to everything". Strange Articles criticizes all kinds of strange theories about the birth of saints. The theory of "the unity of man and nature" is criticized in the chapters of "Changing the Empty", "Different Empty" and "Xu Lei". Xu Tao and Xu Long criticized the immortal theory. Cold and warm, change, courage, drum, sense, etc. Criticizing the disaster is a fallacy caused by man. Articles such as Caught by a Tiger and Businessman deny the fallacy that the harm of insects and tigers is caused by politics. Articles such as Ghost Book, On Death, Death Fake and Yao Ji criticized the theory that people die as ghosts.
In Lun Heng, Wang Chong often criticizes all kinds of secular superstitions with strict logic, dialectical analysis and detailed examples. Taking criticizing "people die as ghosts" as an example, Wang Chong wrote humorously that hundreds of millions of people have died since ancient times, far exceeding those who are alive now. If people die like ghosts, then, step by step on the road is not a ghost? Wang Chong believes that man is composed of yin and harmony, "Yin Qi is the body of flesh and blood, but the master of spirit", and "spirit is mainly blood gas, and blood gas is often attached to the body", which are inseparable. He brilliantly pointed out: "There is no single fire in the world, and there is the essence of knowing nothing in the world!" In other words, the spirit cannot exist without human form, and there is no soul of the dead in the world. As for the saying that some people have seen ghosts, it is actually caused by people's fear. The "ghost" you see is just an illusion. People worship ghosts and gods in order to repay the merits of their ancestors and encourage future generations. Some are helpless to natural disasters and have to beg for help from ghosts and gods in order to get a bumper harvest. However, all the sacrificial objects are ignorant and can't actually bring any good or bad to people.
Today, these seem to be taken for granted, but you know, at that time, Wang Chong wrote these articles without risks. In that era when the whole world believed in divination and superstition prevailed, it was taboo to issue such doubts. Before Wang Chong, some senior court officials were reprimanded for bluntly questioning divination. From now on, due to the limitations of the times, there are many contents in Lun Heng that are not completely free from the shackles of theological thought; However, in the atmosphere where fallacies and heresies are rampant in the Han Dynasty, there should be sharp new ideas to attack those stale things, and Lun Heng is such a force.
Wang Chong's writing style is also plain and smooth, without any modification. The starting point of his evaluation of the article is the traditional Confucian thought of practical application; Therefore, it is emphasized that the article should be practical, the content should be true and credible, the language should be consistent with oral English, easy to understand, deny exaggeration, fiction and imagination, and oppose simulation. Therefore, Wang Chong severely criticized some absurd and exaggerated contents in ancient books and periodicals, and also criticized the Fu literature which was popular in Han Dynasty and paid attention to the details.