关于晚明社会的性质,学界迄今并无定论,本文也无意于对晚明社会的特征进行全面的理论分析。我们的任务基于一个比较明确的事实:晚明社会的多元化,即各种不同、甚至差异很大的观念、行为可以和平共处的状态。许多本身相当陈旧的思想、现象等,在全社会范围的活跃、多样中也具有了新的意义。本文的主要意图便在于描述晚明学术思想中向下、向原来所谓“俗世”靠近的倾向。由于有别于社会学的研究,本文不在社会阶层之间作严格的理论 As far as the nature of the late Ming society is concerned, the academic circle has so far been inconclusive. This article also does not intend to conduct a comprehensive theoretical analysis of the social characteristics of late Ming Dynasty. Our task is based on a rather clear fact: the pluralism of the late Ming society, that is, the different and even divergent notions of behavior and the peaceful coexistence of behavior. Many quite old ideas and phenomena themselves have also brought new meaning to the active and diverse society. The main purpose of this article is to describe the tendency of scholars in the late Ming dynasty to move downwards toward the so-called “secular”. As different from the sociology of research, this article does not make a strict theory between the social strata