Ki emerged first and is the thread that runs through the millennia of Chinese philosophy. Ri was added later in Sung times and, together, ki and ri became the mainstay and core of Chinese beliefs in Sung (960-1279), Ming (1279-1644) and Ch'ing (1644-1911) times. In this remarkable study, the author takes the view that ki can profitably be compared with European philosophy. In China the ki thread appears as an original 'primal ki' (genki) which is the source of all things and affairs. The search is for the whole. In Greece, and later in Europe, the thinking goes in the opposite direction: it searches for the exact truth in the independent units of the cosmos, the atoms - the truth being found in the part.