本文主要討論明清之際家庭人倫與儒學成聖的關係，指出清初儒者除了嚴厲批判向內靜修以悟道的工夫型態外，也更強調家庭是儒者修德之場域，只有在日常生活中克盡人倫之職，以孝親出發，才是成聖的首要工夫。家庭是每個人命定的一部分，儒者成聖之道唯有在事親盡孝之中，才可能完成。與此同時，我們也看到儒者對於聖賢的描述也更強調家庭孝子的形象。即使沒有特殊孝行史料佐證，仍極力闡揚孔子、顏回之大孝，正因為深信五倫即天理、孝弟為入聖之階，故聖賢必定是孝子。清初儒學走過晚明融會三教、心性本體高峰後，再次定位於家庭日用人倫中的聖賢之教，只是在重視日用人倫時，儒士並未放棄對天理與道德本性的信念，甚至可能更多講求尊天與事天之學。

This article investigates the following questions: Does a conflict exist between the pursuit of personal morality and familial obligations in Confucian discourse during the Ming-Qing transition? How important are the family and the fulfillment of familial obligations in Confucian moral cultivation? In terms of learning to become a sage, what relationship obtains between the cultivation of one’s mind-heart and familial ethics? If the fulfillment of familial ethics is required for Confucian sagely learning, how is it represented in the images of Confucian sages?
By investigating the above questions, this article finds that early Qing Confucians tended to reject the internal practice of the mind-heart and instead emphasized the importance of fulfilling familial obligations. They claimed that Confucian sagely learning had to be realized within the household, arguing that a person could never abandon his familial obligations in order to engage in sagely learning. In other words, filial piety was viewed as a requirement for sagehood. In accordance with this idea, early Qing Confucians highlighted filial piety in their writings about past Confucian sages. Even in the absence of strong evidence, scholars of the time argued that Confucius and Yan Hui had achieved great filial piety.
In a departure from the focus on cultivating the mind-heart and Three Teaching syncretism popular in the late Ming, early Qing Confucianism thus reemphasized the importance of familial ethics. Despite this, however, the concepts of a moral heaven and an inherently good human nature were not abandoned, and they continued to play an important role in the Confucian discourse of the period.