Editing Mohism (section)

==Decline==
With the [[Qin's wars of unification|unification of China]] under the [[Qin (state)|Qin]], China was no longer divided into various states constantly fighting each other: where previously the Mohists proved to be an asset when defending a city against an external threat, without wars, and in particular siege wars, there was no more need for their skills.  The ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]'' suggests, in addition to the decline of siege warfare, "...the major factor is probably that as a social and philosophical movement, Mohism gradually collapsed into irrelevance. By the middle of the former Han dynasty, the more appealing aspects of Mohist thought were all shared with rival schools.

Their core ethical doctrines had largely been absorbed into Confucianism, though in a modified and unsystematic form. Key features of their political philosophy were probably shared with most other political thinkers, and their trademark opposition to warfare had been rendered effectively redundant by unification. The philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics, and science of the later Mohist Canons were recorded in difficult, dense texts that would have been nearly unintelligible to most readers (and that in any case quickly became corrupt). What remained as distinctively Mohist was a package of harsh, unappealing economic and cultural views, such as their obsession with parsimony and their rejection of music and ritual. Compared with the classical learning and rituals of the Confucians, the speculative [[metaphysics]] of [[Yin-Yang]] thinkers, and the romantic nature mysticism and literary sophistication of the [[Daoists]], Mohism offered little to attract adherents, especially politically powerful ones."<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url= http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mohism/|title=Mohism|last=Fraser |first= Chris|date=2015|access-date=7 April 2015|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref>