自宋明以來，「道統」深藏於學術核心，主導思想脈絡，乃是十分複雜之概念，主要因為朱熹以「道統」彰顯四書所傳價值，建構聖聖相傳之印象，為求釐清線索，了解朱熹思索所在，體會朱熹遙契遠古的想望，所以檢討相應之文獻，能力所及，初步檢視先秦文獻。舉凡出現古聖先賢相傳之論點，具有聖賢相傳意象者，列舉分析，從「話語」線索當中考察。在以往概念混雜當中，另闢一條清晰的脈絡，堯、舜、禹、湯、文、武、周公聖賢系譜，乃是儒家經典體系化、具體化的結果，從孔子以下，不僅墨子得其啟發，孟子也於《詩》、《書》當中，化約五百年必有王者興的期待，聖賢系譜成為歷史循環的想望，以及君子天命所在的自我期許，經學與理學其實一脈相承。

The daotong (Succession to the Way), an extremely complex concept, has been the core and dominant ideology in Chinese academia since the Song and Ming dynasties. This is due to the fact that Zhu Xi used daotong to contrast the values in the Four Books and left the impression that it had been handed down earlier from sage to sage. We will review relevant documents in order to clarify and understand Zhu Xi’s thought in his worship of the ancient philosophers. Any evidences in the pre-Qin historical literature that illustrate such a handing down tradition will also be investigated and analyzed. My research will show a clear path in its reasoning to distinguish itself from ambiguous concepts in the past. In fact, the pedigree of sages, which includes Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang, Wen, Wu, and the Duke of Zhou, is the result of the systematized and concretized Confucius canon. Not only Mozi was inspired by Confucius’ work, but also Mencius had the expectation that there must be a dominant sage every five hundred years according to the Shijing and the Shangshu. The strong belief in the pedigree of sages in Chinese history, as well as the destined self-expectation of sages, confirm that jingxue (the philosophy of canon) and lixue (the philosophy of principle) are derived from the same origin.