The main points of this essay are as follows: l) Surviving biographical materials on Ho K'ai are relative1y sketchy; we know only that he was expert in the learning of the classics, and that he often censured important ministers while serving as an official. His most important work is the Shih-ching shih-pen ku-i (Ancient Meanings of the Shih-ching's Generational Basis) 2) The Shih-ching shih-pen ku-i takes the 3O5 poems of the Shih-ching (Classic of Poetry) and breaks them up, dividing them into groups based on twenty-eight "generations" of time-periods, and further names these groups on the basis of the twenty-eight constellations. Ho then establishes anew the meaning of each of the poems in these twenty-eight time-periods. 3) Ho K'ai arranges the poems of the Shih-ching on the basis of the time periods, and in order to lend credence to his own explanations, he spares no efforts in his citation of numerous historical examples. Sometimes his interpretations tend to be rather forced. 4) Although Chu Hsi's Shih chi-chuan (Collected Commentaries on the Shih-ching) formed part of the official's learning at the time, Ho K'ai did not make use of Chu's explanations. It is apparent that Chu Hsi's influence had gradually begun to weaken. 5) Those of the Ch'ing dynasty who evaluated Ho's work included Yao Chi-heng and the author of the entry on his work in the Genearal Catalogue of the Compcte Texts of Four Treasuries (Szu-k'u ch' uan-shu tsung-mu). Both criticized Ho's Shih-ching shih-pen ku-i from the standpoint of its rearrangement of the original order of the Shih poems, yet overlooked the significance of Ho's promotion of Han Learning. Ho's book can be looked upon as a marker showing how the influence of Sung Learning had gradually declined, while the school of Han Learning had slowly arisen.