[Quanshan yishu, Huang shu 1a–2b, and houxu 1b—IM]
GU YANWU, BEACON OF QING SCHOLARSHIP
Gu Yanwu (1613–1682), born in the last years of the Ming dynasty, had already achieved considerable reputation as a scholar when Beijing fell to the Manchus in 1644. The following year he took part in an attempt to defend his native city in Jiangnan (central China) against the invading Qing armies. With the fall of the city his foster mother, who had raised him from infancy, starved herself to death rather than live under the rule of the Manchus, on her deathbed entreating Yanwu never to serve the new dynasty in any official capacity. Gu remained true to her wishes, spending the rest of his life traveling about North China; he worked for brief periods at jobs of an unofficial but often practical nature while carrying on his researches.
During the chaotic days at the end of the Ming, Gu had already become interested in such practical subjects as economics, government, and military defense. The fall of the native dynasty before the Manchu invaders spurred him to pursue these studies with renewed vigor in an effort to find out why the old dynasty had faltered and how its mistakes could be avoided in the future. He bitterly attacked the intuitionism of the Wang Yangming school of Neo-Confucianism, which, he believed, by its subjectivity and scorn for book learning had seriously debilitated the intelligentsia of the late Ming. To combat this effete and empty speculation he insisted that scholars must undertake wide and varied research on practical subjects and return to the simple ethical precepts of early Confucianism. He likewise deplored the inordinate attention to literary elegance and belles lettres that had so often characterized scholars of earlier times, believing that such interests represented only a selfish striving for reputation. When a friend wrote a poem praising him, Gu admonished him with the advice that the writing of such eulogies was no practice for a serious gentleman. “Men must love themselves and each other in higher principles,” he counseled, begging his friend to write no more such poems.46
His own works exemplify this new spirit of practical learning. Carrying on the systematic study of phonetics that had developed sporadically in the late Song and Ming, he perfected the inductive method of research, known as Evidential Inquiry (kaozheng), which was to be applied with such effect by textual critics of the later years of the Qing. Besides important works on phonetics, he produced voluminous studies on historical geography and epigraphy. But his best-known and most significant work is undoubtedly his Rizhi lu or Record of Daily Knowledge, a collection of short essays on problems in the classics, government, economics, the examination system, literature, history, and philology. Carefully composed and revised during the years of his travels and based on personal observation, wide reading, and a painstaking collection of evidence, these essays represent not simply a reworking of old material and restating of traditional views but a new and constructive contribution to the subjects dealt with. They are, as he himself said, not old coin but “copper dug from the hills.”
Like many other scholars of the time, Gu believed that one of the fatal weaknesses of the Ming had been an overconcentration of power and authority in the hands of the central government. He therefore recommended a greater decentralization of authority and the strengthening of local self-government in the provinces, as well as clan organization in the local community.
The originality of his researches, and the new critical methodology and practical learning that they embodied, had a marked and beneficent influence upon the men of his age. Under his leadership the way was opened for the great movement of critical research and evaluation that characterized the best of Qing scholarship.
TRUE LEARNING: BROAD KNOWLEDGE AND A SENSE OF SHAME
It is a matter of great regret to me that for the past hundred-odd years, scholars have devoted so much discussion to the mind and human nature, all of it vague and quite incomprehensible. We know from the Analects that “fate and humanity (ren) were things that Confucius seldom spoke of” (9: 1) and that Zigong “had never heard him speak on man’s nature and the Way of Heaven” (5: 12). Though he mentioned the principle of human nature and fate in the appendices to the Classic of Changes, he never discussed them with others. When asked about the qualities of a gentleman, Confucius said, “In his conduct he must have a sense of shame” (13: 20), while with regard to learning he spoke of a “love of antiquity” and “diligent seeking,” discussing and praising Yao and Shun and transmitting their tales to his disciples. But he never said so much as a word about the so-called theory of “the precariousness [of the human mind] and the subtlety [of the mind of the Way] or of the [need for] discrimination and oneness” but only said, “sincerely hold fast to the Mean—if within the four seas there be distress and poverty, your Heaven-conferred revenues will come to a perpetual end.”47 Ah, this is the reason for the learning of the sage. How simple, how easy to follow! . . .
But gentlemen of today are not like this. They gather a hundred or so followers and disciples about them in their studies, and though as individuals they may be as different as grass and trees, they discourse with all of them on mind and nature. They set aside broad knowledge and concentrate upon the search for a single, all-inclusive method; they say not a word about the distress and poverty of the world within the four seas, but spend all their days lecturing on theories of “the precarious and subtle,” “discrimination and oneness.” I can only conclude that their doctrine is more lofty than that of Confucius and their disciples wiser than Zigong, and that while they pay honor to the school of Eastern Lu [Confucius] they derive their teachings on the mind directly from the two sage emperors Yao and Shun. . . .
What then do I consider to be the way of the sage? I would say “extensively studying all learning”48 and “in your conduct having a sense of shame.”49 Everything from your own person up to the whole nation should be a matter of study. In everything from your personal position as a son, a subject, a brother, and a friend to all your comings and goings, your giving and taking, you should have things of which you would be ashamed. This sense of shame before others is a vital matter. It does not mean being ashamed of your clothing or the food you eat, but ashamed that there should be a single humble man or woman who does not enjoy the blessings that are his due. This is why Mencius said that “all things are complete in me” if I “examine myself and find sincerity.”50 Alas, if a scholar does not first define this sense of shame, he will have no basis as a person, and if he does not love antiquity and acquire broad knowledge, his learning will be vain and hollow. These baseless men with their hollow learning day after day pursue sagehood, and yet I perceive that with each day they only depart further from it.
[From “A Letter to a Friend Discussing the Pursuit of Learning,” Tinglin shiwen ji 3: 1a—2b—BW]
PREFACE TO RECORD OF THE SEARCH FOR ANTIQUITIES
Ever since I was young I have enjoyed wandering about looking for old inscriptions on metal or stone, although I could not understand them very well. Then when I read Ouyang Xiu’s Record of Collected Antiquities (Jigu lu) I realized that many of the events recorded in these inscriptions are verified by works of history so that, far from being merely bits of high-flown rhetoric, they are of actual use in supplementing and correcting the histories. For the past twenty years I have traveled widely about the country, and whenever I visited some famous mountain or great commercial center, the site of an ancestral shrine or Buddhist temple, I never failed to clamber up to the steepest peak, to search the darkest valley, feeling out the toppled stone markers, tramping about the underbrush, cutting down the old tangled hedges, and sifting through the rotted earth. Anything that was legible I made a copy of by hand, and when I came across an inscription that had not been seen by my predecessors I was so overjoyed I could not sleep. I can never forget that with each day that passes more of these remaining inscriptions of the men of ancient times disappear. Most men of later times will probably not share my interest in these things, yet even if they should, in the course of several centuries how many of these
inscriptions will have vanished away! . . . Thus it is still my hope that other men who share my love will carry on my work and make further recordings of their own.
[From personal preface to Qiugulu—BW]
ON THE CONCENTRATION OF AUTHORITY AT COURT
That Gu shared much the same view as Huang Zongxi of the Chinese state as over-centralized is clear from this analysis of the weaknesses of local government under an administrative system more in keeping with the Legalist philosophy than the Confucian.
He who is called the Son of Heaven holds supreme authority in the world. What is the nature of this supreme authority? It is authority over all the world, which is vested in the men of the world but which derives ultimately from the Son of Heaven. From the highest ministers and officials down to the regional magistrates and petty officers, each holds a share of this authority of the Son of Heaven and directs the affairs of his charge, and the authority of the Son of Heaven is thereby magnified in dignity. In later ages there appeared inept rulers who gathered all authority into their own hands. But the countless exigencies of government are so broad that it is quite impossible for one man to handle them all, so that authority then shifted to the laws. With this a great many laws were promulgated to prevent crimes and violations, so that even the greatest criminals could not get around them, nor the cleverest officials accomplish anything by evading them. People thereupon expended all their efforts in merely following the laws and trying to stay out of difficulty. Thus the authority of the Son of Heaven came to reside not in the officials appointed by the government but in their clerks and assistants [who were familiar with the laws]. Now what the world needs most urgently are local officials who will personally look after the people, and yet today the men who possess least authority are precisely these local officials. If local officials are not made known to the higher authorities, how can we hope to achieve peace and prosperity and prolong the life of the nation?
[From Rizhi lu jishi 9: 15a–16a—BW]
ON BUREAUCRATIC LOCAL ADMINISTRATION, CA. 1660
That Gu, like Huang Zongxi and Wang Fuzhi, was greatly concerned about the problem of overcentralization in the bureaucratic dynastic state is shown by a nine-part essay prominently appearing in his Collected Writings, from which the following excerpts are taken. But Gu, while rejecting any idea of a total return to the ancient enfeoffment system, is ready to go further in this direction than Huang, who would resort to enfeoffment only in the border commanderies. Gu called for all local administration at the county or district level to be delegated on a hereditary basis. Though a radical proposal, Gu’s idea corresponds to a fairly wide perception among scholars in late imperial China that the court’s attempt to impose any close control over local government was dysfunctional and self-defeating and it would be better to regularize some form of local autonomy. This has continued to be a live issue in the twentieth century.
One should also note, however, that Gu’s advocacy of local autonomy is predicated on a strong belief in the local leadership role of the scholar-official class working through lineage organizations.
If one understands why the enfeoffment system (fengjian) was transformed into the system of centralized bureaucratic local administration (junxian), one can understand why the evils of the bureaucratic system must be transformed in turn. But can the bureaucratic system be transformed back into the enfeoffment system? I say not. If, however, a sage were to arise who could infuse the spirit of the enfeoffment system into the body of the bureaucratic system, all-under-Heaven would be well governed. . . . [6a]
By elevating the rank of senior local officials, giving them authority over the means of production and the regulation of the people, abolishing the posts that oversee them, making their positions hereditary, and allowing them to select subordinates by their own methods, what I have called “infusing the spirit of the enfeoffment system into the bureaucratic system” might be accomplished and order fashioned out of the evils of the past two thousand years. . . . [7a]
My proposal is to transform the county magistrate into an official of the fifth rank and change his title to “district magistrate.” Those who fill this position should be natives of the area within a thousand li of the county in which they serve and be familiar with local customs. At first they are to be called “probationary magistrates.” If after three years they show themselves to be equal to the post, their appointments are to be regularized [and if they succeed in three more three-year terms] they are to be appointed for life. Those magistrates who retire because of age or illness are to be succeeded by their sons or younger brothers. If they have no descendants, they should select their own successors. . . . Thereafter the same procedure shall be followed for the successors.. .. [7a]
Now, caring for the people is like the work of a family in raising domestic animals. One family member is assigned the task of tending the horses and oxen, and another grows the fodder. If, however, the master’s hired foreman is sent to oversee them, he will not even be able to calculate the amount of fodder without consulting the master, and the horses and oxen will waste away. With my program, it would not be this way. I would select as groom one who is diligent and skillful, give him full charge of the horses and oxen, and grant him land, the produce of which would always exceed the fodder needs of the animals. If the animals grow fat and reproduce, I would reward the groom; if not, I would flog him. [8a]
The reason the empire’s troubles have become so numerous is that the master, not trusting his grooms, has sent servants to oversee them. Not trusting even these, the master has become confused as to what his own eyes and ears tell him. But if one truly loves his horses and oxen, he will not calculate the cost of the fodder. If a horse is tended by a single groom, it will grow fat. If the people are governed by a single official, they will be content. . . . [8a]
Some will object: “If there are no supervisory officials, won’t the magistrates serve only their own interests?” Or: “Isn’t it improper that their power be passed down to their lineal descendants?” Or: “Won’t men who come from within a thousand li of the county in which they serve tend to favor their own relatives and friends?” I say, however, that the reason so many magistrates today abuse their office for their own private gain is precisely because they come from so far away. If they were required to be residents of the same place, then even if they wanted to abuse their office for private gain, they would be unable to do so. . . . [8b]
It is every man’s normal disposition to cherish his own family and to favor his own children. His feelings toward the ruler and toward all other men are inevitably not as strong as his feelings toward his own kin. It has been this way as far back as the Three Dynasties. The ancient sages availed themselves of this spirit and made use of it. Out of the self-interest of everyone throughout the empire they formed a public spirit of one accord in the ruler, and thus the empire was in good order. [9a]
Accordingly, if we let the county magistrate take a personal interest in his hundred li of territory, then all the people in the county will become in effect his children and kin, all the lands of the county in effect his lands, all its walls his defenses, and all its granaries his storehouses. His own children and kin he will of course cherish rather than harm; his own fields he will manage well rather than abandon; his own defenses and storehouses he will mend rather than neglect. Thus what is viewed by the magistrate as “looking out for my own” will be viewed by the ruler as “acting responsibly,” will it not? The proper governance of the empire lies in this and nothing else. [9a]
[Junxian lun, in Tinglin shiwen ji, SBBY 1: 6a–9a—WR]
THE HAN LEARNING AND TEXT CRITICISM
With the firm establishment of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty in the latter half of the seventeenth century, there was a marked change in the climate of Confucian thought. The reaction against the subjectivism and idealism of the Wang Yangming school continued. At its door was laid the blame for all the weaknesses of the Ming regime, while, on the other hand, the philosophy o
f Zhu Xi underwent a strong revival in scholarly circles with Manchu patronage.
The most significant change, however, developed not along lines of the old philosophical rivalries but rather from those who pursued two important tendencies manifested by the thinkers just discussed, that is, the striving for breadth of learning and the insistence upon practicality of thought. Indeed, the trend toward “broad learning” and the critical study of the classics and history, as embodied in classical scholarship known as “investigative” or “evidential” learning, was itself thought of as “substantial or practical learning” (shixue). And in the field of classical study no movement had such influence or achieved such remarkable results as the school of Han Learning, whose name derives from the fact that this group, dissatisfied like Gu Yanwu with the metaphysical speculations of both the Song and the Ming, turned back to the studies of Han dynasty scholars and commentators as guides to the classics. In other words, by the seventeenth century Confucian thought had come around full circle; whereas the most creative minds of the Song had been ready to forgo the meticulous scholarship of the Han and Tang commentators in the interests of a more vital and expansive approach to the classical tradition, Qing scholars were now ready to return to historical and exegetical studies as a corrective to the freewheeling and often conflicting interpretations of the Neo-Confucian schools.
In this process scholars in the Han Learning movement made contributions of lasting value to our knowledge of the Confucian classics. A discovery that had important repercussions on Neo-Confucian cosmology, for instance, was that of Hu Wei (1633–1714). Following a line of investigation opened up by Huang Zongxi and his son, he demonstrated that the diagrams attached to the Classic of Changes, upon which the Neo-Confucians had based their theories, were late accretions of Daoist provenance rather than integral parts of the original work. Of equal significance to Confucianism as a state cult was the demonstration by Yan Roju (1636–1704) that portions of the so-called ancient text of the “Documents of the Shang Dynasty” in the Classic of Documents, which had been used for centuries in the official examinations, were later forgeries. Progress was also made by these and other scholars in reexamining the date and authorship of such texts as the Great Learning, which had been one of the Neo-Confucian Four Books, as well as in the study of historical geography, philology, phonetics, epigraphy, and other branches of knowledge having a bearing on the classics.
Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2 Page 7