Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2

by Wm. Theodore de Bary

  Since Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi early in their lives entered into the other doctrines [i.e., of Daoism and Buddhism] and later simply turned those around to arrive at their own [Confucianism], so Cheng-Zhu ideas can be turned around again to get back to the others. “Heaven” and “Mind” having been united as one thing, the Daoists and Buddhists all invoke our doctrines to lend support to their own. Neo-Confucians having interpreted the classics in that manner, Daoists and Buddhists follow the explanation of Cheng and Zhu, citing and borrowing from the Six Classics, Confucius, and Mencius in their own behalf.

  The situation is like that of a son or grandson who has never actually seen his father or grandfather and who mistakenly draws the likeness of another and serves it ritually as though it were his ancestor’s true likeness. The object of his service is of course his own ancestor, and if the likeness is not true, so that in attaining the reality of filial respect he misses the pictorial likeness, what is the harm? But what if some outside person attempts to pass off a likeness of his own ancestor as a member of my patriline and actually succeeds in beguiling my family into becoming part of his? In view of this sort of situation, I have been unable to refrain from writing my Evidential Study to smash the wrong likeness, rectify my lineage, and protect my family. Distressed by my lineage’s long decline and by my family’s long dispersal among other families, I make bold to offer no quarter!

  The Song Confucians merely changed the Daoist and Buddhist notion of “spiritual awareness” to designate “principle,” but otherwise they left the Buddho-Daoist conceptual structures unchanged. Consequently, their explanations of the doctrines of Confucius and Mencius became similar in form and substance to Buddho-Daoist views. For example, Zhu Xi’s gloss of the phrase “manifest luminous virtue” in his Commentary on the Great Learning, and of the phrase “what needs no display is virtue” in his Commentary on the Mean, are so pervaded with Buddho-Daoist views as to be almost indistinguishable from them. Thus you, sir, have felt it appropriate to cite “The work of exalted Heaven is without sound or smell” [from the Odes] as the great source of the tradition of Mind. Extending the Song Confucians’ muddled adoption of the Daoist’s esteem for “no desires” and Zhuangzi’s words “return to the beginning,” you have written: “To have no desires is genuineness. Tang and Wu returned to it, and this is called ‘returning to the beginning.”’. . .

  But in the Great Learning, the phrase “manifest luminous virtue” speaks of “luminous virtue” in relation to “the people.” . . . All affairs are to be conducted with virtue, so that the people are struck with admiration, as if a suspended image of the sun or moon were shining brightly. .. . Since such luminous virtue accumulates, flourishes, and spreads from near to far without cease, the Great Learning speaks of “manifesting luminous virtue to all-under-Heaven.” Buxian and bucheng [conventionally read “not manifest” and “not honored,” respectively] in the Odes, which you cite, are the same as pixian and picheng [read “greatly manifest” and “greatly honored”] in the Documents. The ancient character pi commonly used for bu, meant not the negative but the “great.” The Mean says, “His fame overspreads the middle kingdoms,” and in speaking of the Way of the gentleman as “concealed,” it also refers to it as “daily manifest.” Why should one not wish it to be greatly manifest but instead prefer to take Zhu Xi’s gloss, “deep, dark, mysterious, and distant,” as its ultimate perfection?

  When the sun is in the sky, what need is there for sound or smell for men to know it? And why, knowing this, can one not cite [as you do], “The work of exalted Heaven is without sound or smell”? But contrary to your aim, in the Mean this line follows upon “the virtue that transforms the people,” meaning that Heaven makes no use of sound or smell to join with them. Those who talk in the manner of Laozi and the Buddhists here draw on expressions, familiar in the tradition of Mind, such as “void, psychic, undarkened,” “deluded by human desires,” “the brightness of the original substance,” “deep and dark, mysterious and distant,” “perfect virtue profound and subtle,” and “the wonder of the unmanifest.” This not only falls short of [understanding] the original texts of the Great Learning and the Mean by a thousand miles, even Zhu Xi’s commentaries, [which use all of the expressions derisively cited above] though misinterpreting those classics, differ [from the Buddho-Daoist discussions] in basic intent.

  Mencius said, “An extensive territory and a vast population are things a gentleman desires”; and “All men have the same desire to be exalted”; as well as “Fish is what I desire; bear’s palm also is what I desire. . . . Life is what I desire; rightness also is what I want.” . . . Song Confucians, deluded by Daoist and Buddhist talk about “desirelessness,” explained the one phrase “rightness is what I want” as “the mind of the Way” and as “Heaven’s principle,” disparaging the rest as merely “the human mind” and as “human desire.” However, desire rightly understood is the wish of one possessing life to affirm that life and protect its excellence. Feelings are spontaneous, affective responses to differences of close and distant, old and young, honored and humble [in human relationships]. Principle means the subtleties of desires and feelings being exercised to their fullest in making fine distinctions, being smoothly fulfilled, each minutely according to its proper role.

  With desire, one need not worry about deficiency, only about excess. If it is excessive, one becomes habituated to selfishness and forgetful of others, one’s heart becomes immersed in self-indulgence and one’s actions vice-ridden. Thus Mencius said, “There is nothing better for nurturing the heart than to have few desires.” . . . If desire does not fall into selfishness and thus constitutes humaneness; if it does not give way to self-indulgence and vice and thus constitutes rightness; if the sentiments manifest themselves in due degree and thus constitute harmony—this is what is called “Heaven’s principle.” If, when desires and feelings have not yet been stirred, they are limpid like still water and free of the errors that arise in activity, this is the “Heaven-bestowed nature.” It is not that the Heaven-bestowed nature is an entity unto itself, nor that desire and feeling constitute a category unto themselves, nor that “Heaven’s principle” itself is some thing. . . .

  The Laozi says, “Between the flattering ‘yes’ and the indignant ‘no,’ what is the difference? Between what the world regards as ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ what is the difference?” [Mencius’s antagonist] Gaozi said, “There is neither good nor bad in human nature,” and “Rightness is external, not internal.” The Buddhist [Platform Sutra of Hui Neng] says, “Think not of good; think not of evil. At that moment recognize the original countenance.” And Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming [by this time spoken of together as the Lu-Wang school] said, respectively, “Evil can harm the heart; good also can harm the mind-and-heart”; and “Without good and without evil—the essence of the mind and heart.” What these have in common is that they do not value the good. . . .

  But the Mean and the Mencius both say, “If one does not understand goodness, one cannot be true to oneself.” Nowadays people disregard “understanding goodness” and regard having no desires as “being true to oneself.” This is erroneous. Those who affirm the tradition of Mind thus erroneously can always take “recognizing the original countenance” as equivalent to “understanding goodness.” And if one draws out the implications of this, what cannot be justified? Laozi and Gaozi held “goodness” in contempt while seeming to understand the meaning of the term. But latter-day followers of their thought treat goodness as though it were their own property while not really understanding the term at all. Nowadays, not only is what they call “morality” not what we Confucians properly call morality, all such terms as “the nature” and “the Way of Heaven,” “sagely wisdom,” “humaneness and rightness,” “genuineness and clear-sightedness,” and even “goodness,” “decree,” “principle,” “knowledge,” and “action” have been borrowed in name but changed in meaning. . . .

  As you, Sir, have said, “In matters of schol
arship nothing is more imperative than to examine the crux between good and evil and to strictly distinguish between genuineness and artificiality.” Please do begin from this. If you are as diligent as Cheng and Zhu, as dedicated to the truth and as free from self-concern, then although now you agree with their early views, in your later insight you may realize that the direction in which Cheng and Zhu point is different from that of Daoism, Buddhism, Lu, or Wang. But what I myself hope you will find, Sir, is not just this. Cheng and Zhu treated “principle” as though it were a kind of thing, “received from Heaven and complete in the heart,” opening the way in later generations for each person to rely on his own subjective opinion, upholding that as principle and so bringing disaster to the people. Cheng and Zhu having further admixed the doctrine of “no desires,” true understanding became even more remote, the maintenance of subjective opinions ever more rigid, and the disaster to the people ever worse. How can principle bring disaster to the people? Because the arbiters thereof do not themselves realize that it is only their opinion. Taking leave of human sentiments and seeking for what purportedly is complete in the heart, how can they not mistake their mind’s opinions for principle? This is what those who base all in the mind still do. . . .

  Alas, one who draws a likeness of the wrong person cannot but be changed into the reality of that person. If one sincerely, conscientiously investigates the words of the Six Classics, Confucius, and Mencius to the point where one truly advances in understanding, one will see not only that their reality is vastly distant from that of Daoism and Buddhism, but that their likeness is too and cannot be falsely borrowed. What has been so borrowed are the mistaken interpretations of later scholars. Simply this is what I, in my own heart, hope that you, Sir, will find in your search.

  [From Dai Dongyuan ji 8: 8a–14a—JWE, LAS]

  ZHANG XUECHENG’S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

  From early in his life, Zhang Xuecheng (1738–1801) evinced a strong desire to attain greatness as an intellectual. Inconveniently, his talent and passion lay in a field that lacked prestige in his day—history. And within historical studies, his emphasis on discerning broad patterns and on an actively interpretive role for the inquirer also was out of fashion. Thus, Zhang was destined throughout his career to struggle for due respect, both for himself as a scholar who offered needful leadership and for history as a discipline that, properly pursued, could far transcend the piecemeal, philological, text-critical style of research that was ascendant precisely during his lifespan.

  Among the several tactics that Zhang Xuecheng adopted to raise his own profile, along with that of historiography, was the reopening of discussion on some of the most stimulating ideas of the most revered historians in the Chinese scholarly heritage. In the two essays selectively translated below (from Zhang’s extensive collection of such essays, the Wenshi tongyi), he explicitly does this with a well-known dictum on history-writing of the famous Tang dynasty historian and critic Liu Zhiji (661–721 C.E.), author of Understanding History (Shitong). As Zhang did on many occasions, he tries to best Liu as a philosopher of the historical challenge. To this end, he inexplicitly invokes an opaque but semi-canonical statement by the greatest of China’s historians (next to Confucius, of course), Sima Qian (145?–90 B.C.E., who had been criticized by Liu) that his monumental Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) was intended, in part, to “fathom the interface between Heaven and Humankind.”

  Both in belittling Liu’s ideas and in implicitly claiming to share Sima Qian’s grand vision, Zhang liberally employs concepts of the human condition that were fundamental to the so-called Cheng-Zhu school of Neo-Confucian philosophy: The qi (“ether,” “material-force”) of the human mind partakes of both the universality of Heaven and the partiality of human beings; its position is precariously crucial in that it enables us to empathize with and understand all things but also makes us liable to exercise favoritism and prejudice; it is the vehicle both to sagehood and to the cleverest of abominations. Therefore, one’s mind must be nourished to fulfill its great potential and watched over assiduously for signs of deviance.

  This set of ideas, formulated during the Song dynastic period, of course had not been part of the mental worlds of either Liu Zhiji or Sima Qian. In Zhang Xuecheng’s time, Cheng-Zhu philosophy had been enshrined as state orthodoxy for several hundred years, but it had declined as a stimulus among intellectuals. So Zhang’s use of this Neo-Confucian conceptual resource in attempting to enrich and elevate the historical thought of his own day did not garner much interest. One essay in Zhang’s oeuvre that drew wide notice did so not because it argued the necessity to base good writing in good personal character but because it combined discussion of a current cultural issue—whether women should pursue literary repute—with acerbic, perhaps somewhat grudging criticism of the most gifted and sought-after writer of his time, Yuan Mei (1716–1798). In “Women’s Learning” Zhang makes it clear that the “virtue” he looks for in historians and writers can be found in both men and women. However, in reaction to the libertine views and lifestyle of Yuan Mei, who offended many by accepting women among his poetry students and publicizing their talents, Zhang insisted that men and women should hold to their own separate spheres of virtuous expression and that women of proper social status should not ordinarily reveal their learned accomplishments outside the home. Though such opinions have struck twentieth-century readers as unprogressive, Zhang’s obvious respect for the female intellect has added to the recognition that he was not a marginal oddity but an exceptional thinker who sustained the richness of Chinese historical thought during a relatively moribund phase.

  VIRTUE IN THE HISTORIAN

  Talent, learning, and insight—to have one of these is not easy, but to combine them all is difficult indeed. For this reason, since earliest times there have been many literary men but few good historians. In his day Liu Zixuan [Liu Zhiji] apparently held this analysis adequate to cover all the principles of the matter. And yet, what history chiefly values is meaning, which is embodied in events, the transmission of which depends on writing. Mencius said [of the Spring and Autumn Annals]: “Its events are [the doings of] Duke Huan of Qi and Duke Wen of Jin”; its writing is historical [in genre], and its meaning [lies in what] Confucius himself [implied in] saying that he had selectively compiled it. Without insight, we cannot judge [history’s] meaning; without [literary] talent, we cannot write it well; and without learning, we cannot marshal its events. Each of these three [abilities] of course has its approximations, as well as [abilities] that resemble them but are not the same: memorization might be called learning; colorful prose might be called talent and precipitate judgment might be called insight. But these are not the [true] talent, learning, and insight of the good historian. . . .

  To possess the insight of a [true] historian, one must understand the virtue thereof. What is [this] “virtue”? I mean by it the [historical] writer’s quality of mind. Now, a man who writes a “foul history” fouls himself thereby, and a man who writes a slanderous book slanders himself thereby. If one’s general conduct makes others ashamed, how can one’s writing command esteem? In the case of Wei Shou’s calumnies [in the Weishu] and Shen Yue’s concealment of evil [in the Songshu], readers have prior distrust of the authors, so the harm is not great. When the harm lies [rather] in [the author’s] quality of mind, it means that he has the mind of a superior man, but its nourishment has not yet reached refinement. Now, having the mind of a superior man that has not been nourished to refinement is a condition one can avoid. This being the case, no [historical work] can be free of defects [arising from the author’s quality of mind] except Confucius’s Spring and Autumn Annals. Is it not indeed difficult to criticize people by such a standard? Actually not. It is [just] that he who would be a good historian should carefully distinguish between the “heavenly” and the “human,” giving full play to the heavenly and not exercising too much of the human. In [so doing], if one does not get it perfect, being conscious of [the need] is eno
ugh to be regarded as having [the good historical] writer’s quality of mind. But scholars of literature and history try to outdo each other in talking about talent, learning, and insight, without realizing [that they must] discern men’s qualities of mind in order to discuss virtue in historians. Can this be condoned?

  Now, everyone is able to say that he approves of Yao and Shun and disapproves of Jie and Zhou; and it is a well-established convention among scholars to esteem the kingly way and disparage the achievements of hegemons. As for loving good and hating evil, praising correctness and detesting wickedness, all who have wished to obtain imperishable [repute] through writing have had minds [capable of] this. But the quality of mind must be carefully considered, because the interpenetration of the heavenly and the human is so subtle, the petty intelligence cannot count on [discerning it].