The Liberal Tradition in China 9780231895156

Citation preview

The Liberal

Tradition

in

China

NEO-CONFUCIAN STUDIES sponsored

by

The Regional Seminar in Neo-Confucian Columbia University

Studies,

The Liberal Tradition

in China

Wm. Theodore de Bary

The Chinese University Press HONG

KONG

Columbia University Press NEW

YORK

1983

Publication of this book was made possible by support from the Frank Diehl Fackenthal Fund of Columbia University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data de Bary, William Theodore, 1918The liberal tradition in China. (Neo-Confucian studies) Based on the author's 1982 Ch'ien Mu lectures at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Neo-Confucianism—China—Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Title. II. Series. B127.N4D398 1983 181.09512 83-1682 ISBN 9 6 2 - 2 0 1 - 2 7 4 - 4 ISBN 0 - 2 3 1 - 0 5 6 6 6 - 4 (Columbia University Press)

Columbia University Press New York Copyright © 1983 The Chinese University of Hong Kong All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Clothbound editions of Columbia University Press books are Smyth-sewn and printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper.

Neo-Confucian

Studies

BOARD OF EDITORS

Irene Bloom Wing-tsit Chan Wm. Theodore de Bary

Contents

Introduction 1. Human Renewal and the Repossession of the Way 2. Chu Hsi and Liberal Education "Learning for the Sake of One's Self" "Subduing Oneself and Returning to Decorum" Self and Person in the Elementary Learning Popular Education Voluntarism and Dialogue in Higher Education Higher Education as Broad Learning 3. Neo-Confucian Individualism The Vocabulary of Neo-Confucian Individualism The Sage as Ideal Self 'Taking Responsibility Oneself" "Getting It Oneself" (tzu-te) 4. Ming Neo-Confucianism and the Liberal Thought of Huang Tsung-hsi 5. Epilogue: China and the Limits of Liberalism Notes

1 11 21 21 24 27 32 37 40 43 44 48 52 58 67 91 109

Introduction

When I was invited to give the Ch'ien Mu Lectures i* fi VH 'k. 'ii^ifc XitMfy for 1982 the honor of being asked to participate in such a distinguished lectureship was enough to compel my acceptance, whatever doubts I had about being able to meet the expectations aroused by so great a name in Chinese scholarship. I had, too, strong personal reasons for taking up this charge. For many years Ch'ien Mu iifS has been a teacher of mine through his writings, and though others also have taught me in this way, he was one of the earliest and most influential in guiding my studies of Chinese thought. If a request comes in the name of a teacher to whom one is so indebted, it cannot be refused. Ch'ien Mu's impressive scholarly contributions are linked in my mind to the name of an earlier scholar in the seventeenth century, Huang Tsung-hsi S'-KH , who attracted my attention soon after I first ventured into Chinese studies. That was in 1937-38, when most people would have thought that only missionary connections could draw one to such an out-of-the-way field. But in New York and at Columbia then the interest in China was just as likely to be political as religious, and I soon found myself in a Chinese class with Paul Robeson and others of a radical persuasion, sharing with them socialist leanings and a youthful enthusiasm for Mao Tse-tung's revolutionary exploits. Later there was to be some disenchantment on my own part as I, and others of my generation, watched the course of events in Europe—the betrayal of revolutionary idealism in Stalin's purges, the Hitler-Stalin pact which let loose the violence of World War II, the division of Europe between Nazi and Soviet forces, the spreading holocaust and Soviet gulag, etc. Less optimistic about Western-style revolution as the way out of China's difficulties, I began to search for something in the life and history of the Chinese people themselves which might offer

2

The LiberaI

Tradition

in China

grounds for hope in a future less torn between revolution and reaction. Casting around I lit on Huang Tsung-hsi, about whom not much was then known in the West. At the turn of the century he had been something of a hero—some called him "China's Rousseau"—to Chinese reformers and anti-Manchu revolutionaries, who looked to find some sanction in the past for democratic values, though they rarely pursued the comparison very far or examined Huang's ideas closely in the context of his own times. Later the revolutionary tide swept all such Confucian reformism aside as a "brave new world" burst forth which saw total emancipation from China's past as the only solution. It was here that Ch'ien Mu came into the picture for me, his approach to Chinese history and thought offering a larger perspective in which to view these disjointed times. As he later reaffirmed this view and articulated it more fully in his inaugural lecture for this series, China's true liberation would not be achieved in the manner of the Cultural Revolution, by trying to root out all vestiges of the past and destroy them, but only by coming to terms with Chinese culture, whatever its virtues and deficiencies, and seeing the future of this great people as authentically rooted there. While some Chinese might emigrate to other countries and adapt to different cultures, this was not possible for the great mass of Chinese who had to live with each other in a condition, and with an outlook, very much shaped by their common past. 1 As a rare and accomplished historian of Chinese thought, Ch'ien Mu earlier had reopened the Neo-Confucian record and established the context of Huang Tsung-hsi's thought in the intellectual history of the Sung 'M , Ming W , and early Ch'ing ifi periods. I discovered Professor Ch'ien's work, especially his History of Chinese Thought in the Last Three Centuries Q (Chung-kuo chin san-pai-nien hsüeh-shu shih 41 ¡3 ifi H S ítiíi ) just at the time (after World War II service in the Pacific theater) when I was digging into Huang's own studies in intellectual history. Professor Ch'ien prefaced his history of seventeenth-to-nineteenth-century thought by reminding his readers of its roots in Sung Neo-Confucianism. 2 Huang's best-known work, the Ming-i tai-fang-lu br % ft ¿J5 & (Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince), had been written

Introduction

3

in 1662, not long after his retirement from years of struggle in the resistance movement against the Manchus. His frustrations as a participant in reform efforts at the end of the Ming, and then as a member of remnant Ming forces holding out against the invader, were given powerful expression in this critique of Ming despotism and decadence. A s a loyal minister of the Ming he rendered his penultimate service to it (in the Confucian sense) by offering forthright criticism of its weaknesses, and as a NeoConfucian with a broad grasp of history he extended his analysis of these evils back into the earliest of the imperial dynasties. The outcome of this scholarly effort stands as probably the most sweeping and systematic critique of Chinese despotism in the premodern period. It was indeed a radical attack on traditional Imperial institutions, and the succeeding Manchu dynasty, notwithstanding Huang's excoriation of the Ming, saw his work as no less threatening and subversive to them. T o me it remains a major landmark of Confucian political thought, remarkable for its breadth of historical scholarship, depth of moral passion and power of trenchant expression. In these respects, then, Huang's work is almost in a class by itself, yet one would be mistaken to think of it as wholly unique or exceptional. Huang was no solitary genius, breaking with his past and at odds with the scholarship of his time. Rather, his protest only gave more pointed expression to political views which other thinkers of the day shared with him, and his radical manifesto, though sharpened by the crisis of dynastic upheaval and foreign conquest, was but one culmination of a liberal NeoConfucian tradition he was glad to acknowledge and reaffirm. Huang's essay was not, however, to be his last word on the Ming. He did not just expose its bankruptcy and divest himself of a bad business. Most of the remaining years of his life he devoted to preserving the record of Ming Confucian scholarship in thought and literature. Representative of this later work is his Case Studies of Ming Confucians (Ming-ju hsueh-an ), a critical anthology of Ming Confucian thought which has come to be recognized as a major monument in the writing of Chinese intellectual history, and one much emulated (even by Ch'ien M u himself, in his Chu Tzu hsin hsiieh-an ). In an explanatory note at the beginning of this magnum opus, Huang

4

The Liberal

Tradition

in

China

asserted that whatever the other failings and shortcomings of the Ming, in the central domain of Neo-Confucian thought (li-hsiieh S P ), Ming scholars had won unprecedented achievements.3 It is a claim with more than one significance for us. On the surface Huang's massive work of compilation could be seen as a conservative effort—a typical example of Confucian scholarship conserving tradition. But since Huang was so critical of the Ming in other respects, his expressed admiration for its philosophical achievements cannot be taken for granted or dismissed as conventional praise. Moreover Huang's generally sympathetic approach to the subject, and his insistence on the positive importance of preserving Ming thought, contrasts with the prevailing judgment against it in the latter half of the seventeenth century, when it was seen as empty, decadent, and best left interred with the ashes of the fallen Ming. Indeed, Huang had to buck a tidal wave of reaction against Ming thought that was to carry down into the present century. From this standpoint, in his effort to "conserve" the Ming Neo-Confucian legacy, Huang was adopting an independent stance vis-à-vis the dominant intellectual trend, and certainly one counter to the official view, in his time. I shall have more to say later about the deeper significance of this commitment on Huang's part. Here it may not be out of place for me to suggest that the more recent scholarship of Ch'ien Mu, likewise, has had to withstand some of the same hostility to Neo-Confucianism, and even more, violent political attacks against Confucianism as a whole. Ch'ien was one of a very few distinguished scholars who resisted the prevailing trend in his own time and thus effectively emulated, in my view, the earlier example of Huang Tsung-hsi in preserving, though not uncritically, his Neo-Confucian heritage. When Huang spoke for Ming li-hsiieh, he referred to a distinctive phase in the development of thought trends that had first appeared in the Sung period (960-1279). Later, having completed his anthology of Ming thought, he extended his survey backward in time to cover the Sung and Yiian periods as well, leaving at his death an unfinished anthology, the SungYiian hsiieh-art (Case Studies of Sung and Yiian Confucians). These works covered the whole broad movement of

Introduction

5

Confucian thought which was traceable from the Sung period, as its formative phase, down through the Yuan and Ming. Clearly he still hoped in the late seventeenth century that the flowering of thought he so admired in the Ming would bear further fruit in his own time and thereafter. The modern Western expression "Neo-Confucianism" as it has been used by Fung Yu-lan ¿iXIH , Derk Bodde, Carsun Chang feMtii , and in our Neo-Confucian Studies Series at Columbia, is generally coextensive with the new trends covered by Huang. This means that it embraces a range of schools and thought-currents stemming from the Sung masters of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, including li-hsiieh in the form not only of the Ch'eng-Chu tlife school but also of the so-called Lu-Wang K school (so-called because of a certain affinity of thought between Lu Hsiang-shan Ptffciii and Wang Yang-ming ¥MW , though the latter actually emerged from the Ch'engChu school of the early Ming and was linked to Lu by no line of scholastic filiation coming down from the Sung). For Huang Tsung-hsi, and for other historians of Neo-Confucian teaching like Sun Ch'i-feng i i ^ i l , the school or learning of principle (lihsiieh) included Lu Hsiang-shan and Wang Yang-ming,4 and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart (hsin-hsiieh -L-P ) was as much identified with the Ch'eng-Chu school as with Lu and Wang. Recently certain Western writers, falling in with one particular claim to orthodoxy, have identified Neo-Confucianism exclusively with the Ch'eng-Chu school and with what the latter spoke of as the School or Learning of the Way (tao-hsiieh i l P ). But Huang Tsung-hsi explicitly rejected the claim of Ch'engChu adherents to an exclusive hold on the Way, and refused to confine li-hsueh to tao-hsueh.s The latter term has a valid historical basis as a designation for the Ch'eng-Chu school, since both Ch'eng I SES (1033-1107) and Chu Hsi owned up to the name. Moreover, since this school's claim to orthodoxy was accepted by many later Neo-Confucians in China, Korea, and Japan, there is a sense in which one can legitimately speak of the School of the Way (tao-hsiieh), or the Ch'eng-Chu school, as "orthodox Neo-Confucianism." However, to limit the term li-hsiieh or Neo-Confucianism to the Ch'eng-Chu teaching alone would run contrary to historical fact in respect to li-hsiieh and be a departure from established usage regarding

6

The Liberal Tradition in China

"Neo-Confucianism." The terminological issues faced here are not trivial. They go to the heart of the matter I shall be addressing in these lectures. For Huang Tsung-hsi fought on two fronts against a narrow conception of Neo-Confucianism. He rejected the conservative, proprietary, and authoritarian claims of a narrow orthodoxy and, with equal vigor, the antipathetic reaction of those who, repudiating that "orthodoxy," would dismiss the whole tradition as moribund and irrelevant. In other words, as both historian and philosopher he argued for a broader, more liberal, and more vital interpretation of Neo-Confucianism. In using the word "liberal" I must of course anticipate other possibilities for misunderstanding. There will be objections from those who adhere to a narrow, purist view of liberalism as defined within a specific Western context (as identified, say, with John Stuart Mill), and others too who, reacting against certain libertarian features of the presumed Western prototype, would reject it as alien and inapplicable to China. To me these are small risks to run. Indeed I welcome the fullest possible discussion and delineation of differences in historical experience between China and the West, as long as this does not preclude the finding of some common ground between the two and thus arriving at a deeper understanding of each other. A few years ago in a symposium held at Columbia my late colleague Charles Frankel, well known as an articulate spokesman for both liberalism and the humanities in America, defined seven senses of the term liberalism, which I summarize as follows: 1. Cultural liberalism, as opposed to parochialism and fanaticism: "An affirmative interest in the promotion of diversity and qualities of mind which encourage empathetic understanding and critical appreciation of the diverse possibilities of human life"; 2. Political liberalism: "emphasis on procedures for the legitimation of peaceful change"; 3. Economic liberalism: "policies designed to correct imbalances of economic power"; 4. Philosophic liberalism: "belief in the supremacy of rational methods of inquiry";

Introduction

7

5. The liberal temperament or style, characterized by moderation, restraint, and compromise; 6. Liberal education: "commitment to long-term moral ideals, long-term ideals of culture, long-term ideals of civilization," and to "compromise without complacency." 6 It would not be difficult to cite aspects of the Confucian traditon corresponding to each of those just listed, though any satisfactory treatment of them would also have to qualify the comparisons substantially and deal with significant differences between what we might call Confucian liberalism and the Western variety—for instance, under number 4 in how one would understand the supremacy of rational methods of inquiry—differences equally illuminating with regard to the limitations of both. Confucian teaching was humanistic in the sense that it saw man as playing a central, creative role in the transformation of the world. Insofar as Confucius fi^F viewed human life and experience as the focus of all valid learning, "humanistic" here means "this-worldly." It was not, however, seen as opposed to the divine order of things; rather, Confucius conceived of the human order itself as revelatory of the divine ("Heavenly") order. The enduring value of human experience was affirmed by Confucius in his efforts to conserve what was best in traditional culture. In this sense he could be called conservative. But Confucius was, at the same time, liberal in viewing past ideals and models as the basis for a critique of existing institutions and as a reminder of the greatness to which man was called by Heaven. "Liberal" here could stand for "reformist" vis-à-vis existing unjust governments, which denied men the opportunity to fulfill their legitimate wants and aspirations. As Gilbert Murray has said of conservatism and liberalism in the West, they are not contrary principles but complementary. 'The object of conservatism is to save the social order. The object of liberality is to bring that order a little nearer to what ... the judgment of a free man—free from selfishness, free from passion, free from prejudice—would require and by that very change to save it the more effectively." 7 Confucians in later centuries were also reformist in their

8

The Liberal Tradition in China

advocacy of humane social welfare policies. Revolutionary Maoism, or "leftism" as it might now be called in the People's Republic, acknowledged the existence of this kind of liberal reformism among Confucians, but criticized it as a misguided, meliorative approach to social infections which should have been allowed to fester and erupt into revolutionary action. Confucian reformism, according to the Maoist view, temporized or compromised by pursuing methods of peaceful change rather than insisting on radical surgery. Nevertheless, Confucius himself was far from complacent or content with the status quo. He spoke of himself as struggling on with his efforts to change things even when these efforts seemed to be getting nowhere; and he lamented it when, with advancing age, he could no longer conjure up visionary dreams of his political ideal as a spur to reform. Men had a positive obligation to respond to the needs of others; for their leaders to be unresponsive was to be less than human. Thus Confucian reformism was inspired by a positive commitment to human welfare and informed by a critical attitude toward established institutions which reflected an awareness of alternative possibilities for improvement. The Confucian revival in the Sung, which gave birth to NeoConfucianism, expressed these same attitudes but brought them to a new stage of development in ways characteristic of that age. In what follows, then, I shall call "Neo-Confucian" those elements in this movement which have a distinctive quality of their own, though they are not without some precedent in the Confucian past, and I shall continue to call "Confucian" perennial values or attitudes which, though inevitably different in some ways from the past, are not markedly so. Among the new developments I shall point to are some which draw upon traditional Confucian values and yet move in a "modern" "liberal" direction. For purposes of illustration in these lectures, which cannot hope to trace complex historical trends in substantial detail, I shall refer to certain key concepts of Neo-Confucianism representative of these general trends. M y method then will follow the history of ideas, much in the style of Ch'ien Mu himself, citing central concepts prominent in the Neo-Confucian discourse of the Sung and Ming periods, but with occasional reference to Korean and Japanese uses of the same in the extend-

Introduction

9

ed East Asian dialogue. Neo-Confucianism, as a whole, in the broad sense of Huang Tsung-hsi's li-hsiieh, will provide the larger context for the discussion of these ideas, but the concepts themselves will mostly be drawn from the mainline of NeoConfucian thought usually identified with the Ch'eng-Chu school or "orthodox" Neo-Confucianism. First I should like to characterize the intellectual climate of the Sung period as one in which a new emphasis on the vitality and creativity of the Way, as well as a new critical temper, abetted each other in the reappropriation of the past and amplifying of tradition to make them serve contemporary needs. Significant expressions of these attitudes are found in the Learning of the Way ( t a o - h s i i e h ) , the repossession or reconstitution of the Way (tao-t'ung ) and the Learning of the Mind-and-Heart (hsinhsiieh). Next I should like to discuss liberal education and voluntarism in Neo-Confucian thought as the basis for an expanded concept of the self and a distinctive individualism in the Sung and Ming periods. Here the key concepts will be "learning for the sake of one's self" (wei-chi chih hsiieh ), "getting it oneself" or "finding [the Way in] oneself" ( t z u - t e ), "taking responsibility [for the Way) oneself" ( t z u - j e n [yu tao] g f£ it-it ), and related concepts involving the "self" in Ch'engChu thought. Finally I will assess the impact of these tendencies on the late Ming and conclude with Huang Tsung-hsi's attempt to achieve a new synthesis, representative, I would say, of a more mature Neo-Confucian liberalism. The epilogue, based in part on a public lecture at Columbia in November 1979, suggests how these Sung-Ming developments may relate to the current scene in China.

1. Human Renewal and the Repossession of the Way Neo-Confucianism, in general, and the Learning of the Way (tao-hsueh) in particular, had their inception in the great reform movements of the Northern Sung period (960-1127). Politically these reached a high point in the determined efforts of Wang An-shih T.&H (1021-86) to effectuate his New Laws (hsirt fa #TZ£ ), which can be read also as new methods, systems, or policies. Here, however, the key word is "new," for it stands in seeming contrast to tradition as expressed in the dominant restorationist ideal of the time, that is, to the idea that the institutions of the ancient Chou ffl dynasty should be revived and put into practice in eleventh-century Sung China. Actually what this signifies is that tradition and innovation went hand in hand, rather than going in opposite directions. When Wang Anshih invoked the Confucian classics, and especially the Rites or Institutes of Chou (Chou kuan iSi'iT), as sanction for his radical reforms, it was because tradition in this form afforded him high ground from which to attack existing institutions, not because his new institutions would bear any close resemblance to their presumed models in the Institutes of Chou. Confirmation of this innovative use of tradition is further found in the need Wang felt to write a new commentary on the Chou kuan, with the revealing title, New Interpretation of the Institutes of Chou (Chou-kuan hsin-i Ufflrlt ). Reinterpretation of the classics employed a new criticism by which neoclassicism was made to serve the purposes of reform. Thus "restoration of the ancient order" (fu-ku fK i r ) ushered in a new day, and the "Way of the Sage-kings" of the past was to prove in practice a new Way. Though berated for his authoritarian ways and dogmatic manner in the pursuit of his goals, Wang was not alone among the great scholars of his day in believing that one could find

12

The LiberaI Tradition in China

in the ancient order the basis for a new order. Speaking in terms reminiscent of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society," the philosopher Ch'eng I asserted no less insistently than Wang the need for a "great reform" to bring about a "Great Order" or "Great Benefit" in those times.1 Politically at odds with Wang, he was equally dogmatic in claiming the authority of the classics for his own ideas. And this was possible for both Wang and Ch'eng because they shared a view of the Way as not fixed in the past but as vital and adaptive to new human situations. One branch of Confucian scholarship in the Sung which encouraged this thought was the study of the Book of Changes 4?r& , the Great Appendix to which gave prominence to a conception of the Way as vital and creative, life-renewing (shengsheng ). To Ch'eng I, the early proponent of the Learning of the Way (tao-hsiieh), this conception contrasted with the negative Buddhist view of change as impermanence and its view of the Way as deliverance from the cycle of life and death. Instead, the Confucian metaphysics of the Changes offered a positive view of the Way as readily accessible to human understanding and adaptable to ordinary human needs. Rediscovery and renewal then became significant values presupposed in Ch'eng I's neoclassicism. Truth was dfrectly available in the classics and immediately applicable to the renewing of human life. As Ch'eng I quite consciously put it, the Way of the Great Learning called for the "renewing of the people" (hsin min f f K ) , which he substituted for "loving the people" (ch'in min 18 K) in the earlier version.2 Chu Hsi, in his own commentary on the Great Learning (Ta-hsueh ), greatly stressed the idea of self-renewal as the basis for a larger human renewal. In turn the dynamism of the early Neo-Confucian movement in the Yuan TC and Ming periods drew heavily on this promise, for it was on Chu Hsi's new articulation of the moral nature of man and individual perfectibility that this hope of social renewal rested.3 One cannot take this emphasis on renewal or innovation as necessarily expressing a "progressive" view of history if by that one would imply a linear development toward some higher stage. Its "newness" is like the regeneration of the New Year, or of spring, which may allow for an evolutionary process but is not predicated upon it. Nor can one understand "vitality" or

Repossession of the Way

13

"creativity" here as setting a high value on individual "originality," with a Western connotation of utter uniqueness. There remains a strong sense of the underlying human continuum, and Ch'eng I s "renewing of the people" implies a humanity deeply shared in common. Nevertheless when Ch'eng spoke of the advancement of the Way among men he was quite prepared to credit certain personages with extraordinary individual contributions. Indeed if it had not been for the insight and independent effort of a few such individuals the Way of the Sages would have been totally lost. Among these few, of course, were Confucius and Mencius i f- , but after the death of the latter there was a long lapse in the handing on of the Way until, according to Ch'eng I, his own elder brother Ch'eng Hao SIB , "born 1400 years after Mencius, resolved to enlighten the people with this Way." "He said that, after Mencius, the Learning of the Sage was no longer transmitted, and he took it as his own responsibility to restore the cultural tradition." 4 Later in Chu Hsi's preface to the Mean

(Chung-yung

^Wt ),

when he was explaining the nature of the repossession or reconstitution of the Way (tao-t'ung), Chu took up the same theme. After recounting how the Way had been passed down from the sage kings, he said: As for our master Confucius, though he did not attain a position of authority, nevertheless his resuming the tradition of the past sages and imparting it to later scholars was a contribution even more worthy than that of Y a o ^ and Shun ^ . Still, in his own time those who recognized him were only [his disciples] Yen Hui 8 S 0 and Tseng Ts'an # # , who grasped and passed on his essential meaning. Then in the next generation after Tseng, with Confucius' grandson Tzu-ssu f f f . [reputed author of the Mean], it was far removed in time from the sages and heterodoxies had already arisen.... Thereafter the transmission was resumed by Mencius, who was able to interpret and clarify the meaning of this text [the Mean] and succeed to the tradition of the early sages; but upon his demise the transmission was finally lost.... Fortunately, however, this text was not lost, and when the Masters Ch'eng, two brothers, appeared [in the Sung] they had something to study in order to pick up the threads of what had not been transmitted for a thousand years. 5

14

The Liberal

Tradition

in

China

In these passages what is emphasized is not the effective imparting of the Way through some unbroken apostolic or patriarchal succession but, first, its being cut off for so long; second, its rediscovery by an inspired individual; and third, the heroic dedication required to defend it in a decadent age. Inner inspiration and personal dedication are the marks of the heroic individuals who manage to rescue the Way from oblivion. 6 Chen Te-hsiu ¡RcSiff (1178-1235), a leader of the School of the Way just after Chu Hsi's time, emphasizes the same qualities in the Sung masters who had led in the resurgence of the Learning of the Way, but he underscores the extraordinary—almost supernatural—nature of their inspiration. "Man could not have achieved this without the aid of Heaven," he says. And speaking of the insights of Chou Tun-i JS&Wi, the Ch'eng brothers and Chu Hsi, he says: "How could they have offered such novel views and put forward new interpretations, such as their predecessors had not been able to arrive at, were it not simply due to Heaven7"7 Chen uses similar language in a memoir on Ch'eng Hao, crediting him with the discovery of the truth concerning Heaven's principle (t'ien-li ). Darkness, he says, had enshrouded the Way for more than a thousand years after Mencius, when "Chou Tun-i appeared and was able to grasp the long-lost secret. Master Ch'eng Ming-tao S W i i [Ch'eng Hao), when he came upon this, recognized it immediately, penetrating the surrounding darkness and shedding further light." Further on in the same memoir he says "therefore Master Ch'eng once said to his students, 'although there are things I have learned from others, as regards Heaven's principle, what I have set forth is based on my own experience.' " 8 And in still another memoir he expresses in vivid terms the wondrous creativity of Heaven: "Do we not have here the full revelation of the sagely learning, the dispelling of the blindnesses of this generation of men, and the correct succession to the orthodox teaching handed down from a thousand ages past? Indeed, has not Heaven shown the most extraordinary favor to this Way?" 9 In Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mindand-Heart, I have characterized the above view as a "prophetic" element in the Learning of the Way. By this I mean to indicate an extraordinary access to truth not vouchsafed to everyone,

Repossession of the Way

15

which by some process of inner inspiration or solitary perception affords an insight beyond what is received in scripture, and by appeal to some higher order of truth gives new meaning, significance, and urgency to certain cultural values or scriptural texts. Confucian tradition does not customarily speak of such a revelation as "supernatural," but it has an unpredictable, wondrous quality manifesting the divine creativity of Heaven. By contrast I use "scholastic" to represent an appeal to received authority by continuous transmission, with stress on external or public acceptance of it as the basis of its validity. 10 There is of course an obvious difference in context between this and the more theistic traditions of the Semitic world where the prophet speaks for a God whose "ways are not man's ways" and yet whose demands on man's obedience and judgements on his actions are pronounced with awful finality. Still this difference need not keep us from recognizing the innerdirectedness of the Neo-Confucian moral vision, or the extent to which Heaven acts on the human conscience to maintain a dynamic tension between the ideal order and man's actual condition—that is, how it provided a leverage on the human situation which the Weberian analysis of Confucianism failed to take into account. These contrasting attitudes, prophetic and scholastic, might also be said to differentiate liberal and conservative tendencies in Neo-Confucianism. Some caution is called for, however, lest too facile an equation be made between the two. The prophetic voice, both in east and west, has often lent itself to a radical critique of existing institutions or alternatively to a fundamentalist reaction against permissive societies. In such cases Confucian liberalism, seeking the Mean (which could correspond to Charles Frankel's description of "the liberal temperament or style as characterized by moderation, restraint and compromise") would turn to the seasoned wisdom of the scholastic tradition, and weigh the strident demands of conscience against the collective experience embodied in written texts or formal institutions. Even allowing for such countervailing tendencies, I would nevertheless point to the seminal role played in the minds of creative thinkers by this conception of the "repossession of the Way" (tao-t'ung), so central to the orthodox tradition of Neo-

16

The Liberal Tradition in China

Confucianism. Again and again recourse is had by reformers and nonconformists to the ideal of the heroic individual rediscovering and revivifying the Way. Prominent examples are found in almost every age—Chen Te-hsiu in the Late Sung; Hsu Heng l i f t , Liu Yin »JH , and Wu Ch'eng !£rS in the Yuan; Wu Yii-pi , Chen Hsien-chang t*®:* , Ho Hsin-yin H DR* and Lin Chao-en fMfe.fi in the Ming. Here we shall let the better-known example of Wang Yang-ming suffice for purposes of illustration, as it is described by one of his followers, Wang Tung f'W (1503-81) in Huang's Case Studies of Ming Confucians: In the Ch'in period the true-learning was destroyed and when the Han arose scholars of the classics appeared who would only memorize and recite texts handed down from the ancients. From one to another they passed on a learning which became the exclusive property of classicists and literati. Lost and untransmitted was the learning which the ancient sages had intended to be understood and shared in by all men. Then Heaven gave birth to our teacher [Wang Yang-ming] who sprang from the eastern shore [i.e., Eastern Chekiang ]. Large-spirited and uniquely enlightened, he directly succeeded to the legacy of Confucius and Mencius which went straight to the mind-andheart of man. Then untutored common folk and unlettered persons all could know that their own nature and spiritual intelligence sufficed for their self-fulfillment and self-sufficiency, and that it did not depend on externals, whether by oral, aural or visual instruction. With that the message untransmitted for two thousand years was restored to man's comprehension again as if in a single morning. 11

Tinged though it is with a certain social and philosophical coloration of the Wang Yang-ming school, what we have here again is the mythic role of the singularly endowed individual rediscovering the Way and renewing mankind, in which Wang is now cast. Some critics would question his orthodoxy and others would insist against him on the continuing importance of scholarship, but the claim that Wang spoke for the Way was still put in the familiar terms of the orthodox tradition as a "repossessing of the Way" (tao-t'ung) and reawakening of men. The name of almost any leading Neo-Confucian could be substituted in the same formula. In the Yuan and Ming the fre-

Repossession of the Way

17

quency with which this inspirational model was cited by writers of all Neo-Confucian persuasions makes clear that it served as a powerful symbol for the renewal of the tradition, which in turn kept pressing ever outward on the limits of orthodoxy. One element which lent both color and plausibility to this claim on behalf of Wang Yang-ming was the key agency of the mind in the orthodox version of the transmission of the Way. By this I mean the crucial role of the mind as self-critical and self-renewing, not only in the later teachings of Wang Yangming but even in the original doctrine of Chu Hsi himself. In the passage from Chu's preface to the Mean, cited earlier as the scriptural source for the concept of "repossessing the Way" (taot'ung), the idea is introduced by allusions in the Book of Documents H© to the sage-king's doctrine concerning the mind of man and the mind of the Way, which call for man to achieve utmost refinement and singleness of mind in order to keep himself morally and spiritually attuned to the Way. In Chu's preface it is this state of mind that is prerequisite to perceiving the truths in the Confucian classics. Without it the current texts are mere vehicles of classical pedantry; with it one may perceive the special importance of such texts as the Great Learning and the Mean, previously overshadowed and not fully appreciated among the extensive array of documents on ritual in the Record of Rites (Li chi it 12 ). So central was this doctrine of the mind to Chu's thinking that it found expression in memorials to the throne as well as in classical exegesis. Thus in a memorial to the throne of 1162 he says: "Everything depends on what the ruler studies, and correctness or incorrectness here depends on his square inch [of mind-and-heart]."12 Alluding to the steps of self-cultivation in the Great Learning, Chu goes on to say: Thus the extension of knowledge and investigation of things is like Y a o and Shun's "refinement" and "singlemindedness"; to rectify the mind and make the will sincere is like Y a o and Shun's "holding fast the M e a n . " W h a t the ancient .sages passed on by word of mouth and transmitted from mind to mind was just this and nothing m o r e . 1 3

Chu reiterated this view in a sealed memorial of 1188, presenting six matters requiring the emperor's urgent attention.

18

The Liberal Tradition in China

None of these six points can be neglected, but they all have their root in Your Majesty's mind-and-heart. If the mind-and-heart is correct, then these six things cannot go wrong. But if even one iota of selfish-mindedness or selfish desire is allowed to intervene, then no matter how much mental effort or physical exertion go into the rectifying of these matters ... the empire still cannot be well managed. Therefore this root of empire is also the most urgent of all urgent needs and cannot be put off even for a little while. 1 4

Contributing to this view at the time was the rising importance of the Great Learning in a genre of Imperial instruction, the "Learning of the Emperors" (Ti hsiieh ), promoted in the days of the Ch'eng brothers and Chu Hsi by scholars like Fan Tsu-yii miaS (1041-98) and Ch'en Ch'ang-fang Mi ft h (1108-48). 15 In the latter's "Essay on the Learning of the Emperors," he again quotes the Great Learning: What is called "cultivation of the person" lies in "rectifying one's mind." If the person is moved by passion, he will not achieve correctness; if he is moved by fear, he will not achieve correctness; if he is moved by fondness for something, he will not achieve correctness; if he is moved by sorrow and distress, he will not achieve correctness. 1 6

It is in this essay of Ch'en Ch'ang-fang that we also find one of the earliest references to the so-called "method or system of the mind-and-heart" (hsin-fa ), a term applied to the NeoConfucian method of mind-rectification developed at this time. I have discussed elsewhere how this term came into use among Neo-Confucians of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Here the point to be observed is that Ch'en describes it as a method deriving from the sage-kings, Confucius and Mencius, in much the same way as Chu Hsi's tao-t'ung. Thus he makes an explicit correlation between the Learning of the Emperors and Kings (tiwang chih hsiieh-wen ^ £ ¿ . 8 ^ 1 ), the "ruler's method of the mind-and-heart" (jen chu hsin-fa A ± D fe ), and the Great Learning's method of self-cultivation through rectifying of the mind, as well as an implicit correlation with what Chu Hsi would later describe as the "repossession of the Way." In fact, in the opening lines of his commentary on the Mean, Chu Hsi himself made the correlation explicit when, after identifying the

Repossession of the Way

19

Mean as a vessel of the orthodox tradition, he quoted Master Ch'eng to the effect that "this work represents the system of the mind-and-heart as transmitted in the Confucian school." 17 Simply put, these ways of learning all focused on the moral mind, but given the specifically political context in which the matter is discussed, the social conscience of the ruler is especially emphasized. Given further the heavy responsibility which attaches to the exercise of power, especially Imperial power, and the consequences in human suffering attendant upon its abuse, the Neo-Confucians magnify the potentialities for good and ill in this mind, which is of course the human mind writ large in the person of the ruler. Such being the essence of the NeoConfucian Way as it appears in these several formulations, one can recognize in it T'ang Chun-i's Mf it $ characterization of Neo-Confucianism as a "revival of the Confucian faith in man" and as an "acceptance of the need to face all the negative factors [in man's nature] and to find a way of realizing the positive ideal." 18 There is further significance in the appearance together of the Learning of the Way (tao-hsueh) and Learning of the Mind-andHeart (hsin-hsiieh) at this critical juncture in the development of Sung thought. Not only does it suggest a correlation between the newly asserted autonomy of the mind and the claim of direct access by the individual to the Way, with the authority to speak for it implicit in the term tao-hsueh, but also it implies a different relation on the part of the individual scholar to the classics. While the authority of the Institutes of Chou may be invoked by Wang An-shih, or of the Great Learning by Ch'eng I, the individual's reinterpretation of it takes precedence over the tradition of commentary attached to the classic. Thus, though the text is still important, the individual's understanding of its significance becomes far more so. If the Great Learning could have lain fallow for two thousand years while classical exegetes failed to discern its true significance, as Ch'eng I and Chu Hsi said, the mere physical transmission of texts becomes far less vital than the discernment of the individual mind into its real meaning. Hence in the "repossessing of the Way," the orthodox tradition too is seen to depend less on the "handing on" of the classics and more on individual perceptivity. During the reign of Shen-tsung itf'^ (1068-85) the Emperor

20

The Libera! Tradition in China

was told that the Confucian Way had been taught by Hu Yuan $ f£ under the aspects of substance, function, and literary expression (wen £ ), with the latter providing the means for communicating and disseminating the Way. 19 Cheng I and Chu Hsi, for their part, emphasize substance and function but rarely mention "literature" or "texts" (wen) in this same connection, though texts and scholarship were hardly unimportant to Chu Hsi. And Chen Te-hsiu, a prime proponent of the Ch'eng-Chu Learning of the Mind-and-Heart in the early thirteenth century, substitutes "transmission" for "literary expression" or "text" in the three-fold formulation of substance, function, and transmission (ch'uan (9 ),20 as if again to allow for the crucial agency of the mind-and-heart in this process, with its own direct access to the Way (tao). To the extent that subjectivity was thereby granted a larger role and the objective record or formal canon was assigned a diminished one, the ground had been prepared for the individual to exercise greater autonomy in relation to received text and classical tradition. The freedom with which Cheng I and Chu Hsi rearranged the Great Learning to suit their own ideas, and the ease with which their followers accepted the change, is a good illustration of this. Thus the concept of the orthodox tradition or "repossessing of the Way" expressed a certain ideal of the heroic individual as the reactivator of traditional values and as the agent of social reform and human renewal. Associated with this prophetic role was a view of the mind as morally and socially conscious, with a keen sense of responsibility for the consequences of one's actions and of the need this implies for the sensitization of the individual conscience—a conscience freed of excessive dependence on external authority by the Ch'eng-Chu doctrine that inherent in the mind of man were all the "heavenly principles" needed to guide his conduct of life. I believe that each of these values—the importance of the individual, his duty to exercise his own conscience and his relative autonomy in the creative interpreting of tradition—would be recognized as values in the Western liberal tradition. But before we draw any conclusions from this seeming resemblance, we shall need to explore other aspects of Neo-Confucian individualism in its social context.

2. Chu Hsi and Liberal Education

"Learning for the Sake of One's Self" The thought of Chu Hsi -te.® begins and ends with the aim of "learning for the sake of one's self" (wei-chi chih hsiieh &2 &), a phrase which recalls Confucius' dictum in the Analects (14:25) that learning should be for the sake of oneself and not for the pleasing of others. This aim, which set a higher value on self-understanding and self-fulfillment than on all else, was put before Chu early in life by his father. It was what motivated his studies under his teacher Li T'ung (1093-1163), vhat guided him in official life, and what stayed with him to the end of his scholarly career. For many of his later followers it was what distinguished true Confucian teaching from any other. Confucianism was a way of learning, and Chu Hsi a teacher, above all else. Indeed, so integral was education to Chu's philosophy as a whole that it is difficult to discuss one without the other. In this lecture I shall try to explain Chu's thought on "learning for the sake of one's self," his views on voluntarism in popular education, and in what sense his social and cultural definition of higher education may be seen as "liberal." In the next lecture I shall attempt to show how he expressed a distinctive Neo-Confucian individualism in political and cultural life. In 1148, at the age of eighteen, Chu passed the civil service examinations at the capital and won the advanced (chin-shih ii-b ) degree. He was already a success by the standards of the age, having achieved the goal coveted by most educated men in Sung China but not often attained by them so early in life. Soon thereafter he received his first appointment to office as a subprefectural registrar in the T'ung-an district of Fukien , where his varied duties included responsibility for the

22

The Liberal Tradition in China

local school and presented him with the occasion to address the students there. "Learning should be for the sake of oneself," he said, "but in today's world what fathers encourage in their sons, what older brothers exhort in their younger brothers, what teachers impart to their students, and what students all study for is nothing more than to prepare for the civil service examinations." Then he urged that they should aspire to emulate the ancients' "learning for the sake of oneself" instead of "studying for the sake of others," meaning that they should aim at understanding and fulfilling their own true selves, rather than let their studies be directed toward winning the approval of the official examiners. 1 Later, in 1175, when he and Lii Tsu-ch'ien SifiHt compiled Reflections on Things at Hand (Chin-ssu-lu ¿5 S i * ), in the important section on the Pursuit of Learning which sets forth the overall aims of the work, they cited Ch'eng I's S 6 I amplification of Confucius' remark: " 'In ancient times one studied for the sake of oneself,' that is, Ch'eng said, to find it in oneself (tzu-te S ); 'nowadays one studies for the sake of others,' that is, in order to gain recognition from others." 2 Here Ch'eng I's reference to "finding it in oneself" echoes Mencius' doctrine that "the noble man steeps himself in the Way because he wishes to find it in himself. When he finds it in himself, he will be at ease in it; when he is at ease in it, he can draw deeply upon it; when he can draw deeply upon it, he finds its source wherever he turns. That is why the noble man wishes to find the Way in himself."3 Here "learning for the sake of one's self" is explained in terms of finding the Way in onself and deriving deep inner satisfaction from it. Later, in commenting on the original passage in the Analects, Chu Hsi again referred to Ch'eng I's comment that "when the ancients studied for their own sake, it led in the end to the fulfillment of others; nowadays studying for the sake of others leads in the end to the destruction of oneself,"4 an observation which Chu Hsi praises highly for its aptness and succinctness.5 Further, in the Essential Meaning of the Analects (Lun-yii chingi mm mm), Chu includes commentaries from other Sung masters which explain the meaning of "for the sake of oneself" (iuei-chi ) as "being true to oneself," "rectifying the mind and making the will sincere," and as not ending in self-love but

Chu Hsi and LiberaI Education

23

taking self-cultivation as the starting point for reaching out to others.6 In these ways Chu distinguishes true self-fulfillment from mere selfish satisfaction, identifying the latter with selfdestruction and the former with the fulfillment of others. Chu Hsi returns to the same theme in chapter 6 of the Things at Hand, which deals with the Regulation of the Family. At the very outset of this discussion of the family, he points to the primacy of moral relations in learning for the sake of one's self, again quoting Ch'eng I: "Master I-ch'uan said, 'If young people have energy to spare after the performance of their moral responsibilities, they may study arts and literature [making reference to Analects 1:6]. If they do not perform their moral duties, and study literature and art first, this is not "Learning for the sake of one's self" (wei-chi chih hsüeh ).' " 7 Here a certain tension is set up between moral learning and the pursuit of art and literature, at least to the extent that the latter might lead to neglect of the former. Toward the end of his fitful and frustrating official career, on the very eve of his official condemnation for heterodoxy, Chu visited the Jade Mountain Academy liilJ^Rt . The lecture which he gave on that occasion later became celebrated as one of the most authoritative statements of his mature position in philosophical and educational matters. He began it on the same theme with which he had launched his educational efforts as a fledgling official in T'ung-an many years before: I have heard that "in ancient times one studied for the sake of oneself; n o w a d a y s one studies for the sake of others." Therefore the sages and worthies, in teaching men to pursue learning, did not have them patch together speeches or compose literary pieces simply with a view to obtaining civil service degrees and official emoluments. Only "investigating things, extending knowledge, making the will sincere, rectifying the mind, and further extending these to regulating the family, ordering the state and pacifying the w o r l d , " can be considered correct learning. 8

In this brief passage Chu summed up many of the ideals of his age and of the educational philosophy which he had developed over a lifetime: the "correct learning" (cheng-hsüeh ), which had been the dominant ideal of Northern Sung reformers; the "learning of the sages and worthies," which in the Ch'eng-

24

The LiberaI Tradition in China

Chu school was to be increasingly encapsulated in the "Great Learning"; and "learning for the sake of oneself," which Chu saw as both beginning and end of all the rest. Early and late, Chu had put this moral and spiritual "learning" forward as a genuine alternative to the spurious literary learning for the civil service examinations, and also, in citing Cheng I, had espoused it in opposition to any pursuit of art and literature at the expense of moral learning. Later in the Yuan dynasty, when the issue of resuming the examinations arose in the court of Khubilai , those who supported the idea were known as the "literary party," while the followers of Chu Hsi who spoke in opposition to it were said to have advocated "learning for the sake of one's self."9 It was Chu Hsi schoolmen such as these who first established his works as basic texts in the school curriculum under the Yuan dynasty, again under the banner of "learning for the sake of one's self."10 Similarly, at the founding of the Yi $ dynasty in Korea when the same issue arose with regard to the examination system, advocates of Neo-Confucianism attacked bureaucratic scholarship as "learning for the sake of others," in contrast to Confucius' "learning for the sake of one's self."11 "Subduing Oneself and Returning to Decorum" Another view of the self in Neo-Confucianism, and one which at first sight seems radically opposed to that just presented, is found in Chu Hsi's treatment of the theme "Subdue oneself and return to decorum" (k'o-chi fu-li £clit*i). Here Neo-Confucians understood chi ci in the negative sense of "selfishness" or "self-interest," rather than in the positive sense it has in learning for the "self," while decorum represents the objective norms governing one's relationships to society. As a member of society the person must subordinate his selfish desires (ssu-yii && ) to the good of the community or public good (kung £ ). His true personhood is thus achieved by disciplining his desires so that they serve rather than conflict with the public good. Whether desires are seen as good or bad depends entirely on how they meet this test, just as selffulfillment depends on how one overcomes this contradiction between the self and others.

Chu Hsi and Liberal

Education

25

Neo-Confucians often invoked the dictum of Confucius in Analects (12:1) in response to Yen Yiian's question about perfect virtue or humaneness (jett ti): Confucius said, "It is to subdue oneself and return to decorum. If a man can for one day subdue himself and return to decorum, all under Heaven will ascribe perfect virtue to him." Yen Yuan then said, "May I ask what it consists in7" The Master replied, "Look not at what is contrary to decorum, listen not to what is contrary to decorum, speak not what is contrary to decorum, act not contrary to decorum."

This classic definition of the concept of jen was given heightened significance by its central role in Neo-Confucianism, and especially by the attention Chu Hsi gave to it in a key chapter of Things at Hand. This chapter has to do with selfexamination and self-correction, the basic moral discipline which Chu Hsi focused on when he featured the Great Learning as a main text of instruction. The title of this chapter in Things at Hand is variously rendered in different versions, but as translated by Wing-tsit Chan it draws upon the edition of Yeh Ts'ai SIS (fl. 1248), an early compiler of commentaries on this important manual of Neo-Confucian teaching. Yeh's title and description read: On Self-discipline, 41 sections. In this chapter the effort to practice what one has learned is discussed. Having clearly investigated principles and having deeply preserved one's mind and nourished one's nature, one is about to extend one's understanding and cultivation into personal practice. At this point one should devote the utmost effort to self-discipline. 12

Here Yeh Ts'ai's explanation of the sequence of learning follows along the lines already given in Chu Hsi's discussion of "learning for the sake of one's self," i.e., self-understanding should be linked to one's conduct toward others and does not stop with the self. Professor Chan's translation of k'o-chi as "self-discipline," is in keeping with the general nature of the contents, with the emphasis in Neo-Confucianism on rational, moral control, and is also in keeping with the tone of Yeh Ts'ai's own description. Indeed, in the text itself k'o-chi is often equated with tzu-chih gfSlj , "self control." If I translate it, however, as "subduing oneself," there are, I

26

The Liberal Tradition in China

think, good reasons for this. For one thing "subdue" is closer to the original sense of k'o as "to conquer or subjugate." For another, while the corollary, fu-li, may fairly be rendered in the Neo-Confucian context as "return to decorum or propriety," li has strong residual overtones of its original religious significance in ritual sacrifice, as the ritual order by which the members of the clan, community, or state were joined together, each in a manner befitting his own rank and status, in the service of the common cult. We must not dispense too quickly with the religious overtones of this key concept, or yield to the modern taste for a moral and rational humanism at the expense of the traditional religious aspect, for the latter is strongly retained in Neo-Confucianism along with the rational and moral. It is in the original connotations of the terms that k'o-chi fu-li preserves the distinct possibility for a deeper awareness of the problem of evil and of the need for a more radical testing of oneself, for a religiosity aspiring to self-transcendence through total self-conquest. This becomes the more pertinent when one considers the number of later Neo-Confucians for whom this religiosity had a strong appeal, as well as those others for whom it was to become an abomination. Indeed the essential ambivalence of Neo-Confucian teaching on this score is indicated by the cases of those who exhibited both of these manifestations in one lifeexperience, first embracing the ritual with zealous intensity and then later repudiating it. 13 Negative indications of this also came from protests in popular literature against a harsh ritual discipline prescribed in the name of Chu Hsi, which is far more repressive than simple self-discipline. That "subduing the self and returning to decorum" could range from an enlightened practice of self-control to a religious experience of self-transcendence, may be seen in Chu's quoting of Ch'eng I in chapter 5 of Things at Hand: One's first act is to see. If one looks at what is contrary to decorum, then, as the saying goes, whenever he opens his eyes, he makes a mistake. Hearing comes next, then speaking, then action, in proper sequence. If one can "subdue himself," his mind will be broad and his heart generous, and his body will become big and be at ease. Looking up he will have no occasion for shame before Heaven, and below he will have no occasion to

Chu Hsi and Liberal

27

Education

blush before men. We can understand how happy he will be..But if he lets up in his subduing of self for even a moment he will starve. 14

From this it is evident that we are dealing with two selves (chi ), not just one. There is the original, inner and true self, and the self characterized by selfishness (chi-ssu ) or dominated by selfish intentions (ssu-i &.S:). The control of the mind is not undertaken with a view to imposing some external restraint on an inherently evil self, but on the contrary to liberate the original goodness of the inner self. Thus it is possible for both C h e n g I and Chu Hsi to take an optimistic view of the process as leading to a self-enlargement and fulfillment in communion with others which has its outward, formal expression in the ritual order. In the People's Republic recently there has been some discussion between Fung Yu-Ian M&Ni and Ren Jiyu ftlfi/fe as to whether Neo-Confucianism is a religion. 15 Leaving that question aside as a matter of definition, we can say that NeoConfucianism does speak to dimensions of human experience often seen as "religious," which are not necessarily understood in the West as antithetical to liberal education. 16 In any case selfdiscipline has certainly been understood as "liberal" in the classic sense of bringing self-mastery, that is, of liberating one's powers in the very act of developing and directing them. 17 As noted above, Ch'eng I and Chu Hsi see "subduing the self" through ritual as a process whereby the acceptance of certain limits and transcending of them overcomes the distinction between self and others and joins one to a moral and spiritual community. Here a radical individualism would seem to be ruled out, and what I would call a Confucian personalism takes its place—a concept of the person as most truly itself when most fully in communion with other selves.

Self a n d P e r s o n in the Elementary

Learning

The implications of this personalism are further developed in Chu Hsi's Elementary Learning (Hsiao hsiieh 'J^ ), a manual of ritual conduct for the young. It is a distinctively Neo-Confucian "classic," which illustrates the concept of self and practice of

28

The Liberal Tradition in China

self-cultivation in orthodox Neo-Confucianism. Compiled in 1187 under the direction of Chu Hsi, it consists of passages drawn from the Confucian classics which Chu thought should guide the education of the young preparatory to the program of higher learning set forth in the Great Learning. Thus the scriptural authority of the classics was invoked in behalf of Chu Hsi's belief in the need for a structured education, an education which was to have a broad base among the young, extending down to the lowest levels of society. As the leading modern authority on this work, Uno Seiichi Tffffi - , says, its underlying aim was to achieve "the governance of men through self-discipline" (hsiu-chi chih-jen t£C.r6 K ). In other words the ideal government is one which relies, not on power, but on universal selfdiscipline, which allows a maximum of local autonomy on the assumption that people will be self-governing. This is, of course, an extension of the central idea of the Great Learning, which asserts that peace and order depend on everyone, from the ruler down to the common people, taking self-cultivation (hsiu-shen &# ) as the basis of the social order. Chu Hsi develops this into one of the main themes of his own philosophy.18 The Elementary Learning consists of inner and outer portions, the former asserting basic principles drawn from the Confucian classics and the latter offering examples drawn from later history or literature. The inner portion is further subdivided into sections entitled "Setting up Instruction," "Clarifying Moral Relations," and "Reverencing the Person." Hsu Heng fti (1209-81), the leading Neo-Confucian teacher of the Yuan period, admired and "believed in this book as if it were divine."19 In his characteristic fashion, Hsu wrote a succinct resume of its contents for the education of laymen, excerpts from which may serve conveniently here to convey the main points: "Setting up Instruction" means the W a y in which the sageking's of the Three Dynasties taught men. The innate mind of man is originally without imperfection, but after birth through the interference of the physical endowment, the blinding desire for things and unrestrained selfishness, imperfections arise for the first time. The sages therefore set up instruction to help men nourish the original goodness of their innate minds and

Chu Hsi and Liberal

Education

eliminate the imperfections which came from selfishness.... What the early kings set up, however, was not simply their own idea. Heaven has its principles and the early kings followed these principles. Heaven has its Way and the early kings carried out this Way. Following the natural course of Heaven's imperative they made it the proper course of human affairs and that was what was called instruction.... What then is this Way7 It is the moral relation between parent and child, prince and minister, husband and wife, elder and younger, friend and friend. Therein lies the Heaven-bestowed moral nature and the Way for man.... "Clarifying Moral Relations"—"Clarify" means to make manifest. "Moral relations" means moral principles. In the moral nature endowed in man by Heaven each has his proper norm, as in the intimate love between parent and child, the moral obligation between prince and minister, the sex differentiation between husband and wife, the order of precedence among older and younger, and the relation of trust between friends. These are the natural relations. In the Three Dynasties when the early kings established schools to teach all-under-Heaven, it was only to clarify and manifest these relations and nothing more. Men who cannot clarify these human relations cannot bring order into distinctions of noble and base, superior and inferior, important and unimportant, substantial and insubstantial, controlled and uncontrolled... and when it comes to this, disaster and disorder follow upon one another until everything lapses into bestiality.... "Reverencing the Self or Person (shen)"—the preface [to this section] cites Confucius' saying [in the Record of Rites] 'The noble man is ever reverent." To reverence the person is the important thing. The person is the branch [outgrowth] of parental love. How can one not reverence it7 Not to reverence the person is to do violence to parental love. To do violence to parental love is to do violence to the trunk [of the tree of life]. Harm the trunk and the branch will die! The sage uttered this as a warning. He who would be a man cannot for a single day depart from reverence. How much more should one reverence his own person, which is truly the trunk of all things and affairs? Err in this, and all things go awry. How could one then not be reverent? Reverencing the person consists of four things: directing the mind, proper bearing, clothing, and food and drink. If the direction of the mind within is correct and one's outer bearing is cor-

29

30

The LiberaI Tradition in China rect, then one has achieved the most substantial part of reverencing the person. Clothing and food are meant for the service of the person. If one does not control them properly and regulate them according to decorum, then what is meant to nourish man will, on the contrary, bring him harm. We can distinguish among these by saying that the direction of the mind and proper bearing have to do with the cultivation of virtue [the moral nature], while clothing and food and drink have to do with subduing the self. Taking them together we can say that they are all essential to the reverencing of the person. Therefore it will not do if in the conduct of the relations between parent and child, prince and minister, husband and wife, older and younger, friend and friend, there is not this reverencing of the person. That is w h y the ancients insisted on reverence as the basis for the cultivation of the person. 2 0

Recapitulated here are many ideas concerning the self and its cultivation which we encounter in Chu Hsi's own writings and commentaries, but at least two main points stand out more clearly here. The first is the interdependent character of human existence, establishing the primary human relations as the context of self-development. This theme of the interrelatedness of human existence is reiterated of course in the discussion of the Five Relations of Moral Obligation, in which the self-development of the person is shown to be an outgrowth of his gradual assumption of responsibility for others with whom he has a loving relationship. This is hardly a new idea among Neo-Confucians, who had always spoken of the human mind as socially and morally conscious both in its origin and essence (as opposed to the enlightened mind of the Buddhists, which was supposedly free of personal attachments and human obligations). But Hsii, following Chu Hsi, goes on to ground the process of socialization in the fundamental reality of creative love, and to center it in the human person as the offspring of an intimate relation as deeply rooted and inviolable as life itself. Despite the defective logic of the opening quotation (which raised doubts in the minds of some commentators as to its authenticity),21 the passage from the Record of Rites about reverencing the person is given special weight by both Chu Hsi and Hsu Heng, being the lead-off quotation for Chu and the only one cited by Hsii in his precis, as if to suggest that the very circularity of the argu-

Chu Hsi and Liberal Education

31

ment conveys the sense of life as a sacred continuum of affective relations, from conjugal love to parental concern and filial devotion, all centering on respect for the personhood of the individual. Thus Chu and Hsii structure the educational process in a concept of human personhood which avoids the polarization of individual versus society. As noted above, a common view of Neo-Confucianism has it relying heavily on conformity to ritual and repression of the individual within a system of hierarchical relations perserving the status quo. Hsii, however, actually makes these relations subserve the development of the human personality, while the mind that is to direct this development has acquired its moral sensitivity through the experiencing of loving relations with others, not through subjection to cognitive disciplines and rote learning. The second point is one easily recognized. The structure of the work, though it builds on the organic sense of life developed in the first two sections, culminates in the ' Reverencing of Self." Thus the Elementary Learning is essentially "learning for the sake of one's self." In the word "reverencing" however, lies some significance. Aside from the supreme value it attaches to the development of the naturally good self, this concept is infused with the characteristic Neo-Confucian moral and religious spirit. Chu Hsi stresses it as an attitude of constant attentiveness to the moral and spiritual life of the individual, indispensable to the practice of mind-rectification and to "watchfulness over the solitary self." But it is also a religious attitude of reverence toward all life, one which links the self to others and to the whole life process; it thus recognizes a religious dimension in the moral cultivation of the self, bridging the active and contemplative sides of human life. In one important respect, however, the Elementary Learning served poorly to represent Chu Hsi's view of the natural reciprocity in personal relations. Being addressed to the young as a primer preparatory to their taking up the higher learning, i.e., the Great Learning, it presented the parent-child relationship largely in terms of exemplary conduct on the part of the child.22 Subsequently, this text had an inordinate influence owing to the worshipful respect in which it was held by the early Neo-Confucians in the Yuan, especially Hsii Heng. Thus a more

32

The Liberal Tradition in China

one-sided emphasis came to be put on filiality in the child than Chu had probably intended, and certainly more than can be found in the Four Books, to which he had given his primary attention and clearest sanction. Indeed his more typical attitude was already expressed in his Responses of Yen-p'ing (Yen-p'ing ta-wen SE^PSPnl ), wherein Chu conveyed his teacher's view that filiality, as explained by Confucius in the Analects (2:6), placed primary stress on parental love and concern as the basis for filiality, not on the obedience of the child.23 Popular Education Before we proceed from the Elementary Learning to the higher education dealt with in Chu Hsi's exposition of the Great Learning, there is another side of primary education which deserves attention. Chu's experience of civil administration was mainly at the local level and he saw education as properly woven into the fabric of institutional life at that level—not only in local schools, to which he gave great personal attention,24 but also in the organization and conduct of community affairs. He built libraries and had shrines erected to honor distinguished men of the locality who had exemplified qualities worthy of general emulation; for his students and subordinates he provided guidance in the performance of rituals long since neglected in popular practice; he prepared proclamations for the moral edification of common people who might receive no other education. A representative example of the latter is the tenpoint proclamation which he issued in Chang-chou & HI (1190-91). Without going into details here, the most notable general feature of the proclamation is its emphasis on mutuality and reciprocity, instead of the imposition of superior authority or law, as the basis for the proper conduct of public affairs. The appeal here is to a combination of self-respect and mutual regard among persons as the natural means of upholding a voluntaristic social order, which is seen as preferable to the enforcement of a system of state control.25 This same approach is built into the community compact (hsiang-yiieh ) which Chu Hsi adapted from one of the followers of Ch'eng I, Lii Ta-chvin , as the basic "constitution" of a self-governing community. The ideal of volun-

Chu Hsi and Liberal Education

33

tary cooperation which inspired this system is expressed in the term yiieh Vi, a compact or contract entered into by members of a community for their mutual benefit. Most notable is the personalistic character of the contract, which places a stronger emphasis on mutual respect for the needs and aspirations of persons than on respect for property rights or an exact quidpro-quo in the exchange of goods. The main provisions of this compact called for mutual encouragement in the performance of worthy deeds, mutual admonition in the correction of errors and failings, reciprocal engagement in rites and customs, and mutual aid in times of distress and misfortune. Under each of these headings there were detailed specifications of the kinds of actions for which members of the compact took personal responsibility. There was also provision for the rotation of leadership within the group for carrying out the terms of the compact. 26 Here there was a model for popular education in direct relation to the daily life of the community, a practical way of implementing basic Neo-Confucian principles in a context wider than kinship or personal relations. At a time which witnessed the steady extension and aggrandizement of state power, Chu was not content simply to let public morality depend on the discipline of family life alone, or even the five-family units of local organization ( w u - p a o fits ), but sought to incorporate the principle of voluntarism into community structures which might mediate between state power and family interests.27 Thus he recommended a social program on the basis of which one might limit the intervention of the state in local affairs, and share authority among more autonomous local units, relying on popular education and ritual observance as an alternative to punitive law. Underlying this program was the idea of personal self-transformation and communal cooperation as the basis of the polity, i.e., the fusion of public and private interests ( k u r t g ssu i-t'i &tL -IB ).28 Other expressions of this attitude are to be found in the type of local instruction based on Chu Hsi's own proclamations; 29 in the community granaries to which Chu devoted much attention as district official; and in the so-called Family Ritual of Chu Hsi. Chu's treatment of these matters was extraordinarily detailed, showing a fine grasp of practical administration. It is not sur-

34

The Liberal Tradition in China

prising that they should have become models for the implementation of his teachings in later times. Because these most authentic of Neo-Confucian institutions had their importance on the local level, however, often escaping the attention of modern scholars preoccupied with affairs of the Imperial Court and state, their significance has not always been appreciated. Some scholars in Chinese social history however are aware of the long and complex development of the community compact in later dynasties. 30 It had great appeal not only because of the prestige accruing from Chu Hsi's endorsement but also because its voluntaristic and cooperative character accorded well with the emphasis on local autonomy and self-government in the NeoConfucian doctrine, referred to above by Hsii Heng, as "governing men through self-discipline." Though it experienced many vicissitudes, owing to the difficulty of sustaining a spirit of both personal initiative and collective responsibility, successive reformers, including Wang Yang-ming in the Ming dynasty, saw the revival and reinvigoration of the community compact as the key to local self-government. 31 In Wang's case the voluntaristic character of the community compact accorded well with his own voluntarist and activist philosophy, and it is not unnatural that there should have been such a meeting of minds between him and Chu Hsi on an institution of local self-governance which embodied so well their common principles. Outside of China there was an even more impressive development of the community compact system through its widespread adoption in Yi dynasty Korea, in the importance attached to it by leading Korean NeoConfucians, 32 and in its continuance down into the twentieth century as a key institution for the exercise of local autonomy on the principle of "governing men through self-discipline." Inadequate though the preceding is as an account of Chu Hsi's view on popular education, it may at least offset the tendency to think of Chu as addressing himself exclusively to the needs of the educated elite or to the elite's control over the uneducated. In fact few even of his writings addressed to the latter audience fail to stress popular education as the base on which higher culture rests, and it is probably only the greater difficulty of dealing with the historical details of times remote from our own which has made us slow to study and evaluate adequately the

Chu Hsi and LiberaI Education

35

influence of Chu's views on education at the grass-roots level. In the scholastic tradition Chu was better known for his views on the conduct of higher education, on priorities in the curriculum, and on which texts should be read and how. Here his most important writings or talks, addressed to the smaller number who would have the opportunity to advance to the higher learning (or "greater learning"), are his Reflections on Things at Hand {Chin-ssu-lu), his Commentary on the Great Learning (Ta hsiieh chang-chii k ), and his "Articles of the Academy of the White Deer Hollow" (Pai-lu-tung shu-yuan chieh-shih ). The first two will be brought into the discussion of Neo-Confucian individualism in the next lecture. Here I shall focus on the "Articles of the Academy of the White Deer Hollow" presented in 1179, which became a model for Neo-Confucian academies throughout East Asia. These articles begin with a reaffirmation of the constant moral relations that constitute the matrix of individual selfdevelopment: "Affection between parent and child; Righteousness between ruler and subjectsDifferentiation between husband and wife; Precedence between elder and younger; Trust between friends." 3 3 T h e above are the items of the Five Teachings, that is, the very teachings which Y a o # and Shun ^ c o m m a n d e d Hsieh reverently to propagate as Minister of E d u c a t i o n . 3 4 For those who engage in learning, these are all they need to learn. A s to the proper procedure for study, there are also five items, as follows: "Study extensively, inquire carefully, ponder thoroughly, sift clearly, and practice e a r n e s t l y . " 3 5 T h e a b o v e is the proper sequence for the pursuit of learning. Study, inquiry, pondering, and sifting are for fathoming principle to the utmost. A s to earnest practice, there are also essential elements at each stage from personal cultivation to the handling of affairs and dealing with people, as separately listed below: "Be faithful and true to y o u r words and firm and sincere in conduct."36 "Curb your anger and restrain l u s t " ; 3 7 "turn to the good and correct your e r r o r s . " 3 8

36

The Liberal Tradition in China The above are the essentials of personal cultivation. "Be true to moral principles and do not scheme for profit; illuminate [exemplify] the W a y and do not calculate the advantages [for oneself]." 3 9 T h e above are the essentials for handling affairs. " D o not do to others what you would not want them to do to you."40 "When in your conduct you are unable to succeed, reflect and look [for the cause] within yourself." 4 1

Here the keynotes are self-discipline and consideration for others, extending into higher education the same spirit of voluntarism and reciprocity which informed Chu's approach to popular education. Again we note that the process begins as in the Elementary Learning with a loving relationship between parent and child, a sense of intimacy and mutual respect. The statuses are not equal but the relationship should, taking the fact of inequality into account, look beyond this difference to the underlying bond created by a shared life. This view of filial piety as a reciprocal relation, in which the child responds to the loving care of the parent, was not an uncommon one at the time. Lu Chiu-ling Pt^itfe (1132-80), elder brother of Lu Hsiang-shan Pifuij , said in a poem "The babe in arms knows love and, growing up, learns respect."42 It is expressed even in the writing of Buddhist masters who took filial piety seriously. These include Ch'i-sung l?fS! (10077-72) who wrote essays on filial piety as based on parental love,43 and Chung-feng Ming-pen (1263-1323), who put it this way: All parents nurture and love their children. Therefore the sages and worthies teach us to be filial to our parents. Filiality (hsiao # ) means imitating, serving ( h s i a o 'ih ). Children imitate parental nurturing and repay their parents with nurturing. Children imitate parental love and repay their parents with filial love.44

Thus these five constant relations or ethical norms represented a widely accepted traditional wisdom for handling human relations and their inevitable frictions. In reaffirming these norms, Chu probably sought to avoid conflict situations

Chu Hsi and Liberal Education

37

in which there is either a direct contest of individual wills or the threat of coercion by official intervention. Individual selfassertion, pitting one will against another, often in unequal situations, as in parent-child conflicts, could only end in damage to the self-esteem of the defeated party. Coercion would tend to destroy self-motivation. Better to foster a spirit of mutual love which recognized and attempted to transcend differences; hence better an interpersonal concept of the self than a radically individualistic one. Voluntarism and Dialogue in Higher Education The social functions addressed in the first set of "Articles" give way in the second set to operations that are more intellectual and reflect the particular preoccupations of the Sung scholar. One cannot say that they lack the general human relevance of the moral dicta or would be inappropriate in most human situations, yet the atmosphere of the school prevails; it would be hard to imagine peasants having much opportunity to "study," "inquire," "ponder," and "sift" in the fashion Chu suggests. The same is true of the note which Chu Hsi appended to these articles, which speaks further to the condition of the scholar: [I, Chu] Hsi have observed that the sages and worthies of antiquity taught people to pursue learning with one intention only, which is to make students understand the meaning of moral principle through discussion, so that they can cultivate their own persons and then extend it to others. The sages and worthies did not wish them merely to engage in memorizing texts or in composing poetry and essays as a means of gaining fame or seeking office. Students today obviously do the contrary (to what the sages and worthies intended]; The methods that the sages and worthies employed in teaching people are all found in the Classics. Dedicated scholars should by all means read them frequently, ponder them deeply and then inquire into them and sift them. If you understand the necessity for principles and accept the need to take responsibility oneself for seeing that they are so, then what need will there be to wait for someone else to set up such contrivances as rules and prohibitions for one to follow? In recent ages regulations have been instituted in schools, and

38

The Liberal Tradition in China

students have been treated in a shallow manner. This method of making regulations does not at all conform with the intention of the ancients. Therefore I shall not now try to put them into effect in this lecture hall. Rather I have specifically selected all the essential principles that the sages and the worthies used in teaching people how to pursue learning; I have listed them as above one by one and posted them on the crossbar over the gate. You, sirs, should discuss them with one another, follow them, and take personal responsibility for their observance. Then in whatever a man should be cautious or careful about in thought, word or deed, he will certainly be more demanding of himself than he would be the other way [of complying with regulations]. If you do otherwise or even reject what I have said, then the "regulations" others talk about will have to take over and in no way can they be dispensed with. You, sirs, please think this over. 4 5

Here again Chu's voluntaristic approach to education is evident—voluntaristic but hardly permissive. Ironically, and it is not untypical of Chu's fate in the hands of his followers, despite all of his own disclaimers these "articles" were often spoken of as "rules" in Neo-Confucian schools, or else they were supplemented by other regulations. Yet it is abundantly clear that Chu himself sought to put the emphasis on the person rather than on the prohibition, recognizing that without the self-motivation, without the active "taking of responsibility oneself," as he put it here, schooling would not achieve its aim of "learning for the sake of-one's self." It was natural for Chu, addressing students, to move from the discussion of basic social relations to more scholarly concerns. In his experience, both were inextricably interwoven into the fabric of life. Yet as we follow his procedural steps we become aware that he is also defining roles for the self which are by no means inevitable or universal. Indeed with one exception they are not readily comprehended in the Five Constant Relations to which so much formal respect was paid. Instead they are roles so naturally accepted within Chu's class and his cultural tradition as to be readily taken for granted: the roles of teacher, scholar, and official which occupied much of the lives of the educated elite. It is to these roles that Chu speaks most often in his major works, and it is in these contexts that "learning for the sake of one's self" is given its clearest definition.

Chu Hsi and Liberal Education

39

In Chu's postscript to the "Articles" we can see how his pedagogical method establishes personal dialogue, based on mutual respect, as the proper mode of learning. Twice Chu makes the point that learning should proceed by discussion, and not just in dialogue between teacher and student but by talking things out among the students themselves, in a collégial fashion. It is through this give-and-take that much of the intellectual inquiry and exploration, sifting and judging, take place, leaving the student in a position to make up his own mind and take personal responsibility for his views and actions. These same principles apply to the education of the ruler, which is best achieved through self-education in dialogue with others. In a lengthy sealed memorial to the throne with an extensive list of policy recommendations on current issues, Chu lists as the first requisite for the emperor to engage in the "discussion of learning" ( c h i a n g - h s i ï e h MQ ). 'The business of the empire is all rooted in one man and the control of that one man's person lies in the mind. Thus if the ruler's mind is correct, all the business of the empire will be correct." To accomplish this, says Chu, there is no better method than the discussion of all matters and issues so that their good and evil implications are brought to light before decisions are made.46 Dialogue and conversation had been traditional features of Chinese philosophizing, but the Neo-Confucian movement was especially noteworthy for promoting this kind of philosophical discussion. At court Neo-Confucians placed special emphasis on the discussion of policy questions in the so-called "lectures from the classics mat" ( c h i n g - y e n ), a practice developed into a major institution at the Korean court of the Yi dynasty. With the rapid spread of Neo-Confucian education, a distinct intellectual uplift was felt in one country after another as new schools and academies became centers for discussion which stimulated the interest of individuals and actively engaged their energies in a common enterprise.47 At the lower end of the social spectrum this lecture/discussion method was popular in the Middle and Late Ming, even among less educated folk in villages and towns, 48 and in the shingaku schools of eighteenthcentury Japan. 49 Thus Chu's voluntaristic approach found its natural fulfillment in a social process which contributed to the individual's self-improvement as well as to the edification of the

40

The LiberaI Tradition in China

group. The central issue of "learning for the sake of one's self" is highlighted by the reaction to these developments of the authoritarian statesman Chang Chii-cheng "HkW iH (1525-82), who tried to suppress popular lecturing and discussion in the local academies. In the name of "orthodoxy," he came up with the speciously plausible argument that men of true character should learn for themselves and stand entirely on their own feet, without the need to muster support from scholarly colleagues.50 The other local "forum" availed of by lecturers at this time, using the discussion method, was the meetings of the aforementioned "community compact" groups, wherein it was most natural to have an exchange of views among the members concerning moral issues in the conduct of daily affairs. 51 . In this we can see the consistency of the Neo-Confucian approach to education on both the literate and nonliterate levels, stemming from Chu Hsi's dual emphasis on voluntarism and reciprocity. Higher Education as Broad Learning There is one other aspect of Chu Hsi's approach to higher learning which could be called "liberal" if by that one means tolerant or broad-minded. In the "Articles of the Academy of the White Deer Hollow" the starting point of the learning process was "broad inquiry" ( p o - w e n tf^l ), and Chu Hsi's teaching, as it later became generally known, was distinguished by its emphasis on "broad learning" (po-hsueh ). Chu's scholarship as a whole gives ample evidence of it, but this quality is especially marked in the specific recommendations which he made for the curriculum which would prepare educated men for government service. In his "Personal Proposal for Schools and Examinations," Chu argued for a curriculum which would be comprehensive and broadly representative of China's humanistic tradition.52 For this view he adduced two main "liberal" arguments. One is based on the political and social responsibilities of the educated man, who, Chu says, must be learned in all branches of knowledge lest he find himself without the means of coping with the problems of contemporary society. The branches of learning which must be mastered if one is truly to live in the pre-

Chu Hsi and Liberal Education

41

sent and be responsive to the needs of one's fellow man include rites and music, governmental institutions, astronomy, geography, military strategy, and laws and punishments. These, he says, are only the "major ones."53 Another argument given by Chu is that the educated man cannot afford to be too exclusive in his intellectual loyalties but must take a broad, pluralistic view of the several teaching traditions which have emerged from the Way of the Sages. It is bad enough that some of the teachings survive only in fragmentary form, worse still that scholars think it right to concentrate on the study of just one classic or one philosopher. Chu would even give consideration to Taoist and Legalist works from whose strong and weak points he thinks one should always be ready to learn. This pluralistic approach contrasts with the more limited choice of Wang An-shih H3cfi , whose educational and examination policies concentrated on just three classics, the Odes (Shih ), Documents (Shu ti ) and Rites of Chou (Chou li n » ) (and for practical purposes mainly on the latter), as interpreted by himself.54 Compare this to Chu Hsi's curriculum, which would include the Changes, Documents, and Odes, as well as four ritual texts (the Chou li, I li S i t , and two versions of the Record of Rites by the Elder and Younger Tai A*'ME ); the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chun-ch'iu ) with three early commentaries; and the Great Learning, Analects, Mean, and Mencius. Among the philosophers Chu would include Hsiin Tzu W f- , Yang Hsiung M®, Wang Chung H it. Han-fei Tzu f , Lao T z u « f . Chuang Tzu i£ f- , as well as the principal Sung masters. The next major division of the curriculum would consist of the major histories, to be studied for the light they could shed on the understanding o£ contemporary problems; these include the Tso Commentary (Tso chuan ), Conversations from the States (Kuo yu ¡31 ¿a ), Records of the Grand Historian (Shih chi i IS ), the histories of the Former and Later Han dynasties, of the Three Kingdoms, the History of Chin, Histories of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Old and New T'ang Histories and the History of the Five Dynasties, and the General Mirror for Aid in Government (Tzu-chih t'ung-chien iftiniSIS ) of Ssu-ma Kuang »1 H it . A similarly copious body of literature (including the encyclopedic Comprehensive Institutes [T'ung tien ] of

42

The Liberal Tradition in China

Tu Yu tttfi ) is. cited for those branches of practical learning indicated above (governmental institutions, geography, etc.). Anyone familiar with these works will appreciate the imposing character of Chu's reading list (parenthetically, not many scholars will have mastered it and only a few such learned scholars as Huang Tsung-hsi S'^fe and Ch'ien Mu Sf® will actually have read them all). Chu himself allows that they cannot be mastered all at once and even a three-year program of study would have to be selective. Nevertheless, in principle none should be left out. 'Then," he says, "there will be no classics the gentleman has not mastered, no histories he has not studied, and none of these that will not be applicable to the needs of his times."55 These then are the studies Chu would prescribe for the gentleman or scholar-official (shih i: ). They represent the culmination of an educational system to which Chu has paid careful attention on every level. Obviously the full burden of culture represented by this curriculum is not to be borne by every man, but only by the educated elite who must accept the political and social responsibilities which, in Chu's mind, attach to higher education. In this respect his system remains exposed to the danger of elitism, which attaches to any mastery of classical learning in both breadth and depth. But, as he has presented it, on both the nonliterate and literate levels, Chu's liberal education adheres to the principles of voluntarism and mutual responsibility. He has also shown a strong awareness of the differing social contexts in which these principles would have to be adapted, and of the need to formulate them in terms of a continuing process of self-discovery, group dialogue, and social renewal. At the highest point in that process stands the ideal of "learning for the sake of one's self" in a form demanding enough to express the loftiest aspirations of Sung society and culture. To this we shall proceed in the next lecture on NeoConfucian individualism.

3. Neo-Confucian

Individualism

When Western notions of liberalism and individualism reached East Asia in the nineteenth century, they had no precise equivalents in Chinese or Japanese parlance, and neologisms had to be invented for them. Ko-jen chu-i i l A £ H (Jap. kojiti shugi), the term devised for "individualism," emphasized the discrete or isolated individual. This contrasts with the Confucian personalism referred to in my earlier lectures, which conceived of the person as a member of the larger human body, never abstracted from society but always living in a dynamic relation to others, to a biological and historical continuum, and to the organic process of the Way. The term tzu-yu chu-i S S t i (Jap. jiyii shugi) which was used to represent "liberalism," emphasized the autonomy of the self, the idea that one should be able to "follow one's own inclination." Tzu-yu has appeared in many modern compound terms rendering different aspects of "liberty" or "freedom" in Western political or legal thought. The current term for "liberalization" (tzu-yu hua ElitHfc ) in the People's Republic is an instance of this. In these cases, while a special emphasis on the individual was perceived as the distinctive feature of these Western attitudes. East Asian translators were not completely at a loss for words to express it, nor were they forced to fall back on transliteration as the only way to represent ideas utterly strange to them. In fact the importance of individual autonomy or being able to "follow one's own inclination" (tzu-yu) was not foreign to traditional ways of thinking, as I hope to show in this lecture, and there may indeed be a certain Neo-Confucian predilection expressed in the choice of these terms to represent the nineteenth-century Western concept of "liberalism," which put more emphasis on individual freedom than any of Professor Frankel's more recent definitions do. Thus the latter, though usefully broad when

44

The Liberal Tradition in China

applied to Western or Confucian tradition as a whole, may not be as appropriate for present purposes as the definition of liberalism in Webster's Third New International Dictionary: "a philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of man and the autonomy of the individual, and standing for tolerance and freedom for the individual from arbitrary authority in all spheres of life." 1 Some years ago I noted tendencies toward individualism in 16th-century Ming thinkers considered radical in their own day and no less so by many modern writers. 2 Yet for all their radicalism, it seemed to me then that these thinkers in the T'aichou wing SH-HrK of the Wang Yang-ming school, and especially Li Chih , could only be understood as products of a long Neo-Confucian development. In this lecture I should like to return to the Neo-Confucian sources of that individualism. T h e V o c a b u l a r y of N e o - C o n f u c i a n Individualism The tzu f1 of the tzu-yu in "liberalism" is a term for "self," frequently used in combination with chi , shen # or ssu & . Like chi and shen , it is often translatable simply as "self." 3 In classical Chinese usage tzu also has the connotation "from, in, or of itself," much like our prefix "auto." This sense of selforiginated or self-motivated gains added emphasis when used in combination with yu fh , "from" or "out of." Thus tzu readily forms compounds corresponding to ours with the prefix "self-." For instance in the Great Learning it says: "to make the will sincere means allowing of no self-deception (tzu-ch'i fiSfc ), as when we hate a bad smell or love what is good-looking, which is called self-satisfaction (tzu-ch'ien flUlt )." In both cases, selfdeception and self-satisfaction, the implication is that the source of value lies within the self and the immediate, affective, visceral response to things is the authentic one. The NeoConfucians proceeded on the same assumption, and one could compile a virtual lexicon of terms with the prefix tzu- which recur frequently in their discussions. A few of the more common examples follow: Tzu-jan 0 B. : "natural" in the sense of what is so of itself, and not made to be or appear so (wei cfej From Wang Tung's TM account of Wang Yang-ming's repossessing of the Way, presented in the first lecture, we can see how important individual inspiration and inner-directedness had been to Wang Yang-ming's sense of mission. This is confirmed in the foregoing passages. From them it is clear how in Wang Yang-ming the concepts of "repossessing the Way," the great man's taking of personal responsibility, his "finding [of the Way in] himself, and his correlative belief in the value of selfexpression shared in dialogue with others, carry forward the grand themes of liberal thought in the Neo-Confucian tradition. These themes were to be no less prominent in the century after Wang Yang-ming, as they were given expression by the many schools deriving from him, no matter how greatly they diverged among themselves on other doctrinal issues, nor how conservative, liberal, or radical we may judge them to be in moral or political terms. I have already discussed the T'ai-chou school, at greater length than I can here, in Self and Society in Ming Thought. In a sense T'ai-chou represented many schools, of varying hue, in keeping with Wang Yang-ming's own tolerance of individuality and diversity. Whatever estimate one makes of it as a populist movement, T'ai-chou certainly constituted an intellectual movement of great richness, variety, and romantic appeal, with at least some of its vitality springing from its commoner founder, Wang Ken i f i (1483-1541), and its continuing involvement with popular education through the discussion method. Wang Ken's thought has been characterized by Shimada Kenji A ffl ® as "learning to get it oneself" (tzu-te chih hsiieh ).*3 This expression has a special significance in his case because, as one largely self-taught who never joined the ranks of the official elite, his learning was almost literally "selfacquired." That such a man could come to exert great influence as a teacher, despite his humble origins and lack of official status, reflects an increasingly wide acceptance in the Ming of

Ming Neo-Confucianism and Huang Tsung-hsi

79

the egalitarian doctrines advanced by the Neo-Confucians: the universality of the moral nature (i.e., the Heaven-imparted nature); its inherent goodness and perfectibility; learning for the sake of one's self; self-discovery of the Way; and the correlative responsibility to share this Way with others. In Wang Ken's experience of self-enlightenment—revealed in a dream which cast him in the heroic role of holding up the heavens lest they fall and destroy mankind44—we have an example of "finding [the Way in] oneself" which is also an experience of taking upon oneself responsibility for the Way and reuniting mankind in one body with Heaven-and-Earth and the myriad things. Fulfilling this task, Wang Ken believed, would bring deep satisfaction and self-enjoyment.45 Among Wang Ken's followers who shared his ideal of the heroic individual with a mission to rescue mankind, as typified by the "great man" (here especially as ta-chang-fu),*6 were Yen Chiin (n.d.), Ho Hsin-yin H (Liang Ju-yiian m to. f t ) (1517-79), and Lo Ju-fang m&Js (1515-88). 47 The lastnamed has been spoken of by T'ang Chun-i as a champion of the Way to become a "great man"—here, a mature and fully responsible human being who had not lost the innocence and spontaneity of his childlike heart.48 To these men, as to Wang Ken, Wang Yang-ming's innate knowing represented the fulfillment of "getting it oneself" and 'learning for the sake of the self," and the obligation to propagate it among the uneducated masses (yii-fu yii-fu S ^ S i f ) was the personal responsibility (tzu-jen) of the heroic individual. The dedication to popular lecturing and discussion which many of the followers of Wang Yang-ming showed in the late Ming, and the suppression of this public discussion in the academies and community compact groups, testify to the activist spirit engendered by these ideas and demonstrates that they were not inherently subject to elitist interpretations or to the individualistic self-glorification often indulged in by the educated elite. The importance of these same ideas among activist teachers of Neo-Confucianism in Tokugawa Japan like Yamazaki Ansai Uj M Ht , Ishida Baigan e ffl i s , Oshio HeihachirO ^Ifi'PABP, and Yoshida Shoin • BB & , confirms the same point. In Li Chih (1527-1602) this movement reached its apogee. As

80

The Libera! Tradition in China

the most iconoclastic, individualistic, and libertarian of the later followers of Wang Yang-ming and Wang Ken, Li Chih made the most outspoken claims for the individual's freedom from conformity to established conventions, and he comes the closest to asserting an individualism of the modern Western type. All but one of the liberal tendencies noted above are found in him: the belief in the autonomy of the individual mind-and-heart in discovering truth (the Way) for itself; Wang Ken's idea that selfrespect, self-love, and even self-interest are the basis of all ethics; and the cult of the heroic individual—indeed of the martyr—who takes upon himself the responsibility for saving mankind. The one exception to this liberal Neo-Confucian philosophy is Li Chih's strong aversion to popular lecturing and the promotion of philosophical discussion. To modern Western minds this might seem to be no more than a matter for anyone's free choice; in the Neo-Confucian context, however, it suggests how far Li has carried his radical individualism, to the point indeed of refusing to accept the discipline of public discussion which for Wang Yang-ming had been the testing ground of one's essential sincerity. Here then we have a crucial parting of the ways between the individualism of Li Chih and the humanitarianism of Wang Yang-ming and the T'ai-chou school in general. In the late sixteenth century the most prominent alternative to this radical trend could be found in the neo-orthodoxy of the Tung-lin school, which defended established morality against Li Chih's exaltation of self and his unabridged libertarianism. Traditionalist in morals and reformist in politics, the Tung-lin actually comes close to fulfilling the basic criteria for the liberal Neo-Confucianism we have been discussing,' for it held to the essential voluntarism of Chu Hsi and Wang Yangming in respect to the self-discovery of the Way, as well as to the individual's responsibility for advancing it, particularly in the forum of open philosophical discussion. Nor did the Tunglin lack for individual heroes to set an extraordinary example of integrity and self-sacrifice in matters of political conscience, Huang Tsung-hsi's father Huang Tsun-su (1584-1626) being among them. Yet for all of the fortitude shown by its members in defense of the right to criticize abuses at court, Tung-lin members seem to have shown no awareness of the

Ming Neo-Confucianism

and Huang Tsung-hsi

81

need to enlist, through popular education, the sympathies and political support of a more widely informed public. Thus as a movement it failed to transcend the typical limitations of the educated elite and landed gentry who had provided the intellectual and political leadership of China during the Sung, Yüan, and Ming periods.49 I return finally to Huang Tsung-hsi himself as perhaps the best example of a Neo-Confucian who saw beyond these traditional limits and fulfilled at least in thought what he had failed to achieve in direct action. As I mentioned in my first lecture Huang had engaged in political protest as a young man, first to vindicate his father and denounce the latter's murder at the hands of secret police, and then in a vain attempt to oust those at the Ming court whom he held responsible for the corruption and misgovernment which had undermined China's defense against the Manchus. It was only after years of struggle, engaged in the Ming resistance movement in the southeast, that he gave up this futile effort and reconciled himself to scholarship and teaching as the only recourse for fulfilling his commitments to the Way. This is not the place for an extended analysis of Huang's political thought or of the Ming-i tai-fang-lu W % it ih & in which he set forth his many-sided proposals for the reform of Chinese government. 50 1 shall confine myself here to four points most pertinent to the elements of Neo-Confucian liberal thought presented in the foregoing. First I shall speak to the political aspects and then to the philosophical. Huang's Ming-i tai-fang-lu is already well known for its unprecedented attack on the whole system of Chinese dynastic rule. Yet we should not understand by this that he was the first of the Neo-Confucians to criticize the conduct of Imperial rule itself. The Ch'eng brothers, Fan Tsu-yü, and Chu Hsi all did this, and Chen Te-hsiu's monumental Extended Meaning of the Great Learning (Ta-hsüeh yen-i A'^ffrU ) (1234) contained a powerful dose of such criticism. Based on Chen's review of Imperial rule since earliest times, this 43-volume work laid out the sorry record of Chinese emperors (a few "heroes" and a handful of worthy ministers excepted), as compared to the Confucian ideals of rulership set forth in the classics. Yet depressing though Chen's account was, at key points in his analysis of the

82

The Liberal Tradition in China

violence, corruption, and sordid behavior of China's rulers, he revealed that his 'essential concern was to reform dynastic rule and not call it into more fundamental question. This is evident in his preoccupation with correcting the behavior of the Imperial family and making detailed arrangements to insure the legitimate succession within a dynasty. Huang Tsung-hsi, however, did directly question the legitimacy of the dynastic institution, and asked why even the members of a ruling house would want to bring upon themselves all the grief and misfortune dynastic rule inevitably entailed. Once the world comes to be looked upon as a personal estate, who in the world does not desire it as much as the prince? Even if the prince could tie his fortune down or lock it up tight, still the watchfulness of one man is no match for the greed of all. At most it can be kept in a family for a few generations and sometimes it is lost in a lifetime. Sooner or later the spilling of blood and loss of life fall upon his own descendants. 51

This then is the first point—that Huang Tsung-hsi brought Neo-Confucian criticism of imperial rule to a climax by challenging the dynastic institution itself and the arbitrary authority it exercised. The second point may also be made in reference to Chen Tehsiu and his Extended Meaning of the Great Learning, though if time allowed other Neo-Confucian thinkers could well be brought into the discussion.52 Chen's critique of Chinese rulers was inspired by the Neo-Confucian ideal of the morally responsible individual, who, in the case of the ruler and his ministers, bore an especially heavy burden of responsibility for the welfare of the people as a whole. Commensurate with this challenge, in the faith of the early Neo-Confucians, was the capability for moral heroism on their part. Chen, while exposing the actual weaknesses of Chinese monarchs in contrast to the ideals of the sage-kings, affirmed his belief that the ruler's mind-and-heart could readily be converted to the Way of the sage-kings. It was all a matter of mind and will. If the emperor would just set his mind to it he could rule as a sage, and his ministers too, if they made the same resolve, could have the ideal of the "great man" fulfilled in them. Given the great honor shown to Chen's work in the courts of Yuan and Ming China and in Yi dynasty Korea, the Extended

Ming Neo-Confucianism and Huang Tsung-hsi

83

Meaning came to be seen as a classic statement of the NeoConfucian view of rulership. How much its prominence, especially in the lectures on the classics at court, arose from sincere faith in this doctrine, and how much it owed to the kind of piety we call "mere lip-service," is difficult for us to know, but either way the outcome seems to have been the same. Despite all noble professions and even sincere efforts by Imperial tutors, the placing of so enormous a burden on the conscience of rulers seems only to have overwhelmed or alienated them. Far from engendering any notable reformation in those who endured such moralistic instruction, it may actually have exacerbated the problem. 53 On the record Ming rulers did not show themselves to be apt pupils, and a study of Korean heirsapparent who later became rulers (i.e., withstanding a high casualty rate) suggests that often they reacted negatively to it.54 The case of Neo-Confucian ministers is different but not necessarily better. For every act of Ming despotism one can cite an instance of Neo-Confucian heroism in resistance to it. Fang Hsiao-ju, defying the Emperor Ch'eng-tsu JSifi (r. 1402-24), and Hai Jui, challenging the Emperor Shih-tsung t»t % (r. 1521-66), are well-known examples. Apart from this there were countless Neo-Confucians who sacrificed themselves at the end of the Sung, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, more than enough to demonstrate that this teaching could indeed inspire individual heroism and self-martyrdom. Huang Tsung-hsi himself was not unmoved by such heroism. His own father, Huang Tsun-su, and his teacher Liu Tsung-chou $|J % Jfl had both lived up to the highest standards of selfsacrificing moral individualism. And Huang often expressed an admiration for heroic activists who had demonstrated their commitment to the practical realization of Confucian principles. Indeed, his own early career was marked by the same activism. Yet his experience of frustrated reform efforts and futile resistance on behalf of the fallen Ming led him to question the efficacy of individual action alone. This applied not only to the kind of bravado which he criticized in the T'ai-chou school and Li Chih, saying they "tried to seize dragons and snakes with their bare hands," but even to heroes of the Tung-lin type. Admiring them as he did, Huang could no longer share the earlier faith that the moral hero alone, by a sheer act of will,

84

The Liberal Tradition in China

could rectify abuses of power, overcome all evils and divisions among men, and achieve the grand unity so ardently aspired to by such as Wang Yang-ming (for which Wang himself had suffered a kind of martyrdom). Without a basic change in the system, even able men would fail. Since unlawful laws fetter a man hand-and-foot, even a man capable of governing well cannot o v e r c o m e the handicaps of senseless restraint and suspicion. When there is something to be done he does no more than his share and since he contents himself with trifling accomplishments, there can be no glorious achievements. 5 5

Huang's view of the basic importance of law has several significances. One has to do with laws (fa & ) as meaning "systems and institutions." In this sense Huang recognizes that the individual's freedom of action is severely circumscribed by the system or institutions within which he must act. The moral hero can do little by the mere force of his will. And, as we have already seen, this applies to rulers too, whether of the heroic or hapless variety, who cannot aspire to become sages while trapped in their own dynastic system. It was not Huang alone, but other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scholars as well, who gave increasing attention to the organization and use of power in the later phase of Neo-Confucian scholarship. Much as they might have respected the teaching of the Great Learning and Chen Te-hsiu (Huang himself was one of Chen's admirers), they had learned something from the abortiveness of such teaching in the Yuan and Ming dynasties. This realization, I believe, underlies the work of Ch'iu Chiin AS in his Ta-hsiieh yen-i pu ^^ffrUfii and the type of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century statecraft scholarship identified later as realistic and practical in the terms of ching-shih chih-yung ©tftifcffl This new scholarship in turn becomes a commentary on the limitations of the Neo-Confucian individualism associated earlier with the scholar-official class, and on the corollary political doctrine which had stressed self-cultivation as the basis of the polity—"the governance of men through selfdiscipline" (hsiu-shen chih-jen ). 57 Huang says instead that the governance of men depends on first putting the laws in order, i.e., changing the system (yu chih-fa erh hou yu chih-jen

Ming Seo-Confucianism and Huang Tsung-hsi

85

The second meaning of law (fa) as a body of legal principles and precedents also enters into Huang's discussion when he distinguishes between 'laws" that only serve the private interests of the powerful and do not protect the common man or the public interest.59 A problem with Li Chih's radical assertion of individual freedom had been that he had no concept of law in which to ground it—no middle ground between the absolutist dictates of a Legalist state, on the one hand, and the Buddhist law of indeterminism on the other, in which the rights of the individual might have been secured.60 Huang offers a conception of law based on positive human values, which is asserted as more fundamental than dynastic law and aims to protect and promote impartially the general interests of mankind. Something like this could have provided a framework for what we call today "human rights." A third area in which Huang Tsung-hsi advanced NeoConfucian liberal thought was education. In the Ming-i taifang-lu he dwelt at length on the importance of universal schooling. In this respect, even as a follower of Wang Yangming's philosophy of mind and faithful to its implications for popular education, Huang had no difficulty accepting Chu Hsi's earlier proposal for a school system reaching down to—or better, reaching up from—the grass-roots level. Like Hsu Heng and Wu Ch'eng in the Yuan period, Huang had obviously studied Chu Hsi's preface to the Great Learning as well as his "Personal Proposals for Schools and Examinations." No less than they, Huang stood as an advocate of education for its own sake and inveighed against the pernicious idea that schools should function primarily for the recruitment of officials to serve a ruling dynasty. In Huang's view, besides the function of developing individual capabilities for their own sake, schools should serve as institutions through which a broader, more informed public could participate in the political process. In classical times, Huang attempts to show, schools were centers of all important community and state activities; they had a major role, too, in debating public questions and advising the Prince. Ideally, then, schools should serve the people in two ways: providing an education for all and acting as organs for the expression of public opinion. Likewise the Prince had two corresponding

86

The Liberal Tradition in China

obligations: to maintain schools for the benefit of all and to give the people a voice in government through the schools. In ancient times "the ruler did not dare to determine right and wrong for himself, so he left to the schools the determination of right and wrong." But since the rise of the Ch'in, "right and wrong have been determined entirely by the court. If the emperor favored such and such, everyone hastened to think it right; if he frowned upon such and such, everyone condemned it as wrong." 6 1 According to Huang, the prevalence of this view that the Prince determines what is right and wrong deprived the schools of their most important function and created an unnatural separation between school and state. Thereafter the schools could not even fulfill the functions remaining to them of training scholars for office, because the true aims of education were lost sight of in the mad scramble for advancement and the desperate endeavor to conform. Thinking men, in their search for true education, turned more and more to the local academies which had become centers of Neo-Confucian thought in the Sung and Ming dynasties. But the independence and heterodox views of these academies brought repeated attempts at suppression by the state. Thus the arbitrary separation of school and state ended in open conflict between them, detrimental to the true interests of both. Though Huang defends the local academies, which had been so much blamed for the political failure of the Ming, his real purpose is not to assert the need for independent private schools, but to use them as models for a true system of public education. Thus he advocates a system of universal public schooling, maintained by the state but free of all centralized control. There are to be schools from the capital down through every city and town to even the smallest hamlets, but on each level supervision is to be independent of control from above. The principal units of administration, the prefectures and districts, will be presided over by superintendents of education chosen locally, not appointed by the court. These men need never have served as officials before or qualified for civil service. Not only should they have complete freedom in ordinary educational matters, including the right to override the provincial commissioner of education in the appointment of licentiates

Ming Neo-Confucianism and Huang Tsung-hsi

87

(those who have achieved the first degree in the prefectura! examinations), but their pronouncements on any matter affecting the community should be listened to respectfully by the local magistrates. Similarly, at the capital the libationer (or chancellor) of the Imperial Academy should lecture each month on important questions, with the emperor and his ministers attending in the role of students. In the Ming-i tai-fang-lu, Huang stops short of advocating an unlimited freedom or tolerance for all teachings. For instance he does not claim for religious denominations the same privileges and immunities he would grant the public schools. Later in life, however, he leaned increasingly toward a pluralistic view of learning and throughout he argued against the imposition of any state orthodoxy. 62 All told, though less of a freethinker than Li Chih (and certainly less tolerant of Buddhism and Taoism), Huang did squarely address a fundamental question which Li had defaulted on—the need to stimulate open discussion of public and intellectual issues, and to provide a firm institutional basis for carrying on such discussion. Voluntarism in education and the discussion method having been central to Neo-Confucianism from its early days, this represents one major line of thought which Huang Tsung-hsi brought to a climax in the late seventeenth century, a climax in which the ideals of Chu Hsi and Wang Yang-ming were joined to the concern for institutional structures so important for later statecraft thinkers. There is one further respect in which Huang Tsung-hsi's proposals for education reflect the liberal approach of Chu Hsi. In the second lecture I cited Chu's emphasis on "broad inquiry" and "broad learning" as an aspect of liberal discipline for the mind. Huang too accepted this need to check one's own views against the available evidence and test them against the opinions of others. Evidence of this is found in Huang's recommendation that the extensive curriculum proposed by Chu should be adopted for examination purposes. As we saw earlier, this required a broad knowledge of history, literature, and public affairs, as well as a deep study of the classics and their commentaries. Huang's principal amendment is to update the already substantial readings on history by bringing them down through the Sung and Ming.63 Moreover the wide range of his own studies in

88

The Liberal Tradition in China

the classics, intellectual and institutional history, geography, mathematics and astronomy, literature, etc. demonstrates that Huang himself strove to exemplify Chu Hsi's ideal of broad learning, which had assumed renewed importance among the leading scholars of the seventeenth century. There are however two respects in which Huang's learning linked up with liberal trends in earlier Neo-Confucianism while yet setting him apart from other scholars of the day. One is his continuing interest in recent history and contemporary affairs, as compared to the increasing preoccupation of Ch'ing scholars with classical studies. This reflects Huang's view that the Way must always be found in the actual conduct of life, as responsive to daily human needs.64 The other, perhaps more crucial difference is his attention to the philosophy of mind after this had ceased to be a central concern of Ch'ing scholarship. It is this which impels him to record the intellectual history of the Ming, and later of the Sung and Yuan, at a time when the issues discussed by Sung and Ming philosophers had for many come to seem empty and irrelevant. Against the prevailing denigration of the philosophy of human nature and the mind, Huang foresaw the danger of letting "practical" studies and classical scholarship become ends in themselves. Unguided by any conception of what it means to be human, or of the full dimensions of human nature—in short of what Chu Hsi and Wang Yang-ming called the "whole substance" of man's mind-and-heart—practicality would become mere utilitarianism and classical scholarship increasingly trivialized. As man's perception of the Way became constricted and his understanding of it more shallow, his sense of himself would be diminished. Both Chu and Wang had believed in the inseparability of substance and function, though understanding this in different senses. Huang still affirmed it, agreeing with his teacher Liu Tsung-chou and the liberal tradition of both Chu and Wang that learning should be for the sake of one's self ( w e i - c h i chih hsiieh ^ ^ ¿ f ) and that it should enable one to find the Way in oneself. 65 Thus it was natural that in a preface for the Ming-ju hsiieh-an W f S ^ ^ written toward the end of his life in 1693, Huang should revert to this issue and to the theme of the "repossession of the Way" which was the starting point of the

Ming Neo-Confucianism and Huang Tsung-hsi

89

N e o - C o n f u c i a n enterprise. T h e recorded dialogues of earlier scholars are all different but each expresses the substance of his own mind-and-heart, which is always changing and knows no rest. Should one try to fix it in one set form, it will prove of no use. From this one can only conclude that one must cultivate the moral nature first and then proceed to discuss learning. T o d a y , however, those who discuss learning pay no attention to the moral nature. Little wonder then that they fix on one thing and overlook a hundred others. 6 6 A n d f u r t h e r t o the s a m e p o i n t , H u a n g a s s e r t e d in his E x planatory Note (fan-li): Confucian learning, unlike the Five Schools of Buddhism, need not be traced back to one or another patriarch. Confucius had no one to learn from; Chou Tun-i arose without following any predecessors; what Lu Hsiang-shan taught he learned from no one else.... In learning we accept as truth what each person has found and illumined for himself.... Hu Chi-sui 6 7 ¿fl^Kl studied under Chu Hsi, who made him read Mencius. O n e day Chu asked him (in reference to 6 A : 7 ) , " D o their minds alone have nothing in c o m m o n 7 " Hu gave his own understanding of the matter, which Chu thought was incorrect, saying that Hu studied the text carelessly, without reflecting upon it. Thereupon Hu thought about it so hard that he became ill. O n l y then would Chu explain it to him. This shows that the scholars of old did not transmit their teachings in a routine manner, but wanted students to get it for themselves (tzu-te chih n mz).68 In c o m m e n t i n g o n H u a n g ' s p r o p o s a l s in the Ming-i tai-fanglu), J o h n K . F a i r b a n k h a s c h a r a c t e r i z e d his ideas a s " s t a y i n g well within the a g e - o l d f r a m e w o r k of the C o n f u c i a n s t a t e . " 6 9 In a sense this is true, a s I h a v e e x p l a i n e d e l s e w h e r e in p o i n t i n g o u t s o m e o f the respects in w h i c h H u a n g ' s t h o u g h t r e m a i n s C o n f u c i a n a n d l a c k s s o m e o f the f e a t u r e s o f liberal d e m o c r a c y in the m o d e r n W e s t . 7 0 W e s h o u l d n o t h o w e v e r r e a d i n t o the " a g e - o l d Confucian state" any notion that Huang w a s hampered by a c o n c e p t i o n o f the W a y a s static o r that N e o - C o n f u c i a n t h o u g h t w a s c o n d e m n e d t o endless repetition o f a g e - o l d t r u t h s . If he f o l l o w e d in d i r e c t i o n s set b y his p r e d e c e s s o r s , h e w a s m o s t faithful t o t h e m in his c r e a t i v e a n d e x p a n s i v e v i e w o f the W a y , a n d in his c o n v i c t i o n t h a t d e d i c a t e d m e n , individually a n d

90

The Liberal

Tradition

in

China

through the process of collégial discussion, could make fresh discoveries and contributions. To his great credit Huang advanced the level of discussion appreciably in respect to those liberal tendencies we have been considering here, true above all to a large, multidimensional view of man's potential for growth and renewal.

5.

Epilogue: China and the Limits of Liberalism On the first day of my return to Peking in the Spring of 1979 two things in particular struck me. At the airport as we left the plane for the terminal, there were portraits of the great authority figures of Communist China hanging over the entrance— monumental in scale, heroic in style: there were Mao Tse-tung € ® ^ and Hua Kuo-feng , and then the patriarchal figures of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin—the latter especially impressive in his Soviet marshal's uniform. Today many of these portraits have been removed, but the picture of Stalin, so long after he had been put out of sight elsewhere, typified the reluctance of even a more "pragmatic" regime to scrap the authority structure on which it continued to depend. The second spectacle was an opening-night performance, that 1 concerning same evening, of a celebrated play by Wu Han the upright Ming dynasty official Hai Jui (1513-87), who had challenged corruption in high places and risked death in the endeavor to rectify injustice and the abuse of power. The play Hai Jui Dismisseda was being performed for the first time since it was banned during the Cultural Revolution. Its revival was one step in exposing the crimes of the Gang of Four and rehabilitating those who had been persecuted by them. Thus, back to back that day, we had Hai Jui and Stalin as symbols of two contrasting sides of contemporary China. When first performed in 1961, the play was widely interpreted as an indirect criticism of Mao and a defense of P'eng Teh-huai ^ c i ® , who had spoken out against Mao's policies during the so-called Great Leap Forward and had suffered martyrdom as a result. Whether this was Wu Han's specific purpose or not, as a competent historian of the Ming period from his precommunist days, Wu Han had a strong predilection for historical figures who manifested a noble, self-sacrificing spirit

92

The Liberal Tradition in China

in the service of the people. Among them he chose Hai Jui as the personification of human intelligence, courage, and unyielding determination in the righting of injustice. Among the features of Hai Jui's character and career as an official which Wu emphasized were his rugged independence of mind; his clear insight into the shams and hypocrisy of bureaucratic officialdom; his intolerance of favoritism, bribery, and corruption; his condemnation of the illegal annexation of property by powerful officials and of the concentration of wealth in their hands; his exposing of the polite conventions by which officials acquiesced in or collaborated with wrongdoing; his positive efforts to rectify the system and make fundamental reforms to equalize land-holding and taxation; and above all his personal conscientiousness and dedication, his uncompromising integrity in the struggle against abuses of power. One aspect of Hai Jui's life and thought that is not underscored by Wu Han is his Confucianism (or Neo-Confucianism, the later, mature form in which it reached Hai Jui). In the repressive atmosphere of his own time, and given Mao's powerful hostility to Confucianism, for Wu Han to have taken this up would have risked misunderstanding. Wu knew that he would be exposed to ideological attack for seeming to glorify a kind of humanistic reformism, rather than emphasizing the need for class struggle. Such reformism, it would be charged, actually served to buttress the existing order of that time. It ignored the realities of class conflict and, by offering palliatives to ameliorate the old order, delayed its inevitable overthrow through revolutionary struggle. Another likely objection would be that Neo-Confucian reformism tended to glorify the role of the individual rather than the group or class. No doubt anticipating these objections, Wu gave particular emphasis to Hai Jui's "progressive" stance: his close identification with the people, his contempt for bureaucratic officialdom, and his awareness of the need for fundamental changes in the economic and social system of his time. Even so, from the controversy which broke out over Wu's play in May of 1964, the Confucian background of Hai Jui's reformism could not be kept out of sight. Indeed it may well have been one of the issues which precipitated the antiConfucian campaign that became such a prominent feature of

China and the Limits of Liberalism

93

the Cultural Revolution. In the course of this campaign Confucian reformism was cast as the ideological bedfellow of bourgeois revisionism, which had its own historical Associations in Mao's mind with Western liberalism. As a proponent of revolutionary change, he no doubt saw in Confucianism the same traits of tolerance, moderation, and compromise which he attacked in his essay "Combat Liberalism" as impediments to ideological struggle and direct action. 3 Moreover, Wu Han had had scholarly associations with Dr. Hu Shih #1 21 , the American-trained philosopher widely regarded as the epitome of liberalism. Yet if Mao saw liberalism and Confucianism as having something in common, it was because for him they both belonged to a discredited past, not because they shared anything of genuine value. And this in turn owed much to Western perceptions of China's past which Mao received from Marx and Stalin—perceptions of traditional China as hopelessly retrograde and without any capacity of its own for renewal or fundamental reform. That China had any such capability was widely doubted in the nineteenth-century West. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a more optimistic view of China had prevailed in Europe, based in part on the favorable accounts of Jesuit missionaries and in part on the idealizations of China as governed by rational philosophes in the eyes of Enlightenment thinkers. In the nineteenth century, however, the West encountered limits to its own expansion in the East and some disenchantment over its expectations for enlightened government in China. In contrast to the West's growing belief in human progress during the nineteenth century, China seemed resistant to change and improvement. Hegel and Marx expressed this pessimism in regard to the backwardness of Asian societies, and the liberal economists of Britain felt disappointment over the failure of India and China to measure up to the material progress of the West and its hopes for freedom of trade and intercourse. James and John Stuart Mill contributed to Marx's view that Oriental despotisms—powerful, managerial bureaucracies—inhibited economic development and condemned the major agrarian civilizations of Asia to unending stagnation. Increasingly the view became established that Confucianism too was an essen-

94

The Liberal

Tradition

in

China

tially reactionary force, an instrument of ideological control in the hands of a predatory dynastic state. In that view there was no hope of reform from within or of an internal evolution that would bring China abreast of the modern world. Mao's own experience of the disintegration of the old dynastic order, coupled with the exposure of his generation to revolutionary doctrines from the West, persuaded him that nothing short of violent revolution and the total exposing of Confucianism's reactionary influence would suffice to break China out of the age-old pattern of repression and stagnation. Mere reformism would not do it. Many Western writers shared the same view. Against the background of this earlier impatience with reformism and, by contrast, high hopes for revolution, one can more readily appreciate the significance of Wu Han's work. Contrary to these earlier expectations for Mao's revolution, it not only experienced failures of its own but proved highly resistant to criticism of them; hence the example of Hai Jui as an outspoken critic of those in power might still fit the repressive situation in which China found itself post-"liberation." Wu Han, of course, was not the only one to notice despotic elements of a traditional kind in the new order. One line of such analysis in the West has been represented by scholars like K. A. Wittfogel, and more recently Marvin Harris, who have noted the appearance in Mao's China of a state communism which in Harris' words "may actually be nothing more than a new and more highly developed form of managerial despotism" 4 greatly restricting the options available for freedom of action and expression by either the individual or the group. Yet even within China under the new dispensation (post-Mao) the persistence of repressive features from the past has been widely acknowledged. Whether these are described as "despotic," "totalitarian" or, in Stalinist/ Maoist terms "feudalistic," the one-party dictatorship and its managerial bureaucracy present problems similar to earlier dynastic regimes. In fact, it is probably this resemblance to dynastic rule which leads people to characterize these features as "feudalistic," even though old-style rule in the name of one family disappeared in the 1911 Revolution. With Mao gone, a new approach is being tried, less militant, less intense and severe, and possibly less repressive. Nevertheless, contradictory signals have been given of alternate

China and the Limits of Liberalism

95

encouragement and repression of dissent. There are striking reports of outspoken criticism, as well as well-publicized cases of dissenters being put on trial. As everyone knows, there has been a campaign to expose the alleged crimes of the so-called "Gang of Four," in which many defects in Communist rule have been exposed which were previously well hidden, but there has been continuing repression of those critical of the system which allowed such crimes to occur. In these circumstances we can sympathize with Arthur Miller's frustration, recounted in his recent book Chinese Encounters? over the seeming passivity of the Chinese in the face of these admitted outrages and the lack of any apparent outcry against them. To the student of China, Miller's reaction evokes the memory of nineteenth-century Western observers in China who were similarly struck by the apparent passivity of the Chinese and their "fatalistic" acceptance of such situations. From this we know that we are up against a perennial problem in the understanding of China. The reviewer of Miller's book in the New York Times noted this in commenting on Miller's perplexities: In the end the answers to Miller's questions suggest a fundamental difference between our two worlds, but Miller is never able to explain it. W h a t his book lacks (understandably since Miller is not a student of China) is a sense of the unique confluence of history, culture and Western values which has flowed together with Maoist doctrine during the last 5 0 years to create the "New China." Perhaps if we could know more, for instance about the historical role of individualism or the notion of what it meant to be an intellectual in traditional Chinese culture, both we and Miller would end up less perplexed by what he encounters. 6

In the preceding lectures I have described something of the "historical role of individualism" and "what it meant to be an intellectual in traditional China." Before attempting to relate this to the current scene, I should like to consider further the case of Hai Jui, since Wu Han himself saw it as especially pertinent to the present situation. In his play Wu Han focussed on Hai's principled conduct as an official who was willing to risk offending higher authorities by exposing the corruption in which they too were implicated.

96

The Liberal Tradition in China

This role as official critic was a recognized one in traditional China, since the ruler had his own interest in seeing that his officials enforced the law in conformity with the higher interests of the state. In historical fact, however, Hai Jui's criticism went much further than this: in a memorial to the throne he directly censured the Emperor himself for his delinquencies as a ruler; for his extravagance and self-indulgence, his inordinate exactions from the people, his indulgence of sycophants, his terrorizing of worthy ministers, his neglect of his own sons, his inattention to affairs of state, his refusal to heed honest criticism, his acquiescence and complicity in the crimes of corrupt officials, and so on. It was a long and relentless attack. In conclusion, Hai Jui expostulated that his sense of indignation over these outrages impelled him to speak out, even though he risked death for it. According to the official history, 7 when the emperor finished reading the memorial, he flew into a rage and ordered Hai Jui to be put under house arrest. "Don't let him escape," he ordered. But a eunuch attendant responded: "When Hai Jui prepared the memorial he knew that he would have to atone with his own life for his insults and disobedience. He bade farewell to his family, prepared his own coffin, and now is awaiting punishment in the court. His servants have all scattered and he is left alone. Indeed he is making no attempt to escape." This gave the emperor pause. He remained silent for a long time. Visibly shaken, he could not come to a decision on what to do with Hai Jui. Though recognizing the essential truth of what Hai had said, he remained bitterly resentful toward him, and later had him thrown in prison, where he almost died from tortures used to extract a confession that his memorial was all part of a plot against the emperor. When another court official dared to propose clemency for Hai, the emperor had him flogged with a hundred lashes of the heavy bamboo, thrown in prison, and interrogated under torture day and night to make him confess his being party to the plot. In the end, however, the emperor himself wasted away and died without having approved the sentence of death which willing servitors in the Ministry of Justice had sent up to him. Hai Jui, by contrast, was released from prison by the new emperor, lived out a noble career as an official, and died a natural death in honest poverty. Here in one episode

China and the Limits of Liberalism

97

you have the epitome of both Ming despotism and Ming NeoConfucian heroism. Wu Han knew all this but left it out of his play, no doubt as too directly provocative of the ruling power. Nevertheless, he knew too that he put much at risk in writing his play, and must, in a sense, have had his own coffin ready and waiting. Attacked by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, he died in circumstances that have never, to my knowledge, been fully explained. Among historians the Ming dynasty has been known as perhaps the most despotic of all in its repression of opposition. Much of the basis for this view lies in the numerous cases of outspoken critics upon whom were visited official degradation, beatings, torture, imprisonment, death in prison, and summary executions. In the Ming for the first time officials were stripped naked and thrashed publicly at court. One of Hai Jui's predecessors, Fang Hsiao-ju,8 was celebrated for his fearless opposition to the third Ming emperor. The latter not only had Fang executed for this, but extended the punishment to his family by exterminating Fang's kin to the tenth degree of relationship. In this period eunuchs at court and their secret police raised repression to a new level of intensity and viciousness. But, looked at another way, for each instance of repression there had to be someone willing to resist the abuse of power, someone ready to stand in opposition regardless of the personal consequences. It is true that many of these were acts of lonely heroism—exceptions to the rule—yet, on the other hand, it cannot be said that they were wholly unique or unprecedented. Indeed, we have enough successive instances to constitute a virtual tradition of principled dissent. Though not expressive of an organized political movement or systematic opposition, neither were they, on the other hand, simply cases of idiosyncratic nonconformism. Custodians of Confucian tradition and historians of thought have placed Hai Jui (and the earlier martyr Fang Hsiao-ju who defied the third Ming emperor) squarely in the line of Neo-Confucian orthodoxy. They were indeed "squares" (the Chinese too refer to rectitude in this rectangular way), and they were conscious of upholding a tradition of resistance to despotism which was central to NeoConfucianism. It is significant that the lives and works of both Fang Hsiao-ju and Hai Jui are recorded in orthodox Neo-

98

The LiberaI Tradition in China

Confucian compilations. 9 At the same time, lest one perhaps think of them as representing solely the high or elite tradition, they are remembered as living legends in popular literature. In the memorial of Hai Jui cited before, he associated himself with a tradition of outspoken Neo-Confucian scholars who as mentors to the throne counseled the emperor against illconsidered and improper actions. Even Hai Jui's sovereign acknowledged this (according to the official history) when he likened Hai Jui to a virtuous minister in ancient times who had tried to warn the wicked last emperor of the Shang dynasty against his own follies. The further implication of this analogy that he himself resembled that vicious and depraved ruler of ancient times, the Ming emperor rejected. It is probably to this that Hai owes the sparing of his life: the emperor did not wish to lend credibility to such a tyrannical image of himself among the Confucian keepers of the historical record. The Emperor Shih-tsung's consciousness of these historical analogies arose from a tradition of scholarly discussion which had come to be incorporated in the formal instruction of heirs apparent and in the lectures and discussions held at court on the significance of the classical humanistic texts for the conduct of rulership. The so-called "lectures from the classics mat," as we have observed in the first lecture, established the principle that such criticism should not only be protected, but encouraged. It may sound paradoxical that this sanctuary of free criticism could have managed to become established in the heart of the imperial institution precisely in those periods, the Sung and the Ming, when the power and control of the ruler had grown to unprecedented proportions. Such was indeed the case, however, thanks to the unremitting efforts of distinguished Neo-Confucian scholars who asserted the need for this function to be served at court. Indeed the rise of Neo-Confucianism in the Sung and Yüan periods is inseparable from the rise of this type of reformism. One such institution could not have been effective without others supportive of it. Another important restraining influence was the institution of court historian, entrusted with the function of keeping impartial records of proceedings at court. To this we owe the full text of Hai Jui's memorial and detailed observations on the emperor's reaction to it, which give us

China and the Limits of Liberalism

99

much insight into the human factors operating in this situation. This, in turn, we owe to the traditions of impartiality and inviolability which had become established around this official historiographical function. The skeptic today might still question how effective such institutions could be in restraining Imperial despotism as long as the emperor held unchallenged final authority. Yet the exercise of such authority, whether in traditional dynasties or modern totalitarian states, is never absolute. It is always modified in some degree by the human instruments through which it must work, just as those instruments themselves are modified in their effectiveness by the total systemic environment in which they operate. Thus, a pertinent question to ask here is whether in the case of Wu Han anything similar to these Ming institutions acted to protect Wu's exercise of even implied criticism (much less the direct criticism of a Hai Jui). We do not know the answer to this because the record is not available to us, and it is possible that we shall never know. There is no longer any independent office of court historian, and there is not even any lip service paid to the idea. When Charles Bettelheim, the director of studies of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris, resigned in 1977 as president of the Franco-Chinese Friendship Association, he complained that those who had seized power and ousted the Gang of Four never offered a plausible account of the ideological issues at stake, nor a fair statement of the case against the Maoists for their alleged crimes.10 Without that, he said the campaign against the Gang of Four could not be seen as anything but a cynical self-justification for a coup d'etat carried out by unprincipled revisionists. On the basis of the record as we have so far been given it, one could not dispute that view, yet exactly the same could be said of the so-called radicals who dealt even less generously with their enemies; certainly they provided no impartial forum, court, or record for the charges made against their enemies: P'eng Teh-huai, Liu Shao-ch'i SiJ '> & , Wu Han, and so on. In this brief discussion I have dwelt on just two institutions at the center of dynastic power which helped to protect freedom of discussion—the discussions of the classics and the work of the court historian. With more time I could extend the analysis to

100

The Libera/ Tradition in China

other institutions like the censorate, whose function was to investigate and report on abuses of official authority or violations of the law by those in power. Their function was, quite literally, to "speak out," and Hai Jui was just such a censor who spoke out. Then too there were the schools, in the form of local academies which supported independent, critical thought. Their growth and spread in the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries, as we have seen earlier, paralleled the rise of the Neo-Confucian movement, for it was through these schools that the teaching was disseminated when it was banned as heretical by the court. Among other things these academies served as libraries where the historical, philosophical, and literary record could be preserved beyond the direct control of the state. By some it might be argued that these forms of dissent or opposition were flawed or limited by their class character; that is, they reflected the interests and concerns of a relatively small elite of educated scholar-officials. It might also be claimed that the heroic ideal of this movement expressed a kind of individualism akin to the middle-class individualism of the West, and could not ultimately serve the interests of the people as a whole. Moreover, these spectacular acts of individual heroism might be seen by skeptics as at best accomplishing little more than their own martyrdom. Such assertions would not be without some basis in fact, and indeed there was a reaction to this moralistic idealism in later centuries. Even by Hai Jui's time, there were scholars who had come to believe that this brand of Neo-Confucianism made inordinate and unrealistic demands on the individual for the total sacrifice of self to duty and principle. From this there gradually developed a trend of more realistic Neo-Confucian thought which recognized the limited power of the individual to affect the course of events in the absence of more fundamental institutional reforms. In these lectures I have offered Huang Tsung-hsi as an example of this trend. Thus Neo-Confucians had already come to an awareness of how importantly individual actions like Hai's were conditioned by the institutional or systemic environment in which they operated. In other words, the supposed class background and individualistic tendency of the Neo-Confucians did not prevent them from recognizing the limits of individualism in that historical situation.

China and the Limits of Liberalism

101

Not surprisingly, Huang's critique of dynastic institutions was suppressed by the Manchus and only reappeared in the late nineteenth century, when reformers and some revolutionaries hailed Huang as a native apostle of democracy. Westerners tended to be skeptical. They were not impressed by the claim that Huang was "China's Rousseau" nor were they able to appreciate the liberal Confucian tradition upon which Huang drew and for which he spoke. To them he was at best a freak, a will-o'-the-wisp in the bogs of Chinese despotism; and, to increasing numbers of alienated young Chinese in the twentieth century, the messianic appeal of Western revolutionaries was far more alluring than the seasoned wisdom of a Huang Tsunghsi expressed in a classical language many of them could no longer understand. Yet as I have listened to Chinese scholars in mainland universities describe the tyranny of the Gang of Four and horrors of the Cultural Revolution, I could not help but think of what Huang had said about the need for the protections of law, for the decentralization of power, and for the independence of schools. At the same time it should not be overlooked that Mao, in his own way, was trying to cope with some of the most persistent realities of Chinese political life. Proverbially, it was said of China's conquerors that they might win the empire on horseback but could not rule it from horseback (that is, they had to recognize that China could only be administered by a civil bureaucracy). Mao himself had waged a revolution to destroy the old order only to find that a massive, intractable bureaucracy reappeared under the aegis of the dictatorship of the Party. Unable to reconcile himself to this, he fought this nemesis from the past through the Cultural Revolution, resorting to the tactics he was most experienced in: mass mobilization for the conduct of protracted guerrilla warfare. Now it was in the form of "guerrilla politics" as practiced by the militant Red Guards, whom he threw against his own illegitimate offspring in the state and party bureaucracy. That he could succeed in this without destroying China was a dream more vain than those of the Neo-Confucian idealists. Bureaucracy and technology are here to stay, and the question for the Chinese, as for us, is what ends they should serve and what ethos should guide them. On this score Mao was not

¡02

The Liberal Tradition in China

wrong in sensing the threat which a purely technocratic education and pragmatic policy offered to the kind of revolutionary egalitarianism he had sought to propagate. Yet revolutionary violence having failed, gradualism and reformism acquire a new relevance as the only practicable alternatives. The violent revolutions in 1911, 1927, 1948-49, and more recently the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, have only intensified, not altered, the basic syndrome. Thus after thirty years of revolutionary change, the new regime finds itself, ironically enough, talking about the need to reform and modernize. It is sending groups, delegations, and numbers of students abroad to catch up with the latest Western methods. It is inviting innumerable experts from abroad to share their expertise in many fields. All this testifies to the continuing need of the Chinese state for an educated leadership class, a need which in the traditional society had created the functional base for the Confucian scholar. And if we are to look today for some institutional base in which more liberal attitudes and values could become established, it is in this same area, especially in educational and legal institutions, that the crucial issues will most likely be faced. 11 In the seventies the common experience of revolutionary terror at all levels of society produced a deep feeling of the need for legal protections against the arbitrary exercise of power. How far this will carry toward the building of a more liberal order remains to be seen. One should not underestimate the countervailing force exerted by the concern of even the more liberal-minded leaders to conserve the power structure through which they operate. Liberalization, if it takes place, will function within narrow limits. For a long time to come, there will be a question as to whether that leadership may not, if it comes to a crunch, feel a greater commonalty of interest with similarly structured regimes in the Soviet world. Their reluctance to condemn the military takeover in Poland, despite their sympathy for Polish nationalism, reflects this underlying fear that the liberal contagion could not be quarantined to Poland. Nor could it be exploited as a weapon against the Soviet Union without carrying implications subversive to their own power. Stalin's portrait may be gone, but his place will not be taken by Lech Walesa.

China and the Limits of Liberalism

103

Allowing for this built-in resistance to change of both Communist and traditional Chinese regimes, one cannot be optimistic about the long-term prospects for liberalization, but neither need we be wholly pessimistic. Even without a strong economic or social base for a more pluralistic political order in China, the common experience of the Chinese people under the terror of the Cultural Revolution aroused a widespread desire for the protections of law, a feeling not confined to the masses but shared by many among the leadership who suffered at the hands of the Gang of Four. Unfortunately, in the absence of even a court historian today, we have no adequate account of the individual or collegia! stands which must have been taken among the leadership in order to bring the revolutionary terror to a halt, and achieve the limited liberalization that has taken place. Yet if authorities in Peking thought it worth resurrecting the case of Hai Jui and the play of Wu Han, it must have been because Hai's personal example spoke to their own experience of life, no matter how many years or how many "revolutionary" changes had intervened, and because it was still more natural for them to turn to native models than to remote Western ones. The play would never have been written had not Wu Han been able to identify himself with this sixteenth-century Neo-Confucian scholar-official, and find in his courageous example the inspiration for his own daring protest. And Hai Jui, we know, looked to similar models in his own past, while his effective advocacy at court depended on institutions built up over the centuries to protect honest criticism as a form of loyal opposition. This may be a tenuous thread, and too precarious to be called a "tradition" of liberal thought, but we recall that the tao-t'ung was itself a precarious, "sometime thing," and yet, if only people had access to books and plays, the ideas in them could still have vital effect, even in circumstances quite different from those of their original creation. Today in China there is strong interest in both the outside world and China's own past. Since much of that past was offlimits during the Cultural Revolution, retrieving it today offers some of the thrill of a new discovery, even for the Chinese, and also for them some of the satisfaction of reclaiming their natural inheritance.

104

The Liberal Tradition in China

In this process historians and philosophers are reexamining many matters which were previously tabooed or were subject to such rigid ideological interpretation as to preclude serious study of the facts. Now the slogan is "to seek truth through facts" (shih shih ch'iu shih ), a motto which itself goes back to seventeenth-century Confucian scholarship.12 And the subjects being reexamined in a more open spirit* include both NeoConfucianism and the first stirrings of modern liberal thought in the May 4th and New Culture movements, which arose in the late teens and twenties of this century. Many of the liberal tendencies of which I have spoken had lapsed or become obscured by then. (How and why this happened is a complex historical problem beyond my scope here.) In any case, these liberal tendencies stand in obvious contrast to the view of Neo-Confucianism as a repressive, reactionary system held by many young Chinese of the May 4th generation. Proponents of the New Culture movement in the twenties, whose newly Westernized education had made a sharp break with classical Confucian learning, were often left ignorant of the thinkers and works cited above. Nevertheless their own thought processes may well have remained unconsciously subject to lingering Neo-Confucian influences. As members of what was still a privileged intellectual elite, they easily identified Westernstyle liberalism with the autonomy of the self which had already been a value in the earlier literati culture. The new trend from the West promised to expand a freedom they knew something of, whereas the implicit Western accompaniment of that freedom—some concept of laws and rights guaranteeing those freedoms on a wider basis—was more foreign to their thinking. The result among many young Chinese in the late teens and twenties was a heady mixture of radical individualism, often romantically linked to an anarchist philosophy, which then turned on Neo-Confucianism as a social system standing in the way of progress—an incubus burdening the individual with oldfashioned ideas about social responsibilities, which his new education did not dispose him to accept or equip him to fulfill.13 Yet this was only part of the new picture. Sun Yat-sen fa ift iili saw China's problem not as a lack of individualism, but as an excess of it. To him, as a would-be nation builder, China seemed to be a "heap of loose sand," and the Chinese a people whose

China and the Limits of Liberalism

105

individualistic ways proved the despair of anyone trying to construct modern democratic institutions.14 Whether Sun would have thought to attribute this inveterate weakness to NeoConfucianism is doubtful. It is even less likely that he would have known of the criticisms which had already been made of Neo-Confucian individualism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—not obviously with nation-building in mind, but on the ground that its radical assertion of the autonomy of the mind would undermine any basis for political authority or social order. 15 At the present moment brakes are being put on the so-called "liberalization" process, but my own reading of the situation is that this spells caution in, not a complete reversal of, current trends toward greater openness of inquiry and discussion. In the longer run I would see both tendencies—liberalization and repression—continuing to be engaged in mutual struggle, as is the case elsewhere in the Communist world today and as was the case, I believe, in traditional China. One type of "realism" in China today will stress the threat of anarchy if liberalization gets out of hand and individualism runs rampant. Some will identify this danger with alien influences from the West, perhaps as a way of banishing ideas they would prefer not to recognize as natural and indigenous. On the other hand another type of "realism" or "pragmatism" will point to the high costs of repression in destroying people's motivations for work, and to the danger of intellectual stagnation in handicapping the Chinese ability to fulfill the goals of "modernization." Realism here may require us to take another look at certain stubborn problems of China's past and present. Education, for instance, may be seen as an area of crucial importance, then and now. Yet for all the optimism earlier in this century about the renovation and democratization of education in China, today higher education, even of a quality which leaves much to be desired, is still limited to an estimated four percent of China's high school graduates, and is still essentially geared to producing a technically qualified elite to serve the interests of the state. Would not the present system, then, still be exposed to the kinds of criticism leveled at traditional dynasties by Ch'en Hsienchang and Huang Tsung-hsi? Are we not compelled to reckon both with the persistence of such features of Chinese life (at least

106

The Liberal

Tradition

in

China

on the mainland of China) and perhaps the continuing relevance of earlier critiques? In addressing such questions we have an opportunity, as scholars today reappraise Neo-Confucian reformism along with the reform movements out of which the new China was born, to reexamine some of our own assumptions about liberalism and liberal education. For Westerners to adopt too narrow or culture-bound a definition of "liberalism" will be as selfdefeating as was the attempt in China to limit Neo-Confucian orthodoxy to one particular school of thought. To see liberalism as having roots only in a Western past means confining and condemning it to an increasingly attenuated future. For Chinese, on the other hand, to see it as a foreign body, unassimilable to their own lives and culture, may likewise inhibit a natural growth from their own roots or by the process of cultural hybridization which today is the natural outgrowth of living together in the modern world. It is better to look at this the way Confucius would—as an opportunity to learn from one another's strengths and weaknesses, hoping to enhance the one and remedy the other. Or perhaps even as the Neo-Confucians would—finding the Way in oneself, corroborating it in discussion with others, and accepting the responsibility for sharing it with a larger world. As I said some years ago, in the early days of the Cultural Revolution: The Chinese have thought of the Way (or Tao) as a growing process and an expanding force. At the same time, following Mencius, they have felt that this Way could not be real or genuine for them unless somehow they could find it within themselves, as something not external or foreign to their own essential nature. The unfortunate aspect of their modern experience has been the frustrating of that healthy instinct, through a temporary loss of their own self-respect and a denial of their right to assimilate new experience by a process of reintegration with the old. To have seen all value as coming solely from the West or as extending only into the future, and not also as growing out of their own past, has hindered them in recent years from finding that W a y or T a o within themselves. The consequences of that alienation and its violent backlash are only too evident in the Cultural Revolution. We may be sure, however, that the process of growth is only hidden, not stopped, and that the new experience

China and the Limits of Liberalism

107

of the Chinese people will eventually be seen in significant part as a growth emerging from within and not simply as a revolution inspired from w i t h o u t . 1 6

I believe that what is said above accords with the spirit expressed by Professor Ch'ien Mu himself, in his introductory lectures, when he called for a larger, continuing dialogue on the meaning of Chinese history and culture in relation to the contemporary world. Professor Ch'ien insisted that each people had the first responsibility for understanding and preserving its own culture, and the first task in accomplishing this was to characterize Chinese culture in its own terms, without superimposing Western categories on it. Thus the basic Chinese approach to life should be distinguished from the Western. The latter, he said, was marked by a tendency to differentiate, to analyze and separate things out. Hence the West became particularistic and individualistic. The Chinese way, by contrast, sought to see things whole, to achieve harmony, accommodation, consensus, and unity. It prized collective action, family solidarity, and continuity with the past above the "heroic" achievements of single individuals. In my own discussion of Neo-Confucian individualism, I have made similar observations about differences between it and the modern Western variety. Indeed, since I only saw Professor Ch'ien's published lectures in the present series after I had finished my own, it seemed uncanny how often we touched on the same points. Nevertheless his emphasis and mine have been different in some predictable, and also some unexpected, ways. Professor Ch'ien, in affirming continuity with the past, presents a somewhat conservative view of Chinese tradition and differentiates it from the Western emphasis on innovation and individuality. By contrast, I have pointed out what was new and liberal in Neo-Confucianism, and how importantly the heroic individual figured in it. The contrast, no doubt, is more apparent than real; each of us recognizes what the other talks about as part of the total picture. But Professor Ch'ien's great contribution has been to defend the integrity of the Chinese vision against an aggressive invasion of Western influences. For my part, in furthering the dialogue he has begun, I have tried to point out certain common values in Chinese and Western traditions, underlying the cultural differences.

108

The Liberal Tradition in China

There is something ironic in this seeming reversal of roles. Professor Ch'ien has said that the Western way is to differentiate, while the Chinese way is to seek the underlying unity and continuity, yet here he is sharply differentiating China from the West, and here I am looking for common ground between the two. It seems as if he has adopted the Western mentality and I the Chinese. If Lu Hstin -ft-iii were here, he might be tempted in his sardonic way to say that one of us is putting on Western airs and the other Chinese. But in the end I think Professor Ch'ien himself points the way to a resolution of this dilemma. After identifying such concepts as "individual freedom" (ko-jen tzuyu iHM'iiti ) and "human rights" (jen-ch'iian Kft) as typically Western, 17 he says we should set these aside and try to describe the Chinese experience objectively in its own terms. That being done, each of us can then make his own subjective evaluation of the phenomenon so characterized. "I do not oppose," he says, "each individual's bringing his own viewpoint to bear in evaluating what is right and wrong, good and bad; this is the individual's own free choice (che shih ko-jen ti tzu-yu «i&w/jftrnii)."18 If I have made my point in these lectures, the terms Professor Ch'ien speaks in are not simply "Western," but have become "second nature" for the Chinese as well, precisely because they were not so alien in the first place. Today, with increasing contact and convergence among peoples, the seeming reversal of roles between us is a natural consequence of the effort to understand each other. In that process we discover not only the distinctive qualities in each other but also something of our common humanity.

Notes

The author would like gratefully to acknowledge the assistance of Thomas Lee, Irene Bloom, Wing-tsit Chan, and David Diefendorf in the preparation of these lectures for publication. The following standard sinological abbreviations are used: CKTHMCCC Chung-kuo tzu-hsüeh ming-chu chi-ch'eng MJHA SPPY SPTK SSGTK SYHA TSCC

Ming-ju hsüeh-an W f S ^ M Ssu-pu pei-yao F3 gßiffi H Ssu-pu ts'ung-k'an W gT>* H Shushigaku taikei fc f - Q k * Sung-Yüan hsüeh-an ' M / t ^ ^ Ts'ung-shu chi-ch'eng J£ S HE- m.

Introduction 1. Ch'ien Mu , Ts'ung Chung-kuo li-shih lai k'an Chung-kuo min-tsu-hsing chi Chung-kuo wen hua ite't^W.1^ •f'W H t (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1979), pp. 12-15. (Hereafter cited as Min-tsu-hsing.) 2. Ch'ien Mu, Chung-kuo chin san-pai-nien hsiieh-shu shih 'f^Air (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1937), vol. 1, pp. 1 - 7 . 3. Ming-ju hsüeh-an WIS!^^ (Wan-yu wen-k'u Ä f f it Mi ed.; Taipei: Commercial Press, 1965), "Fan-li" JlffiJ , p. 1. 4. Sun Ch'i-feng , Li-hsüeh tsung-chuan f f . ^ ' ^ W (Taipei: I-wen yin-shu-kuan ig iHl) ftrii . 1969; reprint of 1666 ed.), chs. 7, 9, 17, 21, 26. 5. Ming-ju hsüeh-an, "Tzu-hsü" ä f f and "Fan-li"; and in his P'o hsieh lun SlSifi,ü™ , la-b, in Li-chou i-chu hui-k'an ¿Hl ifi ff'äfc AJ (Shanghai, 1910), vol. 13. 6. Charles Frankel, "Intellectual Foundations of Liberalism," in Liberalism and Liberal Education (New York: Columbia University Program of General Education, 1976), pp. 3-11. 7. Gilbert Murray, Liberality and Civilization (London: Allen and Unwin, 1938), pp. 46-47.

no

Notes: Repossession

of the Way

1. Human Renewal and the Repossession of the Way 1. See my "Neo-Confucian Cultivation and the Seventeenth Century Enlightenment," in The Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), p. 162. (Hereafter cited as Unfolding.) 2. Ch'eng shih ching-shuo , in Erh Ch'eng ch'iian-shu -.f¥. r cog.15£ i i t (September 1979), pp. 1 3 4 - 5 4 .

Notes: Chu Hsi and Liberal Education

113

33. Mencius, 3A:4. 34. Shu-ching ® ® , "Shun tien" in Legge, Chinese Classics, vol. 3, p. 44. 35. Chung-yung 't'W, 20; Wing-tsit Chan, Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 107. 36. Analects, 15:5. 37. Changes, hexagram no. 41; R. Wilhelm and C. F. Baynes, The l-ching or Book of Changes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), p. 159. 38. Ibid., hexagram no. 42; p. 163. 39. Tung Chung-shu S f + f f as quoted in Han shu 56:21b. 40. Analects, 12:2; 15:23. 41. Wen-chi, 74:16b-17a; "Pai-lu-tung shu-yüan chieh-shih" â(8L 42. Hsiang-shan chuan-chi SiOlèlfe (SPPY ed.), 34:24a; tr. by Julia Ching, 'The Goose Lake Monastery Debate," Journal of Chinese Philosophy (1974), 1(2):165. 43. Ch'i-sung , Hsin-chin wen-chi (SPPY ed.), 3:2a-4a, "Yüan hsiao" . 44. T'ien-mu Ming-pen ch'an-shih tsa-lu ^ S W^ÎPÊflîÎSMfe , A:366a, "Ching h s i a o " * £ , in Dai Nihon zokuzVkyS 2.27.4. (The passage quoted is from Ming-pen's "Admonition on Filial Piety" [Ching hsiao], translated by Chün-fang Yü as an appendix to her paper on Ming-pen in Hok-lam Chan and W. T . de Bary, eds., Yüan Thought [New York: Columbia University Press, 1982], pp. 459-60). 45. Wen-chi, 74:17b. 46. Ibid., 12:2a-b, "Yi-yu ni-shang f e n g - s h i h " Z , S t t i ± f l 47. See Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy, pp. 29, 86. 48. See de Bary, Self and Society in Ming Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), pp. 154-206. 49. Jennifer Robertson, "Rooting the Pine: Shingaku Methods of Organization," Monumenta Nipponica (1979), 5(34):311-32. 50. See Tileman Grimm, "Ming Educational Intendants," in Charles Hucker, ed., Chinese Government in Ming Times (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), p. 135. 51. Sakai, Chügoku zensho no kenkyU, pp. 4 6 - 5 4 . 52. Wen-chi, 69:18a-26a, "Hsüeh-hsiao kung-chü ssu-i" f ftlf ium. 53. Ibid., 69:21b. 54. Ch'ien Mu, Chung-kuo chin san-pai-nien hsiieh-shu shih, pp. 4 - 5 ; Takeuchi Yoshio, Takeuchi Yoshio Zens/il7ÂF*JlÎilÉ:£:$l(Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten , 1979), vol. 4, pp. 2 0 7 - 8 . 55. Wen-chi, 69:22a.

114

3. Neo-Confucian Individualism

Notes: Neo-Confucian

Individualism

1. Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Springfield, Mass.: Merriam, 1961), citing M. R. Cohen. 2. "Individualism and Humanitarianism in Late Ming Thought," Self and Society in Ming Thought, pp. 1 4 5 - 2 4 7 . 3. In its etymology, tzu fä is said by Karlgren [no. 1091] to be associated with "nose"and "breath," and thus is perhaps akin to the Sanskrit atman, "self" deriving from "breath." 4. See Unfolding, p. 169; Lin-ch'uan Wu Wen-kungchi, Wan-li Ä i f 40 (1612) ed. in National Central Library, Taipei, Wai-chi, 2 : 1 0 b - l l a . 5. E.g., Chuang Tzu: Harvard-Yenching Index ed. 2 2 / 8 / 3 1 , 7 7 / 2 8 / 7 , 7 8 / 2 8 / 5 4 ; Burton Watson, Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), pp. 1 0 2 - 3 , 310, 317. 6. Cf. Chu Hsi, Ssu-shu chi-chu raSSïaÈ , commentary on Mencius, 4B:4; Chin-ssu-lu chi-chu, 2:22b, no. 41; and Ch'eng Hao, I-shu A S , 11:4a. My translation follows in part the rendering and annotation of Yamazaki Michio llJiiiiüA; in S S G T K , vol. 9, p. 41, rather than that of Chan, pp. 5 7 - 5 8 . 7. Hu Kuang 0 3 « , Hsing-li ta-chuan tt'if. A ( S s u - k ' u chen-pen ed., 5th series; Taipei: Commercial Press, 1974), 43:9b, citing Erh Ch'eng i-shu . g i t S , 6:6b. 8. I-shu, 2A:2a, Chin-ssu-lu chi-chu, 4:6b, no. 14; S S G T K , vol. 9, 4:129, 310; cf. Chan, Things at Hand, p. 128. Here and in the passage which follows my translation benefits from Prof. Chan's, but differs somewhat in the handling of the key terms at issue in my discussion of the problem. 9. Analects, 8:2. 10. Ibid., 7:37. 11. I-shu, 2A:16a; Chin-ssu-lu chi-chu, 4 : 7 a - b , no. 16; S S G T K ed., 4 1 3 0 , 310; Chan, Things at Hand, p. 128. 12. For a near analogy in the Buddhist tradition, one might compare this with the jinen honi (tzu-jan fa erh ) of the Pure Land "saint" Shinran in Japan or with the problem of moral effort ( k u f ü ; kung-fu ) in the Zen master Dogen. See Sources of Japanese Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), pp. 2 1 2 - 1 8 , 249-251. 13. Chu, Chung-yung chang-chü (CKTHMCCC ed.), p. 49, Commentary on ch. 1. 14. Wing-tsit Chan, "Completion," p. 76; on C h e n Chang-fang, see SYHA, 2 9 : 9 - 1 0 . 15. See Wing-tsit Chan, Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 465 ff. 16. Chin-ssu-lu chi-chu, 2 : l a - b ; Chan, Things at Hand, p. 37. 17. I-ch'uan wen-chi, 4 : l a - 2 a ; Chan, Source Book, pp. 547 ff.

Notes: Neo-Confucian

Individualism

115

18. Chan, Source Book, p. 473. 19. I-ch'uan wen-chi, 4:1a; Chan, Source Book, p. 548. 20. I-ch'uan wen-chi, 4 : l b - 2 a . 21. Uno, Shogaku, 3:139. 22. Chu Tzu yii-lei fc f .ISfil (Kyoto: Chnbun shuppansha, 1979), 93:9a; cf. Chan, Things at Hand, pp. 204-5. 23. Chu Tzu yii-lei, 94:8a-b. 24. Chan, Things at Hand, p. 2. 25. Uno, Shogaku, 3:139. 26. Ming-tao wen-chi H ^ û i f l i , 2:1a, in Erh Ch eng ch'uan-shu (SPPY ed.). 27. Mencius, 4A:20. 28. Tung Chung-shu Kf+fcf in Han shu, 56:6b, and Tung Tzu wenchi !-•£% (Chi-fu ts'ung-shu ed.), 1:51. 29. i-shu, 15:17a; Chin-ssu-lu chi-chu, 8:16b-17a; Chan, p. 213. 30. I-ch'uan wen-chi, 1:3a. 31. Chu, Wen-chi, 11:4b. 32. Cf. Robert Hartwell, "Patterns of Settlement, the Structure of Government, and the Social Transformation of the Chinese Political Elite, ca. 750-1550." Paper presented to the Columbia University Seminar on Traditional China, September 9, 1980, pp. 9, 18-19. 33. Fan Tsu-yu ? S £ A , Ti hsueh (CKTHMCCC ed.), 3:6b-7a. 34. See Saeki Tomi fefâS, S3 no shinbunka 'MnfiiXit (Tokyo: Jimbutsu ôraisha AifcfëJfcft. 1967), p. 372. 35. Ibid., esp. pp. 373 ff. On the expansion of schools, rise in scholarly population, and increased participation in examinations, see John W. Chaffee, Education and Examinations in Sung Society (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1979), pp. 338 ff. 36. There has been extensive scholarly discussion of this question. Those not already familiar with the literature may wish to consult E. Balasz, Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974), ch. 4, esp. pp. 53-54; and Hartwell, "Patterns," p p . 3 2 - 3 3 . 37. C. Schirokauer, in A. Wright, ed., Confucian Personalities (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962), pp. 165-66. The conclusion of Wing-tsit Chan, based on many years' study of Chu's life and work, is that he lived in extremely modest circumstances, and managed to support himself partly from a small printing business on the side. See Wing-tsit Chan, "Chu-tzu ku-ch'iung" fc f lélfë, in his Chu-hsiieh lun-chi ^^„wttS (Taipei: Hsueh-sheng, 1982), pp. 205-32. 38. See, for example, Wei-ming Tu, "Toward an Understanding of Liu Yin's Confucian Eremitism," in Chan and de Bary, eds., Yuan Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 259; and

116

Notes: Neo-Confucian

Individualism

John Dardess, "Confucian Doctrine, Local Reform and Centralization," in ibid., p. 357. 39. I-shu, 1 9 : 9 a - b . 40. Mencius, 2B-.2. 41. Ch'eng I, I-ch'uan wen-chi, 4:21b; Chin-ssu-lu chi-chu, 7:8b; Chan, p. 190. See also Franklin Houn, "Rejection of Blind Obedience as a Traditional Chinese and Maoist Concept," Asian Thought and Society, vol. 7, no. 21 (New York: Sharpe, 1982), pp. 2 6 6 - 6 9 . 42. I-shu, 1 5 : 3 b - 4 a ; Chin-ssu-lu chi-chu, 7:11a; translation adapted from Chan, p. 193. 43. Julia Ching, "The Goose Lake Monastery Debate," Journal of Chinese Philosophy (1974), 1(2):175. 44. L. C. Goodrich and C. Y. Fang, Dictionary of Ming Biography (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 426-33, 4 7 4 - 7 9 . 45. Chu, Wen-chi, 69:18b. 46. Robert Hartwell, "Patterns"; and Shiba Yoshinobu, Commerce and Society in Sung China, tr. Mark Elvin (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1970), esp. pp. 4 5 - 5 0 , 2 0 2 - 1 3 ; Saeki Tomi, So no shinbunka, pp. 1 4 1 - 6 8 , 3 7 0 - 9 2 . 47. Saeki, So no shinbunka, pp. 3 8 1 - 8 5 . 48. Chu Hsi, Wen-chi, 47:17b, letter to Lü Tsu-ch'ien HffiKIt. 49. Saeki, Sö no shinbunka, pp. 370 ff. On the crisis in education from the lack of a sense of any higher purpose, see Thomas H. C. Lee, "Life in the Schools of Sung China," in Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 37 (1977), pp. 5 8 - 5 9 . 50. Chung-yung huo-wen (Kinsei kanseki sökan shisö sampen jfitö: äÜmf'JSffi ed.; Kyoto: Chübun shuppansha, 1976), p. 82, tr. adapted from Chan, Things at Hand, p. 69. 51. 1-shu, 22A:14a; Chin-ssu-lu chi-chu, 3 : 1 0 b - l l a ; Chan, p. 97. 52. I-shu, 15:19b; Chin-ssu-lu chi-chu, 11:7a; tr. adapted from Chan, p. 264. 53. I-ch'uan wen-chi, supplement, p. 3a, letterto Fang Tao-fu -b'ifiti ( t&ft' jc'% f t e ) ; Chin-ssu-lu chi-chu, 2:14a, no. 15; tr. adapted from Chan, pp. 4 7 - 4 8 . 54. I-shu, 19:11a; Chin-ssu-lu chi-chu, 3:14a, no. 30; Chan, p. 100. 55. I-shu, 19:11a; Chin-ssu-lu chi-chu, 3:16b, no. 38; Chan, p. 103. 56. I-shu, 2A:21a, 6:6b, 19:11a, 22A:2a, 6b; Wai-shu , 3:1a, 5:1b, 12:4b, 6a. 57. Wai-shu, 5:1b; I-shu, 11:4a. 58. Chang Tsai as quoted in Chin-ssu-lu, 3:10b; Chan, p. 97. 59. Wai-shu, 11:2b; Chan, p. 94. 60. Chang Tzu ch'iian-shu ® f (Kinsei kanseki sökan ed.), 7:5a. 61. Chu, Wen-chi, 4 7 : 3 0 a - b , letter to Lü Tsu-ch'ien, and Chin-ssu-

Notes: Ming Neo-Confucianism and Huang Tsung-hsi

117

lu chi-chu, 3:10a; Chan, p. 96. 62. See his lukyö no mokuteki to Soju no katsudö MfrVt mtéSb (Tokyo: TaishOkan , 1926), p. 798. 63. Unfolding, pp. 143-47. 64. Sources of Chinese Tradition, pp. 492-509; James T. C. Liu, Ou-yang Hsiu (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967), pp. 90-102; and Hok-lam Chan, " 'Comprehensiveness' and 'Change' in Ma Tuan-lin's Historical Thought," in Yüan Thought, pp. 41-45. 65. Cf. Chan, Things at Hand, pp. 88-122. 66. I-shu, 24:7b; Wen-chi, 5:11b. 67. Chu Tzu yü-lei, 4:12b, p. 112. 68. Ibid., 67:6b, p. 2628. 69. Ibid., 12:9b, p. 334. 70. Hsi-shan wen-chi ffiiLii* , 24:410. 71. Ssu-k'u t'i yao PH-Ptl^ (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1933 ed.), 36:742. 72. See Christian Murck, Chu Yün-ming (1461-1527) and Cultural Commitment in Su-chou (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1979), vol. 2, pp. 311-12. 73. Chang Tzu ch'iian-shu, 7:5a. 74. Murray, Liberality and Civilization, pp. 30-31.

4. Ming Neo-Confucianism and the Liberal Thought of Huang Tsung-hsi 1. Wei Liao-weng f® T ï S , Ho-shan hsien-sheng ta-ch'iian chi (SPTK ed.), 69:21a-b; Sung shih 'X'-li , 437:12964. 2. Ou-yang Hsüan , Kuei-chai wen-chi (SPTK ed.), 9:1a. 3. Hsü Heng iiffc , Lu-chai ch'üan-shu H-^f^feii (Kinsei kanseki sökan 2d series ed.; Kyoto: Chübun shuppansha, 1975), 2:32a-33b. 4. Tu Wei-ming, "Towards an Understanding of Liu Yin's Confucian Eremitism," in Hok-lam Chan and W. T. de Bary, eds., Yiian Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 256. 5. Ibid., p. 255. 6. Ibid., p. 256. 7. See my Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy, p. 150; Wu C h e n g ^iS , Ts'ao-lu Wu Wen-cheng kung ch'iian-chi ^ Î i F .  è f l l , Ch'ungjen Wan Huangchiao-k'aned. s g C f f i ä S & f U * of Ch'ien-lung felfc 21 (1756), Wai-chi nHS , 2:14a-15b, 'Tao-t'ung" . 8. Yü Chi Tao-yüan hsüeh-ku lu ifiBä^iiiS: , Ch'ien-lung 41 (1776) ed. of Ch'ung-jen Ch'en Chao-li - g t i m V l i , 44:5a-6a, "Hsingchuang" 'äfö. . 9. Wu Ch'eng, Ts'ao-lu Wu Wen-cheng kung ch'üan-chi, Wai-chi, 3:la->2b, "Yeh Chao pan-pu shu" ^ Î â ^ l i l i  .

118

Notes: Ming Neo-Confucianism and Huang Tsung-hsi

10. Yii Chi, "Hsing-chuang," 44:3a-18b. 11. Ch'ien Mu, Min-tsu-hsing, pp. 47-59. 12. It is an intriguing coincidence that in the sixth volume of his Chung-kuo hsiieh-shu ssu-hsiang-shih lun-ts'ung 111 Ml ft .S .{S'•)! &H (Taipei: Tung-ta Publishing Co. , 1978), p. 55, published a year before his lectures on the Chinese national character, Professor Ch'ien has a discussion of Wu Ch eng which includes a quotation from the same letter discussing the hero cited above. The quotation is drawn from the much abbreviated version given by Yii Chi in his "Hsing-chuang," pp. 5a-6a, which does not bring out so clearly as the original text the terms in which Wu Ch eng takes issue with the popular conception of the hero. In his later work, of course, Professor Ch'ien is discussing the general features of Wu's thought, not the issue of individualism, while in the earlier lectures he is addressing the general character of Chinese tradition, not specific Neo-Confucian developments. Between the two I would judge that there might still be room for him to agree with the interpretation offered here. 13. Wu Yu-pi K'ang-chai chi I ^ S f * (Ssu-k'u chen-pen ed., 4th series; Taipei: Commercial Press, 1973), 8:16b; as cited by Theresa Kelleher in Personal Reflections on the Pursuit of Sagehood: The Life and Journal of Wu Yu-pi (1392-1469) (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University; Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1982), p. 405. 14. Mencius, 4B:11, 12; 7A:33, "Dwelling in benevolence and acting out of righteousness, the business of the great man is complete." Cf. K'ang-chai chi, 11:2b. 15. Mencius, 3B:2: "He who dwells in the wide house of the world, stands in the correct station of the world, and walks in the great path of the world; he who, when successful, practices virtue along with the people, and when disappointed, still practices it alone; he who is above the power of riches and honors to corrupt, of poverty and mean condition to turn away from principle, of power and force to bend—he may be called a great man." 16. Wu, Jih-lu 0 » , K'ang-chai chi, 11:38b. 17. Chu Hsi, Ta-hsiieh chang-chu, 1:1. 18. Wing-tsit Chan, "Neo-Confucian Philosophical Poems," in Renditions (Spring 1975), p. 11. 19. Hsu Heng, Hsu Wen-cheng kung i-shu , T'ang shih ching kuan ts'ung-shu I g f t f f i t t * * ed., 4:1a Ta-hsiieh chih chieh . On the importance of this concept later in the Wang Yang-ming school see T'ang Chun-i, Chung-kuo che-hsiieh yiian-lun Yuan chiao p'ien (Hong Kong: Hsin-ya yen-chiu so f f S W ^ e ^ r , 1975), chaps. 14, 16. 20. Lou Liang "K'ang-chai hsien-sheng hsing-chuang" (¡ftSfft; , in Ming ming-ch'en wan-yen lu (Ssu-k'u chen-

Notes: Ming Neo-Confucianism and Huang Tsung-hsi

119

pen ed., 6th series; Taipei: Commercial Press, 1976), 10:13a. 21. E.g., Kang-chai chi, 11:2b, 14a, 31b. 22. Ibid., 8 : 1 5 b , "Letter to Hsü Hsi-jen"; cited by Kelleher, p. 403. 23. Ibid., 8 : 2 9 a - b ; cited by Kelleher, p. 425. 2 4 . W u , Jih-lu, K ang-chai chi, 3 : 3 0 a - b , 11:40b; Kelleher, p. 140, identifies a poem of Ch eng Hao as the inspiration for this. 25. Jen Yu-wen, ' T h e Philosophy of the Natural in Ch en Hsienc h a n g , " in de Bary, ed., Seifand Society in Ming Thought, pp. 5 3 - 9 2 ; Paul Jiang, The Search for Mind: Ch'en Pai-sha, Philosopher Poet (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1980), pp. 4 9 - 5 0 , 7 4 - 7 8 , 156-59, 181-82. 26. Jiang, p. 35. 2 7 . Ch'en Hsien-chang S ^ t K ^ , Pai-sha Tzu ch'iian-chi f-^.% (Hong Kong: Ch'en Pai-sha Cultural and Educational Foundation, 1967; repr. of 1 7 1 0 ed.), 3 : 8 0 b , letter to Ho H u a n g - m e n P I . 28. Chu Tzu yii-lei, 9 5 : 3 5 b - 3 6 a , p. 3902; tr. adapted from Chan in Things at Hand, p. 70. 29. Erh Ch eng chuan-shu ( S P P Y ed.), "Ts'ui-yen" ff a , 1 : 3 2 a . 3 0 . Ch'en Hsien-chang, Pai-sha Tzu ch'iian-chi, l : 4 1 b - 4 2 a , "Hsin ch'ien Tien-pai hsien ju-hsüeh c h i " S f Ä ^ Ö f ^ f l l ^ I i . 31. Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy, p. 4 4 - 4 5 . 32. This fact was noted by Dr. Hu Shih ÄSiä in his early advocacy of the paihua ö i i literature movement, and its importance in his eyes was reiterated to me in personal conversations in 1960. 33. ö t a T a t s u o Chugoku rekidaikogobun'