Chapter 33 "National Quintessence" and "National Dregs"

At the beginning of 1919, at Peking University, the headquarters of the New Culture Movement, the struggle between innovation and conservatism was extremely sharp, and the confrontation between the "New Wave Society" and the "Guogu Society" appeared.One side responds to "New Youth" and promotes new ideas and new culture; the other side opposes "New Youth" and maintains old culture and old ideas. The barriers are clear and the two confront each other.The first issue of the monthly "National History" published by the National Ancient Society showed the banner of "Prosperous China's Inherent Academics" and challenged the New Culture Movement with the purpose of "preserving the quintessence of the country".

So, does the new culture need "national traditions" and how should we treat "national traditions"? This is an important question that advocates of new culture cannot avoid today. The first to answer this question are Mao Zishui and Fu Sinian from Xinchao Society.On the eve of the outbreak of the May 4th Movement, the article "National History and Scientific Spirit" written by Mao Zishui was published on Volume 1, No. 5 of "Xin Chao".The author pointed out that recently the old school studies the national heritage, "neither knows the nature of the national heritage, nor has the scientific spirit", but just "holds the handicap"; he believes that the study of the national heritage must use the "scientific spirit" "tidy".Fu Sinian wrote an "appendix" at the end of this article, further clearly pointing out two completely different attitudes in the study of national heritage: one is "sorting out national heritage" and the other is "pursuing national heritage"; the correct attitude is " "Scientific principles and methods" must be used to sort out the national history.Thus, a small debate about "sorting out the country's history" was launched between "Xin Chao" and "National History". ①

The Xinchao News Agency was the first to raise the question of "organizing the national heritage", but their answer to this question was far from satisfactory; they obviously lacked understanding of the importance of this issue, thinking that sorting out the national heritage "does not have much benefit".It was their teacher and advisor Hu Shi who really saw the importance and necessity of this issue, and put forward "rectifying the national heritage" as a slogan. In August of this year, Hu Shi wrote a letter about sorting out the old Maozishui. ②On the one hand, he agreed and supported Mao Zishui's idea of ​​sorting out the national heritage with scientific spirit;

Starting from narrow utilitarianism, it does not pay attention to sorting out the shortcomings of the national heritage.Hu Shi pointed out: Now there is a great deal of need to sort out the national heritage.We should try our best to guide the "national heritage family" to use scientific research methods to study the national heritage, and we should not pre-exist a prejudice of "useful and useless", which will lead to many unnecessary opinions. He advocated "keeping an attitude of 'seeking the truth for the sake of truth'"; he even believed that "inventing the ancient meaning of a word and discovering a star are both great achievements."Hu Shi fully estimated the importance and academic and cultural value of sorting out the national heritage, but obviously exaggerated its social significance too much.

In November, in his article "The Significance of New Trends of Thought"③, Hu Shi formally put forward the slogan of "sorting out the country's heritage".Under the title of this article, there are four slogans: Research questions, inputting academic theories, arranging national heritage and recreating civilization, this is the whole content of Hu Shi's understanding of "the significance of new trends of thought".Let's ignore other things for the time being, and just look at his views on sorting out the national heritage.He said: On the negative side, the attitude of the new trend of thought towards the old culture is against blind obedience and reconciliation; on the positive side, it uses scientific methods to sort it out.

Hu Shi made it very clear that he regarded "sorting out the national heritage" as a slogan of the new trend of thought, as a positive attitude towards the old culture, and as a means of "recreating civilization", so it was different from the old school's "preserving the quintessence of the country". "There is a fundamental difference. Regarding the national heritage, Hu Shi believes that there are not only "national quintessence" but also "national dregs".The so-called sorting out the national heritage is to distinguish the "national quintessence" from the "national dregs"; if you don't understand the "national dregs", you will not understand the "national quintessence".He once ridiculed those quintessence parties, but they didn’t really know what a “quintessence of a country” was, saying:

Now there are many people who don't know what the national quintessence is, but they want to talk about "preserving the national quintessence".Mr. Lin Qinnan wrote an article on the inappropriateness of ancient prose. He said, "I know the reason but can't explain why!" Now, how many of the many quintessence parties are not so confused? How can such people be worthy of talking about quintessence? If you want to know What is the quintessence of the country and what is the scum of the country, we must first use a critical attitude and a scientific spirit to sort out the national heritage.

How to sort it out? The general principle proposed by Hu Shi is the "judgmental attitude".He borrowed a sentence from the German philosopher Nietzsche: "Reassess all values", which means to use scientific spirit and methods to conduct research and sort out, to reassess the value of all old cultures.Specific methods and steps are also proposed: the first step is to organize systematically; the second step is to find out the cause and effect of each academic thought; meaning; the fourth step is synthesis, "every family returns its true face, and each family returns its true value".

Hu Shi's opinions and methods on sorting out the national heritage obviously parted ways with the conservative quintessence of the country; moreover, they were beyond the reach of Maozishui and others in the Xinchao Society. However, Hu Shi underestimated the difficulty of sorting out the national heritage and the weight of this task at first; he himself did not plan to do this in detail.He wrote in his diary on September 1, 1922: In the past, we thought that sorting out old books could be done by second- and third-rate scholars.We now know that this is wrong.For two thousand years, how many first-class scholars have been doing this all their lives, but they have not achieved good results; the "legend" (Tradition) of two thousand years weighs more than two thousand catties! If you are not a strong man, how can you overthrow it? How can you beat it? Is it worth it? ④ At this time, he has realized that sorting out the national heritage is to fight against historical conventions and traditions, and non-strong men cannot afford it; he himself is determined to be such a strong man.

In the autumn of this year, Peking University decided to launch a "Guoxue Quarterly", and Hu Shi was appointed as the director of the editorial committee. The manuscript was reviewed in October, printed in November, and the first issue in January of the following year will meet readers.This is a publication on the study of Chinese studies, but it appears in a brand-new attitude: the layout is arranged horizontally from left to right, and all articles use new-style punctuation. It was indeed refreshing at the time.The "Publishing Manifesto" published in the first issue was written by Hu Shi.It first summarizes the achievements and shortcomings of Sinology research during the three hundred years of the Qing Dynasty; on this basis, it makes a more in-depth and systematic exposition of the principles and methods of studying the national heritage, which can be said to be Hu Shi's article on sorting out the national heritage. The full manifesto.In particular, he further developed the idea of ​​"returning the original face", saying:

To govern the country, we must return Han to Han, Wei and Jin to Wei and Jin, Tang to Tang, Song to Song, Ming to Ming, Qing to Qing; ;Return Cheng Zhu with Cheng Zhu, and return King Lu with Lu Wang...each of them will return his original face, and then judge the right and wrong of each generation and family.If they don't return their true colors, they will slander the ancients more.If you don't judge their right and wrong, you will mislead people today.But without first understanding their true colors, we are absolutely not worthy to judge their right and wrong. ⑤ Hu Shi said that this is a kind of "historical vision", which requires respecting history and "returning its true colors"; It is also necessary to place historical culture at a certain historical stage to evaluate its merits and demerits.This is a scientific view of historicism, which has absorbed the academic experience of Qing Dynasty sinologists, and it is not the same as the theory of "preserving the quintessence of the country" of the retrospective school. It is also worth noting that Hu Shi advocated "comparative research" in the "Manifesto" and opposed academic closedness.He said: Scholars have always misunderstood the word "Guo" in "Guoxue" as an expression of national boundaries, so they do not recognize "comparative research" function. ... Attachment is what we should reject, but comparative research is what we should advocate.There are many phenomena that, when talked about in isolation, always fail to make sense and are always inexplicable; once there is a comparison, there is no need to explain it, and it will be understood naturally. ⑥ He advocated "breaking the isolated attitude of retreat and keeping an open mind in comparative research", learning scientific methods from the West, and using European and American academic achievements as reference materials for comparison.This kind of insight was not only commendable at the time, but also has its reference value today. Since Hu Shi called for the rectification of the national heritage, within a few years, almost a movement has formed.The study of traditional Chinese novels and ancient history has achieved remarkable results, creating a new situation in the study of ancient Chinese studies with modern scientific methods.In practice, it is natural that mud and sand are mixed together, and many problems and disadvantages have emerged.The reason is naturally very complicated, and it is also inseparable from some of Hu Shi's theoretical and practical disadvantages.He and the people from Xinchao News proposed to sort out the national heritage, which was at the climax of the May Fourth Movement.At this time, Hu Shi actually said that "inventing the ancient meaning of a word and discovering a star are both great achievements", which is exaggerated and deceptive; "Professor of Chinese in Middle Schools" requires young students to read a large number of ancient Chinese and write classical Chinese. ⑦This inevitably lures some immature young people from the reality and struggle objectively, and wanders into the research room to read old papers.This was unexpected by Hu Shi. ① Shortly after the publication of Mao Zishui's "National History and the Spirit of Science", the third issue of "National History" (published in May 1919) published Zhang Xuan's "Refuting the New Wave "National History and the Spirit of Science""; so "Xin Chao" Volume 2, No. 1 (published in October 1919) also published Mao Zishui's "Refutation of Xin Chao's National History and the Spirit of Science". ②This letter by Hu Shi was originally attached to Mao Zishui's article "Refuting the New Chao's National History and the Spirit of Science" by Mao Zishui, Volume 2, No. 1 of "Xin Chao"; it was later included in "Hu Shi Wencun" Shanghai Asia The December 1921 edition of the East Library, Volume 2, entitled "On the Ancient Learning of the Country—An Answer to Mao Zishui". ③ "The Significance of New Trends of Thought" was written on November 1, 1919, originally published in Volume 7, No. 1 of "New Youth", and published on December 1 of the same year; it was later included in Volume 4 of "Hu Shi Wen Cun". ④ "Hu Shi's Diary", Beijing Zhonghua Book Company, January 1985, Volume 2, p. 445. ⑤ "Manifesto for the Publication of the Quarterly Journal of Chinese Studies", written from November 5 to 16, 1922, revised on the 18th (according to "Hu Shi's Diary"), originally published in Volume 1, No. 1 of the journal; Two Collections", Shanghai Yadong Library, November 1924 edition, Volume 1.Citation according to edition 6, March 1929, pages 12-13. ⑥ Ibid., pages 23-24. ⑦ In 1920, Hu Shi gave a speech "The Teaching of Chinese in Middle Schools" (manuscript contained in "New Youth" Vol. Three times that of Chinese, middle school students are required to "everyone can compose ancient prose with fluent grammar", "everyone can read plain ancient prose books", choose to read "Lao Tzu", and go to Tongcheng to send two or three hundred ancient prose, and must also "self-study" to finish reading There are 15 kinds of history books, Zishu and literature collections, totaling about 1050 volumes.Hu Shi himself admitted that the homework of ancient prose "has increased tenfold compared to before"! At the beginning of 1923, Hu Shi gave young students another "Chinese Studies Bibliography", with as many as 158 titles, of which only 78 titles were listed in the "Department of Literary History", with an estimated total of more than 1,000 volumes.Hu Shi also said it was "minimum".Even Liang Qichao said, "Where do people start to read?" Volume 1)