OÍDOS PREPARADOS.

bureaucracy and geography), 10 records (chih, in chronicle-topic form, such as partisans, frontiers, coup-d’etat and so on) and annal-biographies (k’ao-chi, of 13 chosen rulers including, significantly, Hung Hsiu-ch’uan) and 25 sub-biographies (pieh-lu, of 43 critically important historical figures including K’ang Yu-wei. In addition there would be accounts of knights-errant, businessmen, assassins, secret society members, recluses and so on). The criterion for inclusion of a biography was that its subject be a figure of major significance from the perspective of the political and legal system, intellectual enterprise, clans and race, and social customs.22

Readers may be puzzled by the fact that biographic entries still accounted for half of the 100 chapters in the proposed works despite his stress on

institutional research inspired by the western sociological perspective. To answer that is to bring our attention further to the fact that Chang Ping-lin had his own strong reservations even when he heartily embraced Western sociology. That is to say, Chang never really betrayed the great tradition of biographical historiography he inherited, even when he drew upon Western ideas to redress the imbalance. "The analysis of institutional history would be capable of illuminating the past. But if we want to boost people’s morale, to make history appreciable, then we cannot but rely on biographies ... in order to advance to the future".23 It seems for Chang that after all it is men who really embody history. It is men, with their successes or defeats, intelligence or labour, desires or sorrows - more than the abstract, cold and hard laws of evolution, that make history and that make history real and tangible. It is the legacy of those sentient beings that arouses our

memory or imagination of the past, that locates the source of national identity, and often provides the inspiration for our future. Any proper study of man cannot exclude biography to the extent that biography can be regarded as a concept in contrast with society or institutional research. Indeed, history was never to Chang

22. Op. cit., p.202.

merely the territory of reason. It is rather a homeland where the imprint of the past would invariably catch your eye, arouse your emotions and hold you there - to recapture his own metaphor. Therefore, while Chang was concerned with history as the source of general knowledge, he also held history to be the source of particular feelings that would certainly include community feeling. To put it differently, history was capable not only of providing rational knowledge through our cognition, but also of engendering powerful emotion, so to speak, through our perception. History not merely makes one think, it also makes one feel. It is obviously due to this "sentimental value", as it were, of History that has led Chang to argue that History is the indispensible source of nationalism. It is also due to this understanding of the twofold nature of History that Chang’s historiography bears a distinctive flavor, distinctive from his predecessors, the Ch’ien-Chia scholars, as well as from the later New Historians.

At a time of national crisis, Chang’s view of history tended to imply that mere rational or practical response based on the understanding of certain historical laws would not be sufficient. Any effective solution must include the promotion of solidarity through national feeling. Thus national history was the specific and basic source of national consciousness. It seems clear that history, for Chang, is not merely to be understood, it should also be "loved". One can be sure that it would never be a tiring cliche for Chang, to say that "if you had not loved (that national history), you won’t understand (that history)".

It is also clear that Western sociology, which provided Chang with a sort of rational tool to review Chinese traditional historiography, and affected his historical thinking greatly, did not at the early stage weaken Chang’s reverence for the legacy of Chinese historiography in the way it did for Liang Ch’i-ch’ao. Chang’s esteem for the biographic genre, his conferral of an emotional or spiritual role on history, his nostalgia for the past, in short, his reverence for history, would quickly grow into a blend of so-called "nationalistic historiography".

scholars scarcely noticed the sociological influence ever present in his historical thought. And people rarely remember him as a pioneer of the New History movement. Indeed, Chang’s nationalistic historiography is more easily

reminiscent of Herder’s blend of Enlightenment and romanticism, rather than the subsequent positivist spirit that demands the "scientific necessity" of

historiography.

Perhaps it is the very concept of "reverence for the past" that distinguishes Chang from the Western sociologists and that dissociates Chang from the New Historians. Understandably, the social Darwinist sociology, together with the other two main currents of 19th century thinking, viz., positivism and

utilitarianism, had expressed, more or less, hostility toward the traditionalist discipline of history. Spencer used to ridicule historiography as hardly better than the meaningless account of "the birth of a cat in your neighbour’s house".24 Bentham used to claim that "history deserves to be remembered only to be condemned". Since the emergence of Comte’s positive science, sociology had demonstrated a very aggressive nature, and posed a threat and challenge to history proper. Allegations that traditional historiography was merely the result of "scissor and paste", "dog-fighting" {hsiang-k’ an shu), the pedigree of royal families (ti-wang chia-p’u) or financial bookkeeping (chi-pu), were not without good reasons. Such acusations attracted a good audience in China, including Liang Ch’i-ch’iao, and conceivably, the later New historians, but not Chang Ping-lin. Chang was worrying about the serious implication of these "excessive" allegations which would do more harm than good for historiography as a whole.25 By the same token, the scepticism of the New Historians in the Republican era would invariably harden Chang’s defence of history, because excessive scepticism

24. Quoted from Chang, "Ta T’ieh Cheng" (Reply to T’ieh Cheng), in Chang Tai-yen wen-lu, vol.2, pei-lu 2, p.61a; also see Chang, "Chung-kuo wen-hua ti ken-yiian he chin-tai hsiieh- shu ti fa-ta" (The Sources of Chinese Culture and the Advance of Modem Scholarship), in

Chang T cd-yen ti pai-hua wen, p.22. 25. Chang, Ch’iu shu (1904 editon), p.198.

in Chang’s opinion would only lead to the conclusion that "history is no more than a despicable dead dog".26 Chang’s over-reaction in defending history, and in particular national history, is understandable due to the serious political situation of his time, in addition to factors such as the imperialist implication of sociology and the anti-traditional attitude of the New Historians. In any case, Chang’s historiography which is characteristically anti-utilitarian and antipositivist, would show a shift back to Chinese tradition and become ever more nationalistic.

Chang’s Historiographical Methodology

Chang had more reasons, including the methodological one, to be critical of 19th century European sociology and later to turn away from the New History movement. First, Chang did not fully appreciate the concept of society as a living organism in which all elements functioned collectively in a holistic unity.

Though admitting the social nature of men, the love of community life, and the unique capability of men to form highly organised collectivities, Chang also pointed out the anti-social nature of man, and the desirability of individuality. This was the sphere identified by Comte and Spencer as "social statics". In the sphere of "social dynamics", after a period of belief in the premises of sociology, Chang gradually became critical of the optimistic concept of linear progress with which it was associated. By differentiating the phenomenon of progress into the epistemological part and the ethical part, he conceded the forward progress of knowledge, but seriously doubted the reality of moral progress. This moral progress could also be differentiated into the progress of the good and the progress of its accompanying opposite - evil. In the process of development, human evil always followed in the steps of goodness, like an indispensible shadow. However human knowledge might progress, it was powerless in dealing with this fact. It could not secure good from evil, or promote good without at once promoting evil. Taking epistemological and ethical progress together, Chang concluded that while

man’s happiness made progress, so did man’s suffering.27 in short, the reality of forward evolution was a complex one, in which both good and evil, joy and pain, evolved together in parallel. Any description of the idea of progress as a

one-directional movement - be it Hegel’s "unfolding of Reason" or the Social Darwinist’s "proceeding to the highest perfection" - was after all, in Chang’s opinion illusory.28 Hence Chang labelled his own theory as "progress in differentiation" (chii-fen chin-hua lun).

Chang’s this notion may have been inspired by Spencer’s description of progress as differentiation and modification, both in individual and social

organisms. But Chang’s theory is obviously different from Spencer’s teleological concept. Spencer’s concept entailed the conviction that progress consisted of changes in the structure of an organism which tended to heighten happiness. Progress here implies only the progress of happiness. Besides, contrary to what is commonly believed, when Chang launched his criticism of evolutionism, he gave credit to Hegel, whom he identified as the pioneer of evolutionism.29 What Darwin or Spencer had achieved were but the applications of Hegel’s vision - of the "history of the world as the process of the realization of Reason"30 _ to the field of biological phenomena and social phenomena respectively. In any case, it is clear that Chang disagreed greatly with teleological and optimistic views of human progress. To balance such views, Chang reminded people to pay attention to the underlying wisdom of Huxley’s pessimism, and he particularly stressed the "irrationalist" thesis of Schopenhauer - which held that the blindness of human "Will" (mang-tung; in contrast with Reason) and the animality in human nature

27. See Chang, "Chii-fen chin-hua lun" (The Diverse Courses o f Evolution), Chang T ai-yen wen-lu, vol.2, pie-lu 2, pp.78a-87b.

28. See Chang "Ssü huo lun" (Four Delusions), in Chang T ai-yen wen-lu, vol.2, pei-lu 3, p.67b-69b.

29. Chang T ai-yen wen lu, vol.2, pei-lu 2, p.77b. 30. Ibid.

must not be overlooked in any realistic account of human progress,31 hence of History, the human story.

The real intention of Chang’s criticism is apparently directed against the worshippers of progress in the West and specifically their followers in China of the day. Relevant to our discussion on Chang’s historiography is the conviction that history cannot be fully and properly interpreted only by some fixed or regular law or formula as suggested in positivist and evolutionist sociology. Chang’s esteem for Schopenhauer’s insight into "blindness of the Will of the world" implied that human history was more than the problem of order, harmony, equilibrium, and so on. Chang seems to say that the worship in the West of "reason and progress" could be very blind, while the Buddhist theory of

"blindness" (avidya; ignorance) is not without reason. Obviously Chang would reject the assumptions that the course of history is dictated by immutable laws with a clear sense purpose or that it is formulated according to certain scheme, say, the scheme of "the Three Ages or Stages" held by K’ang Yu-wei.

In practice, Chang’s criticism of the cult of historical pattern or fixed model (ch’ eng-hsing, in his terminology32 - perhaps to mean any preconceived or ideological view on history) is expressed mainly in his critique of Yen Fu and K’ang Yu-wei.

The question of "pattern" or "model" in Chang’s criticism contains many levels of meaning. First, those who treat history by the single-minded belief in straight progress were, he held, blinded (kua, or blocked or burdened, in Chang’s

expression)33 by a pattern-concept. By the same token, he held that those who believed in the cyclical view of history shared the same flaw. Second, to treat one’s own historical subject by naive analogy to the historical development of

31. Ibid.

32. Chang, "Cheng-hsin lun hsia" (On Historical Evidence II), in Chang Tai-yen wen-lu, v o l.l, wen-lu 1, pp.50a-b.

others was again to be blinded by a certain "pattern". Third, and more generally, he referred to those who applied the law of matter or nature (such as physical or biological laws) to the history of minds and social events. He alleged that Yen’s analysis of Chinese society was conducted in a way to suit the Western

sociological framework at the cost of Chinese reality.34 Similarly K’ang

Yu-wei’s toying with "the three Ages" or "the three traditions" distorted historical reality in order to fit his political "ism". Under the cult of "historical pattem", Chang believed, historical truth would be the first victim.

Chang’s criticism of this obsession with "pattem", and its inadequacy when applied to historiography, can also be extended to other ideologies. In his famous essay, "On the Four Doubts", Chang attempted to expose his

contemporaries’ myth about "universal principle" (kung-li), "materialism"

(wei-wu), "natural law" (tzu-jan) and of course "evolutionalism" {chin-hud). Here is not the place to present this highly philosophical thesis. WLat concerns us is only their effect on Chang’s historiography. Let us merely draw its conclusion by suggesting that:

a) Chang disagreed with any sort of deterministic view of historical development;

b) the so-called "universally-applied or nature-dictated" laws or principles are, more often than not, arbitrarily made to suit particular interests;

c) by attacking the cult of the state and the cult of society, Chang tended to reject any holistic point of view (but Chang was a historicist in the

primitive sense of that term, in contrast with the one on which Karl Popper cast his criticism.35 That is, Chang relied heavily on historical facts, was interested in tracing precedents of current events even to their origins, and his political conservatism was based on the enormous respect to the past);

34. See Chang, "She-hui T ung-chüan shang-tui" (A Critique of [Yen Fu’s translation of] A Short History of Politics [by J.W. Jenks]), in Chang T ai-yen wen-lu vol.2, pei-lu 2, p.6a. 35. For Popper’s criticism of "holism", see Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (RKP,

d) in short, the tyranny of ideologies could easily hamper the exploration of historical truth.

To be sure, Chang’s criticism were not merely a passive reaction against nineteenth century European thought and its Chinese proponents. They were also positively based on his own notion of causation, objectivity, prediction, a-priori versus empirical investigation and so on, those basic categories in the historical methodology.

The problem of "how" to probe an object must be determined by "what" that object is. Chang’s methodology invariably depended upon his perception of the nature of history. Chang’s definition of history is not in any simple and aphoristic manner, rather, it is expressed in his attempt to give a new scope to history. Traditionally, history and literature in China had been hardly clear-cut. Both belonged to "a big family" - as the commonplace remark goes. The conventional categorisation of Chinese scholarship, viz., classics history, philosophy and literature, is based more on bibliographical considerations than any classification of different disciplines. Otherwise the classics would not have occupied an independent category. To say that Chang gave history a "new" scope is to suggest that he tended to break down the conventional four categories by subsuming classics into the category of history, while putting up a high fence between history and literature, as well as one between history and philosophy, mindful all the while of the different nature of each discipline. We have already discussed Chang’s attempt to absorb classical studies into history proper, so we will take up Chang’s differentiation of literature and philosophy from history.

Due to his p ’u-hsiieh discipline, Chang demonstrated very early his contempt for men of belles-lettres. His harsh criticism of Su Shih and other literary "geniuses" was unceasing. It seemed to him that literary men (Wen-shih, in his term, to contrast Ching-shih, classical scholars) could always hinder the search for reality by playing with words, or by empty, elusive and exaggerated rhetoric. He could not agree with Aristotle’s declaration that peotry was more

philosophical and more serious, hence more true than history. He assigned literature the level of the ornamental, which was always secondary in the dichotomy of Chih-wen(chih means substance, content, or something solid and real; wen in contrast means form, embellishment). He tended to doubt the

commonly held conviction of the congruity of beauty and truth. "Pretty language is never trustworthy; true language is never pretty",36 he claimed. Perhaps he regarded as true beauty only natural beauty or spontaneous expression; or believed to be beautiful only that which is true. In any case, Chang upheld the quality of truth as the prime and incontrovertible concern of a scholar. To the present-day claim that history is at once science and art, Chang would have played down the artistic aspect of the historical discipline, we can be sure. Hence we can get from Chang’s distinction between literature and history, his first definition of history, that is, "history is learning to preserve truth" (ts’ un-ch’eng chih hsiieh). By the same token, he further urged the writing of history in a straightway, in contrast to the so-called Confucian "appropriate concealment". "History is about facts and events, not morals". The pronouncement of moral judgement is by no means the necessary duty for a historian.

More than anything else, the truth about events or facts is the very substance of history. Artistic expressions or technical cleverness were of only secondary importance. Art without substance would be good for nothing. "Literary language is used for disclosing events; description of events should never be sacrificed for the sake of displaying literary cleverness.

Therefore, he attempted to rectify the cult of literariness allegedly found in