A Short History of Chinese Philosophy by Yu-lan Fung Read Free Book Online Page A

on the moral institutions which the literati stressed for government.
    The sixth school is the Tao-Te chia or School of the Way and its Power. The followers of this school centered their metaphysics and social philosophy around the concept of Non-being, which is the Too or Way, and its concentration in the individual as the natural virtue of man, which is Te, translated as "virtue but better rendered as the "power" that inheres in any individual thing. This group, called by Ssu-ma T'an the Tao-Te school, was later known simply as the Too chia, and is referred to in Western literature as the Taoist school.As pointed out in the first chapter, it should be kept carefully distinct from the Taoist religion.
    Liu Hsin and His Theory of the Beginning of the Schools
    The second historian who attempted to classify the hundred schools was Liu Hsin (ca. 46 B.C.-A.D.
    2.3). He was one of the greatest scholars of his day, and, with his father Liu Hsiang, made a collation of the books in the Imperial Library. The resulting descriptive catalogue of the Imperial Library, known as the "Seven Summaries," was taken by Pan Ku (A.D. 32.-92-) as the basis for the chapter, Yi Wen Chih or Treatise on Literature, contained in his dynastic history, the History of the Former Han Dynasty. In this "Treatise" we see that Liu Hsin classifies the "hundred schools into ten main groups. Out of these, six are the same as those listed by Ssu-ma T'an. The other four are the Tsung—Heng chia or School of Diplomatists, Tsa chia or School of Eclectics, Nung chia or School of Agrarians, and Hsiao-shuo chia or School of Story Tellers. In conclusion, Liu Hsin writes: "The various philosophers consist of ten schools, but there are only nine that need be noticed." By this statement he means to say that the School of Story Tellers
     
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    THE ORIGIN OF THE SCHOOLS
     
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    lacks the importance of the other schools.
     
    In this classification itself, Liu Hsin did not go very much further than Ssu-ma T'an had done. What was new, however, was his attempt for the first time in Chinese history to trace systematically the historical origins of the different schools.
    Liu Hsin's theory has been greatly elaborated by later scholars, especially by Chang Hsileh -ch' eng (1738-1801) and the late Chang Ping -lin. In essence, it maintains that in the early Chou dynasty (llli?-256 B.C.), before the social institutions of that age disintegrated, there was "no separation between officers and teachers.' In other words the officers of a certain department of the government were at the same time the transmitters of the branch of learning pertaining to that department. These officers, like the feudal lords of the day, held their posts on a hereditary basis. Hence there was then only "official learning but no private teaching. That is to say, nobody taught any branch of learning as a private individual. Any such teaching was carried on only by officers in their capacity as members of one or another department of the government.
    According to this theory, however, when the Chou ruling house lost its power during the later centuries of the Chou dynasty, the officers of the governmental departments lost their former positions and scattered throughout the country. They then turned to the teaching of their special branches of knowledge in a private capacity. Thus they were then no longer officers, but only private teachers. And it was out of this separation between teachers and officers that the different schools arose.
    Liu Hsin's whole analysis reads as follows: 'The members of the Ju school had their origin in the Ministry of Education....This school delighted in the study of the Liu Yi [the Six Classics or six liberal arts] and paid attention to matters concerning humanheartedness and righteousness. They regarded Yao and Shun [two ancient sage emperors supposed to have lived in the twenty-fourth and twenty-third centuries B.C.] as the ancestors of their school, and King Wen