Reading & Question Answer

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Chapter 31

RADICAL REFORM AT THE END OF THE QING

When we attempt to assess the aims and accomplishments of Chinese reformers in the 1870s and 1880s, the comparison to Meiji Japan is almost inevitable. In aims there is a strong general resemblance between the two; in the scope and effectiveness of their reforms a striking difference. Where the Chinese Self-Strengtheners sought to preserve the Confucian Way through the adoption of Western techniques, Japanese modernizers talked of combining “Eastern ethics and Western science” or spoke of preserving their distinctive “national polity” (kokutai) in the midst of an intense program of modernization. Yet, given this general similarity of aims, the process of change in Japan went further and faster than in China, and to a very different result. In the one case there was rapid industrialization, political centralization, educational reform, and social change—all of these involving a much fuller participation of the Japanese people in the national effort, contributing to a degree of unity and strength unprecedented in Japanese history. In China by the 1890s it was evident not only that the Self-Strengtheners had failed to achieve such an effective national unity and concerted action, but also that the very strength they found in local and regional initiatives tended to detract from central leadership and control. The imperial structure was there, as well as nominal allegiance to it, but its effective outreach was limited.

If to Wang Tao in the first selection below, a great nemesis of reform lay in the “multiplicity of governmental regulations and endless number of directives,” his complaint represented not only a recognition that bureaucratic red tape left little room for reform but at the same time, paradoxically, that unless the court exercised its authority in the

direction of reform, local initiatives, lacking such leadership from above, could not contribute to any overall result.

Under these circumstances, reformers might propose change for the empire as a whole, but individual Self-Strengtheners in positions of limited authority could hardly plan for a truly national program of reform. Within their own spheres of jurisdiction or influence they might inaugurate projects for the modernizing of their personal armies, the manufacturing of arms, the building of ships, the promoting of business, the opening of schools for technical and language training, as well as for the improvement of the more traditional functions of government in China; yet the tendency was for even these worthwhile ventures to take on a strongly bureaucratic character—to become part of an official sub-empire—without, however, enjoying any of the benefits of centralized planning or coordination. The net result is typified by the utter failure of Li Hongzhang’s new army and navy, owing to “squeeze,” corruption, and inefficiency in the supply system, when put to the test by the Japanese in the war of 1894–1895. It was this failure that led directly to demands for more drastic change.

China’s humiliating defeat in the Sino-Japanese War and the seeming danger of her imminent partition by the foreign powers would have been cause enough for an outcry of alarm and protest. To these factors was added a growing sense of dissatisfaction and frustration among the younger generation of students, who by now had been exposed to reformist writings and had their eyes opened to the outside world. This group was by no means large. The educated class had always constituted a small minority of Chinese, and those affected by new ideas represented a still smaller fraction. Thus, rather than their numbers, it was their role as recruits or members of the bureaucratic elite that gave them influence. Significantly, among the leaders of the reform group were several from the Guangdong region, where, like Hong Xiuquan before them and Sun Yat-sen after, they were stimulated by close contact with the West in Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Increasingly, toward the end of the century, these young men were being challenged and inspired by the brilliant journalism of a writer like Wang Tao. Youthful impressions, once wholly formed by the Confucian classics and native tradition, were now being formed also by the

translations of men like Yan Fu (1853–1921), who made available in Chinese the works of Thomas Huxley, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Adam Smith.

WANG TAO ON REFORM

Wang Tao (1828–1897) represents a new type of reformer on the Chinese scene. In contrast to the great reformers of the past (e.g., Wang Mang, Wang Anshi) who were scholar-officials, and in contrast also to his contemporaries Feng Guifen and Xue Fucheng, who wrote as officials and worked closely with statesmen like Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang, Wang Tao was an independent scholar and journalist. Sometimes, indeed, he is referred to as “the father of Chinese journalism.” His work was done mainly in the ports of Hong Kong and Shanghai, under foreign protection and in close touch with foreigners. For years he assisted the eminent British sinologue James Legge in his translations from the Chinese classics, and with Legge’s help he visited England and Western Europe, observing and writing on developments there. Later, too, Wang visited Japan, where he was well received as a scholar and reformer. When finally he settled down to a career as a journalist, he did so as a man with foreign contacts, a wide knowledge of the outside world, and the kind of freedom to express himself that had been unknown in the past—when not only the right to criticize but even the means (a public press) and the audience (an influential public opinion) were lacking.

The following is taken from an essay of Wang’s written about 1870, which reiterates many of the earlier reformers’ basic points but carries them even further. There is the argument from cyclical change to the need for adapting to the current situation. There is the assertion that Confucius himself would have advocated change under such circumstances. There is the distinction between the Way of the sages, which must be preserved, and the instruments (weapons, methods) of the West, which should be adopted for its defense. At the same time, Wang insists that change must go deeper and further than mere imitation of the West in externals and suggests, however vaguely, that a thorough renovation of society is necessary. Though his specific recommendations here relate primarily to education, eventually he advocated basic governmental change as well. Consequently the ambiguity in Wang’s use of the term bianfa for “reform” is even more pronounced than in Xue Fucheng’s essay. Though he speaks of adopting from the West only “instruments,” he intends that change should extend not only to technology (“methods”) but to fa in the sense of “basic institutions.” Wang therefore presages, intellectually, the transition from reformism conceived in terms of immediate utility to a more radical view of institutional change. It is still, however, change to be directed from the top down, to be initiated by the imperial court.

The following excerpt is preceded by a discussion of previous changes in Chinese history that we have already seen echoed by Xue. Here, however, Wang is consciously reexamining Chinese history to refute the assertion of “Western scholars that China has gone unchanged for 5,000 years.” Contending in effect, that China’s stagnation was a comparatively recent development, he then goes on to deal with the present situation.

I know that within a hundred years China will adopt all Western methods and excel in them. For though both are vessels, a sailboat differs in speed from a steamship; though both are vehicles, a horse-

drawn carriage cannot cover the same distance as a locomotive train. Among weapons, the power of the bow and arrow, sword and spear, cannot be compared with that of firearms; and among firearms, the old types do not have the same effect as the new. Although it be the same piece of work, there is a difference in the ease with which it can be done by machine and by human labor. When new methods do not exist, people will not think of changes; but when there are new instruments, to copy them is certainly possible. Even if the Westerners should give no guidance, the Chinese must surely exert themselves to the utmost of their ingenuity and resources on these things.

However, these are all instruments; they are not the Way, and they cannot be called the basis for governing the state and pacifying the world. The Way of Confucius is the Human Way. As long as humankind exists, the Way will remain unchanged. The Three Mainstays [Bonds] and the Five Moral Relations began with the birth of the human race. When one fulfills one’s duty as a human being, one need have no regrets in life. On this is based the teaching of the sages. [1: 11a]

I have said before that after a few hundred years the Way will achieve a grand unity. As Heaven has unified the south, north, east, and west under one sky, it will harmonize the various teachings of the world and bring them back to the same source. . . .

Alas! People all understand the past, but they are ignorant of the future. Only scholars whose thoughts run deep and far can grasp the trends. As the mind of Heaven changes above, so do human affairs below. Heaven opens the minds of the Westerners and bestows upon them intelligence and wisdom. Their techniques and skills develop without bound. They sail eastward and gather in China. This constitutes an unprecedented situation in history, and a tremendous change in the world. The foreign nations come from afar with their superior techniques, contemptuous of us in our deficiencies. They show off their prowess and indulge in insults and oppression; they also fight among themselves. Under these circumstances, how can we not think of making changes? Thus what makes it most difficult for us not to change is the mind of Heaven, and what compels us unavoidably to change is the doings of men. [1: 11b–12a]

If China does not make any change at this time, how can it be on a

par with the great nations of Europe and compare with them in power and strength? Nevertheless, the path of reform is beset with difficulties. What the Western countries have today is regarded as of no worth by those who arrogantly refuse to pay attention. Their argument is that we should use our own laws to govern the empire, for that is the Way of our sages. They do not know that the Way of the sages is valued only because it can make proper accommodations according to the times. If Confucius lived today, we may be certain that he would not cling to antiquity and oppose making changes. . . .

But how is this to be done? First, the method of recruiting civil servants should be changed. The examination essays, coming down to the present, have gone from bad to worse and should be discarded. And yet we are still using them to select civil servants. . . .

Second, the method of training soldiers should be changed. Now our army units and naval forces have only names registered on books, but no actual persons enrolled. The authorities consider our troops unreliable, and so they recruit militia who, however, can be assembled but cannot be disbanded. . . . The arms of the Manchu banners and the ships of the naval forces should all be changed. . . . If they continue to hold on to their old ways and make no plans for change, it may be called “using untrained people to fight,”1 which is no different from driving them to their deaths. . . .

Third, the empty show of our schools should be changed. Now district directors of schools are installed, one person for a small town and two for a large city. It is a sheer waste of government funds, for they have nothing to do. The type of man in such posts is usually degenerate, incompetent, senile, and with little sense of shame. [1: 12a–14a]

Fourth, the complex and multifarious laws and regulations should be changed. . . . The government should reduce the mass of regulations and cut down on the number of directives; it should be sincere and fair and treat the people with frankness and justice. . . .

After the above four changes have been made, Western methods could be used together with others. But the most important point is that the government above should exercise its power to change customs and mores, while the people below should be gradually absorbed into

the new environment and adjusted to it without their knowing it. This reform should extend to all things—from trunk to branch, from inside to outside, from great to small—and not merely to Western methods. . . . [1: 14b]

The advantage of guns lies in the techniques of discharging them; that of ships in the ability to navigate them. The weapons we use in battle must be effective, but the handling of effective weapons depends upon people. . . . Yet those regarded as able men have not necessarily been able, and those regarded as competent have not necessarily been competent. They are merely mediocrities who accomplish something through the aid of others. Therefore, the urgent task of our nation today lies primarily in the governance of the people, and next in the training of soldiers. And in these two the essential point is to gather men of abilities. Indeed, superficial imitation in concrete things is not so good as arousing intellectual curiosity. The forges and hammers of the factories cannot be compared with the apparatus of people’s minds. [1: 15a–b]

[Bianfa, in Taoyuan wenlu waibian 1: 11a–15b—CT]

YAN FU ON EVOLUTION AND PROGRESS

Yan Fu (1854–1921) was best known as an interpreter of Western liberal thought at the end of the Qing dynasty. His translations, which bent the originals to his own reformist agenda, included Thomas Henry Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics (1898), Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1901–1902), Herbert Spencer’s A Study of Sociology (1903), John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty (1903), and Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws (1909).

Having received a classical education until age twelve, when his father died, Yan Fu was reduced by his family’s impoverishment to the pursuit of further learning on a stipend at the Fuzhou Arsenal School of Navigation. There he acquired English and developed a strong admiration for the scientific rigor of the technical curriculum. In 1877 he was sent to England for two years’ further study, and there his quest for the basis of Western military power shifted from technology to

politics, economics, and culture. He enthusiastically embraced Herbert Spencer’s social Darwinism and found in it the key to the difference between Victorian England—the epitome of Western civilization—and China.

Returning to China, Yan failed repeatedly to pass the traditional examinations and seemed to be stuck in the position of superintendent of the Beiyang Naval School. After 1905 he rose to a number of advisory and consulting positions, and then in 1911 to the Naval General Staff, but the influence of his publications on currents of thought remained greater than his influence in government. His career as publicist had begun in the immediate aftermath of the disastrous Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895). From 1895 to 1897, amid the flood of reform writings that began to inform educated Chinese about the realities of the modern world, Yan published four powerful essays, including one translated in part here, introducing his new understanding of the world and China’s perilous position in it. His preoccupation with national strength and survival and his embrace of Western learning and institutions as a means to achieve them both influenced and mirrored the tide of emerging Chinese nationalism. In one of the early essays, “Refutation of Han Yu,”2 Yan Fu attacked the power of Chinese emperors as a kind of booty acquired by theft and asserted that an emperor truly concerned to advance the country would allow his people the freedom to do as they pleased so long as they did not harm their fellow citizens. Elsewhere, he pointed out that modern science had discredited the monarchy’s claims to natural legitimacy. His condemnation of the irrationality, exploitation, and paternalism of the imperial institution did not, however, lead to political radicalism. Rather, his sense that China’s survival and progress would require a profound transformation of her people’s ingrained habits and values inclined him to reject political revolution as a remedy. A political upheaval, he believed, would only hinder the real task. Indeed, after the Revolution of 1911, Yan Fu became deeply troubled by the chaos into which China fell. Advocating monarchical government under strongman Yuan Shikai as the only way to preserve minimal order, he also called for the establishment of Confucianism as a state religion. Further disillusioned by the destructiveness of World War I in Europe, he lost faith in the

entire project of modernization and rejected the whole New Culture Movement in the May 4 period (see chapter 33).

ON STRENGTH

Yan’s most important influence on Chinese thinking at the turn of the century was his view of material progress as driven by Darwinian struggle, especially by competition among nations, which, following Spencer, he conceived as large-scale organisms. Such a conception of cosmic struggle differed radically from the idealistic, universalistic, harmony-oriented tradition of the Chinese elite, whose ideal lay in the past, not the future. In this, his new vision, at once frightening and exhilarating, Yan contrasted the pragmatic dynamism of Western society to the stagnation and formalism of China—a contrast quickly echoed in the widely popular reform writings of Liang Qichao and his colleagues, and later in the New Culture iconoclasm of Chen Duxiu. Yan’s appreciation of Western progress was deeply colored by his belief, shared by reformers and revolutionaries alike, that liberty was the factor most responsible for Western strength and progress.

Such was the message of his essay “On Strength,” originally published in an unfinished, serialized version in the newspaper Zhibao in 1895. A revised version appeared subsequently in 1901, in a collection of Yan’s writings, and it seems to have been republished at least five times by 1915. The translation below is based on this later version, which had a wider circulation than the first and added a more extensive analysis of the citizens’ strengths and virtues, as well as more concrete recommendations for reform.

Darwin is an English biologist. Heir to his family’s scholarly traditions, he traveled around the world as a young man, amassing a rich collection of rare and curious plants and animals. After several decades’ exhaustive and subtle reflection upon them, he wrote The Origin of Species. Since the publication of this book, of which nearly every household in Europe and America now has a copy, there has been a tremendous change in the scholarship, politics, and religion of the West. The claim that the revolution in outlook and intellectual orientation occasioned by Darwin’s book exceeds that of Newtonian astronomy is hardly an empty one.

His book says that for all their diversity, the species originated from a single source and that their differences developed slowly, for the most part in connection with changes in the environment and an abiding biological tendency toward incremental differentiation. Eventually divergence from the remote source led to vast and irreversible differences, but these were brought about by natural processes in later ages and were not inherent in life at its origins.

Two chapters of the book are particularly noteworthy. . . . One is

called “Competition” and the other, “Natural Selection.” “Competition” refers to the struggle of things to survive, and “Natural Selection” is the retention of the fit. The idea is that people and things exist in profusion, surviving on what the natural environment provides, but when they encounter others, peoples and things struggle over the means of survival. At first species struggled with species, and when they advanced somewhat, one group (jun) struggled with another. The weaker regularly became the prey of the stronger, and the more stupid were dominated by the more intelligent. Those who survived to perpetuate their kind were inevitably the strong and ruthless, the quick and clever, as well as those best adapted to the times and the natural human circumstances. This kind of struggle is not necessarily a matter of slaughter by fang and claw. Those accustomed to repose when forced to labor, or those familiar with mountains when forced to dwell in a marsh will, in competition with those accustomed to labor in marshes, die out in a few generations. Such is the competition among things. . . .

So it is with animals and plants and likewise with humans. Humankind is indeed a kind of animal. Encompassing all living things, this is the general idea of Darwin’s thesis. . . .

Spencer, likewise an Englishman, is a contemporary of Darwin, and his book, which appeared earlier than Darwin’s Origin of Species, adopts the evolutionary methodology to give a general account of morality and politics. He calls his field of study “sociology.” It is the ability to form societies, in terms of which Xunzi explains the superiority of man to animals, that gives rise to the term sociology. The various ways in which people contribute to each other’s lives and nourishment, easing their tasks and coordinating their efforts, ultimately developing into the major institutions of law, government, rites, and music, all arise from this ability to form societies. And now, the latest principles and techniques of science are employed further to develop personal cultivation, the regulation of society, the governance of the state, and the ordering of the world. His command of [scholarship on] the peoples of the five continents, from savages in their wilderness to respectable civilized states, gives him a masterful and exhaustive comparative perspective, and as the causes of the prosperity or debility, strength

and weakness of particular states, and the reasons for the health or disarray of the people’s morale, he addresses these questions over and over. . . . His thesis is fully presented in his first book, called First Principles, in which he scrutinizes all the life-forms in the universe to uncover the principles that encompass them all, from their beginnings in primordial matter to all their manifold manifestations. He then takes up the principles of biology and psychology to join them in the study of society. It is truly a masterpiece. . . .

In its constitution, the structure and functions of a social body are no different from those of an animal’s body; despite the difference in size, there is a coordination of the faculties, so that if we understand how life is maintained in our bodies we can understand how societies can exist; if we understand longevity in individuals, we can understand how the vitality of a state can endure. Within the individual, body and spirit support each other. Within a society, power and virtue complement each other. The individual values his freedom, the state values its autonomy. The similarity of life-forms to societies consists precisely in the fact that both are conscious organisms. Thus all learning converges on sociology and only when sociology is understood can political order and chaos, prosperity and debility, be understood, and personal cultivation, the regulation of society, the governance of the state, and the ordering of the world be effective. . . .

Now there are three essential elements in sustaining the life of the people, and their vigor and survival depend on them. The first is vitality and physical strength, the second, intellectual capacities, the third, virtue and ethics. Hence Western students of history and government always evaluate races in terms of the people’s strength, intelligence, and virtue. Without all three, the people’s livelihood will not be abundant, and without all three, a country will not be able to assert itself. To the contrary, if a people is dispirited and stupid, each pursuing private ends, then the society will disintegrate, and when a society in disintegration encounters an aggressive, intelligent, patriotic people, it will be dominated at best, and at worst, exterminated, and not necessarily by force of arms and slaughter. . . . Hence Western students of culture and government recognize that self-preservation is

the individual organism’s highest priority, and preservation of the species the second, but hold that when the two are compared, the individual life should be sacrificed for the preservation of the species. He who follows this path is regarded as a martyr and a hero. And in the realm of laws and decrees, Western students’ overall criterion is the people’s strength, intelligence, and virtue. Everything that promotes these three is vigorously implemented, and everything that diminishes them is to be abolished. . . .

Months and years slip by, and with rapacious neighbors all around, I fear that we will be too late, that we will follow upon Poland and India, providing an example of Darwin’s [elimination] before we have been able to implement Spencer’s methods. . . . Alas, our individual lives are not worth the worry, but what of our descendants, and the 400,000,000 of our race? . . .

[Against those who argue that China has survived conquest by alien races before,] the Manchus, Mongols, and Han today are all of the yellow race. . . . Hence China since antiquity has been under rulers of one race and has never fallen under the domination of another. . . . [Moreover, such a view] misunderstands the two reasons for the comparative strengths of races: there is expansive, aggressive strength, and there is the strength of virtue, intellect, and skill. . . . Those who excelled in raw power were herdsmen and hunters. The rulers and people of those countries were close as members of a family, sharing their abundance and facing peril together. Their rules of communal life were few and simple, they rode and shot from horseback, gathering and dispersing . . .thus the people were fond of war and scorned death. If a strong man organized and led them, their power could dominate the world, but although dominant, they could not go on to change it. . . . A country that excels in civilization plants, weaves, and dwells in cities. It governs with rituals, music, and penalties, and has a learning promoted by examinations and schools. . . . Hence the people delight in life and respect regulations. Those who govern by using this way correctly can easily maintain peace and order; if they fail to do so, they can easily fall into corruption. Hence the culmination of this process often leads to domination by those who excel in raw power. . . .

As for today’s Westerners, they are altogether different. How so? They both use and dispense with regulations, and in both ways they excel us. With respect to their liberty and equality, they reject taboos, discard onerous obligations, and eliminate cover-ups. People pursue their aims and speak their minds. There is no great gulf between the power of rulers and ruled; monarchs are not overly honored nor are the people too lowly. Rather, they are linked as in one body. This is how they excel by dispensing with regulations. But from the standpoint of clear and complete rules regarding officials, workmen, soldiers, and merchants, everyone knows his job and does it without monitoring, and the most minute tasks are all completed according to the proper sequence. Orders issued from far or near are acted upon within the day, and no one finds it oppressive. This is how they excel in using regulations. . . .

In all their affairs they rely on learning, and all their learning is based on direct consideration of the facts, building up layer on layer of knowledge to develop the best-considered and most-extensive course of action. Hence there is no matter in which their theories cannot be put into practice. The reason is that they take freedom as the essential principle and democracy as its application. The peoples of one continent have spread over seven or eight, vying with each other as they advance together, honing each other’s skills, beginning as adversaries but ending in mutual development, each employing his intelligence to the fullest, so that one’s daily progress is matched by another’s monthly innovations. Thus they can use regulations without being hampered by their defects. This is what is awe-inspiring. . . .

Thus the strength, prosperity, and stability of a country reflects its people’s strength, wisdom, and virtue. Only after all three are established will its politics and law follow. . . . Were one to say, “. . . Our plan today is simply to pursue wealth and power. The West is truly wealthy and powerful, therefore in today’s policies we can have no other teacher than the West, so within the government we must establish democracy and true ministerial government, and in the country at large, build railways, open mines, train a national army, create a navy with hundreds of ships,” this would be but an unsuccessful approximation of the idea of strengthening. . . .

In essence, wealth and power mean benefiting the people. But policies to benefit people must start with the people’s ability each to benefit himself, and the ability to benefit oneself starts with each one’s enjoyment of freedom. If each is to have freedom, this must begin with the ability of each to control himself. Otherwise there is chaos. And those who can control themselves in freedom are those whose strength, wisdom, and virtue are truly superior. Hence the essential policies today are summed up in three principles: promote the people’s strength, expand their knowledge, and revive their virtue.

[Shiwen, in Yan Fu yi, ed. Wang Ji, 1: 15–32—DP]

KANG YOUWEI AND THE REFORM MOVEMENT

More even than by such ideas as evolution, progress, and liberty— radically new though these were and certain to stir intellectual ferment —this generation was disturbed, and profoundly so, just by the shock of events, especially the defeat by Japan in 1894–1895. Not only the handful of active reformers but officialdom in general found its pride and self-confidence shaken. This loss of poise and self-assurance may have helped to provide the rare, if momentary, opportunity that innovators seized upon in the famous Hundred Days of Reform in 1898. Yet it also created a deeply felt need among educated Chinese somehow to be reassured that China’s cultural identity would not be wholly lost amid these changes—a need that the reformers themselves felt more acutely even than those who opposed them.

Kang Youwei (1858–1927), the dominant figure of the reform movement, was born near Guangzhou (Canton) into a world of crisis. The Taiping Rebellion raised up by Kang’s fellow provincial was still agonizing the empire from within, while from without the British and French, who had moved again into Guangzhou only the year before, were pressing a campaign that would lead to the occupation of Beijing itself in 1860.

As the scion of a distinguished scholar-official family, Kang was provided with an education along traditional lines, but at the age of fifteen he made known his distaste for the business of mastering the

eight-legged essay so indispensable to success in the civil service examinations. Two years later he was reading about Western geography and in time became a voracious reader of Chinese books on the history and geography of the West. Probably the chief influence on Kang in these early years was exerted by a teacher of the old school, who aroused in him a passion for classical scholarship and a sense of complete dedication to the Confucian ideals of personal virtue and service to society. An episode recounted in Kang’s Life Chronology shows, nevertheless, that his independence and iconoclasm were already quite marked:

My Master praised highly the writings of Han Yu and so I read and studied the collected works of Han [Yu] and Liu [Zongyuan], emulating him in this as well. By this time I had read the books of the philosophers and had learned [that] the [various] methods of [seeking] the Way were shallow, and that in searching for concrete substance in the writings of all the great names in scholarship down through the Song, Ming and the present dynasty, [I had found that] they were all empty and lacking in substance. I ventured to say that when one spoke of the Way, it should be like Zhuangzi or Xunzi; when one spoke of governing, it should be like Guanzi or Hanfeizi; while as regards medicine, the Su wen would constitute a separate subject. But as to Han Yu, he was no more than a literary craftsman skilled in the undulation of broad and sweeping cadences that, while they appealed to the ear, had nothing to do with the Way. Thus his Essentials of the Moral Way (Yuandao) was extremely superficial. . . . The Master, who was usually correct and stern, in this case laughingly chided me for being wrongheaded. From the time he had first seen me he had often cautioned me about my undue feelings of superiority, and after this I was [more] humble, but nevertheless my fellow students came to be shocked at my intractability.

With the arrival of autumn and winter, I had learned in their broad outlines the general meaning of the important books in the four divisions [of literature]. My intelligence and comprehension became confused, for every day I was buried amid piles of old

papers, and I developed a revulsion for them. Then one day I had a new idea. I thought: scholars engaged in textual research, such as Dai Zhen, filled their homes with the books that they had written, but in the end what was the use of all this? Thus I gave it up and in my own heart I fancied seeking a place where I might pacify my mind and decide my destiny. Suddenly I abandoned my studies, discarded my books, shut my door, withdrew from my friends, and sat in contemplation, nurturing my mind. My schoolmates thought me very queer, for there had been no one who had done this, inasmuch as the Master upheld the individual’s actual practice [of the Confucian virtues] and detested the study of Chan [Buddhism]. While I was sitting in contemplation, all of a sudden I perceived that Heaven, earth, and the myriad things were all of one substance with myself, and in a great release of enlightenment I beheld myself a sage and laughed for joy; then suddenly I thought of the sufferings and hardships of all living beings, and I wept in melancholy; abruptly I thought: why should I be studying here and neglecting my parent? and that I should pack up immediately and go back to the thatched hut over my grandfather’s grave. The students, observing that I sang and wept for no apparent reason, believed that I had gone mad and was diseased in mind.3

This experience of Kang’s was not unusual in the Neo-Confucian tradition. Others, like Wang Yangming before him, had suddenly found themselves suffocated and overburdened by the kind of broad learning Zhu Xi had encouraged—scholarship that often exhausted one’s mind and spirit before one began to exhaust the sources. Still others, like Wang Gen (see chapter 24), had had a kind of mystical experience in which they felt themselves, in their very “humanity,” to be of “one substance with Heaven, earth, and all things,” an experience that inspired them with a sense of a heroic vocation to save all mankind.

After Kang spent a few months in lonely isolation and reflection, this sense of a special destiny to save mankind through active involvement in the affairs of the world took command of him. Subsequent visits to Hong Kong and Shanghai impressed him with the orderliness and

prosperity of Western civilization. Intensifying his pursuit of Western learning, he also became involved in efforts toward practical reform, like his movement to abolish foot binding. Meanwhile, the young reformer had by no means abandoned classical Confucian studies but had begun to identify himself with the so-called New Text school of textual criticism. The purpose of this, for Kang, was not so much to determine by critical methods what must have been the original teaching of Confucius but, whether consciously or not, to justify his new view of the sage as essentially a reformer and to discredit all else that passed for Confucianism.

By the mid-1880s Kang, still only twenty-seven, had already formulated in his mind the ideas that became the basis of his two most famous works, the Grand Commonality (Datong shu) and Confucius As a Reformer (Kongzi gaizhi kao). By 1887 he had succeeded, after an earlier failure, in winning the second degree in the civil service examinations, and by 1895, the highest regular (jinshi) degree. He had also begun to attract talented students, who helped in the revising and publishing of his works and later in the organizing of reformist societies that spread his ideas and made him the center of violent controversy. Japan, whose defeat of China created an atmosphere of crisis and imminent catastrophe in the late 1890s, now became Kang’s model of reform. He urged the court to follow the example of Meiji Japan and openly advocated a basic change from absolute monarchy to constitutional rule. Finally an opportunity to put his ideas into effect came when the Guangxu emperor asked him to take charge of the government in June 1898.

During Kang’s few months of tenure a stream of edicts issued forth from the court, aimed at transforming China into a modern state. The old bureaucracy was to be thoroughly revamped. Education and recruitment would be based on Western studies as well as Chinese; bureaucratic functions would be reorganized to serve modern needs. There would be a public school system and a public press. These, together with popularly elected local assemblies, would prepare the people to take part in eventual parliamentary government. In the economic sphere, too, Kang had ambitious plans. Bureaus were set up

to promote commerce, industry, modern banking, mining, and agricultural development. Last, and most important, Kang attempted to reorganize and strengthen the armed forces. Here, however, he ran into serious difficulty trying to bring under central control armies that for decades had been virtually autonomous units loyal to their own commanders.

Had he not failed in this last respect, Kang might have survived the bitter opposition that his reforms provoked from the entrenched bureaucracy. It was perhaps characteristic of his dogged adherence to principle, if not indeed indicative of a self-righteous and egocentric character, that Kang reckoned little with such hostility and even less with the surprise and bewilderment felt by many who were simply unaccustomed to rapid change and unable to cope with his radically new ideas. Before many of his plans could take effect, a coup d’etat restored the more conservative Empress Dowager to active control of affairs and drove Kang’s group from power. Some died as martyrs to the cause of reform; others, like Kang, escaped to become exiles.

Until the dynasty itself collapsed, Kang continued to write and raise funds overseas on behalf of the movement. After the Revolution of 1911, however, Kang’s “cause” became more and more a personal one. In a little more than a decade the trend of events and ideas had left him behind. As a constitutional monarchist who still protested his loyalty to the Manchu dynasty, Kang was now swimming against a strong Republican tide; as a reformer who had always insisted on his fidelity to Confucius, he found himself suddenly surrounded by progressives—a generation that no longer needed to be won over to reform and could not now be won back to Confucius.

The significance of Kang Youwei as a thinker lies in his attempt to provide a Confucian justification for basic institutional reforms. The so- called Self-Strengtheners had urged reform on the grounds of immediate utility, thinking that Western weapons and techniques could be adopted without proceeding further to basic changes in Chinese government and society. They spoke of preserving the Confucian Way (Dao) through the use of Western “instruments” (qi) or “methods” (fa). Yet, as men like Wang Tao came to appreciate, Western power and

prosperity rested on something more than technology. To bring China abreast of the modern world, therefore, would require changes that were more radical. Thus reform began to take on a new meaning for them. Change would now extend to fa in the sense of institutions as well as fa in the sense of methods.

It was here that real trouble arose. According to a hallowed principle of Chinese dynastic rule, the life of a dynasty was bound up with its adherence to the constitution laid down by its founding father (the first emperor). Supporters of Manchu rule could be counted on to resist any such tampering with its institutions. For those more concerned about the Chinese way of life than the fate of the Manchus, the problem was even more acute. How far could one go in changing basic institutions while still keeping the Way intact? Would not Confucianism be reduced to a mere set of pious platitudes once its social integument had been destroyed?

Kang’s resolution of this dilemma was a bold one. Rather than permit the sphere occupied by the Confucian Way in Chinese life to be further narrowed and displaced by Western “methods,” he would redefine the Way and enlarge its scope so as virtually to include the latter. Instead of making more room for Western institutions alongside Confucianism, he would make room for them inside it. This he did by exploiting to the fullest two ideas already put forth by Wang Tao. The first of these was that the Way of the Sages was precisely to meet change with change; Confucius himself had done so, and if he were alive today he would do so again. Kang provided this theory with an elaborate scriptural justification through his studies of the so-called forged classics and his sensational tract Confucius As a Reformer. In terms of its historical influence this was undoubtedly Kang’s main contribution—though not an original one—to the thinking of his times.

Implicit in his notion of reform, however, was a still more momentous idea, since it ran more directly counter to the age-old Confucian view of history and tradition: the idea of progress. It was one thing to assert that the Confucian sage, when faced by one of those cyclically recurring cycles of degeneration spoken of by Mencius or the Classic of Changes, took appropriate steps to reform the times, reassert the

Way, and restore the institutions of the sage kings. It was quite another to offer, in place of a return to the Golden Age of the past, a utopia beckoning in the future.

Here again the idea was, among Chinese, originally Wang Tao’s. He had glimpsed a future stage in which the Way would make all things one, a natural result of the process going on around him by which the different nations in the world and their respective ways of life were being brought together by technological progress. He had even referred to it in terms taken from the Confucian Record of Rites as the age of Grand Unity or Commonality (Datong). What the Record of Rites had spoken of as a golden age at the dawn of history, however, Wang Tao saw as a vision of the future. And Kang Youwei, in his Grand Commonality, made this vision the center of his whole worldview. Henceforth, “reform” would not mean what it had in the past—an adaptation of laws and methods to cyclical change. It was now a wholesale launching of China into the modern world and, beyond that, into a glorious future.

Feng Guifen and Xue Fucheng, in their writings on reform, had shown deference to China’s age-old pretensions to cultural superiority by reassuring their readers that it need not merely follow along behind the Western powers but could overtake and surpass them. Kang, in the Grand Commonality, took the lead for China himself by pointing the way into the One World of the future. If China suffered humiliation now for its backwardness, looking ahead, he would be satisfied with nothing less for it than the ultimate in progress. In his world of the future there were to be no social, provincial, and national barriers. Government would virtually cease to exist except in local units fixed arbitrarily on the basis of square degrees of longitude and latitude. Within these units life would be completely communal and egalitarian. All distinctions of race, class, clan, and family would disappear, since they could no longer serve any valid social function. And in place of the differentiated loyalties that had bound men to their particular social group, there would be only an undifferentiated feeling of human-kindness or love, which he identified with the Confucian virtue of humanity (ren).

Those who recall the layout of Mencius’s well-fields, of which Kang’s

polity based on square degrees of longitude and latitude are so reminiscent; or the neat symmetrical organization of society set forth so early in the Rites of Zhou and so late in the plans of the Taiping rebels; or the Chinese fondness for political geometry, reflected even in the plan of capital cities like Changan and Beijing, will recognize in Kang’s grand design a quality by no means foreign to native tradition.

If in this respect, then, Kang’s vision of the future still reflects something of the past, what can be said of his Confucianism? The ostensible claims for placing him still within the Confucian tradition are his emphasis upon the cardinal virtue of humaneness (ren), his universalistic humanism (in contrast to ethnic nationalism), and his efforts to preserve Confucianism as the state religion. Against this, most obviously, is his decisive rejection of the Confucian family system along with other structural elements in culture and society that he considered divisive.

Whatever abuses may have appeared in the family system as it was formulated and practiced down through the centuries, it would seem difficult to disassociate Confucius completely from it or to preserve Confucianism entirely without it. Without the family virtues and obligations, certainly, the concept of ren loses much of its tangible significance and approaches more nearly—if it does not exactly coincide with—Mozi’s principle of undifferentiated universal love or Buddhist undifferentiated compassion. Since Mozi’s social ideals resemble Kang’s so closely, the comparison is all the more pointed.

Furthermore, in Kang’s attempt to preserve Confucianism as a kind of national religion, there is something foreign to the spirit of Confucianism itself. The sage’s teaching had been offered, and accepted by many peoples, as something universal. Its humanistic values were rooted in the nature of man and human relationships. Kang’s defense of it now as a religion and as the focus of a new state ideology, while testifying no doubt to his belief that China must have something comparable to the Christianity of the West or state Shinto in Japan, nevertheless sacrifices the substance of tradition for the trappings of modern nationalism. Henceforth Confucianism is to be valued not on its own terms but as a state ritual.

What remains as unquestionably Confucian is Kang’s own sense of dedication to the service of society, his aim of “putting the world in order.” Yet even this is not exclusively a Confucian concern (certainly Mozi shared it), nor does his favorite expression for it, “saving the world,” hark back only to the sage—there may be overtones here, too, of the Buddhist saviors (bodhisattvas) and of Jesus Christ.

After the collapse of the 1898 reform movement, Kang spent much of his life in exile. The final statement of his vision of the Grand Commonality was completed in India in 1902. Kang had been a fugitive from the Qing while still professing loyalty to it and after 1911 was enough of a “Confucian” monarchist to survive only as an anachronism in republican times; his utopian vision of the Grand Commonality had little influence on China’s turbulent political course, except paradoxically, by the sweep of its universalism and egalitarian leveling of all social distinctions, to clear the way for the revolutionary juggernaut to follow. The excerpts given here from the introduction and conclusion of Kang’s Grand Commonality convey the totalistic vision of a world order and human perfectibility so reminiscent of earlier Chinese idealisms that would still lend themselves, in a chaotic age, to simplistic revolutionary solutions and enthusiasms.

In the light of history, Kang and the reform movement may well appear as the great turning point between old and new in Chinese thought. In his hands, China was being launched on a perilous journey, in the course of which much baggage might have to be jettisoned if anything at all was to survive. Confucian traditionalists saw the dangers perhaps better than Kang did. Dropping him as pilot, however, was not the same thing as steering a safe course homeward. The storm now drove all before it, and there was no turning back.

CONFUCIUS AS A REFORMER

Kang’s Kongzi gaizhi kao (lit., study of Confucius’s reforms) was started in 1886 and finally published in 1897. It provides an extended analysis of the innovations that Kang believed to have been advocated by Confucius. The following are taken from section introductions that present his general argumentation. As Kang’s subheadings indicate, they purport to show that Confucius’s greatness derives from his having written the Six Classics to promote reform in his own time.

How Confucius Founded His Teaching in Order to Reform Institutions

Every founder of doctrine in the world reformed institutions and established laws. This is true with Chinese philosophers in ancient times. Chinese principles and institutions were all laid down by Confucius. His disciples received his teachings and transmitted them so that they were carried out in the country and used to change the old customs. [9: 1a]

The Six Classics Were All Written by Confucius to Reform Institutions

Confucius was the founder of a doctrine. He was a godlike sage king. He complements Heaven and earth and nurtures the myriad things. All men, things, and principles are embraced in the Great Way of Confucius. He is, therefore, the most accomplished and perfect sage in the history of mankind. And yet, concerning the Great Way of Confucius, one would search in vain for a single word [under the master’s own name]. There are only the Analects, which was a record of the master’s sayings taken down by his disciples, and the Spring and Autumn Annals, which was a kind of old-fashioned gazette copied from ancient documents relative to public events and ceremonies. As to the Classics of Odes, Documents, Rites, Music, and Changes, they are regarded as the ancient records of Fu Xi, the Xia and Shang dynasties, King Wen and the Duke of Zhou; thus they have nothing to do with Confucius. If this were true, Confucius would have been merely a wise scholar of later times, no better than Zheng Kangcheng [127– 200] or Zhu Xi [1130–1200, who wrote commentaries on the Confucian classics]. How, then, could he have been called the only model of the human race and the perfect sage of all generations? . . . Before the Han dynasty it was known to all that Confucius was the founder of the doctrine and the reformer of institutions and that he was the godlike sage king. . . . Wherein lies the reason for this? It lies in the fact that scholars knew the Six Classics were written by Confucius. This was the opinion of all before the Han dynasty. Only when a scholar recognizes that the Six Classics were written by Confucius can he

understand why Confucius was the great sage, the founder of the doctrine, and the model for all ages; and why he alone was called the supreme master. [10: 1a–b]

[Kongzi gaizhi kao 9: 1a; 10: 1a–b—CT]

THE THREE AGES

Kang’s theory of progress is set forth in terms of the Three Ages, a concept of the New Text school for which he derived classical sanction from the Gongyang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, the “Li yun” section of the Record of Rites, and commentaries by the Han scholars Dong Zhongshu and He Xiu. Here we see the earlier view of the devolution of history adapted to the modern evolutionary view, by a process of rationalization and idealization that bears little resemblance to the traditional account in the Record of Rites.

The meaning of the Spring and Autumn Annals consists in the evolution of the Three Ages: the Age of Disorder, the Age of Order, and the Age of Great Peace. . . . The Way of Confucius embraces the evolution of the Three Sequences and the Three Ages. The Three Sequences were used to illustrate the Three Ages, which could be extended to a hundred generations. The eras of Xia, Shang, and Zhou represent the succession of the Three Sequences, each with its modifications and accretions. By observing the changes in these three eras one can know the changes in a hundred generations to come. For as customs are handed down among the people, later kings cannot but follow the practices of the preceding dynasty; yet, since defects develop and have to be removed, each new dynasty must make modifications and additions to create a new system. The course of humanity progresses according to a fixed sequence. From the clans come tribes, which in time are transformed into nations. And from nations the Grand Commonality comes about. Similarly, from the individual man the rule of tribal chieftains gradually becomes established, from which the relationship between ruler and subject is gradually defined. Autocracy gradually leads to constitutionalism, and constitutionalism gradually leads to republicanism. Likewise, from the individual the relationship between husband and wife gradually comes into being, and from this the relationship between parent and child is defined. This relationship of parent and child leads to the loving care of the entire race, which in turn leads gradually to the Grand Commonality, in which there is a reversion

to individuality. Thus there is an evolution from Disorder to Order, and from Order to

Great Peace. Evolution proceeds gradually and changes have their origins. This is true with all nations. By observing the child, one can know the adult and the old man; by observing the sprout, one can know the tree when it grows big and finally reaches the sky. Thus, by observing the modifications and additions of the three successive eras of Xia, Shang, and Zhou, one can by extension know the changes in a hundred generations to come.

When Confucius prepared the Spring and Autumn Annals, he extended it to embrace the Three Ages. Thus, during the Age of Disorder he considers his own state as the center, treating all other Chinese feudal states as on the outside. In the Age of Order he considers China as the center, while treating the outlying barbarian tribes as on the outside. And in the Age of Great Peace he considers everything, far or near, large or small, as if it were one. In doing this he is applying the principle of evolution.

Confucius was born in the Age of Disorder. Now that communications extend through the great earth and changes have taken place in Europe and America, the world is evolving toward the Age of Order. There will be a day when everything throughout the earth, large or small, far or near, will be like one. There will no longer be any nations, no more racial distinctions, and customs will be everywhere the same. With this uniformity will come the Age of Great Peace. Confucius knew all this in advance.

[From Lunyu zhu 2: 11a–12b—CT]

The methods and institutions of Confucius aim at meeting with the particular times. If, in the Age of Disorder, before the advent of civilization, one were to put into effect the institutions of Great Peace, this would certainly result in great harm. But if, in the Age of Order, one were to continue to cling to the institutions of the Age of Disorder, this too would result in great harm. The present time, for example, is the Age of Order. It is therefore necessary to propagate the doctrines of self-rule and independence, and to discuss publicly the matter of constitutional government. If the laws are not reformed, great disorder

will result. [From Zhongyong zhu 36b—CT]

THE NEED FOR REFORMING INSTITUTIONS

This memorial to the throne, submitted January 29, 1898, and titled Comprehensive Consideration of the Whole Situation, gives the arguments by which Kang attempted to persuade the Guangxu emperor to inaugurate reforms, which he did a few months later. Note Kang’s equivocation on the question of “ancestral institutions,” while he has no reservations about taking Meiji Japan as the model for China.

A survey of all states in the world will show that those states that undertook reforms became strong while those states that clung to the past perished. The consequences of clinging to the past and the effects of opening up new ways are thus obvious. If Your Majesty, with your discerning brilliance, observes the trends in other countries, you will see that if we can change, we can preserve ourselves; but if we cannot change, we shall perish. Indeed, if we can make a complete change, we shall become strong, but if we only make limited changes, we shall still perish. If Your Majesty and his ministers investigate the source of the disease, you will know that this is the right prescription.

Our present trouble lies in our clinging to old institutions without knowing how to change. In an age of competition between states, to put into effect methods appropriate to an era of universal unification and laissez-faire is like wearing heavy furs in summer or riding a high carriage across a river. This can only result in having a fever or getting oneself drowned. . . .

It is a principle of things that the new is strong but the old weak; that new things are fresh but old things rotten; that new things are active but old things static. If the institutions are old, defects will develop. Therefore there are no institutions that should remain unchanged for a hundred years. Moreover, our present institutions are but unworthy vestiges of the Han, Tang, Yuan, and Ming dynasties; they are not even the institutions of the [Manchu] ancestors. In fact, they are the products of the fancy writing and corrupt dealing of petty officials rather than the original ideas of the ancestors. To say that they are the ancestral institutions is an insult to the ancestors. Furthermore, institutions are for the purpose of preserving one’s territories. Now that the ancestral

territory cannot be preserved, what good is it to maintain the ancestral institutions? . . .

Although there is a desire to reform, yet if the national policy is not fixed and public opinion not united, it will be impossible for us to give up the old and adopt the new. The national policy is to the state just as the rudder is to the boat or the pointer is to the compass. It determines the direction of the state and shapes the public opinion of the country. [1b– 2b]

Nowadays the court has been undertaking some reforms, but the action of the emperor is obstructed by the ministers, and the recommendations of the able scholars are attacked by old-fashioned bureaucrats. If the charge is not “using barbarian ways to change China,” then it is “upsetting the ancestral institutions.” Rumors and scandals are rampant, and people fight each other like fire and water. To reform in this way is as ineffective as attempting a forward march by walking backward. It will inevitably result in failure. Your Majesty knows that under the present circumstances reforms are imperative and old institutions must be abolished. I beg Your Majesty to make up your mind and to decide on the national policy. After the fundamental policy is determined, the methods of implementation must vary according to what is primary and what is secondary, what is important and what is insignificant, what is strong and what is weak, what is urgent and what can wait. . . . If anything goes wrong, no success can be achieved.

After studying ancient and modern institutions, Chinese and foreign, I have found that the institutions of the sage kings and Three dynasties [of Xia, Shang, and Zhou] were excellent, but that ancient times were different from today. I hope Your Majesty will daily read Mencius and follow his example of loving the people. The development of the Han, Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties may be learned, but it should be remembered that the age of universal unification is different from that of sovereign nations. I wish Your Majesty would study Guanzi4 and follow his idea of managing the country. As to the republican governments of the United States and France and the constitutional governments of Britain and Germany, these countries are far away and

their customs are different from ours. Their changes occurred a long time ago and can no longer be traced. Consequently I beg Your Majesty to adopt the purpose of Peter the Great of Russia as our purpose and to take the Meiji Reform of Japan as the model for our reform. The time and place of Japan’s reform are not remote and her religion and customs are somewhat similar to ours. Her success is manifest; her example can be easily followed. [3a–b]

[From Yingchao tongchou quanjuzhe, in Wuxu zougao, 1b–3b—CT]

THE GRAND COMMONALITY

In these excerpts from Kang’s magnum opus, he first professes his humanitarian motivations and aspirations, combining the bodhisattva’s unlimited compassion for the sufferings of humankind with the Neo-Confucian sense of a heroic vocation to save the world. His final messianic vision is of a world totally liberated from all limits and bounds, as if history and inevitable progress assured a millennial outcome. Although Kang himself opposed revolutionary violence, in the absence of any realistic process or structure his anarchistic “no hands” approach to a total solution of human ills lent itself to the illusions of a revolutionary idealism, echoed later by the founders of the Chinese Communist Party.

Having been born in the Age of Disorder, I have been struck by the sufferings [of this age], and I have wondered if there could be a way to save it. “Bewildered, I have pondered.” [The solution lies] only in following the Way of the Grand Commonality of Complete Peace-and- Equality. If we look at all the ways of saving the world through the ages, to discard the Way of Grand Commonality and yet to hope to save men from suffering and to gain their greatest happiness is next to impossible. The Way of the Grand Commonality is [the attainment of] utmost peace-and-equality, utmost justice, utmost humaneness, and the most perfect government. Even though there be [other] Ways, none can add to this. . . .

We see that the whole world is but a world of grief and misery, all the people of the whole world are but grieving and miserable people, and all the living beings of the whole world are but murdered beings. The azure Heaven and the round Earth are nothing but a great slaughter yard, a great prison.

Being that I was born on the earth, then mankind in the ten thousand countries of the earth are from the same womb but of different bodily types. Being that I have knowledge of them, then I have love (qin) for

them. All that is finest and best of the former wisdom of India, Greece, Persia, Rome, and of present-day England, France, Germany, and America, I have lapped up and drunk, rested on, pillowed on; and my soul in dreams has fathomed it. With the most ancient and noted savants, famous scholars, and great men, I have likewise often joined hands.

Being that I am a creature of all the heavens, would it be better if I could abandon the world and the heavens, cut [myself] off from my kind, flee from the social relationships (lun), and be happy all by myself? Those whose perceptiveness and awareness are small, their loving-mind is also small; those whose perceptiveness and awareness are great, their humane heart-and-mind is also great. Boundless love goes with boundless perceptiveness.

But if we look at the miseries of life, [we see that] the sources of all suffering lie only in nine boundaries. What are the nine boundaries?

The first is called national boundaries: [this is] division by territorial frontiers and by tribes.

The second is called class boundaries: [this is] division by noble and base, by pure and impure.

The third is called racial boundaries: [this is] division by yellow, white, brown, and black [skin types].

The fourth is called gender boundaries: [this is] division by male and female.

The fifth is called familial boundaries: [that is] the private relationships of parent and child, husband and wife, elder and younger brother.

The sixth is called property boundaries: [this is] the private ownership of agriculture, industry, and commerce.

The seventh is called disorder boundaries: [this is] the existence of unequal, unthorough, dissimilar, and unjust laws.

The eighth is called species boundaries: [this is] the existence of a separation between man, and the birds, beasts, insects, and fish.

The ninth is called suffering boundaries: [this means,] by suffering, giving rise to suffering. The perpetuation [of suffering] is inexhaustible and endless—beyond conception.

(The remedy for suffering lies, therefore, in abolishing these nine boundaries. The following nine parts of the book thus deal in detail with each of the boundaries, with the substitution of the Grand Commonality of Complete Peace-and-Equality in their place.) . . .

[The Historical Evolution of] Democracy, from Less to More, Presages One World

The progress of democracy from less to more is a natural principle. Hence after the United States had been established, a great revolution in laws took place, and other countries followed this. Thereupon constitutions were set up everywhere, republican[ism] flourished, communist theories appeared, and labor parties were started up every day. . . . Hence the arising of democracy, the flourishing of constitutions, the talk about unions and communism, all are the first signs (lit., sounds) of One World. As for constitutional monarchy, [since the monarch] is already powerless, it is just the same as a democratic [form of government]. Some day monarchy will certainly be abolished and discarded, and [all states] will only belong to the One World [government]. . . .

If We Wish to Attain One World of Complete Peace-and-Equality, We Must Abolish the Family

Now, we desire that men’s natures shall all become perfect, that men’s characters shall all become equal, that men’s bodies shall all be nurtured. [That state in which] men’s characters are all developed, men’s bodies are all hale, men’s dispositions are all pacific and tolerant, and customs and morals are all beautiful, is what is called Complete Peace-and-Equality. But there is no means whereby to bring about this Way [and yet] to avoid abolishing the family. . . . To have the family and yet to wish to reach Complete Peace-and-Equality is to be afloat on a blocked-up stream, in a sealed-off harbor, and yet to wish to reach an open waterway. To wish to attain Complete Peace-and- Equality and yet to have the family is like carrying earth to dredge a

stream, or adding wood to put out a fire: the more done, the more the hindrance. Thus, if we wish to attain the beauty of complete equality, independence, and the perfection of [human] nature, it can [be done] only by abolishing the state, only by abolishing the family.

The Abolition of Boundaries

In the Grand Commonality there will be no states, therefore there will be no severe military laws. There will be no rulers, and so there will be no cases of opposing the superior and creating rebellion. There will be no husbands and wives, and so there will be no fighting over sexual desire, no provisions against sexual immorality, no repressive regulations or bearing of grievances, no resentment or hatred, no divorces, no miseries of punishment and killing. There will be no family relationships, and so there will be no need to support [one’s family members], no compulsion to do the right thing [by them], no wrangling over [property shares]. There will be no nobility, and so there will be no depending upon intimidation or coercion, no oppression, no grabbing, no intriguing for position, no toadying. There will be no private property, so there will be no litigation over fields and houses, over industry and commerce, or over production. There will be no burial of the dead, and so there will be no litigation over the cemetery. There will be no customs barriers, and so there will be no crimes of evasion and smuggling. There will be no class divisions, and so there will be no mistreatment or oppressive laws [on the part of the superior class], and their violation or opposition [by the inferior classes].

Aside from this, then, what crimes will still exist, what punishments will still exist? I think that in the time of the Grand Commonality, while there may be faults (or, mistakes), there cannot be sins (or, crimes). What will these faults be? In a job or in official position, there may be negligence or mistakes, or discourtesy or gossip. Through the influence of twenty years’ schooling, conduct and customs will be excellent, human nature will have become perfected, and [men’s] energies will also be abundant; with this, even faults and mistakes should just about be eliminated.

[Adapted from Thompson, One World, pp. 72, 74–75, 86, 253—LGT]

1. Mencius 4B: 8. 2. See Han Yu’s idealization of the ruler, ch. 18. 3. Kang Nanhai zibian nianpu 4: 113–114, as translated by Richard Howard. 4. Early book on political and economic institutions that foreshadows Legalist doctrines.