History and the Changes of Times By Shen Kang-Po
History and the Changes of Times
By Shen Kung-Peh
(Lecture delivered at the 40th anniversary of the Institute of History and Philology,
Academia Sinica)
After man had appeared on earth, history began. But the appearance of history did not necessarily mean there was the academic discipline of history. In ancient times, many races with high culture, such as Egypt, Babylon, Israel, and India, had produced very beautiful arts, sophisticated theology, and practical science; yet, none of them had produced the discipline of history, although they did leave behind many precious historical materials. These cultures focused on the ways of the gods, and everything created by human beings was attached to religion. Such cultures based on supernatural powers could not produce the discipline of history. The cultures that could produce the discipline of history must be based on humanity. Human history was created by human beings with their own free will and through their own reasonable considerations. Thus, human beings have to be responsible for all the results. Their motives and influences are worthwhile for study. The study is history measured by this standard. Among all the ancient cultures, only China in the East and Greece in the West had the discipline of history. However, in the Chinese and Greek cultures, this discipline of history was not developed at the very beginning of their cultures. It was produced after those cultures had gone through considerable development and at the point where there was suddenly a tremendous change. This is to say, when their political structure was about to collapse, their social organization was greatly unstable, and their economic life and civil activity greatly changed. Then the discipline of history could be produced.
After history had been produced, the material environment still kept on changing day by day or month by month, then the discipline of history also continuously changed. The more rapid times changed, the faster the history discipline changed. The greater the changes of times, the newer the history discipline become. This reason is not difficult to deduce. Because everyone wants to read history in order to know what is going to happen in the future, whenever there is a great change, people want to find its cause from history. If they cannot find the cause, they are not satisfied with the available history books and could demand new history books. Thus, almost every new age has its new history books—books rewritten according to the spirit of the new age. And these new ideas formed the various focal points in the new history books, such as supporting the orthodox or advocating revolution, advocating the right of god or advocating the rule of the people, supporting morality or glorifying freedom, emphasizing economic development or paying attention to social movements, advocating patriotism or advocating that all men are brothers, following the theory of constant progress or following the theory that says peace and turmoil follow each other. All these different focal points are mostly influenced by other scientific disciplines; only a small portion of them have evolved from old thoughts.
When there is a new historical focus, there of course will be new explanation, new organization, and new values. What was considered to be the cause and effect of historical events, now perhaps has to find out new reasons and new influences. Sometimes the old historical materials were considered to be inadequate, so historians must look for new historical materials from old books. They could also look for materials for comparative study from old legends, foreign books, or other related disciplines. One has to use new methods in order to use new materials to match new focuses and ideas. Books complied by new historians will certainly have a new style. New historical disciplines with these new ideas, new materials, new methods, and new styles often will fall out of fashion because of the progress of times. And new changes will be necessary. Only through this kind of change with times, can the discipline of history become “the education of human beings.”
The history discipline was formally born in China during the Spring and Autumn Period with the compilation of Spring and Autumn by Confucius. It was during a time of great changes. The central political power of East Chou existed only in name. The feudal princes carved out their own lands and each became a prince of a small area. They were one degree lower than the king and their titles and land were granted by the king. Socially, the feudal institution already wavered. The middle class, especially the gentry, gradually rose. They infiltrated the political world and began to dominate learning. The economic situation also changed with new developments. The use of tools increased agricultural productivity. The merchant class rose. Their power could influence domestic and foreign politics, and even military actions. And old institutions naturally could no longer maintain social order. Also, because of annexations among feudal princes and the invading barbarians, fights occurred constantly. Confucius had failed in his advocating of political reform, so he recompiled the Spring and Autumn of the Kingdom of Lu, hoping it would preserve some valuable activities of the human past and used simple and concise words to express whether those activities were proper or not. This is the history discipline. According to this kind of history, the average people could cultivate their own historical thoughts, and use them as standards for judging their own behavior and other people’s behavior as well as cultivating the principle of managing things and being decent human beings. And Chinese culture also formed its fixed pattern.
The Ch’in Dynasty and the Han Dynasty unified China and created the theory of the same language and same rule of travel for all China, so naturally it also wanted to materialize the ideas of same standard for behavior. Thus, King Wu of the Han Dynasty abandoned the various other thoughts of the time for his political purposes. These kinds of political, economic, and social learnings led to the history disciplines of Sima Ch’ien. He used the previous history style to create “King Biographies” in order to record the years, “Feudal Princes Biographies” to record the generations, “Tables” to record the calendar, “Books” to classify things, and “Biographies” to record people. Unexpectedly, this method of compilation had become the pattern of orthodox history. And his collection of materials was unprecedented in scope in China. He believed that history was a continuous matter, so traced back to the most ancient time and continued up to his own time. He started the practice of calling the book “history” and made it a special discipline in China. Based on these reasons, we are obliged to admit that he was the first professional historian. Although China had long ago had historians, they were, after all, philosophers like the Confucius, mohists, and legalists—several thinkers who had their own views about history. Sima Ch’ien is credited for starting the highly developed Chinese history. After the fall of the West Han Dynasty, the East Han Dynasty rose. At that time, serious political and economic problems were not really solved. After the great turmoil, people missed the Liu royals. Scholars like Ban Biao in order to satisfied the great royalists in their hope to have peace in society, believed they should philosophically support the Liu political rights. Therefore, his own family of historians based on the “Mandate of Kings” theory, glorified the House of Liu Han and compiled the Book of Han. This was again a new style. It was different from the Book of History of Sima Ch’ien and started the dynastic history style of history writing. After that, all Chinese histories were dynastic in nature—each dynasty constituted a book. It seems that by doing so, the continuous nature of history was neglected. Yet with the accumulation of great amount of historical materials, history was obliged to be studied section by section.
China was in an age of great, great changes after the fall of the Three Kingdoms till the Sui Dynasty. Politically, it was split into many parts and socially with the entrance of foreign races, racial mixture occurred. And academic thoughts also greatly changed due to the entrance of Buddhism and the rise of metaphysics. On top of these, economic development and overseas expansion were also unprecedented. This kind of new culture liberated the individuals, and emphasized practical use. The contemporary scholars absorbed foreign cultures and arts on the one hand and diligently collected and compiled old laws, institutions, and books on the other. And their history surpassed that of their predecessors. Ten thousand volumes of history books were completed during those 200 years of turmoil. There were often 20 or 30 kinds of history for one dynasty. Types of history books also greatly increased. Some followed Book of History, some followed Book of the Han Dynasty, and some were books of laws and institutions only. Some were geographical accounts that were compiled with local customs and different kinds of local products. Some were daily accounts focused on the kings, some were special books on official titles and ranks or clan surnames and genealogy. Some were special books on foreign races. Although most of these books were lost, from the miscellaneous quotes that remain from the Sui and Tang Dynasties, we may say they were all first-class writings. This proves that the ages of great changes in China were also the great ages of progress of the history discipline.
On the other hand, when the times were peaceful and comparatively static, the discipline of history was comparatively changeless. During the Tang Dynasty, China was very strong and powerful. Its history discipline was, however, not as good as that of the Three Kingdoms and the Wei and Chin Dynasties. This was because King Tai Tsung controlled thought. Napoleon once said history should be controlled by the government, yet he did not succeed in doing this. Yet King Tai Tsung of Tang succeeded 1,200 years before Napoleon. King Tai Tsung established a special bureau, gathered scholars in it to compile the histories of previous dynasties, and created the example of official compilation of history books. Of course, this was more convenient than the compilation by private individuals, for historians could use the archives kept by the government, and it was easier to gather the materials in society by the power of the nation. Many scholars thus cultivated cooperation with other scholars to eliminate the private ideas of individuals and make history more comprehensive and fair. But on the other hand, historians had to please the king, eliminating or changing what was unsatisfactory to him and bragging about his own merits. Without freedom of writing, there could not be great historians. Talented persons like Liu Tsung-yüan could only write some essays. Only Ta yu was able to compile a great book—General Institutions—surpassing those of the Six Dynasties in quality.
And Liu Chih-chi, although not very good in historical views and strictly speaking only a man of letters, was a professional historian, creating a new example in China. Generally speaking, although great developments occurred in literature, arts, economics, government, and law in the best years of Tang, its history discipline was not as good as that of the South and North Dynasties or the North and South Sung Dynasties.
After the T’ien Bao Era of the Tang Dynasty, North China was a mess. A long time of deterioration finally entered China into the Five Dynasties Period. Scholars of the Tang Dynasty mostly wanted high rank and great wealth, and seldom had integrity. The Confucian spirit of persistence and responsibility, which was often seen in the Han Dynasty, seldom appeared in the Tang Dynasty. As early as the eras of King Tai and De, many scholars served in the camp of barbarian generals and felt comfortable about it. Barbarians controlled the land north of Yellow River. By the time of King Wu, some of the great families around Fan Yang did not even know the names of Duke Chou and Confucius. This kind of atmosphere naturally produced the character of persons like Feng Dao. The Sung Dynasty inherited this kind of situation. in order to stabilize society and establish a new country it was obliged to start a revival of the culture. Thus, from the very beginning Chao P’u advocated ruling the country by the book Analects.
After that, Sung scholars embraced the Confucian spirit and took the country as their own responsibility. But in order to develop ancient thoughts, they had to study the ancient books. Ouyang Wen Chung began to use archaeological methods to examine history materials and to collect private documents, epitaphs, and genealogies to supplement orthodox history. After him, a number of new styles arose. The most famous was Tsu Chih T’ung Chien (General Political Reflections) by Sima Kuang. It focused on politics and summarized accounts of political, cultural, social, and economic affairs. This book was also written by a government bureau, but is very different from other government-produced history books. Persons obtained by Sima Kuang such as Fan Tsu- yü and Liu Shu were also extraordinary talents and scholars, and he himself read their manuscripts thoroughly and edited their language to make it seem to be from the pen of one author. It is a most remarkable achievement. Tsu Chih T’ung Chien starts at the end of Spring and Autumn Annals and ends at the Five Dynasties and reconfirmed the continuation of history. After this book had appeared, many “general accounts” also appeared such as those that told the whole stories in Tsu Chih T’ung Chien from beginning to end. It was a book organized section by section and a story could appear in one section and continue in the following sections. Some books contained outlines of management accounts, as in Tsu Chih T’ung Chien. These books each have their own emphasis, which is convenient for scholars. Generally speaking, the history discipline of the Sung Dynasty could develop the national spirit of China on the one hand and develop the old Chinese culture on the other. It surpassed the Tang Dynasty in both quality and quantity.
The Mongolians ruled China for more than 80 years. In that system, Confucians were ranked at number 9 and beggars were ranked at number 10 in society. Naturally, no great history could appear. But foreign rule and ruthless war gave rise to the historical view of a great thinker. The “Orthodoxy” and “Change” theory of Fang Shiao-ru came into existence just because he experienced such catastrophe. In addition, he had two innovative historical views. First, he thought that at the beginning of human existence, there certainly was no king. People gathered and wanted to increase in number. When they had hot tempers, they wanted to fight. They could not decide anything for themselves. And there then appeared a talented person who eventually became their king. This theory was exactly the same as the theory of Hobbes of England, which was published more than 200 years after Fang died.
Second, he attached importance to the comment of history, thinking it was a very powerful political judgment and political education. He said clearly: “Historians are there to praise and reward or to punish the king,” establishing the theory that “the country belongs to the people.” Yet, this kind of historical thought was too progressive and too unpopular with the dogmatic king. So, King Ch’eng Tsu of the Ming Dynasty had to put him to death. After he died, although there were still many scholars, the history discipline of the Ming Dynasty had actually ended.
Large numbers of scholars appeared during the Ch’ing Dynasty. They inherited the doubting of the ancient and archaeological spirit of the Sung and the Ming Dynasties and established the research and editing discipline. But under the censor and punishment system of the government, they could only use this kind of historical discipline to study the Confucian classics and dared not to use it to study history. In the history discipline itself, the better achievements were made in special history instead of in orthodox history. Huang Li-chou clearly described the origin of the different schools of academic thought. Although narrow in scope and not detailed enough, it was the first academic thought in the history book of China. And Chang Shih-chai had new views and great contributions in his compilations of geographical accounts. The examples and formats he advocated far surpassed ancient scholars. He said all the six Confucian classics were history. This was a new and correct theory so far as the discipline of classics and history were concerned.
During the recent 100 years, European influence gradually moved eastward, and we gradually knew about and adopted the Western way in studying history. Many articles and books related to the history discipline appeared during the end of the Ch’ing Dynasty and the beginning of the republic era. We now need to develop the tradition of the past 1,000 years and also absorb the Western way of studying history in order to create new routes for the future new Chinese history disciplines. And this is the main work of the Institute of History and Philology under the leadership of Mr. Li Chi. It inherited the way of studying history in China from Ouyang Wen-chung to the Ch’ing Dynasty on the one hand, and adopted the Western way of the history discipline since the 19th century on the other. For instance, the work to reestablish the history of the Yin Shang Dynasty has far surpassed the ancient historians and sets an example for our future historical studies.
When the Institute of History and Philology was first established, the trend of the world already had been changing. It was not very obvious then, yet became more and more obvious later. And now, the history discipline of pre-first World War cannot be completely used, yet new history discipline has not yet been fully established. This is a great difficulty for historians. Before, the history discipline, whatever the school, had a decisive focal point. In our traditional history, the generous way would definitively succeed, while the dogmatic way would definitively fail. A tyrant would be overthrown, while a kind and good king had no enemies. Before, when Christianity was most prevalent, the Europeans believed that God made arrangements for everything. A king was established and ruled by the grace of God. And what happened to the individuals and to the country was all decided by heaven, by the will of God. Whether this kind of view was correct or not, it was decisive.
In the 18th century, influenced by Newton, people thought that both human nature and physical nature needed to be controlled by the law of nature; that is to say all was decided by “reason.” So, human beings had to cherish freedom. Gibbon’s great book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire said the decline and fall of Rome was due to the fact that the Romans were not free, and if people had freedom, their culture would have been elevated. Making liberalism the focal point of the history discipline is also decisive.
During the 19th century, influenced by the theory of Darwin, the history discipline believed that human history progressed step by step. And a later stage was always better than a former stage. This opinion was also decisive. A similar historical philosophy thought history went in cycles. This was an old theory, yet still today some people believe in it. Mencius was perhaps the creator of this theory for he said: “Every 500 years there must be a good king.” Tsou Yen created the theory of “five virtues rotate, each is proper,” which created the historical philosophy of “three traditions” and “three orthodoxies.” In the west, philosophers from Polybius of Greece to W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, O. Spengler, Sorokin, and A. Toynbee who visited Taiwan not long ago, all divided history into several necessary steps. Whether their theories were correct or not, they all deeply believed history itself contains a certain kind of decisive factor. After World War II, no one has totally accepted this kind of decisive history discipline. At this time, most historians admit that the evolution of history does not follow any specific route. All the past optimistic or pessimistic philosophies had oversimplified the historical process.
Historical phenomena are actually very complicated and do not have a uniform tendency; no two things are completely the same and no two things are completely different. Take feudalism for instance, both Chinese and the West had feudalism yet their feudalisms were absolutely different. It is true that the feudalism of China and the West were too far from each other in both time and distance; but, even in Europe, the feudalisms of England, France, and Germany of the same time were different in many things. And in ancient times, and in the present, in China and in foreign countries, there have been many things with the same name yet with no relationship to one another. So, we can say there is not consistency in historical phenomena and they cannot be compared and studied carefully.
Another point is that the relationship between cause and effect in the world is highly unpredictable and no rules can be found. We know that if there is a cause, there has to be an effect. Yet the same cause will not necessarily have the same effect. In many countries revolution happens because people love freedom and hate dogmatism; yet, their same motive and aim does not necessarily produce the same results. All farmers diligently sow, yet some farmlands produce more harvest and some farmlands produce less. Thus, Buddhist philosophers have said that aside from “cause,” all the matters in the world also have various relationships: some relationships are very complicated, some are natural, some are artificial, some exist inside, some come from outside, some are expected, and some are a surprise. When these “relationships” are added to these “causes,” then some effects can be produced. If “causes” are different, of course “effects” would be different, whereas if “causes” are the same, yet, “relationships” are different, then the same “effects” cannot be reached either. Since human beings do not exist in an absolutely insulated world, naturally they are not controlled by the so-called “law of cause and effect.” It is oversimplified to apply “the law of cause and effect” to history, and we cannot depend on this to speculate the future either.
Confucius said: “The Yin Shang Dynasty followed the rites of the Shia Dynasty. We can know what it added and what it had omitted. The Chou Dynasty followed the rites of the Yin Shang Dynasty and we can know what it had added and what it had omitted.” As to what were the rites of Yin Shang, Confucius knew all the details. Confucius perhaps knew the rites of Yin Shang quite clearly too. For us, it is a very different matter. We are today too far away from the ancient times. We cannot, as a matter of fact, know thoroughly what has happened a few hundred years ago, so how can we speculate the addition and omission among them? Thus, many historians want to cultivate historical imagination, want us to imagine the words and behaviors the ancients should have by putting ourselves in their situation. This sounds reasonable, but is very hard to do accurately, for the ancients had different circumstances and experience from us and thus we cannot know what exactly they thought. Tso Chiu-ming put himself in the situation of those not far from himself, only to be criticized as bragging. Thus, using imagination alone cannot re-establish ancient history. Also, human activities include reason and emotion. Reason is easier to know, but emotion is very hard to imagine. We cannot even speculate the feelings of our contemporaries near us—how can we speculate the feelings of the ancients? Therefore, we can only use all the available records to re-establish a part of ancient history, and cannot use imagination to make up the rest. As to historical materials, despite the fact that we now have good methods to collect, they will never be complete. For instance, if we want to collect the newspapers of China just from the first year of the Republic (1911) to today, it is probably not possible to collect all of them. Therefore, time is always getting rid of historical materials, regardless of their value. And even the new exciting historical materials are not all reliable. People do not even tell the truth when they write diaries. For instance, during the early years of the Republic, when the northern warlords fought one another, they published numerous telegrams and announcements every day that were mostly unreliable. And in recent years, it is also very hard to verify the reliability of international propaganda. Because historical materials are so difficult to collect and verify, it is very hard to make history a pure science. Furthermore, history today uses a number of supplementing disciplines, such as archaeology, anthropology, sociology, economics, statistics, and psychology. Among these, the scientific foundation of economics, sociology, and psychology has not been well established. Therefore, we cannot make the history of mankind a complete trustworthy science in this history of the natural world.
Finally, I want to mention another point. Historians today face some difficulties that their predecessors of 100 years ago did not. The historians 100 years ago could hide their writings and publish them decades later or even longer. By then, readers already have documents to criticize them, and are obliged to accept them. Even if they know some writings were aimed at slandering a certain individual, the writer and the slandered individual have both died and the feelings are all gone. Today, people want to know the causes and effects of whatever happened in recent decades, so writers of history books and papers would like to publish as quickly as possible to meet the demand of society. But the average readers and the historical writers have different trainings and their views of history are also different. The average readers want history to praise the good and punish the evil. But trained historians realize historical decisiveness no longer exists, and the rule of cause and effect is not totally reliable; so, their writings often cannot satisfy their readers. Thus, the new historical discipline is disconnected with society. Not only this, the professional historians and the political and philosophical historians also go toward different directions. The new historical discipline has not yet been established; it cannot possibly change common practices. The difficulties of today’s historians cannot be solved by any one organization or any one scholar. This is not just the problem of the Chinese historians; it is also the problem of all historians of the world, problems they constantly have to work on.