β) Historians.
It was a great controversy during the Han epoch, which
commentary to the Ch`un-ch`iu was the best. The Tso-chuan had
not yet secured the position, it holds now; many scholars gave
the preference to the works of Kung Yang or Ku Liang. Wang
Ch`ung avers that Tso Ch`iu Ming's Tso-chuan surpasses all the others,
and that having lived nearer to Confucius' time than the other
commentators, Tso Ch`iu Ming has had more facilities to ascertain
the views of the Sage and to give them in their purest form.
Wang Ch`ung confirms that the Kuo-yü is also the work of Tso
ch`iu Ming (Chap. XXXVII). Many of Wang Ch`ung's stories and
myths are taken from the Tso-chuan.
Of the Lü-shih-ch`un-ch`iu of Lü Pu Wei, an important work
for antique lore, Wang Ch`ung says that it contains too much of
the marvellous.
To illustrate his theories Wang Ch`ung often lays the Shi-chi
under contribution. Of its author, Sse Ma Ch`ien, he speaks with
great deference, and regards him as the greatest writer of the Han
period. What he reproaches him with, is that Sse Ma Ch`ien too
often leaves us in the dark as to his own opinion on a question,
stating only the bare facts, or giving two different versions of the
same event without deciding, which is the correct one (loc. cit.).
Pan Ku, Wang Ch`ung's contemporary and the son of his
teacher Pan Piao, is lauded for his good verses and memorials
(loc. cit.). He is the one contemporary of our philosopher, who
really has become immortal by his great work, the Han-shu. At
Wang Ch`ung's time it had not yet appeared, and so is never referred
to. It was completed and published after Pan Ku's death
by his sister Pan Chao.
That he possesses some abilities in the field of literary and
historical critique himself, Wang Ch`ung shows in his remarks on
the origin and history of the Classics. He tells us, how they were
composed, how discovered after the Burning of the Books, how
handed down, and how divided into books and chapters (Chap.
XXXVI). In spite of his profound veneration for the classical
literature he does not hesitate to censure those passages, which do
not find his approval, or to expose the exaggerations and fables
with which they teem (p. 51, N. 27). In like manner he is indefatigable
in detecting Taoist fictions and inventions and in reducing
them to their true measure, for it does not satisfy him to
demonstrate their impossibility; he desires to find out, how they
originated (p. 50, N. 24). He combats the legends which have
found their way into the historical literature, although they are
less frequent than in the Taoist works (p. 50, N. 25-26). The
entire
Lun-hêng is a big battle agains these errors. His discussions
would seem sometimes a little lengthy, and the subject not to require
such an amount of arguments, for we would prove the same with
a few words, or not discuss it at all, the proposition being for us
self-evident. We must however bear in mind, that what for us
now is self-evident and indisputable, was not so for the Chinese,
for whom
Wang Ch`ung wrote his book, and that to shake them in
their deep-seated persuasions a huge apparatus of logic was necessary.
Even then probably the majority held fast to their preconceptions.
The triumphant march of logic is checked, as soon
as sentiment and prejudice comes in.
Historically Wang Ch`ung takes another point of view than
his contemporaries, who for the most part took little interest in
their own time, and let their fancies wander back to the golden
age of remote antiquity. Wang Ch`ung is more modern than most
Chinese of the present day. He was of opinion that the Han dynasty
was as good, even better than the famous old dynasties
(p. 56, N. 56). Five essays bear upon this thesis. His reasoning
is very lame however, for instead of speaking of the government,
he only treats of the auspicious portents proving the excellence of
the ruling sovereigns.
