University of Virginia Library

II

So much above for the art of translating—translating
words, phrases, and clauses. To me, however, translation
can be science, as well as art. And it ought to be science
when we come to the translation of sentences. This leads
us to the logical methodology of translation. With such a
new methodological problem in the foreground, I have,
therefore, since the beginning of this work, thought of
disclosing possibilities, if any, of applying logical principles
to the translation of one language into another, as for

example here, of Chinese into English, both being mutually
so different. Thought the time is not as yet ripe for me to
claim any success in the problem-solving effort, yet a few
words about the application of the most general principles
of logic to the science of translation may, it is hoped, be
suggestive to my future comrades in the same field of
exploration.

It is a truism that however different and numerous
languages may be, the thought behind any language can be
expressed in all of them equally well, provided that the
thinker can skilfully command all the different systems of
vocal gestures. It is practically the same as to say that one
melody applies equally well to all different languages.
What judgments are to thinking, so are melodies to feeling.
Though single words of different languages may have
different units of thought which they represent, yet every
judgment laid down by reasoning always has its quantity and
quality, regardless of the language it chooses for expression;
just as the same melody, whether sung in Chinese or English,
has its unique time and notes. Translation, therefore, is a
restatement of thought in a different tongue with sentences
rather than words as its basic units.

As judgments expressed in language make propositions,
it is possible to make a logical analysis of every sentence of
any language and then restate it in the appropriate form of
a proposition and finally put it in the symbolic form of a
judgment. When the judgment is thus determined, the
original proposition in Chinese can be accordingly rendered
into English. And, if the English rendering expresses the
same unit of thought quantitatively and qualitatively, the
translation, however grammatically and idiomatically different

from the original, will then in substance be faithful to the
idea of the author.

However, just as judgments differ from suspicions, so do
propositions differ from questions. Yet certain types of
questions customarily used are rhetorical and are more
frequently found in Chinese than in English—such questions
as, for instance, "Is it possible to rescue a misgoverned
state from going to ruin?" or "How could it be justified
to confer honours on loafers and demand services from
warriors?" Inasmuch as such questions are suspicions
in word but judgments in thought, in many cases my
rendering chooses the form of propositions instead of
questions.

As regards the three accepted types of propositions, they
are as a rule interchangeable, since the categorical proposition
is the origin of the hypothetical and alternative propositions.
In the case of a categorical proposition, if the writing in the
English rendering of the original sentence appears to be
awkward or not intelligible to English readers, it ought to
be advisable to apply the doctrines of opposition and
eduction and see if the writing of the immediate inference
from the original proposition is elegant in style and proficient
in composition. For instance, there are in Chinese found
such expressions as, "Man never fails to have father and
mother," which implies "Everybody has parents". Now,
compared with the former, which is the transfusion of the
meaning of the original, the latter, which is the transfusion
of an immediate inference of the original, certainly sounds
elegant and proficient, without losing any portion of the
original thought. Likewise, it is possible to express the
substance of the original, which is a categorical proposition

into a hypothetical or an alternative proposition. In short,
wherever the transfusion of the meaning or direct sense fails,
there the transfusion of the implication or indirect sense is
preferable, although it is not always easy to determine at
what point the validity of transfusing the meaning of a
statement ends and the necessity of transfusing the implication
begins. Herein lies an everlasting difficulty in the way of
translation as well as the need of practice to master the skill
of it.

Furthermore, in classical Chinese writing, judgments
are very often expressed in hypothetical propositions, which
the English-speaking people customarily prefer to express
either in alternative or in categorical propositions. For
instance, the saying, "Whoever advocates strict legalism,
if not executed by public authorities, is infallibly assassinated
by private swordsmen," is hypothetical, and can be restated
in an alternative proposition, "Every advocate of strict
legalism is either executed by public authorities or assassinated
by private swordsmen." Of these two modes of expression,
the latter seemingly sounds more idiomatically English
than the former, while the sense remains the same. Another
kind of hypothetical proposition, such as, for example,
"When peace reigns, the state feeds loafers; once an
emergency comes, she uses warriors," is the Chinese way of
expression; but the equivalent categorical proposition,
"In time of peace loafers are supported; in case of
emergency warriors are employed," sounds far more idiomatically
English than the original. In most cases like these,
I have retained the native colour at the expense of idiomatic
English.

The last, but by no means the least, important point

throughout my English rendering is the distinction of "if"
from "when" and "where". "If" is used in universal
propositions to introduce "conditions" of certain events
while "when" is used in particular propositions to introduce
"temporal instances" and "where" to introduce "spatial
instances" of certain events. Similarly, "if" introduces
in general "conditions" of certain events, while "whenever"
and "wherever" specify their temporal and spatial aspects
respectively.

Such being the case, it is evident that translation is as
closely allied with psychology and logic as with grammar
and rhetoric and its objective is basically concerned with
thought rather than with word. In as much as most readers
of Han Fei TzŬ's writings have been primarily interested
in his thought since his days, the present translation with
the aid of logic and psychology devotes more attention to
the author's philosophical, than to his etymological, background.