A Study Of Qian Mu's Books On Qing Intellectual History

Qian Mu's master books on Qing Intellectual History are A History of Chinese Scholarship during the recent Three Hundred Years and Chinese Academic Thought History Review .Vol.8.Opposing to Liang Qichao's ideas on Qing Intellectual History,Qian Mu wrote the first book whose name is the same to Liang's.Liang wrote his book on original chapter style.Liang thought Qing Intellectual History rooted in objecting to Philosophy of Sung Ming Dynastie.He praised Textology of Qing highly and thought it had scientific spirit. Being different from Liang , Qian said Qing Intellectual inherits Philosophy of Sung Ming Dynastie.Zhang Taiyan and Liang Qichao put Qing Intellectual into two schools,which are Wu and Wan,but Qian didn't put Qing Intellectual into any schools.Qian wrote in learning case style,extracting segments of the scholars in Qing,and added his own comments.By this way he wrote A History of Chinese Scholarship during the recent Three Hundred Years.The writing style highlights distinguishing feature of the scholars in Qing Dynasty, but it can't hold the coherence and systematisation of Qing Intellectual History. Chinese Academic Thought History Review .Vol.8 includes Qian's thesis on Qing Intellectual with long time span.Many passages were wrote in Xueshu style,and they made up the shortage of A History of Chinese Scholarship during the recent Three Hundred Years.The outstanding feature of Qian's books is uplifting Neo-Confucianism of Qing Dynasty highly and disparaging the Textology of Qing.He thought Neo-Confucianism imbodying China's national spirit.So his books commend the spirit of Neo-Confucianism ,ignoring the decline of Neo-Confucianism in Qing Dynasty.Qian did his research in traditional way,so he looked the spirit of Neo-Confucianism as the standard of behavior.So he passed judgment on scholars of Qing Dynasty by ethics.He thought scholarship should be conducive to govern and benefit the people,so the scholars of Qing Dynasty chosen by his A History of Chinese Scholarship during the recent Three hundred years meet his criterion. Textology of Qing Dynasty paid no attention to affairs of human life,which disliked by Qian.And Qian assessed it lowly. The New Text Confucianism was regarded superficially ,and its status was lower than Textology.Qian thought China scholarship has the characteristic every transfer makes progress, dead end leads to transformation. He emphasized the succession and variability of the scholarship.Qian did his research with ancient customs,so he didn't separate the ideology and scholarship.That explained why he laid particular stress on ideology of Qing Dynasty.There are also some inappropriate aspects in Qian Mu's books. Textology is the most important scholarship in Qing Dynasty,but in Qian's A History of Chinese Scholarship during the recent Three Hundred Years he abandoned some remarkable scholars of Textology ,for example,Qian Daxin ,Wang Mingsheng,Duan Yucai,Wang Niansui,and Wang Yinzhi etc. For Dai Zheng,Qian narrated his Neo-Confucianism more than Textology.These are the defects of his books.It is conservative for him to praise Neo-Confucianism of Qing frowardly, regardless of its decline in Qing. In Late Qing,Kang Youwei's theory of the New Text Confucianism promoted political reform and emancipating the mind ,but Qian neglected his obverse influence,only to discuss his shortage.