Research On Ma Yifu’s "Recovering The Moral Instinct"

Ma Yifu took "discovering instinct, removing bad habits and recovering the moral instinct" as his mission, and took "clarifying the Confucianism and argument" as his teaching principle. He guided civilians to recover the moral instinct, hoping to reserve reading seeds among the desolate chaos and to achieve cultural continuity through the trouble times. He wished to veer human instinct and academic from getting worse, and he also helped people get rid of endless pain. His thought of "recovering the moral instinct" was inherited from Confucius and Mencius. He had been trying to use the Tao of Liuyi to wake up peoples mind or to wash "the instinct of the secular" which had been declined in secular, and to make it return to the clear and real stature.This thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter focuses on the social and academic background that his thought of "recovering the moral instinct" based on, and explains his desire of relying on the Confucian’s "internal saints, external kings" to recover the "harmony between the heaven and human" of Neo-Confucianism. In the second chapter, the author starts from the understanding of the "instinct", and then analyzes the ideological origins of his theory of "instinct" and his unique and highly traditional Confucian academic view "theory of Liuyi command the whole mind". In the third chapter, the author elaborates efforts that Ma Yifu made to recover the moral instinct basing on Ma Yifu’s refolding College’s academic regulation. In the last chapter, the author discusses slightly the internal knowledge structure of "recovering the moral instinct", and also considers the existing influence of theory "recovering the moral instinct" under different times.Although Ma Yifu’s theory "recovering the moral instinct" seems to be completely unable to fit in the academic and cultural trends since modern times, it brought flowing water for the chaotic era, and it also provided valuable experience and lessons for seeking the root of national culture and the revival of traditional Confucianism in today’s society. At the same time, the author believes that "recovering the moral instinct" is our desire and pursuit of good humanity under such impetuous social condition, and it is the only way to revitalize the current culture and academy.