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PREFACE.
On the two principal philosophical Chinese systems,
Confucianism and Taoism we are tolerably well informed by translations of the
leading works and by systematical treatises. These two branches may be regarded
as the most important, but it would be impossible to write a history of Chinese
philosophy without paying special attention to the various heterodox
philosophers, whose views do not agree with the current ideas of either
Confucianists or Taoists. For that very reason they are often more interesting
than the latter, being original thinkers, who disdain to resign themselves to
merely iterating old stereotyped formulæ. Many of their tenets remind us of
similar arguments propounded by various philosophical schools of the West. I
have called attention to the Epicurean Yang Chu and to
the Chinese Sophists (vid. Journ. of Peking Orient.
Soc., vol. III, p. 203 and Journ. of China Branch of Royal Asiat. Soc., vol.
XXXIV, p. 1) and now beg to place before the public a translation of the
philosophical essays of Wang Ch`ung, whom we may well
call a Materialist. As a first instalment I published,
some years ago, a paper treating of Wang Ch`ung's ideas
on Death and Immortality (Journ. of China Branch of Royal Asiat. Soc., vol.
XXXI, p. 40). My lecture on the Metaphysics of Wang
Ch`ung, held in 1899 before the East Asiatic Section of the Congress of
Orientalists at Rome, has not been printed, the manuscript having been lost by
the secretaries of the Section.
Although he has much in common with the Confucianists
and still more with the Taoists, Wang Ch`ung's
philosophy does not lack originality. He is an Eclectic, and takes his
materials from wherever it suits him, but he has worked it into an elaborate
system such as did not exist before Chu Hsi. Like a true
philosopher he has reduced the multiplicity of things to some few fundamental
principles, by which he explains every phenomenon. One or two leading ideas
pervade his philosophy as "Leitmotives."
The Lun-hêng is not a
systematic digest of Wang Ch`ung's philosophy. Chinese
philosophers like the Greeks before Aristotle have not yet learned the art of
connecting their thoughts so as to form a complete system, in which each
chapter is the logical sequence of the preceding one. But Wang Ch`ung has already made one step in this direction.
Whereas the Analects and the works of Mencius, Lieh Tse and Chuang Tse are
hardly anything else than collections of detached aphorisms, each chapter
embracing the most heterogeneous subjects, each chapter of the
Lun-hêng is a real essay, the theme of which is given
first and adhered to throughout. But there is not much connection between the
separate essays.
These essays are not all of equal value. Some may
perhaps interest a Chinese, but are not calculated to enlist our interest. For
this reason I have not translated the whole work, but made a selection. It
comprises the philosophical essays, and of the others the most characteristic,
enabling the reader to form an adequate idea of the author and his
peculiarities. My chief aim has been to set forth Wang
Ch`ung's philosophy. The introduction contains a sketch of his system,
which I have attempted to abstract from his writings.
Of the 84 essays of the Lun-hêng I have translated 44. I have taken the liberty of
arranging them more systematically than is done in the original, classing them
under several heads as metaphysical, physical, critical, religious, and
folklore. The division is not a strict one, because with many chapters it is
doubtful, to which class they belong. Especially between metaphysics and
physics it is difficult to draw a distinction, since purely physical questions
are often treated metaphysically. From a table of contents of the
Lun-hêng in its entirety the reader will learn the
subject of those essays, which have not been translated, and by its help he can
easily find the place, which each chapter takes in the original.
With the exception of the Autobiography and the two
chapters on Confucius and Mencius
translated by Hutchinson (China Review, vol. VII and
VIII) the essays of Wang Ch`ung have not been put into
any European language before. A Chinese commentary to the Lun-hêng does not exist. I hope that my translation may
prove trustworthy. For any misunderstandings, which in Chinese and
philosophical works particularly are unavoidable, I count upon the indulgence
of my critics.
As far as lay in my power, I have endeavoured to
trace the sources from which Wang Ch`ung has quoted,
which has not been an easy task, and I have added such explanatory notes as to
enable even persons not knowing Chinese to understand the text. For the many
proper names the index at the end of the volume will be of advantage.
To my thinking, Wang Ch`ung is
one of the most ingenious Chinese writers, a satirist like Lucian and an esprit fort like
Voltaire, whose Lun-hêng well
deserves the widest publicity.
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