On Wu Mi’s Conservatism
Ong Chang Woei*
[From HUMANITAS, Volume XII, No. 1, 1999 ©
National
Humanities Institute]
Although broad tendencies that may be labeled "conservative" can be
traced throughout history, to categorize any group of intellectuals as
"conservative" is to invite philosophical debate. Karl Mannheim maintained
that conservatism as an "ism" only emerged in the West in the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth century and was an inseparable component of the triad conservatism/liberalism/radicalism.1
Benjamin I. Schwartz went further. Referring to such prominent figures
as Edmund Burke, he argued that "it is often asserted that conservatism
was a reaction to the French Revolution, but it is probably more correct
to say that the doctrine of conservatism rose in dialectic reaction to
certain trends of the Enlightenment."2
However complex the concept of conservatism may be, it should not be studied
in isolation but regarded as a reaction to certain movements characterized
by the intention to change the old system.
Although it is probably impossible to provide an incontrovertible definition
of "conservatism," the term is both convenient and useful for evaluating
the thought of a special group of early twentieth century Chinese intellectuals
widely known as the "Critical Review" (CR hereafter) or Xueheng school.
CR was a monthly journal first published in 1922 by certain members of
the faculty of the Southeastern University in Nanjing. This school of thought
was conservative in that it directly opposed the New Cultural Movement
(xin wenhua yundong) led by such famous thinkers as Hu Shi (1891-1962),
Chen Duxiu (1879-1942), Li Dazhao (1889-1927), and Lu Xun (1881-1936).
Among the CR scholars, Wu Mi was certainly the most active. Moreover, he
was the chief editor of most issues of the journal, which remained in publication
until its demise, after eleven years of bitter struggle, in 1933.3
Wu Mi graduated from Tsinghua University in 1916. In the following year,
he went to the United States to study at Harvard, from which he obtained
an A.M. degree in 1921. While at Harvard, he had the opportunity to study
with Irving Babbitt (1865-1933), one of the leading thinkers in the West
during the first third of the twentieth century. Wu Mi was fascinated by
Babbitt’s ideas, which were known as the New Humanism, and by Babbitt’s
respect for ancient Eastern philosophy, including Buddhism and Confucianism.
Other prominent CR scholars who were taught by Babbitt or influenced by
his work include Mei Guangdi (1980-1945), Hu Xiansu (b1894), Liu Yizheng
(1880-1936), and Guo Binhe (?).
After graduation, Wu Mi returned to China. He immediately confronted
a situation in which supporters of the New Cultural Movement were attacking
Confucianism and other forms of traditional thought, also known as "national
essence," as the origin of evil and the source of China’s backwardness.
Believing that the destruction of the "national essence" would be harmful
to China, Wu Mi soon engaged in resistance to the ideas of the New Cultural
Movement.
The New Cultural Movement
According to Chow Tse-tsung, the New Cultural Movement, also known as
the May Fourth Movement, covered a period from about 1917 through 1921.
The students and intellectual leaders in this group (henceforth designated
as the "New Intellectuals"), supported by the rising patriotic and anti-Great
Power sentiments of the public, promoted an anti-Japanese campaign and
a vast modernization movement that aimed to build a new China through intellectual
and social reforms.4 For the New
Intellectuals, modernization involved two crucial elements, science and
democracy, which were absent from the traditional culture. They thus regarded
the introduction of Western culture into China as the most urgent task.
The overwhelming zeal for science, however, did not really facilitate
the true spirit of scientific research. Instead, as various scholars have
pointed out, the primary concern of the New Intellectuals was to use "science"
as a weapon to attack traditional beliefs and philosophy. They venerated
science to such an extent that it became a virtual god, an entity beyond
doubt or criticism.5 The worship
of science nurtured a strong current of "scientism," which vastly overrated
the usefulness of science. As Daniel Kwok put it:
Conditions during the first half of the twentieth century in
China discouraged the wholesale application of science but encouraged an
intellectual appreciation of it, which we may call "scientism." Scientism,
in general, assumes that all aspects of the universe are knowable through
the methods of science. Proponents of the scientific outlook in China were
not always scientists or even philosophers of science. They were intellectuals
interested in using science, and the values and assumptions to which it
had given rise, to discredit and eventually to replace a traditionalbody
of values. Scientism can thus be considered as the tendency to use the
respectability of science in areas having little bearing on science itself.6
The scientistic misuse of science was first displayed systematically and
massively in the writings of Yen Fu (1853-1921). Drawing parallels with
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, Yen Fu warned the Chinese that they could
be eliminated if they were not sufficiently competitive in the modern world,
much as, according to Darwin, the weaker species are eliminated by natural
selection in the natural world. Yen Fu was applying the law of nature to
human society. In many ways, Yen Fu’s thought was consistent with the naturalistic
way of thinking that attained great influence in the United States in the
nineteenth century. In the view of Irving Babbitt, Utilitarianism and Romanticism,
initiated by Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
respectively, were the two streams of thought most representative of naturalism.
The former affirmed that human happiness could be obtained through the
manipulation of the laws of nature. In the words of Babbitt, Baconianism
"always will encourage the substitution of a kingdom of man for the traditional
Kingdom of God—the exaltation of material over spiritual ‘comfort,’ the
glorification of man’s increasing control over the forces of nature under
the name of progress."7 Meanwhile,
Rousseauism, asserting that man is naturally good and becomes wicked only
through flawed institutions, rejected all kinds of "unnatural" control
and restriction of the individual. As Babbitt quoted the French critic
Gustave Lanson, Romanticism "exasperates and inspires revolt and fires
enthusiasms and irritates hatreds; it is the mother of violence, the source
of all that is uncompromising."8
The New Cultural Movement, as interpreted by Wu Mi, was nothing more
than an encomium of naturalism in a Chinese way. He was well aware of the
radical intention of the New Intellectuals to destroy completely the institutions
and mind-set of the traditional society in the name of science and democracy.
When defending the old system, Wu Mi was careful to distinguish between
the "good" elements and the "bad" elements of tradition. To him, old practices
like forbidding a widow to remarry were superficial representations of
a rich tradition. Such practices, if unreasonable, could always be abolished.
However, the concept of chastity constituted a core principle of tradition,
one which should be preserved in any circumstances if human beings were
not to revert to the state of wild beings.9
In Wu Mi’s view, the flaw of the New Cultural Movement was not that
the New Intellectuals were eager to promote new thought or Western culture,
or that they aimed to demolish certain irrational old practices. Rather,
Wu Mi believed that the main defect of the New Cultural Movement lay in
the kind of ideology the New Intellectuals were attempting to introduce.
In fact, Wu Mi and the CR circle were not against the introduction of Western
culture. They were, however, opposed to the New Intellectuals’ one-sided
promotion of naturalism. Wu Mi insisted that naturalism was just a small
segment of the rich Western culture; hence it was wrong for the New Intellectuals
to regard it as the sole representative of Western civilization. Even worse,
according to Wu Mi, was that the New Cultural Movement’s one-sided promotion
of naturalism was introducing into China a system of thought that Babbitt
and other distinguished scholars had already shown to have been the source
of calamities in the West.10 The
New Cultural Movement thus threatened to weaken or destroy a proper view
of life among the Chinese.11
In Wu Mi’s opinion, one important consequence of the importation of
naturalism was the spread of the unrestrained admiration of science that
was typical of Baconianism. Wu Mi maintained that, no matter how hard one
tries to apprehend the meaning of the universe, there will always remain
aspects of reality that men and women cannot fully understand. Those things
that can be perceived by man are finite in nature while those that cannot
be perceived are infinite. Thus there is a need for man to complement empirical
rationality with faith and imagination. The love of science should be accompanied
by morality and religion. The believer in naturalism, however, ignores
or disparages morality and religion while foolishly believing he is addressing
the whole of experience. Such a distorted outlook wreaks havoc on morality
and religion, both of which are crucial components of a proper view oflife.12
At the same time, through the popularization of Rousseauism, the New
Cultural Movement disseminated populism into every aspect of Chinese society.
In the literary field, the New Intellectuals crusaded for a vernacular
style of writing that would appeal to the taste of the common people. In
his famous article On Literary Revolution (Wenxue Geming Lun), which
exemplified the view of the New Intellectuals on literary reform, Chen
Duxiu cried, "Down with the ornate, sycophantic literature of the aristocracy;
up with the plain, expressive literature of the people!"13
His proposal soon won the approbation of the general public. By the time
the first issue of CR was published, the vernacular had almost attained
the status of a "national" language. Still, Wu Mi and the other CR members
were unwilling to adopt the vernacular in their writings. Yet it would
be misleading to conclude that Wu Mi was against the usage of vernacular.
In fact, Wu Mi was well known for his study on The Dream of the Red
Mansion (Hongloumeng), a seventeenth century novel written in vernacular
form. What made Wu Mi uncomfortable with the vernacular literary works
of the "new" writers of his day was their marked tendency toward superficiality
and crudity. In his opinion, not only did these works disparage the aesthetic
nature of literature but their wholesale employment of cliché rendered
them blatantly banal.14 Wu Mi
thus emphasized the need for superior talent when the inditing of literary
works was the goal.15
While Wu Mi obviously opposed the glorification of literary populism
by the New Intellectuals, he did not confine his criticism to the cultural
realm. He also attacked the political aspect of populism.
Political populism, in its extreme form, holds that political leadership
can be displaced by direct voting of the masses. Public policies can be
set, not by political leaders, but by numerical majorities that supposedly
reflect the "general will." Wu Mi, with Babbitt, dismissed this notion
as a peculiar conceit. He shared Babbitt’s view that "in the long run democracy
will be judged, no less than other forms of government, by the quality
of its leaders, a quality that will depend in turn on the quality of their vision."16
To be specific, where politics is concerned, both Babbitt and Wu Mi placed
their hope in the quality of elites rather than of the general public.
While Wu Mi’s repudiation of the New Cultural Movement thus went beyond
plain cultural discussion to encompass politics as well, Wu Mi did not
consider his criticism of populism in its cultural and political aspects
to be separate endeavors.
We have seen that Wu Mi’s criticism of the New Cultural Movement was
based on his rejection of the naturalism glorified by that movement. To
understand Wu Mi’s rejection of naturalism, it is helpful to understand
his view of human nature, which in many ways resembles that of Babbitt.
Human Nature
In Babbitt’s view, Rousseau’s most forceful attack on the Christian
tradition was his "sudden vision" on a summer day in 1749 that, in his
own words, "man is naturally good and that it is by our institutions alone
that men become wicked." For Babbitt,
The consequences that have flowed from this new ‘myth’ of man’s
natural goodness have been almost incalculable. Its first effect was to
discredit the theological view of human nature, with its insistence that
man has fallen, not from Nature as Rousseau asserts, but from God, and
that the chief virtue it behooves man to cultivate in this fallen state
is humility. According to the Christian, the true opposition between good
and evil is in the heart of the individual: the law of the spirit can scarcely
prevail, he holds, over the law of members without a greater or lesser
degree of succor in the form of divine grace. The new dualism which Rousseau
sets up—that between man naturally good and his institutions—has tended
not only to substitute sociology for theology, but to discredit the older
dualism in any form whatsoever.17
According to Babbitt, Rousseau’s view of human nature could be classified
as monism; with evil rooted solely in institutions, human nature was constituted
by goodness alone. Babbitt, on the other hand, adhered to the old tradition
of dualism with respect to human nature. This dualism "affirms a struggle
between good and evil in the heart of the individual," rather than transferring
the struggle to society, in the manner of a Rousseau.18
Inspired by Babbitt, Wu Mi also assumed a dualistic standpoint on this
subject. He refuted those who regarded human nature as solely evil or solely
good. The former stance was that set forth by theologians such as Saint
Augustine (354-430). It upheld the religious belief that men were reduced
to evil as a result of Adam’s consumption of the Forbidden Fruit. They
were bound to suffer in hell after death unless they received God’s grace.
However, who would be selected by God to receive His kindness would depend
entirely upon God’s will. Men were unable to influence the selection, no
matter their good deeds. Although Wu Mi thought that the intention of such
teaching was benign, he believed it aroused fear within the minds of many.
Furthermore, since the selection by God did not rely on the performance
of men, the whole assessment was capricious. As a result, men might come
to lack a motive to strive for goodness.
But if the attempt of the theologian to nurture the goodness of men
through the doctrine of depravity was unfruitful, the view that appraised
human nature as absolutely good was, Wu Mi proclaimed, ruinous to morality.
The problem lay in the fact that the supporters of this view normally blamed
human evil on the external environment. From Wu Mi’s point of view, this
was totally irresponsible. Men would have every reason not to act according
to the standard of morality, since they could shift the responsibility
to some point outside themselves. Only a dualistic view of human nature
would serve the purpose of encouraging men to use their own free will to
choose between good and evil. Only such a view encourages men to bear the
full responsibility for their choices.19
At first glance Wu Mi’s notion of human nature would seem to contradict
the Confucian tradition, since, following the teaching of Mencius, hsing,
or human nature, was accepted as purely good by Confucian scholars, at
least the Confucian scholars in the Dao Xue tradition.20
Wu Mi insisted, however, that his perception of human nature corresponded
to the teaching of the ancient sages. He avoided the usage of hsing,
turning to li, or reason, and yu, or impulses or desire,
to demonstrate the idea of dualism. Li provided a Will to Refrain
or Inner Check (ke ji) to limit the rashness of the yu. This
would prevent a person from acting simply according to his desire. This
inner check, however, was not necessarily restrictive. If the desire was
reasonable, reason would allow it to act on its own wish. It was only when
the desire was immoral that there was a need to refrain under the check
of reason. The advantage of this theory over that of monism, as Wu Mi indicated,
was its attachment of morality to free will and its emphasis on personalresponsibility.21
The belief in the need for an Inner Check led Wu Mi to criticize the
New Intellectuals’ search for absolute rights. In his view, the notion
of absolute rights gave unlimited gratification to the desires. Romanticism,
popularized by the New Cultural Movement, urged man to act according to
his natural emotions and was strongly against any form of restriction or
"artificial" rules.22 Under the
influence of Romanticism, the New Intellectuals of China pushed for an
unlimited acceptance of individual rights, without any acknowledgment of
obligation. Wu Mi warned that the absence of temperance would eventually
lead to the loss of loyalty and forbearance. In the end, China would fall
apart due to the worsening of economic crises and the collapse of the politicalframework.23
The remedy Wu Mi suggested to counter the injurious effect of immoral
desire is to exercise the Inner Check. As an example of a person’s failure
to exercise it, Wu Mi cited a leader of the workers and common folk who
had agitated for universal equality and ignited social and political revolution.
According to Wu Mi, the radical deeds of this individual, whom he did not
identify by name, were driven unconsciously by his personal hatreds and
desire for revenge. Although this radical writer believed that he was striving
for the happiness of the public, his life’s work actually inflicted great
damage on society. If this person instead had exercised the Inner Check,
he would have held back from advocating such extreme and socially destructivemeasures.24
Wu Mi was obviously referring to Marx in the above example. His advocacy
of the Inner Check was thus a way to restrain the widespread enthusiasm
for Marxism during the New Cultural Movement.25
Here one can sense the political implications of Wu Mi’s view of human
nature.
Cultural or Political?
Conservatism in modern China is viewed by most scholars as primarily
a cultural phenomenon. That is because those conservatives in question
did not for the most part discuss the broader social and political implications
of their views. Typical of the predominant assessment of the Chinese conservatives
is this observation by Benjamin Schwartz:
Another particular aspect of modern Chinese conservatism is
that it is largely cultural conservatism and not basically a sociopolitical
conservatism committed to the prevailing sociopolitical status quo. . .
. Edmund Burke did not approve of everything in the sociopolitical structure
and culture of late eighteenth-century England but he did approve of a
vast number of things in general and of the political order in particular.
His commitment to the whole involved a deep commitment to the myriad parts.
In China, however, by the beginning of the twentieth century we find few
members of the articulate intelligentsia who are prepared to defend the
current sociopolitical order as a whole.26
Charlotte Furth, too, sees a disjuncture of politics and culture in the
conservative camp. She cites a few cultural conservatives like Zhang Binglin
(1868-1936) and Xiong Shili (1885-1968) to demonstrate that all accepted
the necessity of political change and therefore felt constrained to consider
cultural-moral questions apart from the political process.27
For Furth this group within the cultural elite might be classified as conservative
only in the cultural aspect. On social and political issues, they tended
to agree with the reformers.
Furth’s view is supported by other studies. In his study of Lin Shu
(1852-1924), Chow Tse-tsung affirmed that during the May Fourth Movement
many conservatives approved of the May Fourth Incident of 1919: a protest
against the military government in Peking for losing Qing Dao to the Japanese
at the Peace Negotiation in Paris.28
A key example of such approval was Ma Xulun (1885-1970) of the National
Essence school, who even took a direct part in the students’ movement.29
In his study of the National Essence Movement, Laurence A. Schneider suggested
that before about 1895 China was a system in which the state, society,
and the arts were viewed as inseparable parts of a whole. However, "from
the late nineteenth century this integrated system and holistic outlook
began to fall apart. One of the earliest symptoms of this disintegration
was the ‘discovery of culture’ by scholars who, in their approach to dealing
with China’s contemporary crises, saw a special body of native literature
and art as a thing-in-itself, independent of and even more fundamental
than the political and even social institutions which until then had been
intimately associated with it."30
Evidence such as the foregoing would seem to justify studying the cultural
inclination of early twentieth century Chinese conservatives apart from
their political preferences. It is therefore not surprising to find that
certain scholars who studied conservatism during the May Fourth era purposely
avoided the conflicting views of the New Intellectuals and the conservatives
concerning politics and society.31
An examination of Wu Mi’s conservatism seems to indicate, however, that,
even if one strictly limits one’s attention to those conservatives who
were far removed from the political front lines in twentieth century China,
one can still detect some intention to counteract certain aspects of the
political ideology propagated by the New Cultural Movement. Attributing
the political chaos they experienced to the importation by the New Intellectuals
of "harmful" ideologies from the West, such conservatives saw a possible
antidote for the worsening sociopolitical situation—one based on traditional
culture.
If we shift our focus to the New Intellectuals, it is easy to see that
their advocacy of Western culture was essentially political in nature.
After a series of political reforms that ended in disappointment, the New
Intellectuals concluded that the corrupted spirit of the Chinese was at
the root of the iniquitous political system and that this spirit was supported
by the traditional culture. Lu Xun, in his well-known Preface to Calls
of Arms (Nahan Zixu), recalled that he had initially wished to pursue
medical study in Japan. That wish stemmed in part from his awareness that
the Japanese Reformation in great measure owed its rise to the introduction
into Japan of Western medical science. But after a shocking experience
in which Lu saw a slide show of a Chinese beheaded by the Japanese military,
watched by other Chinese who had come to enjoy the spectacle, Lu became
convinced that "medical science was not so important after all. The people
of a weak and backward country, however strong and healthy they might be,
could only serve to be made examples of or as witnesses of such futile
spectacles; and it was not necessarily deplorable if many of them died
of illness. The most important thing, therefore, was to change their spirit;
and since at that time I felt that literature was the best means to this
end, I decided to promote a literary movement."32
Clearly, the spirit of the Chinese was corrupted by the "sick" culture.
For that reason Lu Xun attacked the traditional culture in his numerous
influential works.
It is is important to note that, despite their many differences, the
conservatives agreed with the New Intellectuals on the importance of the
relationship between culture and politics. The conservatives, too, thought
that culture played the crucial role in shaping politics. Believing that
the destruction of the traditional culture by the New Intellectuals would
make the political situation worse rather than better, the conservatives
saw the rejuvenation of the traditional culture as a duty.
Wu Mi wrote little on the 1911 Revolution and the May Fourth Incident.33
Yet his involvement in the Guo Fang Hui, or National Defense Alliance,
formed in Boston by Chinese students to exhibit their antipathy towards
the Twenty-one Demands issued by Japan in 1915,34
suggests that he was in accord with the patriotic spirit of the May Fourth
Incident. There also is nothing in his writings to suggest that he preferred
monarchy to democracy. For these reasons, we might be apt to classify him
as a cultural conservative with "progressive" political views. Nevertheless,
his contempt for populism and Marxism in politics was obvious even though
he confined most of his writings to the discussion of cultural issues.
When presenting his view of life, Wu Mi quoted a famous line from the book
of Mencius: "If poor, they attended to their own virtue in solitude; if
advanced to dignity, they made the whole kingdom virtuous as well."35
He cited the experience of ancient sages like Confucius, Socrates, and
Plato, who retreated to private education in times of political turbulence
to avoid being killed while upholding righteousness.36
Here Wu Mi was trying to stress that withdrawal from politics during "bad"
times was not, as many believed, a cowardly choice. Instead, it was a good
and clever method to allow oneself to scrutinize politics effectively.
Wu Mi tried to follow the example of the ancient sages by writing extensively
on cultural topics. And though he may not have been opposed to the 1911
Revolution or the May Fourth Incident, he unreservedly attacked populism
and Marxism from a cultural perspective once he came to perceive them as
a menace to the already snarled political condition. Hence, it would be
inaccurate to make a clear distinction between Wu Mi’s cultural conservatism
and his political inclinations.
The example of Wu Mi calls into question the prevalent view that conservatives
in twentieth century China disagreed with the New Intellectuals only on
the cultural level and that no serious political controversy separated
these two groups of individuals. While this might be true insofar as the
1911 Revolution and the May Fourth Incident are concerned, it definitely
does not hold true for more radical movements like communism. When challenged
by certain schools of radical thought, particularly Marxism, that called
for a thorough structural transformation of politics and society, the cultural
conservatives—whether directly involved in political and social reforms
like Carsun Chang (1887-1969) and Liang Shu-ming (1893-1988) or active
only in scholarship like Wu Mi—all proved to be politically conservative
as well.
* Ong Chang Woei is a doctoral candidate in
the Department of Chinese Studies at the National University of Singapore.
[Back]
1 Karl Mannheim "Conservative Thought," in Paul Kecsckemetic,
ed., Essays on Sociology and Social Psychology (London: Routledge
Kegan Paul Ltd., 1966), 98-99. [Back]
2 Benjamin I. Schwartz, "Notes on Conservatism in General
and in China in Particular," in Charlotte Furth, ed., The Limits of
Change: Essays on Conservative Alternatives in Republican China (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1976), 5. [Back]
3 It was only in 1931, when Wu Mi was on a trip to Europe,
that Hu Jixian assumed the position of acting chief editor. See Qiao Yanguan,
"Preface of the Republished Critical Review" (Chongyin Xueheng Zazhi Bianyan),
CR, 1931. [Back]
4 Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual
Revolution in Modern China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964),
1-2. It is important to note that the May Fourth Incident, though related,
is different from the May Fourth Movement. The May Fourth Incident refers
to the students’ demonstration in Beijing on May 4, 1919. [Back]
5 See e.g. Wang Ermin, On the History of Modern Chinese
Thought (Zhongguo Jindai Sixiangshi Lun) (Taipei: Huashi Publishing,
1977), 531-32. [Back]
6 D. W. Y. Kwok, Scientism in Chinese Thought 1900-1950
(New
York: Biblo and Tannen, 1971), 3. [Back]
7 Irving Babbitt, "What I Believe: Rousseau and Religion,"
Character
and Culture: Essays on East and West, with new introduction by Claes
G. Ryn (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1995), 229. [Back]
8 Ibid., 228-29. [Back]
9 Wu Mi, "On the New Cultural Movement" (Lun Xinwenhua
Yundong), CR, No. 4, April 1922, 19. [Back]
10 Ibid. [Back]
11 Wu Mi, "My View of Life" (Wo zhi Renshengguan),
CR, No. 16, April 1923, 3-4. [Back]
12 Ibid., 5-6. [Back]
13 Chen Duxiu, "On Literary Revolution" (Wenxue Geming
Lun), New Youth (Xin Qingnian), vol.2, no. 6, February 1917. The
English translation is obtained from Timothy Wong trans. "On Literary Revolution,"
in Kirk A. Denton, ed., Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on
Literature 1893-1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 141.
[Back]
14 Wu Mi, "On the Correct Way of Inditing Literary
Work in Today’s World" (Lun Jinri Wenxue Chuangzao zhi Zhengfa), CR, No.
15, March 1923. [Back]
15 Ibid. [Back]
16 Irving Babbitt, Democracy and Leadership
(Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1924), 16. Wu Mi’s translation and opinion
can be found in his "Babbitt’s on Democracy and Leadership" (Baibide Lun
Minzhi yu Lingxiu), CR, No. 32, August 1924, 15. [Back]
17 Irving Babbitt, "What I Believe," 227-28. [Back]
18 Ibid., 234. [Back]
19 Wu Mi, "My View of Life," 10-12. [Back]
20 Generally speaking, Neo-Confucianism in the Sung-Ming
period spoke only of a dualistic hsing when referring to the Ch’i,
or ether or physical aspect of the hsing. When referring to the
the Nature of Heaven and Earth, or tian di aspect of the hsing,
which only men had the ability to unfold and which therefore was the mark
for distinguishing human beings and other species, the Neo-Confucian scholars
agreed that it carried the quality of absolute goodness. As for the physical
hsing,
although the Confucian scholars could not deny its existence, they were
not willing to recognize it as human nature because it was possessed by
both human beings and other species. The first philosopher who made a distinction
between these two forms of hsing was Zhang Zai (1020-1077). See
e.g. Ch’ang Tsai, An Annotation of Zhengmeng by Master Zhang (Zhangzi
Zhengming Zhu), annotated by Wang Fuzhi (1619-1692) (Taipei: Shijie Shuju,
1970), Vol 1, 91-92. [Back]
21 Wu Mi, "My View of Life," 12-14. [Back]
22 Wu Mi, trans., "Irving Babbitt’s Humanism" (Baibide
zhi Renwen Zhuyi), CR, No. 19, July 1923, 5. [Back]
23 Wu Mi, "My View of Life," 18-19. [Back]
24 Ibid., 15. [Back]
25 Ibid. In the article "On the New Cultural
Movement," Wu Mi expressed his hostilty towards Marxism as he accused the
New Intellectuals of introducing Marxism into China. See Wu Mi, "On the
New Cultural Movement,"13. [Back]
26 Benjamin I. Schwartz, "Notes on Conservatism in
General and in China in Particular," 16-17. [Back]
27 Charlotte Furth, "Culture and Politics in Modern
Chinese Conservatism," in The Limits of Change: Essays on Conservative
Alternatives in Republican China, 30. [Back]
28 Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual
Revolution in Modern China, 119. [Back]
29 See Ma Xulun, My Life Before Sixties (Wo
zai Liushi Sui Yiqian) (Peking: Sanlian Bookstore, 1983). [Back]
30 Laurance A. Schneider, "National Essence and the
New Intelligentsia," in The Limits of Change: Essays on Conservative
Alternatives in Republican China, 57. [Back]
31 See, e.g., Shen Sung-Chiao, The Critical Review
Group: A Conservative Alternative to the New Cultural Movement in the May
Fourth Era (Xueheng Pai yu Wusi Shiqi de Fan Xinwenhua Yundong) (Taipei:
National Taiwan University, 1984), 4. [Back]
32 Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, trans., Lu Xun:
Selected Works (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1980), Vol. 1, 34-35.
[Back]
33 In his self-edited chronology, Wu Mi had a few words
of comment that indicate his approval of the 1911 Revolution and the May
Fourth Incident. Although this piece of work is written by Wu Mi himself,
it should still be referred to with care because it was either written
or modified significantly during the Cultural Revolution; hence the information
provided may not truly reflect Wu Mi’s thought. See Wu Mi, Self-Edited
Chronology of Wu Mi 1894-1925 (Wu Mi Zibian Nianpu: Yiba Jiusi zhi
Yijiu Erwu Nian), arranged by Wu Xuezhao (Beijing: Sanlian Bookstore, 1993),
105-107, 193-194. [Back]
34 This information was provided by Wu Mi’s daughter
Wu Xuezhao, in her Wu Mi and Chen Yinke (Wu Mi yu Chen Yinke) (Beijing:
Tsinghua University Press, 1992), 16-18. [Back]
35 Wu Mi, "My View of Life," 20. English translation
for this line is obtained from James Legge, trans., "Mencius," in The
Four Books (Taizhong: Yishi Publishing, 1971), 453. [Back]
36 Ibid., 20-22. [Back]
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