The Return to the Ancient Knowledge.

Sun Yat-sen's doctrine of the return to the ancient Chinese knowledge may be divided into three parts. First, he praised the ancient Chinese superiority in the field of social science, but distinctly stressed the necessity of Western knowledge in the field of the physical and applied sciences alone.83 Second, he pointed out the many practical accomplishments of the ancient Chinese knowledge, and the excellence and versatility of Chinese invention.84 Third, his emphasis upon the development of talents in the material sciences hints at, although it does not state, a theory of national wealth based upon labor capacity.

Sun Yat-sen said, “Besides reviving our ancient Chinese morality, we must also revive our wisdom and ability.... If today we want to revive our national spirit, we must revive not only the morality which is proper to us, but we must revive also our own knowledge.”85 He goes on to say that the peculiar excellence of the ancient Chinese knowledge lay in the field of political philosophy, and states that the Chinese political philosophy surpassed the Western, at least in clearness.

He quotes The Great Learning for the summation, in a few words, of the highlights of this ancient Chinese social knowledge: “Investigate into things, attain the [pg 075] utmost knowledge, make the thoughts sincere, rectify the heart, cultivate the person, regulate the family, govern the country rightly, pacify the world.”86 This is, as we have seen, what may be called the Confucian doctrine of ideological control. Sun Yat-sen lavished praise upon it. “Such a theory, so detailed, minute, and progressive, was neither discovered nor spoken of by any foreign political philosopher. It is a peculiar intellectual treasure pertaining to our political philosophy, which we must preserve.”87 The endorsement is doubly significant. In the first place, it demonstrates the fact that Sun Yat-sen thought of himself as a rebuilder and not as a destroyer of the ancient Chinese culture, and the traditional methods of organization and control. In the second place, it points out that his Chinese background was most clear to him, and that he was in his own mind the transmitter of the Chinese heritage.

In speaking of Chinese excellence in the field of the social science, Sun Yat-sen did not confine his discussion to any one time. Whenever he referred to a political theory, he mentioned its Chinese origin if it were one of those known to Chinese antiquity: anarchism, communism, democracy. He never attacked Chinese intellectual knowledge for being what it was, but only for what it omitted: physical science.88 He was undoubtedly more conservative than many of his contemporaries, who were actually hostile to the inheritance.

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The summary of Sun Yat-sen's beliefs and position in respect to the ancient intellectual knowledge is so well given by Tai Chi-tao that any other statement would almost have to verge on paraphrase. Tai Chi-tao wrote:

Sun Yat-sen (in his teachings) completely includes the true ideas of China as they recur again and again from Yao and Shun, Confucius and Mencius. It will be clear to us, therefore, that Sun Yat-sen is the renewal of Chinese moral culture, unbroken for two thousand years ... we can see that Sun Yat-sen was convinced of the truth of his own words, and at the same time we can also recognize that his national revolution was based upon the re-awakening of Chinese culture. He wanted to call the creative power of China to life again, and to make the value of Chinese culture useful to the whole world, and in that way to realize cosmopolitanism.89

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Accordingly, Sun Yat-sen's doctrines may not only be regarded as having been based upon the tacit premises of the Chinese intellectual milieu, but as having been incorporated in them as supports. Sun Yat-sen's theories were, therefore, consciously as well as unconsciously Chinese.

Sun Yat-sen was proud of the accomplishment of the Chinese in physical and applied knowledge. He praised Chinese craftsmanship and skill, and extolled the talents of the people which had invented the mariner's compass, printing, porcelain, gunpowder, tea, silks, arches, and suspension bridges.90 He urged the revival of the talents of the Chinese, and the return of material development. This teaching, in conjunction with his advocacy of Western knowledge, leads to another suggestive point.

Sun Yat-sen pointed out that wealth was to the modern Chinese what liberty was to the Europeans of the eighteenth century—the supreme condition of further progress.91 The way to progress and wealth was through social reorganization, and through the use of the capacities of the people. It may be inferred, although it cannot be stated positively, that Sun Yat-sen measured wealth not merely in metals or commodities, but in the productive capacities of the country, which, as they depend upon the labor skill of the workers, are in the last analysis cultural and psychological rather than exclusively physical in nature.92

China, following the ancient morality, conscious of its [pg 078] intellectual and social heritage, and of its latent practical talents, needed only one more lesson to learn: the need of Western science.