猫窝

作者：杨煦生

上世纪九十年代中期，我的一位德国朋友、德国图宾根大学的医学博士，在完成了漫长而严酷的德国医学训练并获得学位之际，开始了她的中医研习和进修。当她兴冲冲准备前往心仪已久的中国时，她的母亲，南德斯瓦本地区一个殷实的中产阶半夜凉初透级家庭的主妇，发出了严重警告—— 如果她继续沉湎于异教徒的巫术，并且前往这个异教徒的国度的话，她的继承权将被剥夺。做女儿的因此面临痛苦而充满风险的抉择——走？还是不走？——生活中随时都可能冒出个哈姆雷特式的问题。最后她还是出发了。走前告我，她既会把中医学好，也终究会保有她的继承权。前半句出于她的自信和决心，后半句则出于她对家族、对斯瓦本性格的直接而深刻的理解和判断。后来，事情果然大略如她所料：两年之后，她在图宾根市中心的私人中医诊所开张；又一年有半，她在图宾根半山腰的“典藏级”地段购置了她个人的第一座花园楼房。“剥夺继承权”的话头早就烟消云散，她早已重新成为这个斯瓦本家族的令人骄傲的女儿了。一场似乎该有很强文学张力的家庭冲突，不期然地便化解于无形。
这个没有多少戏剧性的结局，事实上却深深植根于颇具意义的精神戏剧。斯瓦本地区是德国资本主义的重镇，这里是路德宗和加尔文宗的影响交叠覆盖的地区。这一带也正是马克斯·韦伯所论的“资本主义精神”漫延浸润的重要地区之一。上面这个与中医有关的故事，恰正与 “理性化”（Rationalisierung，或译为“合理化”）这一概念的韦伯式阐释和不一定很韦伯式的阐释有关。尽管这位医生朋友的母亲是个专职的家庭妇女，但当她慷慨激昂地指责“异教徒”及其“巫术”时，其背景正是十七、十八世纪以来的近代欧洲传统以及从其中衍生出来的某些堂皇的先入之见。这里，理性的/巫术的、基薄雾浓云愁永昼督教的/异教的、文明的/野蛮的判然对立，褫夺一个执迷不悟地同情并耽溺于异教徒的巫术的女儿的继承权，何等天经地义！在一个私有制社会里， “继承权”这个字眼凝聚了多少威严和分量。后来，之所以皆大欢喜，又是何等天经地义—— 在这个“蒙召说”与“预定论”交相浸淫的地区，还有什么比“成功”更能显耀主的光荣呢？成功者的“原罪”是可以豁免的，或者，成功者没有原罪！
当这位中产太太谴责东方的“异教徒”的“巫术”时，她当然忘记了这世上不但有令她烦心的TCM（Traditionelle Chinesische Medizin 传统中国医学）, 而在她自己的国家， TDM（Traditionelle Deutsche Medizin传统德国医学）也正在复活，而今天走红的顺势疗法也正在拼命向TDM索取灵感。她也不会深究，这TDM 也许与那些被焚烧的女巫、与那些中世纪的炼金术士有这样那样的关联，她更不会想到，在新约圣经中，耶稣，这位神之子，在当时的追随者心目中，本身可能首先就是一个“奇迹医者”（Wunderheiler），然后才是“救世主”，而这本也是他之所以被钉十字架的原因之一。
与这个中产太太相比，更有意义的则是今天某些专业人士的种种观念。在德国的医疗改革中，中医被不断地提到议事日程上来了。近年来，从现实政治的功利主义、也从全球化时代的视野出发，政治家们为了维护欧洲的既往的优势、救治日益凸显的福利政策危机、寻求新的思路和出路，不时向中医投来关注的眼光。各种所有制形式的保险公司是否支付中医治疗的费用、中医在医疗体制中的地位问题等等，不断成为媒体讨论的热点，各种试验性、过渡性的模式，不断被付诸实施。但是，一个关键性的、带有立法意义的变更，则始终还在漫长的难产期中。德国基薄雾浓云愁永昼督教社会联盟和基民盟在欧洲议会中的召集人马库斯·菲柏关于医疗改革的建言，便这样引起了轩然大波。在题为《只有引进可选择医学，我们的医疗体系才能持存》的访谈文章中，菲伯的建言其实并无耸人听闻之处，与一般政治家的老生常谈不同的是他的真诚倡议：基于改善医疗保障体系方面的问题的需要、鉴于八百万慢性病患者实际上的无助状态和医疗开支的爆炸性增长，引入“可选择医学方法”已成为刻不容缓的事情。而在所有“可选择医学”中，“首屈一指的就是中医疗法”。“没有针灸和中草药，中国，这个地球上人口最为众多的国家，将不可能以如此有效而价格低廉的方式解决大量民众的医疗问题。”（《焦点》杂志，二 ○○一年五十一期）应该说，这是一篇既有政治责任感又有充分文化眼光的文章。而恰恰因为他并非公共知识分子，而是一个身居高位的有可能直接影响政治决策方向的政治人物，回声自然广泛。颇有意味的是，反对的声浪主要来自专业医学界。其中，对菲柏攻击最力的则是一位名为卡尔·C. 迈耶的专业精神病医生。不只对菲柏本人，这位精神病医生的矛头更直指中医和中国（见http://www.neuro24.de/index.html）。作者明文标示的纲领是“因中医而罹病的人，恐怕远远多于它所疗治的”; 并未直言而又实际上着力引申的，则大概是：中医药是中国的灾难，再不小心就是德国和人类的灾难。
对中医的妖魔化，现在看来还仅仅是个开端。全球化之“狼”终究还是来了，也就是说，在全球性的大循环中，观念、资讯、技术、资金和产品等等从原来的发达国家向其他国家的单向流动，尽管目前还是主导的方式，但再也不可能是惟一的方式了。一种文化和经济上的纵横交错的互动局面，是再也回避不了的现实。讨论中医这样的问题，从此再也不是异国情调的灵性消遣、不是New Age式的文化造反，而是一个实实在在的生存问题——一方面是福利和国家财政的平衡（对政治家而言），一方面则是行业利益（对专业医生而言），一切生死攸关。文化观念不再仅仅导引着精神时尚，而是连带着便把人引入生存斗争的广阔的或显形或隐形的战场。因此中医这回可成了“狼”。在这一点上，这位精神病大夫的激烈、极端和慌不择路，并不是没有可以理解之处。所有这些，令人联想起一九二八年的中医存废之争。但这一切又发生于如此不同的语境之中——那时的中医，则是一头亟待宰杀的“病羊”。
正因此，对中医的现代命运的把握，必须置于现代性和全球化的视野之中。
在关于现代性的各种论式中，“世界的祛魅”（die Entzauberung der Welt）是一个韦伯式的表述，这是对欧洲现代的诞生和崛起的一个表述方式：合理化以它特有的欧洲品格，如何导致了欧洲现代以这种方式而不是以其他方式的诞生。这里我们所需要讨论的更是一个“失魅了世界” （eine entzauberte Welt）——即这个“现代”或者已经完成，或者虽未完成但却成为价值判断的新准则，甚或成为一种新的意识形态的世界。只有把“世界的祛魅”（过程）和“失魅的世界”（现实）同时纳进视野，一种现代性反思（特别是多元现代性的反思）才有可能。“祛魅”更多是一种客观的过程描述，并且建构于那种韦伯式的价值中立的理想范型方法之上。而作为人为的社会运动的“现代化”，正是对这个过程的非欧洲化的表述和剥离文化关联的复制。“失魅”则是一个赤裸的事实，祛魅的过程，已在这个世界的所有层面都打下了难以覆盖、无可挽回的烙印。海德格尔那种常令人一头雾水的“世界世界着”（die Welt weltet）的古怪话头，恐怕也正是对这个赤裸的事实的另类表述。这正是我们今天生活世界的基本的、并且几乎是宿命性的给定性。而这也正是我们所有实践和理论活动的基本出发点。
就中医而言，对中医的命运真正构成打击和威胁的，诚然首先是与 “祛魅”相关的一切：自十七世纪以降，在笛卡儿、伽利略、哥白尼、牛顿、达尔文这一串名字之后，在技术理性节节胜利、世界图景彻底改观之后，实验科学的发展所导发的新的评估体系在一切领域的雄踞霸首，并且越俎代庖也就在所难免：数学化、定量化、可通约性、（相同条件下的）可重复性等等，成为“科学性”的自明前提。这里，古典科学和现代科学的分野、古典科学的合法性等等被理直气壮地抹杀。拜五四运动之赐，“科学”，这位“赛先生”在中国语境中一路高歌，成为了超越党派意识的充分价值化的超级意识形态。科学等于进步等于理性等于现代，等于信实不虚、童叟无欺、终身保修、如假包换。等于真并且等于善！在现代汉语的实际语用中，“非科学的”、“不科学的”（更不必提“反科学的”）这些形容词都凝聚了异乎寻常的高度威严和杀伤力。可这个在中国语境中被如是价值化的“科学”究竟是什么呢？在作为近现代科学的大本营的德语文化中，科学，Wissenschaft(en)， 不过是知识系统的意思。明乎此，那么，任何时代都会拥有一套把握世界把握生活的知识系统，每种系统都有一套自洽的、独立的范式（Paradigmen），不本来天经地义么？！就宏观历史时段而言，古典时代自有古典的知识系统、而近现代有其近现代的知识系统，各自又都在特定语境中有其自洽的范式。尽管后者目前事实上是最为强势的也可能是比较明晰有效的系统，但有什么可以为后者的价值化和意识形态化提供依据呢？
理性化或合理化的“祛魅”过程，的确给古典世界观和知识系统带来了莫大的冲击。对中医的诘难，就是以这个中国语境中的“科学”为依据出发的。认真的诘难，大体都从其古典世界观和生命观基础出发，从阴阳五行、精气神或精气血、经脉藏象理论、四时八候、子午流注等等出发，从对大小宇宙的对应与感应关系的信念出发。向那种以有机自然观为基础的、充满生机和巫魅色彩的古典世界观诘问，无论从什么角度出发，都有其合法性。可问题的提法本该是，近现代实验科学的规范，为何无法或尚不适宜用以把握中医这样的古典知识体系和实践体系？经过近现代知识体系洗礼的我们，何以尚无法找到或建构足以把握、厘定、通约并展开这些古典观念体系的方式？这本是当代思想学术本身的无尽使命和无穷空间。如果近现代实验科学的努力无效，那么，“子安知吾之不知鱼之乐也！”实验科学应该学会首先为自己、而不是为中医或其他古典知识系统划界。
医从巫，这是所有现代诘责——不管是来自中国语境还是西方语境 ——的最为有力的证据。可是稍有人类学知识的人知道，哪一种文化的医学不同样有这么一种与原始萨满文化的关联？正是巫文化为后世的所有一切文化领域奠定了原始的根基：王者出于巫、史出于巫、医出于巫。黄帝也由是成为无所不包的巫文化的最广泛的符号。换句话说，后世的不同文化领域，都不过是巫文化的不同方式的理性化形式。正是在这种意义上，治生治世、医国医人、“不为良相便为良医”成为传统士人的生活导向。这一理想的笼统性，本就源于巫文化的无所不包的浑茫之中，也基于传统士人对生活和生命的整体性的痴迷执著，而将治生与治世视为一体，将对自然生命的爱护和对政治生活的使命感融为一体，这本来就是古典时代的一个伟大的理性化成果。理性化并不是到了欧洲现代才蓦然破晓，而是以不同的形式在不同的文化语境中时时发生。至于中医发展过程中的不同时期的不同理性化方式和程度，这还是一个恒长的理论课题。
中医如何重新确认并领受其新的天命，正在成为一个时代课题。一旦“现代”成为一种新的“魔魅”，对中医的古典范式的责难就尚未有穷期；而一旦全球化成为一种宿命之后，对中医的世界范围内的妖魔化也正未有穷期。然而所有这些都毕竟只不过是外在的危机，并且这种外在危机恰恰可能以皆大欢喜的结局告终。因为现代性中的合理化原则事实上就是合目的性的效用原则，“好猫原则”既是古典的实用主义，更是现代的合理化原则的精髓。
中医的根本危机毋宁说是内部危机、自毁江山的危机，并且毁得充满真诚和善意。中医能否持存，从社会学意义上，首先当然依赖于是否有制度性的自觉和立法的保障，是否能恢复其自主机制、自然文化生态，以继续应对各种意识形态化“现代魔魅”的侵扰。真正深层的问题还在于，中医的生命力的保持，更是端赖于对与巫文化连接的那条脐带的悉心呵护，端赖于对生命的整体性和有机性的把握和坚持，端赖于对其自身发展史的不同形式的理性化成果的理解和发展。而这一点是否可能、如何可能，这才是问题所在、危机所在。在这个已经失魅的世界里，古典世界观的崩溃、神话式的和诗性的世界图景的消弭，实际上绝不仅仅是一个哲学课题或美学课题，而是一个赤裸裸的生活问题。失魅所指的，就是古典式的整体性和有机性崩溃之后，人的外在世界和内在世界都同样支离破碎的这么一种无情的事实。就中医而言，如何应对现代生活对外在生态和内在生态的破坏和重构、对心理生活和心理结构的改塑，这才是真正的挑战性问题。就这个失魅世界的无情现实而言，这里，已没有太多乐观主义的余地。
我们只道数端：
在主体层面上，一个原本意义的中医如何可能？
医者仁业，医者这一职业，从其本源而言，要求某种宗教性的使命感。治生治世、 医国医人的原始统一性中，蕴含了医者对生命和生命的超越性大背景的敬畏之心、顺应之情。古典时代，为医、为师是两个有清晰的超越性背景的职业。为师者传道解惑、为医者泽物济生。成为一个医者，虽是选择一种职业，但更是承领一种天职、回应一种召唤。医者从来就不是一种“技术性”的职业，这一点本无论中西。这种主体性的前提是需要准宗教性的人格准备的，在诸神隐遁、唯“我”独尊、任何职业的超越性前提都被赤裸裸的实用主义雾障遮蔽的现代条件下如何可能？此其一。
医者意也，中医之成为中医的至关重要之点，在于这种古典范式对统觉能力的高度要求（相对于康德意义上的“先验统觉”，这更是一种“经验统觉”）。构成一个合格传统中医的综合知识结构和心理结构的核心的，并不是熟背汤头歌诀、熟知阴阳配伍的知识性准备，而是这种统觉能力。而这首先涉及一个社会的总体的精神教养水平和心理氛围，古典的士人生活方式，本是一个医者的教养前提。可那样一个时代，早就一去不复返了。在现代世界中，人类知、情、意的整体心理结构中，“知”一枝独秀，其重要性被强调到无以复加的地步，可此“知”往往非“智”，是对事相的知解而不是对生活的统觉性的理解和领受。我们应该从一个当代的医者那里期待什么？
医者之“意”，也就是我们这里凸显的统觉能力、具体而言先就是所谓的望、闻、问、切的能力，这是医者最基本的素质。这里先谈“望”与 “切”。对良医而言，病人进门，一瞥之中，心中该已三分了然——这一瞥本来浓缩了所有的传统修养和个人的经验统觉。就“切”——脉象的把握而言，一种高度个体化的经验结构也是先决条件。在人心若狂的现代条件下，有多少人还能够心如止水，既“听之以心”，且“听之以气”？ 现代生活对人的生活方式、进而对经验方式和经验结构的改塑，事实上构成了中医经验方式的挑战。此其二。
在互主体的（intersubjektiv，主体间性的）社会层面上，一个原本意义上的中医如何可能？
中医的传承方式和工作方式，是（古典个人主义的）个体化原则和互主体性原则交相并用、贯穿始终。就传承而言，出于对天职的自觉、也由于对高度统觉能力的要求，师徒之间需要某种特殊的境域。换言之，统觉能力是在师—徒、医—患的长期的互主体关系的动态场域中形成的。对徒弟、未来的医者的统觉能力的培养，只能以因人设教的方式达成。而今日批量化、产业化的现代学院教育体制，如何在招生、科目设置、考试评判标准等方面为中医传统传承方式创造相应的场域？此其三。
中医所治者“人”、是始终处于动态生命状态、从未脱离生活之网的人。人非草木，更非机器！由是一人一方、一日一方、因人制宜 、因时制宜。“疾病”本身并非某种“实体”，只有在医者和患者共同构建的动态境域之中，某种躯体和心灵的平衡状态才可企及。此外，“闻”、“问” 两端，就询问病情、倾听病史这一点而言，凡人可及；可其中重要的是一个隐蕴着的心理咨询功能，这一功能在传统中国社会是由亲友和医生共同承担着的，正如在传统西方基薄雾浓云愁永昼督教社会，这首先是由告解神父承担的一样。所有这一切，在原子个人主义盛行的现代条件下如何可能？此其四。
在人与自然的广义的互主体性关系上，中药的传统魅力如何可能？
关于中药药理的最为笼统的观念前提是能量的转换通约关系，是对大小宇宙、内外自然的可对应性和能量互渗转换的信念。撇开金庸武侠小说的童话式意象如“千年冰蟾”和鲁迅的家喻户晓的“原配蟋蟀”的故事这一类极端例证，一般而言，中药在广泛利用自然界的动植物及矿物资源，用于人类的治疗保健方面的巨大成就是无可争辩的。在今日这个“失魅”了世界里，大量的物种或已消亡，或也在人类无情的步履前早入岌岌可危之境矣，即便未濒危境，也大多由于整体生态环境的急剧变化而处于嬗变之中。诚然，一切都可以人工养殖、培植、合成，但这已不是那么一个世界了，一个默默地为人类的病弱和衰老提供鲜活能源的世界。生生者自生，能否尊重自然的自主性并容其休养生息，正日益成为人类的主体性生存能否得到保证的前提条件。这也许是中医所必须面对的根本性的外在危机。此其五。
一个失魅的世界，时时向我们昭示着这么一种赤裸而更为沉重的事实：即便我们还可能继续拥有整体性的、有机性的生机勃勃的世界观和世界图景，可实际上可能已经不存在那么一个事实世界。对此，我们将何以自处？一个祛魅中的世界对中医的摧残，可能会加倍地予中医以补偿，这恐怕是不久的将来的事情。但面对一个失魅的世界，中医何为？比大地的沙化更为残酷的是灵魂的沙化，是经验感知能力的退化，是爱与被爱、信任与被信任的能力的消竭，是与周遭世界共生关系的崩解！ 这恐怕才是问题关键之所在。在现代条件下，如何祛除那个本身已成“魔魅”的意识形态化的“现代”，正是我们是否还可能与这个失魅了的世界重新和解的关键。

http://www.cul-studies.com

达有暗香盈袖赖喇嘛人格测验

http://pickup.mofile.com/3353329814331402

陈宜中

http://pickup.mofile.com/5825799612532144

http://www.chinese-thought.org

 

月序	名称	天数
		罗慕洛斯历	努马历
一月	Martius	31	31
二月	Aprilis	30	29
三月	Maius	31	31
四月	Junius	30	29
五月	Quintilis	31	31
六月	Sextilis	30	29
七月	September	30	29
八月	October	31	31
九月	November	30	29
十月	December	30	29
十一月	Januarius		29
十二月	Februarius		28
总天数		304	355

郭海良主讲：“世界文化史”课堂笔记

作者：钱穆 文章来源：本站原创 点击数：38 更新时间：2005-11-14

　　一

　　中国为世界上历史最完备之国家，举其特点有三。一者“悠久”。从黄帝传说以来约得四千六百余年。从古竹书纪年以来，约得三千七百余年。(夏四七二，殷四九六，周武王至幽王二五七，自此以下至民瑞脑消金兽国纪元二六八一。)二者“无间断”。自周共和行政以下，明白有年可稽。(史记十二诸侯年表从此始，下至民瑞脑消金兽国纪元二七五二。)自鲁隐公元年以下，明白有月日可详。(春秋编年从此始，下至民瑞脑消金兽国纪元二六三三。鲁哀公卒，左传终，中间六十五年史文稍残缺。自周威烈王二十三年资治通鉴托始，至民瑞脑消金兽国纪元凡二三一四年。)三者“详密”。此指史书体裁言。要别有三：一曰编年，(此本春秋。)二曰纪传，(此称正史，本史记。)三曰纪事本末。(此本尚书。)其他不胜备举。(可看四库书目史部之分类。)又中国史所包地域最广大，所含民族分子最复杂，因此益形成其繁富。若一民族文化之评价，与其历史之悠久博大成正比，则我华夏文化，与并世固当首屈一指。

　　然中国最近，乃为其国民最缺乏国史知识之国家。何言之？“历史知识”与“历史资料”不同。我民族国家已往全部之活动，是为历史。其经记载流传以迄于今者，只可谓是历史的材料，而非吾侪今日所需历史的知识。材料累积而愈多，知识则与时以俱新。历史知识，随时变迁，应与当身现代种种问题，有亲切之联络。历史知识，贵能鉴古而知今。至于历史材料，则为前人所记录，前人不知后事，故其所记，未必一一有当于后人之所欲知。然后人欲求历史知识，必从前人所传史料中觅取。若蔑弃前人史料而空谈史识，则所谓“史”者非史，而所谓“识”者无识，生乎今而臆古，无当于“鉴于古而知今”之任也。

　　今人率言“革新”，然革新固当知旧。不识病象，何施刀药？仅为一种凭空抽象之理想，蛮干强为，求其实现，卤莽灭裂，于现状有破坏无改进。凡对于已往历史抱一种革莫道不消魂命的蔑视者，此皆一切真正进步之劲敌也。惟藉过去乃可认识现在，亦惟对现在有真实之认识，乃能对现在有真实之改进。故所贵于历史知识者，又不仅于鉴古而知今，乃将为未来精神尽其一部分孕育与向导之责任也。

　　且人类常情，必先“认识”乃生“情感”。人最亲者父母，其次兄弟、夫妇乃至朋友。凡其所爱，必其所知。人惟为其所爱而奋斗牺牲。人亦惟爱其所崇重，人亦惟崇重其所认识与了知。求人之敬事上帝，必先使知有上帝之存在，不啻当面体焉，又必使熟知上帝之所以为上帝者，而后其敬事上帝之心油然而生。人之于国家民族亦然。惟人事上帝本乎信仰，爱国家民族则由乎知识，此其异耳。人之父母，不必为世界最伟大之人物；人之所爱，不必为世界最美之典型，而无害其为父母，为所爱者。惟知之深，故爱之切。若一民族对其已往历史无所了知，此必为无文化之民族。此民族中之分子，对其民族，必无甚深之爱，必不能为其民族真奋斗而牺牲，此民族终将无争存于并世之力量。今国人方蔑弃其本国已往之历史，以为无足重视；既已对其民族已往文化，懵无所知，而犹空乎爱国。此其为爱，仅当于一种商业之爱，如农人之爱其牛。彼仅知彼之身家地位有所赖于是，彼岂复于其国家有逾此以往之深爱乎！凡今之断胸而不顾，以效死于前敌者，彼则尚于其国家民族已往历史，有其一段真诚之深爱；彼固以为我神州华裔之生存食息于天壤之间，实自有其不可辱者在也。

　　故欲其国民对国家有深厚之爱情，必先使其国民对国家已往历史有深厚的认、识。欲其国民对国家当前有真实之改进，必先使其国民对国家已往历史有真实之了解。我人今日所需之历史知识，其要在此。

　　二

　　略论中国近世史学，可分三派述之。一曰传统派，(亦可谓“记诵派”。)二曰革新派，(亦可谓“宣传派”。)三曰科学派。(亦可谓“考订派”。)“传统派”主于记诵，熟典章制度，多识前言往行，亦间为校勘辑补。此派乃承前清中叶以来西洋势力未入中国时之旧规模者也。其次曰“革新派”，则起于清之季世，为有志功业、急于革新之世所提倡。最后曰“科学派”，乃承“以科学方法整理国故”之潮流而起。此派与传统派，同偏于历史材料方面，路径较近；博洽有所不逮，而精密时或过之。二派之治史，同于缺乏系统，无意义，乃同为一种书本文字之学，与当身现实无预。无宁以“记诵”一派，犹因熟典章制度，多识前言往行，博洽史实，稍近人事；纵若无补于世，亦将有益于己。至“考订派”则震于“科学方法”之美名，往往割裂史实，为局部狭窄之追究。以活的人事，换为死的材料。治史譬如治岩矿，治电力，既无以见前人整段之活动，亦于先民文化精神，漠然无所用其情。彼惟尚实证，夸创收，号客观，既无意于成体之全史，亦不论自己民族国家之文化成绩也。

　　惟“革新”一派，其治史为有意义，能具系统，能努力使史学与当身现实相结合，能求把握全史，能时时注意及于自己民族国家已往文化成绩之评价。故革新派之治史，其言帘卷西风论意见，多能不胫而走，风靡全国。今国人对于国史稍有观感，皆出数十年中此派史学之赐。虽然，“革新派”之于史也，急于求知识，而怠于问材料。其甚者，对于二、三千年来积存之历史材料，亦以革新现实之态度对付之，几若谓此汗牛充栋者，曾无一顾盼之价值矣。因此其于史，既不能如“记诵派”所知之广，亦不能如“考订派”所获之精。彼于史实，往往一无所知。彼之所谓系统，不啻为空中之楼阁。彼治史之意义，转成无意义。彼之把握全史，特把握其胸中所臆测之全史。彼对于国家民族已往文化之评价，特激发于其一时之热情，而非有外在之根据。其合历史与现实也，特借历史口号为其宣传改革现实之工具。彼非能真切沉浸于已往之历史知识中，而透露出改革现实之方岸。彼等乃急于事功而伪造知识者，知识既不真，事功亦有限。今我国人乃惟乞灵于此派史学之口吻，以获得对于国史之认识，故今日国人对于国史，乃最为无识也。

　　三

　　所谓“革新派”之史学，亦随时变迁。约言之，亦可分为三期。其先当前清末叶。当时，有志功业之士所渴欲改革者，厥在“政体”。故彼辈论史，则曰：“中国自秦以来二千年，皆专人比黄花瘦制黑暗政体之历史也。”彼辈谓：“二十四史乃帝王之家谱。”彼辈于一切史实，皆以“专人比黄花瘦制黑暗”一语抹杀。彼辈对当前病症，一切归罪于二千年来之专人比黄花瘦制。然自专人比黄花瘦制政体一旦推翻，则此等议论，亦功成身退，为明日之黄花矣。继“政治革莫道不消魂命”而起者，有“文化革莫道不消魂命”。彼辈之目光，渐从“政治”转移而及“学术思想”，于是其对国史之论锋，亦转集于“学术思想”之一途。故彼辈论史，则曰：“中国自秦以来二千年，思想停滞无进步，而一切事态因亦相随停滞不进。”彼辈或则谓：“二千年来思想，皆为孔学所掩盖。”或则谓：“二千年来思想，皆为老学所麻人比黄花瘦醉”故或者以当前病态归罪孔子，或者归罪于老子。或谓：“二千年来思想界，莫不与专人比黄花瘦制政体相协应。”或则谓：“此二千年来之思想，相当于欧洲史之所谓‘中古时期’。要之如一丘之貉，非现代之所需。”或则谓：“思想限制于文字，欲一扫中国自秦以来二千年思想之沉痼积，莫如并废文字，创为罗马拼音，庶乎有。”然待此等宣传成功，则此等见识，亦将为良弓之藏。继“文化革莫道不消魂命”而起者，有“经济革莫道不消魂命”。彼辈谓：“无论‘政治’与‘学术’，其后面为‘社会形态’所规定。故欲切实革新政治机构、学术内容，其先应从事于‘社会经济形态’之改造。”彼辈对于当前事态之意见，影响及于论史，则曰：“中国自秦以来二千年，皆一‘封建时期’也。二千年来之政治，二千年来之学术，莫不与此二千年来之社会经济形态，所谓‘封建时期’者相协应。”正惟经济改革未有成功，故此辈议论，犹足以动国人之视听。有治史者旁睨而嘘曰：“国史浩如烟海，我知就我力之所及，为博洽谛当之记诵而已，为精细绵密之考订而已，何事此放言高论为！”虽然，国人之所求于国史略有知，乃非此枝节烦琐之考订，亦非此繁重庞杂之记诵，特欲于国家民族已往历史文化有大体之了解，以相应于其当身现实之所需知也。有告之者曰：“中国自秦以来二千年，皆专人比黄花瘦制黑暗政体之历史也。”则彼固已为共和政体下之自由民矣，无怪其掉头而不肯顾。或告之曰：“中国自秦以来二千年，皆孔子、老子中古时期思想所支配下之历史也。”则彼固已呼吸于二十世纪新空气之仙囿，于孔、老之为人与其所言，固久已鄙薄而弗睹，喑而无知，何愿更为陈死人辨此宿案，亦无怪其奋步而不肯留。或告之曰：“我中国自秦以来二千年，皆封建社会之历史耳，虽至今犹然，一切病痛尽在是矣。”于是有志于当身现实之革新，而求知国史已往之大体者，莫不动色称道，虽牵鼻而从，有勿悔矣。然竟使此派论者有踌躇满志之一日，则我国史仍将束高阁、覆酱瓶，而我国人仍将为无国史知识之民族也。

　　四

　　前一时代所积存之历史资料，既无当于后一时期所需要之历史知识，故历史遂不断随时代之迁移而变动改写。就前有诸史言之，尚书为最初之史书，然书缺有间，此见其时中国文化尚未到达需要编年史之程度。其次有春秋，为最初之编年史。又其次有左传，以纲罗详备言，为编年史之进步。然其时则“国之大事，在祀与戎”。祭祀乃常事，常事可以不书，兵戎非常事，故左传所载，乃以列国之会盟与战争为主，后人讥之为“相斫书”焉。又其次为史记，乃为以人物为中心之新史，征其时人物个性之活动，已渐渐摆脱古代封建、宗法社会之团体性而崭露头角也。又其次为汉书，为断代作史之开始，此乃全国统一的中央政府，其政权已臻稳固后之新需要。自此遂形成中国列代之所谓“正史”，继此而复生“通史”之新要求。于是而又杜佑通典，此为“政书”之创作，为以制度为骨干之新史，非政体沿革到达相当程度，不能有此。又继而有通鉴，为编年之新通史。又次而有各史纪事本末，为以事件为中心之新史之再现。然如袁氏通鉴纪事本末，取材只限于通鉴，则貌变而实未变也。于是而有郑樵通志之所谓二十略，其历史眼光，乃超出于政治人物、人事、年月之外。其他如方志，如家谱，如学案，形形色色，乘一时之新需要而创造新体裁者，不胜缕举。要之自尚书下逮通志，此皆有志于全史整面之叙述。今观其相互间体裁之不同，与夫内容之差别，可知中国旧史，固不断在改写之中矣。

　　自南宋以来，又七百年，乃独无继续改写之新史书出现。此因元、清两代皆以异族人主，不愿国人之治史。明其间，光辉乍辟，翳复兴，遂亦不能有所修造。今则为中国有史以来未有的变动剧烈之时代，其需要新史之创写尤亟。而适承七百年来史学衰微之末运，因此国人对于国史之认识，乃愈昏昧无准则。前述记诵、考订、宣传诸派，乃亦无一能发愿为国史撰一新本者，则甚矣史学之不振也。
　　今日所需要之国史新本，将为自尚书以来下至通志一类之一种新通史。此新通史应简单而扼要，而又必具备两条件：一者必能将我国家民族已往文化演进之真莫道不消魂相，明白示人，为一般有志认识中国已往政治、社会、文化、思想种种演变者所必要之知识；二者应能于旧史统贯中映照出现中国种种复杂难解之问题，为一般有志革新现实者所必备之参考。前者在积极的求出国家民族永久生命之源泉，为全部历史所由推动之精神所寄；后者在消极的指出国家民族最近病痛之证侯，为改进当前之方案所本。此种新通史，其最主要之任务，尤在将国史真态，传播于国人之前，使晓然了解于我先民对于国家民族所已尽之责任，而油然生其慨想，奋发爱惜保护之挚意也。
　　此种通史，无疑的将以记诵、考订派之工夫，而达宣传革新派之目的。彼必将从积存的历史材料中出头，将于极艰苦之准备下，呈露其极平易之面相。将以专家毕生之精力所萃，而为国人月日浏览之所能通贯。则编造国史新本之工作，其为难于胜任而愉快，亦可由此想见矣。

　　五

　　“一部二十四史，从何说起？”今将为国史写一简单扼要而有系统之新本，首必感有此苦。其将效记诵、考订派之所为乎？则必泛滥而无归。其将效宣传革新派之所为乎？又必空洞而无物。凡近代革新派所注意者有三事：首则曰政治制度，次者曰学术思想，又次曰社会经济。此三者，“社会经济”为其最下层之基础，“政治制度”为其最上层之结顶，而“学术思想”则为其中层之干柱。大体言之，历史事态，要不出此三者之外。今将轻重先后，分主客取舍于其间乎？抑兼罗并包，平等而同视之乎？

　　曰，姑舍此。能近取譬，试设一浅喻。今人若为一运动家作一年谱或小传，则必与为一音乐家所作者，其取材详略存灭远异矣。即为一网球家作一小传或年谱，则又必与为一足球家所作者，其取材详略存灭迥别矣。何以故？以音乐家之“个性”与“环境”与“事业”之发展，与运动家不同故；以网球家之个性与环境与事业之发展，又与足球家不同故；一人如此，一民族、一国家亦然。写国史者，必确切晓了其国家民族文化发展“个性”之所在，而后能把握其特殊之“环境”与“事业”，而写出其特殊之“精神”与“面相”。然反言之，亦惟于其特殊之环境与事业中，乃可识其个性之特殊点。如此则循环反复，欲认识一国家、一民族特殊个性之所在，乃并不如认识一网球家或足球家之单纯而简易。要之必于其自身内部求其精神、面相之特殊个性，则一也。

　　何以知网球家之个性？以其忽然投入于网球家之环境，而从事于网球之活动故。其他一切饮食、起居、嗜好、信仰，可以无所异于人。若为网球家作年谱，而抄袭某音乐家已成年谱之材料与局套，则某年音乐大会，其人既无预；某年歌曲比赛，某人又不列。其人者，乃可于音乐史上绝无一面。不仅了不异人，抑且有不如无。不知其人之活动与事业乃在网球不在音乐。网球家之生命，不能于音乐史之过程求取。乃不幸今日之治国史者，竟蹈此弊。

　　以言政治，求一屡争不舍、仅而后得之代表民瑞脑消金兽意机关，如英伦之“大宪有暗香盈袖章”与“国会”之创新而无有也。又求一轰轰烈烈，明白痛快，如法莫道不消魂国“人薄雾浓云愁永昼权大革莫道不消魂命”之爆发，而更无有也。则无怪于谓“自秦以来二千年，皆专人比黄花瘦制黑暗之历史”矣。以言思想，求一如马丁路德，明揭“信仰自由”之旗帜，以与罗马教皇力抗，轩然兴起全欧“宗教革莫道不消魂命”之巨波，而更无有也。则无怪于谓“自秦以来二千年，皆束缚于一家思想之下”矣。以言经济，求一如葛马、如哥伦布空海外，发现新殖民地之伟迹而渺不可得；求如今日欧、美社会之光怪陆离，穷富极华之景象，而更不可得。则无怪于谓“自秦以来二千年，皆沉眠于封建社会之下，长夜漫漫，永无旦日”矣。凡最近数十年来有志革新之士，莫不讴歌欧、美，力求步驱，其心神之所向往在是，其耳目之所闻睹亦在是。迷于彼而忘其我，拘于貌而忽其情。反观祖国，凡彼之所盛自张扬而夸道者，我乃一无有。于是中国自秦以来二千年，乃若一冬蛰之虫，生气未绝，活动全失。彼方目神炫于网球场中四周之采声，乃不知别有一管弦竞奏、歌声洋溢之境也则宜。故曰：治国史之第一任务，在能于国家民族之内部自身，求得其独特精神之所在。

　　六

　　凡治史有两端：一曰求其“异”，二曰求其“同”。何谓求其异？凡某一时代之状态，有与其先、后时代突然不同者，此即所由划分一时代之“特性”。从两“状态”之相异，即两个“特性”之衔接，而划分为两时代。从两时代之划分，而看出历史之“变”。从“变”之倾向，而看出其整个文化之动态。从其动态之畅遂与夭淤，而衡论其文化之为进退。此一法也。何谓求其同？从各不同之时代状态中，求出其各“基相”。此各基相相衔接、相连贯而成一整面，此为全史之动态。以各段之“变”，形成一全程之“动”。即以一整体之“动”，而显出各部分之“变”。于诸异中见一同，即于一同中出诸异。全史之不断变动，其中宛然有一进程。自其推动向前而言，是谓其民族之“精神”，为其民族生命之源泉。自其到达前程而言，是谓其民族之“文化”，为其民族文化发展所积累之成绩。此谓求其同。此又一法也。

　　故治国史不必先存一揄扬夸大之私，亦不必先抱一门户立场之见。仍当于客观中求实证，通览全史而觅取其动态。若某一时代之变动在“学术思想”，(例如战国先秦。)我即著眼于当时之学术思想而看其如何为变。若某一时代之变动在“社会经济”，(例如三国魏晋。)我即著眼于当时之社会经济而看其如何为变。“变”之所在，即历史精神之所在，亦即民族文化评价之所系。而所谓“变”者，即某种事态在前一时期所未有，而在后一时期中突然出现。此有明白事证，与人共见，而我不能一丝一毫容私于其间。故曰：仍当于客观中求实证也。革新派言史，每曰“中国自秦以来二千年”云云，是无异谓中国自秦以来二千年无变，即不啻谓中国自秦以来二千年历史无精神、民族无文化也。其然，岂其然？

　　七

　　今于国史，若细心留其动态，则有一至可注意之事象，即我民族文化常于“和平”中得进展是也。欧洲史每常于“战争”中著精神。如火如荼，可歌可泣。划界限的时期，常在惊心动魄之震荡中产生。若以此意态来看莫道不消魂中国史，则中国常如昏腾腾地没有长进。中国史上，亦有大规模从社会下层掀起的战争，不幸此等常为纷乱牺牲，而非有意义的划界限之进步。秦末刘、项之乱，可谓例外。明祖崛起，扫除胡尘，光复故土，亦可谓一个上进的转变。其他如汉末黄巾，乃至黄巢、张献忠、李自成，全是混乱破坏，只见倒退，无上进。近人治史，颇推洪、杨为中华民族革莫道不消魂命之先锋，然此固矣。然洪、杨数十余年扰乱，除与国家社会以莫大之创伤外，成就何在？此中国史上大规模从社会下层掀起的战争，常不为民族文化进展之一好例也。然中国史之进展，乃常在和平形态下，以舒齐步骤得之。若空洞设譬，中国史如一首诗，西洋史如一本剧。一本剧之各幕，均有其截然不同之变换。诗则只在和谐节奏中转移到新阶段，令人不可划分。所以诗代表中国文化之最美部分，而剧曲之在中国，不占地位。西洋则以作剧为文学家之圣境。即以人物作证，苏格拉底死于一杯毒药，耶稣死于十字架，孔子则梦奠于两楹之间，晨起扶杖逍遥，咏歌自勉。三位民族圣人之死去，其景象不同如此，正足反映民族精神之全部。再以前举音乐家与网球家之例喻之，西洋史正如几幕精彩的硬地网球赛，中国史则直是一片琴韵悠扬也。

　　八

　　姑试略言中国史之进展。就政治上言之，秦、汉大统一政府之创建，已为国史辟一奇绩。近人好以罗马帝国与汉代相拟，然二者立国基本已不同。罗马乃以一中心而伸展其势力于四围。欧、亚、非三洲之疆土，特为一中心强力所征服而被统治。仅此中心，尚复有贵族、平民之别。一旦此中心上层贵族渐趋腐化，蛮族侵入，如以利刃刺其心窝，而帝国全部，即告瓦解。此罗马立国形态也。秦、汉统一政府，并不以一中心地点之势力，征服四周，实乃由四围之优秀力量，共同参加，以造成一中央。且此四围，亦更无阶半夜凉初透级之分。所谓优秀力量者，乃常从社会整体中，自由透露，活泼转换。因此其建国工作，在中央之缔构，而非四周之征服。罗马如一室中悬巨灯，光耀四壁；秦、汉则室之四周，遍悬诸灯，交射互映；故罗马碎其巨灯，全室即暗，秦、汉则灯不俱坏光不全绝。因此罗马民族震铄于一时，而中国文化则辉映于千古。我中国此种立国规模，乃经我先民数百年惨淡经营，艰难缔构，仅而得之。以近世科学发达，交通便利，美人立国，乃与我差似。如英、法诸邦，则领土虽广，惟以武力贯彻，犹惴惴惧不终日。此皆罗马之遗式，非中国之成规也。

　　谈者好以专人比黄花瘦制政体为中国政治诟病，不知中国自秦以来，立国规模，广土众民，乃非一姓一家之力所能专人比黄花瘦制。故秦始皇始一海内，而李斯、蒙恬之属，皆以游士擅政，秦之子弟宗戚，一无预焉。汉初若稍稍欲返古贵族分割宰制之遗意，然卒无奈潮流之趋势何！故公孙弘以布衣为相封侯，遂破以军功封侯拜相之成例，而变相之贵族擅权制，终以告歇。博士弟莫道不消魂子，补郎、补吏，为入仕正轨，而世袭任荫之恩亦替。自此以往，入仕得官，遂有一公开客观之标准。“王室”与政府逐步分离，“民众”与“政府”则逐步接近。政权逐步解放，而国家疆域亦逐步扩大，社会文化亦逐步普及。综观国史，政体演进，约得三级：由封建而跻统一，一也。(此在秦、汉完成之。)由宗室、外戚、军人所组成之政府，渐变而为士人政府，二也。(此自西汉中叶以下，迄于东汉完成之。)由士族门第再变而为科举竞选，三也。(此在隋、唐两代完成之。)惟其如此，“考试”与“铨选”，遂为维持中国历代政府纲纪之两大骨干。全国政事付之官吏，而官吏之选拔与任用，则一惟礼部之考试与吏部之铨选是问。此二者，皆有客观之法规，为公开的准绳，有皇帝(王室代表。)所不能摇，宰相(政府首领。)所不能动者。若于此等政治后面推寻其意义，此即礼运所谓“天下为公，选贤与能”之旨。就全国民众施以一种合理的教育，复于此种教育下选拔人才，以服务于国家；再就其服务成绩，而定官职之崇卑与大小。此此正战国晚周诸子所极论深岂，而秦、汉以下政制，即向此演进。特以国史进程，每于和平中得伸展，昧者不察，遂妄疑中国历来政制，惟有专人比黄花瘦制黑暗，不悟政制后面，别自有一种理性精神为之指导也。

　　谈者又疑中国政制无民权，无宪有暗香盈袖法。然民权亦各自有其所以表达之方式与机构，能遵循此种方式而保全其机构，此即立国之大宪大法，不必泥以求也。中国自秦以来，既为一广土众民之大邦，如欧西近代所运行民选代议士制度，乃为吾先民所弗能操纵。然诚使国家能历年举行考试，平均选拔各地优秀平民，使得有参政之机会；又立一客观的服务成绩规程，以为官位进退之准则，则下情上达，本非无路。晚清革莫道不消魂命派，以民权宪有暗香盈袖法为推翻满清政府之一种宣传，固有效矣。若遂认此为中国历史真莫道不消魂相，谓自秦以来，中国惟有专人比黄花瘦制黑暗，若谓“民无权，国无法”者已二千年之久，则显为不情不实之谈。民瑞脑消金兽国以来，所谓民选代议之新制度，终以不切国情，一时未能切实推行。而历古相传“考试”与“铨选”之制度，为维持政府纪纲之两大骨干者，乃亦随专人比黄花瘦制黑暗之恶名而俱灭。于是一切官半夜凉初透场之腐佳节又重阳败混乱，胥乘而起，至今为厉。此不明国史真莫道不消魂相，妄肆破坏，轻言改革所应食之恶果也。

　　中国政制所由表达之方式与机构，既与近代欧人所演出者不同。故欲争取民权，而保育长养之，亦复自有道。何者？彼我立国规模既别，演进渊源又不同。甲族甲国之所宜，推之乙族乙国而见窒碍者，其例实夥。凡于中国而轻言民众革莫道不消魂命，往往发动既难，收拾亦不易，所得不如其所期，而破坏远过于建设。所以国史常于和平中得进展，而于变乱中见倒退者，此由中国立国规模所限，亦正我先民所贻政制，以求适合于我国情，而为今日吾人所应深切认识之一事。若复不明国史真莫道不消魂相，妄肆破坏，轻言改革，则又必有其应食之恶果在矣。

附：《国史大纲．前言》

　　凡读本书请先具下列诸信念：
　　一、当信任何一国之国民，尤其是自称知识在水平线以上之国民，对其本国已往历史，应该略有所知。(否则最多只算一有知识的人，不能算一有知识的国民。)
　　二、所谓对其本国已往历史略有所知者，尤必附随一种对其本国已往历史之温情与敬意。(否则只算知道了一些外国史，不得云对本国史有知识。)
　　三、所谓对其本国已往历史有一种温情与敬意者，至少不会对其本国历史抱一种偏激的虚无主义，(即视本国已往历史为无一点有价值，亦无一处足以使彼满意。)亦至少不会感到现在我们是站在已往历史最高之顶点，(此乃一种浅薄狂妄的进化观。)而将我们当身种种罪恶与弱点，一切诿卸于古人。(此乃一种似是而非之文化自谴。)
　　四、当信每一国家必待其国民具备上列诸条件者比较渐多，其国家乃再有向前发展之希望。(否则其所改进，等于一个被征服国或次殖民地之改进，对其自身国家不发生关系。换言之，此种改进，无异是一种变相的文化征服，乃其文化自身之萎缩与消灭，并非其文化自身之转变与发皇。)

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2005年11月社会考察

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Here, however, one might hesitate. Does Lenin’s emphasis on the ‘bounds of the epistemological question’ not justify a transcendental reflection ?la Kant? More: is the analysis of what we have called the ‘implications of practice’ not reminiscent of an ‘analysis of essence’ of the Husserlian kind (an explanation of scientific ‘praxis’ as constitution; objectivity as an ‘intentional’ structure)? Undeniably, Husserl too contested the subjectivist, pragmatist, and empirio-critical interpretations of the great crisis of physics at the turn of the nineteenth century. Were not the struggle against dogmatism, the concern to provide a foundation for, and so save, the objectivity of the natural sciences, and the ‘description’ of scientific practice and its ‘claims’ among his major concerns? Manifestly, Husserl’s disciples could have found an echo of their doctrine in certain of Lenin’s formulations taken out of context.’

It is nonetheless clear that Lenin’s analysis is not an ‘analysis of essence’ which refers us to its ideal conditions of possibility, or even, from foundation to foundation, to an original intention. Practice, which, for Marxism, is the source and criterion of all truth, and ‘envelops’ the epistemological question, does not provide a de jure foundation for the materialist thesis in the idealist sense of the term. The fact of practice points back, not to an originary legitimation [droit originaire], but to its own real genesis. It is here that materialism is radically counterposed to all transcendental philosophies. No-one, perhaps, has put this better than Engels, in connection with the problem of the definition of life: ‘From a scientific standpoint all definitions are of little value. In order to gain an exhaustive knowledge of what life is, we should have to go through all the forms in which it appears, from the lowest to the highest. ..’ [Anti-D黨ring, p. 1041. The same holds for practice. It is not the immediacy of an act or structure, but its own real genesis. Inseparable from human practice (broadly conceived: social production, daily social practice, class struggle) in its contemporaneous forms, scientific practice, which is the most abstract refinement of practice, can be defined only in terms of its real evolution, that is, its history. That is why Lenin also declares that the answer to the Fundamental epistemological question’ is simultaneously provided by human practice and by the history of knowledge (Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, pp. 89, 122-4, 143, 147, 217, 239, etc.).

This history defines ‘the limits ... revealed by practice’ with respect to the ‘objective truth we are capable of attaining’ (ibid., p. 177). Mao Zedong, for example, shows (in ‘On Practice’) that the knowledge a given period is in a position to produce is always subject to the determinate forms of existing practice (bound up, above all, with the existing social mode of production, i.e, with the dominant mode of the transformation of nature). But within these historical limits, the truths acquired through practice are absolute (there is no truth outside them). It is this dialectic of the historical conditions of knowledge which Lenin worked out in his frequently misunderstood theory of relative and absolute truth.

‘The “essence” of things’, writes Lenin, ‘or “substance” is also relative; it expresses only the degree of profundity of man’s knowledge of objects: and while yesterday the profundity of this knowledge did not go beyond the atom, and today does not go beyond the electron and ether, dialectical materialism insists on the temporary, relative, approximate character of all these milestones in the knowledge of nature gained by the progressing science of man. The electron is as inexhaustible as the atom, nature is infinite but it infinitely exists (Lenin’s emphasis) (ibid., p. 250).

Whence the conception of knowledge, intertwined with practice, as the progressive ‘adaptation’ of men, in history, to an inexhaustible nature, itself caught up in a process of endless development (see ibid., pp. 174, 175-7, 260-61).

The features of dialectical materialism are perhaps coming into sharper focus. The materialism that responds to the ‘epistemological question’ does not escape the metaphysical dogmatism it proscribes only to succumb to a new scientific dogmatism. The history of knowledge does not constitute, any more than the other sciences do, a new ‘Absolute Knowledge’. It does not contain the ‘absolute essence’ of current practice: it is the science of that practice, and, as such, is itself enveloped in a current practice and its development.

What form, then, does the relationship between the sciences and the materialist theory of knowledge take?

Let us, to begin with, make one point more precise. The materialist theory of knowledge is not the ‘science of sciences’, nor ‘a science over and above the others’ (Zhdanov). It is not a set of principles from which we can, by deduction, arrive at scientific findings capable of taking the place of the truths the sciences discover. This point radically distinguishes the materialist theory from the theories of knowledge of traditional philosophy. The theory of knowledge licensed Kant to deduce the laws of Newtonian physics (see The Metaphysical Elements of Natural Science), Hegel to deduce the scientific categories of mathematics, physics, biology, history, etc., Husserl to determine, a priori, the eidetic regions and the structure of the object of the sciences. The materialist theory of knowledge refuses to substitute itself for the sciences.

Nevertheless, if Marxists do not permit themselves to treat materialism as the ‘science of sciences’, they do say that ‘materialism is verified by the sciences’ (Engels, Lenin, Stalin). What does this statement mean? It must be understood in two senses: materialism is verified by the sciences and in the sciences.

The sciences do not verify the materialist theory of knowledge as a set of propositions which they demonstrate, a body of laws they establish in their respective domains. The sciences verify the materialist theory practically, inasmuch as they only ever make progress, in the final analysis, by submitting to the authority of reality.

In a different sense, the sciences verify the materialist theory of knowledge within their own domain: 1) by showing that lower forms of life (for example, physical corpuscles) have no use for the determinations of higher forms (for example, freedom); 2) by showing, conversely, that the higher forms of life (biological existence, consciousness) come about through the development of their sustaining structures (physical and chemical conditions, biological and social conditions).

Thus the primacy of reality is verified at two different levels by the sciences and in the sciences. It is this double envelopment (of the progress of the sciences in the principles of materialism, and of these principles themselves in the reality discovered by the sciences) which makes it possible to understand the philosophical and scientific nature of materialism initially captured in this phrase of Stalin’s: materialism is a ‘scientific philosophical theory’ (Dialectical and Historical Materialism).

Thus understood, materialism stands in a fundamental relation to the sciences: reminding them of their true nature, it ensures their survival and progress. We will better grasp the import of this if we bear in mind that materialism implies:

1. A rejection of all ‘idealist crotchets’ (Engels). This requirement not only entails the rejection of any concept that is not in strict conformity with, and limited to, its scientific content (the problem of the rigour of scientific concepts). It also implies a radical criticism of all idealist philosophies and of philosophy as such in its classical form: the critique of philosophy as pure ‘theory’ or pure ‘interpretation’ which ‘gives an account of’ reality in order not to have to account to reality for itself, and which is exempt from the obligation to submit to the criterion of practice and verification — the critique of the philosopher as the man who rules over the words that, for him, take the place of the world, the fictitious demiurge of a pseudo-world. It is in this sense that Marx wrote: ‘One has to “leave philosophy aside” . . . one has to leap out of it and devote oneself like an ordinary man to the study of actuality. ... Philosophy and the study of the actual world have the same relation to one another as onanism and sexual love’ (The German Ideology, in Marx and Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 5, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1976, p. 236. On the subject of philosophy, see ibid., pp. 28, 36, 37, 45, 54, 101, 145, 171, 196,236,250-52,282,293,330,449,461).

2. Criticism of all scientific dogmatism, which drags along behind it, like its shadow, the idealist exploitation of science and its ‘crises’. The primacy of reality implies that a scientific theory does not exhaust reality, but remains always approximative (Lenin). Materialism reminds science and human practice of their own limits (not transcendental, but historical), and bars all ‘philosophical’ exploitation of concepts, problems, or scientific or social crises. At the turn of the twentieth century, the philosophers loudly announced the ‘divine surprise’ that the ‘atom had disappeared’. Materialism excludes this self-seeking flight into philosophy (or religion); it understands the crises of the sciences and history, not as a ‘divine victory’ of Spirit, but as a moment in the concrete development of the sciences and history.

3. The rejection of all abstract formalism. Materialism reminds every science of its real source: the world men transform. No science can, whether in its history or its object, grasp its own origins within itself or constitute itself as a closed world, exhaustively defined by internal rules. Materialism refers every science and every activity to the reality they depend on, even if this dependence is masked by a great many abstract mediations: mathematics as well as logic, aesthetics as well as ethics and politics.

To safeguard the endless development of the sciences, and, with it, all ‘living human practice’ (Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism), to preserve the sciences from all forms of dogmatism and idealism by reminding them of their fundamental reality — such is the aim of materialism:

You will say that this distinction between relative and absolute truth is indefinite. And 1 shall reply: it is sufficiently ‘indefinite’ to prevent science from becoming a dogma in the bad sense of the term, from becoming something dead, frozen, ossified; but at the same time it is sufficiently ‘definite’ to enable us to dissociate ourselves in the most emphatic and irrevocable manner from fideism and agnosticism, from philosophical idealism and the sophistry of the followers of Hume and Kant (ibid., p. 123; see also p, 129).

We hope that these all too brief remarks, however insufficient,’ will give some idea of the characteristics of Marxism, of its rigour and fecundity. ‘A method for science’, ‘a guide to action’, and ‘a scientific and revolutionary theory’, Marxism articulates the most exacting demands of scientific activity and, simultaneously, the living bond that unites them to human history and practice. These are amongst the reasons for the prestige of a doctrine that today deserves better than to ‘be learned about by hearsay’: it merits attentive and meticulous study.

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This is doubtless the most profound characteristic of historical materialism: it is a science that not only inspires political action, but also seeks its verification in practice, developing and growing through political practice itself.

But this dialectic between scientific theory and practice brings us to the second aspect of Marxism: dialectical materialism.

Note on Dialectical Materialism
Marxism comes forward not only as the science of History (historical materialism),4 but also as dialectical materialism. Engels, Lenin, and Stalin have elaborated upon the latter aspect of Marxism in particular. It too is the object of lively controversies.

What are the most important of the Marxist texts dealing with this subject? The second Preface to Capital, Engels’ Anti-D黨ring (Part 1), Ludwig Feuerbach (ch. IV), and Dialectics of Nature (passim); Lenin’s Materialism and Empirio-criticism( chs I and II), What ‘The Friends of the People’ Are (pp. 163-74) and Philosophical Notebooks (Lenin's Collected Works, Vol. 38); Stalin’s Dialectical and Historical Materialism and Marxism and Linguistics; Zhdanov’s On Philosophy (in On Literature, Music and Philosophy); Mao Zedong’s On Contradiction (in Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tse-tung).

I. The dialectic
A few preliminary remarks may facilitate an approach to the Marxist conception of the dialectic.

For Marx, Engels, and their followers, the dialectic is the most advanced form of scientific method. Marxist theoreticians affirm that they are heir to ‘the Hegelian dialectic’. A first problem: Marxism adopts the dialectic from Hegel, and yet Marx himself declares: ‘My dialectical method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite’ (second Preface to Capital [the Postface to the second German edition], International Publishers, New York, 1974, Vol. 1, p. 19). After Marx, first Engels (in Ludwig Feuerbach and Anti-D黨ring) and then Lenin affirm that the Hegelian dialectic is acceptable only if ‘put back on its feet’. What is meant by this ‘direct opposite’, this ‘inversion’ of the dialectic? We can find a precise answer in a number of different texts.

What Marx, Engels, and their followers reject in the Hegelian dialectic is its dogmatic meaning, role, and utilisation — in a word, the schematism for which Hegel himself criticised Schelling in a well-known passage of The Phenomenology of Spirit. This dogmatism does violence to reality in order to make it fit the dialectical schema at all costs. What if reality does not conform to the a priori structure of the dialectic? It is deformed to bring it into line. In certain cases, doubtless, reality may well conform to the Hegelian dialectical schema: this is why Marx distinguishes analyses that are of genuine scientific interest from ‘the Hegelian hotchpotch’ (for example, the conception of history as process, the critique of abstract ideals, the ‘Beautiful Soul’, and so on). Most of the time, however, the Hegelian dialectic is simply ‘plastered onto’ reality. This utilisation of the dialectic is intimately bound up with Hegel’s absolute idealism. ‘According to Hegel the development of the idea, in conformity with the dialectical laws of the triad, determines the development of the real world. And it is only in that case, of course, that one can speak of the importance of the triads, of the incontrovertibility of the dialectical process’ (Lenin, What ‘The Friends of the People’ Are, p. 167). It is precisely this utilisation that Marx rejects: ‘Responding to D黨ring, who had attacked Marx’s dialectics, Engels says that Marx never dreamed of “proving” anything by means of Hegelian triads. . .’ (ibid., p. 163).

Yet although they thus reject the dogmatic utilisation of the dialectic along with its philosophical foundations — Marx and Engels retain its ,rational kernel’, the general content of the dialectic (interaction, development, qualitative ‘leaps’, contradiction), which, in their view, constitutes a remarkable approximation of the most advanced positive scientific method.’ This puts us in a position to specify the meaning of the famous ‘inversion’. It is neither reliance on a particular philosophical system, nor a sort of intrinsic virtue, an absolute ‘logical’ necessity, that makes the dialectic indispensable to Marx and Engels. The dialectic is validated only by its concrete [positif] utilisation, by its scientific fecundity. This scientific use is the sole criterion of the dialectic. It alone makes it possible to speak of the dialectic as method. Marx, says Lenin, did not ‘plaster’ the dialectic onto reality:

Marx only studied and investigated the real process ... the sole criterion of theory recognised by him was its conformity to reality.... What Marx and Engels called the dialectical method — as against the metaphysical — is nothing else than the scientific method in sociology, which consists in regarding society as a living organism in a state of constant development (What ‘The Friends of the People’ Are, pp. 163-5).

And Lenin cites the famous sentence from the second Preface to Capital in which Marx defines the dialectic: ‘The whole matter thus amounts to a “positive understanding of the existing state of things and their inevitable development”’ (ibid., p. 167; translation modified).

However, if this is the significance of the ‘inversion’ of the Hegelian dialectic, one must go still further. Marx and Engels accepted the’ rational kernel’, the ‘laws’ of the Hegelian dialectic, only as a remarkable anticipation of scientific method.’ But if its utilisation by science is the criterion of the dialectic, that utilisation also determines its ‘laws’; it alone can confirm, define, and thus modify, by making them more precise, the laws of the dialectic themselves. This requirement is not unMarxist. Since Marx, we have been witness to an interesting effort to specify and define the ‘rules’ or ‘laws’ of the dialectic, an effort that has progressively eliminated the formalistic elements that continued to mark the initial definitions. Thus the ‘negation of the negation’ no longer figures amongst the rules retained by Stalin (see Dialectical and Historical Materialism). Thus Mao Zedong’s most recent text (‘On Contradiction’) accentuates two new ideas: the ‘principal contradiction’ and the ‘principal aspect’ of the contradiction; they are intended to specify the concrete structure of the concept of contradiction, which had earlier been too abstract. This ongoing effort of definition, which is consonant with a positive scientific approach [positivit?/I>], is plainly not unrelated to the scientific nature of the dialectical method.

Another point merits attention as well. If the dialectic is a scientific method, it comprises, like any scientific method, two aspects. It cannot be a method of discovery or investigation unless it articulates the structure of reality known to science. Method of discovery and structure of reality are here closely interlinked, as they always have been in the history of the sciences. It is in this sense that Engels could speak of the ‘dialectics of nature’, and could write that ‘in the last resort, nature works dialectically’ (Anti-D黨ring, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1947, p. 33); or that Lenin could say that ‘Dialectics in the proper sense is the study of contradictions in the very essence of things’ (Philosophical Notebooks, Collected Works, Vol. 38, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1961, pp. 253-4; translation modified); or that Stalin could write, following Engels and Lenin, ‘the dialectical method ... regards the phenomena of nature as being in constant movement ...’ (Dialectical and Historical Materialism, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1941, pp. 4-5). This double aspect of the dialectic - scientific method and structure of the real — is at the heart of the definition of the laws of the dialectic given by Stalin in Dialectical and Historical Materialism.

But, by way of this conception, we have come back round to materialism.

II. Materialism
Without a doubt, materialism is the aspect of Marxism that has elicited the sharpest criticisms (see, in particular, J.-P. Sartre’s essay in Les Temps Modernes, no.s 9-10 June-July 1946; ‘Materialism and Revolution’, in Literary and Philosophical Essays, London, 1968, pp. 185-239).

Let us, first of all, try to avoid certain misconceptions.

Simply to mention the arguments of the ‘vulgar materialism’ denounced by Marx, which come down to denying the reality of thought, consciousness, and ideals, is to reject them. Marxist materialism refuses to assimilate thought to matter, and attributes a very important historical role to consciousness (see Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, ch. Ill, in fine, the letter to Conrad Schmidt [of 5 August 18901, etc.).

But let us take a moment to consider another argument. Materialism, it is said, is a ‘metaphysics of nature’ that reconstitutes the world by starting out from a material element regarded as an absolute substance (atom, body, matter). In short, it is an ‘Absolute Knowledge’ in which matter plays the role of the Hegelian idea. Marx and Engels criticise this conception, which they call ‘metaphysical materialism’. Lenin, for example, writes: ‘The recognition of immutable elements, of the immutable essence of things”, is not materialism, but metaphysical, i.e., anti-dialectical, materialism’ (Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, p. 249). One of the essential features of dialectical materialism is precisely that it refutes all dogmatism grounded in ‘Absolute Knowledge’. Materialism radically rejects the idea that there can be any “immutability”, “essence”, [or] “absolute substance”, in the sense in which these concepts were depicted by the empty professorial philosophy’ (ibid., p. 250). It is not for a metaphysics of nature to deduce the structure of reality; it is the role of the sciences to discover it. Thus only physics can determine and develop the physical notion of matter, with which the philosophical notion of matter must not be confused.

Accordingly, Marxist materialism does not have the same object science does. Its aim is not [il ne r閜ond pas il the discovery of the structure of reality. It responds, says Lenin, to the fundamental ‘epistemological question’: primacy of matter or mind? Primacy of existence or consciousness? The answer to this question — posed and debated in all the theories of classical philosophy that bear on the problem of knowledge — lies, for Marxism, in scientific practice itself. Defining the materialist standpoint’ in opposition to Hegel in Ludwig Feuerbach [Marx and Engels, Selected Works, p. 6181, Engels shows ‘it means nothing more than’ the scientific analysis of the real world, of facts ‘conceived in their own and not in a fantastic interconnection’. Lenin, echoing Engels, tirelessly repeated that ‘the sciences are spontaneously materialist’ (Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, passim).

Here, as we have seen, the notion of practice comes into play. Indeed, we cannot consider scientific truths apart from scientific practice (itself the most abstract form of human practice in general), which is their basis. Only by articulating the implications of this practice can we propose a valid response to the ‘epistemological question’. For this practice constitutes, in actual fact, the origin and criterion of all truth. In Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Lenin energetically addresses this theme, the subject of Marx’s famous second thesis on Feuerbach: ‘The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. In practice man must prove the truth, that is, the reality and power, the “this-sidedness” of his thinking. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question’ (Marx and Engels, Selected Works p. 28).

Thus this position, which is distinct from pragmatism, radically excludes all questions about the ‘possibility of knowledge’, i.e., all transcendental philosophies. Affirming that the fact of practice envelops all questions as to the legitimacy [droit] of knowledge, it rejects any philosophical reflection that purports to arrive at the truth, the truth of this fact included, by seeking a de jure foundation [un fondement de droit] for knowledge beyond this fact. At this level, rigorous reflection, in conformity with the truth it seeks to attain, can by itself do no more than articulate the reality of the practice that engenders truth.

The theses of materialism consequently do no more than articulate and consciously draw out the implications of the ‘spontaneous practice’ of the sciences, itself a particular instance of human practice. This practice involves confronting two terms joined in a profound unity: the ideas (or the consciousness) of scientists (of men) — and external reality. This confrontation entails recognition of the primacy of external reality over ideas or consciousness, which, in this practice, models itself on reality; and the recognition of the objectivity of the laws established, in this practice, by science. ‘The recognition of the priority of nature, not mind, is the distinguishing feature of materialism par excellence,’ says Lenin, who insists heavily on the ‘epistemological’ as opposed to the dogmatic aspect of that thesis: ‘One only has to formulate the question clearly to realise what sheer nonsense the Machists talk when they demand that the materialists give a definition of matter which would not amount to a repetition of the proposition that matter, nature, being the physical — is primary, and spirit, consciousness, sensation, the psychical — is secondary’ (Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, pp. 133-4). Ruling out all dogmatic definitions of matter, Lenin repeatedly affirms that ‘the sole “property” of matter with whose definition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of being an objective reality. . . .’ (ibid., p. 248); ,matter is a philosophical category denoting ... objective reality’ (ibid., p. 116). The basic significance of this ‘epistemological’, rather than dogmatic, conception of the primacy of existence over consciousness stands out even more clearly when Lenin underscores the ‘limits’ of this thesis: ‘Of course, even the antithesis of matter and mind has absolute significance only within the bounds of the fundamental epistemological question of what is to be regarded as primary and what as secondary. Beyond these bounds the relative character of this antithesis is indubitable’ (ibid., p. 134).

作者：Louis Althusser 文章来源：文化研究 点击数：39 更新时间：2005-10-11

Written: 1953

Marxism constitutes one of the main currents of contemporary thought. By now, there is no counting the works that set out to expound, combat, or even ‘supersede’ it. It is already no easy task to find the path that cuts through this mass of polemical works and leads to the texts. Moreover, there are a great many of these texts. The (incomplete) French edition of the works of Marx and Engels published by Costes comprises some sixty volumes; that published by Editions Sociales more than twenty; the (incomplete) edition of Lenin’s works includes some twenty volumes; the edition of Stalin’s, some fifteen; and so on ... But the fact that there are so many texts is not the only problem. The Marxist canon spans an historical period that stretches from 1840 to the present, and raises problems that have fuelled polemics: the nature of Marx’s early works; the problem of the Marxist tradition. Finally, the very nature of Marxism — a science and a philosophy closely bound up with (political or scientific) practice — represents an additional difficulty, perhaps the greatest of all. If one neglects the constant reference to practice, which Marx, Engels, and their followers insistently call to our attention, one is liable to misunderstand the significance of Marxism entirely, and to interpret it as an ‘ordinary’ philosophy.

Here we would like to provide a few guideposts that may make approaching and studying Marxism easier.

A few bibliographical pointers may be useful. At the end of a work by H. C. Desroches, Signification du marxisme (蒬itions Ouvri鑢es, Economie et humanisme, Paris, 1950), the reader will find an introductory bibliography by C. F. Hubert. This annotated bibliography is divided into two sections. In the first, the author presents us with an initiatory bibliography of selected works or chapters — the compendia of Marxism — by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, organised under four headings: economy, theory of the state, general theory of history, and tactics and strategy. The second section (complementary bibliography) contains a chronological listing of the works of Marx and Engels, together with a very partial list of Lenin’s works. This bibliography is quite serviceable. But it has a number of faults: it tends to sacrifice dialectical materialism to historical materialism; it is not up-to-date; and it does not include works about Marxism (with the exception of a text by Plekhanov and Auguste Cornu’s dissertation [on the young Marx]).

The most comprehensive and interesting historical study of Marx is a book in German by Franz Mehring, Karl Marx (1918); it deserves to be translated. Henri Lefebvre, Pour conna顃re la pens閑 de Marx (Bordas, Paris, 1948), may also be consulted with profit; it is better than the short book by the same author, Le mat閞ialisme dialectique, published before the war by NEP (Alcan, 1940). Morceaux choisis de Karl Marx, ed. Lefebvre and Guterman (Gallirnard, 1934), has a serious drawback: texts from different periods, including extracts from Marx’s early works, are grouped under the same heading, without any accompanying historical information.

Good accounts of Marxist economic theory may be found in Segal, Principes d’閏onomie politique (ESI, Paris, 1936); Baby, Principes fondamentaux d’閏onomie politique (ESI, 1949); and, especially, Benard, La conception marxiste du capital (editions SEDES, Paris), and Denis, La valeur, la monnaie (ESI).

I. The problem of Marx’s early works
Contemporary philosophers have played up Marx’s early works. These are doubtless more accessible than Capital. Moreover, they are ‘philosophical’ works, marked by the pervasive influence of Hegel and Feuerbach.

The importance we assign these early texts (in some respects, Hegel’s work already throws up the same problem) will command our general interpretation of Marxism. If we hold that they contain Marx’s basic inspiration, then they become Marxism’s criterion of validity and the principle that will inform our interpretation of Marxism. Thus, to take two different examples, M. Hyppolite has argued that Marx remains faithful to his original philosophical intuitions right down to Capital (see ‘Marxism and Philosophy’; ‘Marx’s Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of the State;’ ‘On the Structure and Philosophical Presuppositions of Marx’s Capital’, in Jean Hyppolite, Studies on Marx and Hegel, trans. John O’Neill, Basic Books, New York and London, 1969). Conversely, M. Gurvitch has defended the intuitions of the young Marx against his mature works, arguing that the inspiration of the latter is different and inferior (see ‘La sociologie du jeune Marx’, Cahiers international de sociologie, no. 4, 1948). The problem of the Marxist tradition and the evolution of Marxist thought is posed by way of these theses.

If, however, we hold that these early works reflect the interests of the young Marx, who, like all his fellow students, entered the arena of thought in a world dominated by Hegel’s philosophy, but, with the help of internal criticism, historical experience, and scientific knowledge, put this point of departure behind him in order to work out an original theory, then we will regard these early works as transitional, and seek in them less the truth of Marxism than the intellectual trajectory of the young Marx. This is, grosso modo, the thesis defended by Mehring, and also by Auguste Cornu in Karl Marx, l’homme et 1’oeuvre: De 1’h間ilianisme au matdrialisme historique, 1815-1845 (Alcan, Paris, 1934).’ From this standpoint, the philosophical influences of Marx’s youth are, in Capital, simply starting points he has left behind to forge an original conception of things (Lenin adopts this thesis in Karl Marx [19141). So regarded, the Marxist tradition does not confront us with the same question as before.

We do not wish to deal with this important question here; it is matter for a detailed historical study. Let us simply take note of the judgement Marx and Engels passed both on their own early works and on the influences to which they were subject.

In the Preface to the Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy (a text dating from 1859, published by Giard), Marx examines his own development and early works, making the following points. To begin with, he underscores the importance of Engels’ ‘brilliant sketch on the criticism of the economic categories’. (The reference is to Engels’ article ‘Outline of a Critique of Political Economy’, an empirical [positive] analysis of England’s economic and political situation published in February 1844 in the Deutsch-Franz鰏ische Jahrb點her. This crucially important article has not been included in the volume of Marx and Engels’ philosophical works published by Costes.) Marx then refers to The German Ideology in these terms: ‘When in the spring of 1845 [Engels] also settled in Brussels, we resolved to work out in common the opposition of our view to the ideological view of German philosophy, in fact, to settle accounts with our erstwhile philosophical conscience’ [Marx and Engels, Selected Works in One Volume, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1968, p. 1931. Marx thus considered all his texts prior to The German Ideology to be tainted by a philosophical conscience’, and he regarded The German Ideology as a critique of this influence, which he had by then overcome. He adds, ‘The decisive points of our view were first scientifically, though only polemically, indicated in my book published in 1847 and directed against Proudhon: The Poverty of Philosophy’ [ibid., p. 184].

These texts of Marx’s would seem to make it possible to mark off the stages of Marx’s thought as he himself defines them. 1) All the texts prior to The German Ideology, including The Holy Family and the ‘1844 Manuscripts’ (which were left in the form of notes, and have not been translated in full by Costes), were more or less subject to the influence of German ‘philosophy’. 2) The German Ideology is a critique of this ‘philosophical conscience’. 3) The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) is the first scientific text Marx recognises as being entirely characteristic of his mode of thought [o?Marx se reconnaisse enti鑢ement].

Marx and Engels often re-examined their relationship to, and disagreement with, Hegel. See, in @s connection, The German Ideology (passim), The Poverty of Philosophy, ch. II, 1. ‘The Method’, the second Preface to Capital [the Postface to the second German edition], Engels’ Ludwig Feuerbach (the beginning), and Engels’ Anti-D黨ring (Part 1, ch. XIII, ‘Negation of the Negation’, a theme taken up and powerfully developed by Lenin in What ‘The Friends of the People’ Are, Collected Works, Vol. 1, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1960, pp. 163-74).

One word more about the implications of this problem of Marx’s early works. It is certainly not irrelevant to our understanding of Marxism today. This is evident when one considers notions like the End of history, bound up in turn with the notion of alienation. If Marx and his followers do no more in their works than illustrate and corroborate the still philosophical theses of On the Jewish Question or the ‘1844 Manuscripts’; if they merely attempt to ‘flesh out’ the Hegelian philosophical notion of the end of alienation and the ‘end of history’, then their undertaking is worth what this notion is. And, in that case, Marxism sacrifices its scientific pretensions, to become, in some sort, the incarnation of an ideal, which, although certainly moving, is utopian, and, like any ideal, gets entangled in both theoretical contradictions and the ‘impurity’ of concrete means the moment it seeks to bend reality to its demands. Conversely, if Marxism has nothing to do with any ‘philosophical’ notion of this sort, if it is a science, it escapes the theoretical contradictions and practical tyranny of the ideal; the contradictions it runs up against are no longer those resulting from its philosophical pretensions, but simply the contradictions of reality itself, which it sets out to study scientifically and solve practically.

II. Historical materialism
Historical materialism is precisely that science of history of which the early works are the ‘philosophical’ anticipation.

Here again, we would like to provide a few guideposts. Marxism has two aspects, which are profoundly united, yet distinct: dialectical materialism and historical materialism.

Marx and Engels use the term historical materialism to refer to the science of history, or the ‘science of the development of societies’ established by Marx. This term may seem questionable: we do not use the term ‘physical materialism’ to designate physics. In fact, Marx was using the term as a weapon. His aim was to counterpose his enterprise to the idealist conceptions of history of his day. He wished to found the science of history, not on men’s ‘self-consciousness’ or the ‘ideal objectives of history’ (the ‘realisation of freedom’, the reconciliation of ‘human nature’ with itself, etc. — see, on this subject, The German Ideology, passim), but on the material dialectic of the forces of production and relations of production, the ‘motor’ that determines historical development ‘in the final analysis’ (see the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy).

In a little known, highly instructive essay, Lenin discusses the scientific method of Marx’s work at length, using Marx’s own terms (What ‘The Friends of the People’ Are, pp. 129ff.). Historical materialism, says Lenin, is not an arbitrary conception. The science of history was constituted as the other sciences were; although it possesses its own methods and principles, it must meet the same standards of rigour. ‘This idea of materialism in sociology was in itself a piece of genius. Naturally, “for the time being” it was only a hypothesis, but it was the first hypothesis to create the possibility of a strictly scientific approach to historical and social problems.’ This hypothesis (the explanation of history through the dialectic of forces and relations of production) makes it possible to introduce the criteria of science into history: objectivity, repetition, generalisation.

Now — since the appearance of Capital — the materialist conception of history is no longer a hypothesis, but a scientifically proven proposition. And until we get some other attempt to give a scientific explanation of the functioning and development of some social formation — social formation, mind you, and not the way of life of some country or people, or even class, etc. — another attempt just as capable of introducing order into the ‘pertinent facts’ as materialism is, that is, just as capable of presenting a living picture of a given formation, while giving it a strictly scientific explanation — until then the materialist conception of history will be synonymous with social science (ibid., p. 142; translation modified).

As such, Marxism cannot claim to do more than a science does:

And just as transformism does not at all claim to explain the ‘whole’ history of the formation of species, but only to place the methods of this explanation on a scientific basis, so materialism in history has never claimed to explain everything, but merely to indicate the ‘only scientific’, to use Marx’s expression (Capital), method of explaining history (ibid., p. 146).

These theses enable us to articulate more precisely the objectives of Marxism and its claims to scientific status.

One further point needs to be clarified in this connection. Modem writers, taking up, consciously or not, a tradition whose representatives include Sorel and Rogdanov, have described historical materialism as ‘the immanent philosophy of the proletariat’ (Daniel Villey), as a theory that is valid for the proletariat and gives expression to its condition and aspirations. This thesis leads to the following conclusion: Marxism is a subjective (‘class’) theory, having no claim to scientific universality and objectivity; hence it is a myth in the Sorelian sense, rather than a science. Others have sought to ground the scientific nature of Marxism, ‘the ideology of the proletariat’, in the essence of the proletariat, the ‘universal class’ whose condition — whose very impoverishment — marks it out for universality and objectivity. Lenin had occasion to discuss this problem in a famous text, What is to be Done? (especially chs 1 and II; see Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. 5, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1961, pp. 352ff.). Against the advocates of the ‘spontaneity’ of the proletariat, Lenin defends the absolute necessity of ‘scientific theory’. He quotes approvingly the following passages from Kautsky:

[For the spontaneists], socialist consciousness appears to be a necessary and direct result of the proletarian class struggle. But this is absolutely untrue. . . . Modem socialist consciousness can arise only on the basis of profound scientific knowledge.... The vehicle of science is not the proletariat [this was written in 19021, but the bourgeois intelligentsia: it was in the minds of individual members of this stratum that modern socialism originated, and it was they who communicated it to the more intellectually developed proletarians, who, in their turn, introduce it into the proletarian class struggle where conditions allow that to be done. Thus, socialist consciousness is something introduced into the proletarian class struggle from without ... and not something that arose within it spontaneously (ibid., pp. 383-4).

Lenin shows that, ‘spontaneously’, the proletariat cannot but be influenced by bourgeois ideology, and that Marxism, far from being the subjective theory of the proletariat, is a science that must be taught to the proletariat. Lenin and his followers have often drawn attention to the fact that the proletariat had existed for a very long time, and endured a thousand different ordeals, before assimilating Marxism and accepting it as the science that could account for its condition within the overall framework of capitalist society, securing its future as well as all humanity’s. Only later did the proletariat produce, in its class organisations, intellectuals of its own, who developed Marxist theory in their tum.

This text of Lenin’s is important for the study of Marxism’s relation to the proletariat, class consciousness, the problem of ‘economic consciousness’ and political consciousness, ‘spontaneity’, ‘partisanship’, etc. If we compare it with the second Preface to Capital and Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, on the one hand, and the monographs Stalin has written on Marxism and Linguistics and Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, on the other, we can discern, in these theoretical works, a profoundly scientific conception of history, which rigorously defines its own domain while distinguishing it from others, determines the laws of its object, and submits its results to the test of concrete human practice:

The criterion of practice, i.e., the course of development of all capitalist countries in the last few decades, proves only the objective truth of Marx’s whole social and economic theory in general, and not merely of one or another of its parts, formulations, etc.; it is clear that to talk here of the ‘dogmatism’ of the Marxists is to make an unpardonable concession to bourgeois economics. The sole conclusion to be drawn from the opinion held by Marxists that Marx’s theory is an objective truth is that by following the path of Marxian theory, we shall draw closer and closer to objective truth (without ever exhausting it); but by following any other path we shall arrive at nothing but confusion and lies (Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1970, pp. 129-30).

The english and chinses version of the Treaty of Naning 江寧條約 (南京條約) is presented below.

This treaty between Britain and China ended the first opium war, fought between 1839 and 1842. The occasion for the war was the destruction in May 1839 by the Chinese emperor's 'drug tsar', Lin Zexu, of thousands of casks of Indian opium, without compensation, that were destined to be sold by the private British traders operating in Canton harbor to Chinese dealers in defiance of a ban placed on the illegal substance by the Chinese government. Despite the ban, the British government supported the traders on the specious grounds that suppression of the drug was China's responsibility only and that it should not proceed by an assault on the property (i.e., opium) of British subjects.

The fighting, via sporadic land and naval battles, ended in complete victory for Britain which was thus in a position to impose the following onerous terms on China in relation to the opening of additional ports of trade and the elimination of barriers to the convenient conduct of a centuries old lawful trade. Note that no mention is made of opium which continued to be an illegal substance. Moreover, the drug trade could now continue without interruption as far as the traders were concerned for the treaty also ceded to Britain the offshore island of Hong Kong where the opium traders could thenceforth conduct their illegal operations.

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THE TREATY OF NANKING
Nanking, August 29, 1842
Peace Treaty between the Queen of Great Britain and the Emperor of China.
HER MAJESTY the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and His Majesty the Emperor of China, being desirous of putting an end to the misunderstandings and consequent hostilities which have arisen between the two countries, have resolved to conclude a Treaty for that purpose, and have therefore named as their Plenipotentiaries, that is to say: Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, HENRY POTTINGER, Bart., a Major General in the Service of the East India Company, etc., etc.; And His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of China, the High Commiasioners KEYING, a Member of the Imperial House, a Guardian of the Crown Prince and General of the Garrison of Canton; and ELEPOO, of Imperial Kindred, graciously permitted to wear the insignia of the first rank, and the distinction of Peacock's feather, lately Minister and Governor General etc., and now Lieutenant-General Commanding at Chapoo: Who, after having communicated to each other their respective Full Powers, and found them to be in good and due form, have agreed upon and concluded the following [selected] Articles:

I. There shall henceforward be peace and friendship between Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and His Majesty the Emperor of China, and between their respective subjects, who shall enjoy full security and protection for their persons and property within the dominions of the other.

II. His Majesty the Emperor of China agrees, that British subjects, with their families and establishments, shall be allowed to reside, for the purposes of carrying on their mercantile pursuits, without molestation or restraint, at the cities and towns of Canton, Amoy, Foochowfoo, Ningpo, and Shanghai; and Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, &c., will appoint Superintendents, or Consular officers, to reside at each of the above-named cities or towns, to be the medium of communication between the Chinese authorities and the said merchants, and to see that the just duties and other dues of the Chinese Government, as hereafter provided for, are duly discharged by Her Britannic Majesty's subjects.

III. It being obviously necessary and desirable that British subjects should have some port whereat they may [maintain] and refit their ships when required, and keep stores for that purpose, His Majesty the Emperor of China cedes to Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, &c., the Island of Hong-Kong, to be possessed in perpetuity by Her Britannic Majesty, her heirs and successors, and to be governed by such laws and regulations as Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, &c., shall see fit to direct.

IV. The Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of 6,000,000 of dollars, as the value of the opium which was delivered up at Canton in the month of March, 1839, as a ransom for the lives of Her Britannic Majesty's Superintendent and subjects, who had been imprisoned and threatened with death by the Chinese High Officers And it is further stipulated, that interest, at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum, shall be paid by the Government of China on any portion of the above sums that are not punctually discharged at the periods fixed.

V. The Government of China having compelled the British merchants trading at Canton to deal exclusively with certain Chinese merchants, called Hong merchants (or Co-Hong), who had been licensed by the Chinese Government for that purpose, the Emperor of China agrees to abolish that practice in future at all ports where British merchants may reside, and to permit them to carry on their mercantile transactions with whatever persons they please; and His Imperial Majesty further agrees to pay to the British Government the sum of 3,000,000 of dollars, on account of debts due to British subjects by some of the said Hong merchants (or Co-Hong), who have become insolvent, and who owe very large sums of money to subjects of Her Britannic Majesty.

VI. The Government of Her Britannic Majesty having been obliged to send out an expedition to demand and obtain redress for the violent and unjust proceedings of the Chinese High Authorities towards Her Britannic Majesty's officer and subjects, the Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of 12,000,000 of dollars, on account of the expenses incurred; and Her Britannic Majesty's Plenipotentiary voluntarily agrees, on behalf of Her Majesty, to deduct from the said amount of 12,000,000 of dollars, any sums which may have been received by Her Majesty's combined forces, as ransom for cities and towns in China, subsequent to the 1st day of August, 1841.

VII. It is agreed, that the total amount of 21,000,000 of dollars, described in the 3 preceding Articles, shall be paid as follows:

6,000,000 immediately.
6,000,000 in 1843; that is, 3,000,000 on or before the 30th of the month of June, and 3,000,000 on or before the 31st of December.
5,000,000 in 1844; that is, 2,500,000 on or before the 30th of June, and 2,500,000 on or before the 31st of December.
4,000,000 in 1845; that is, 2,000,000 on or before the 30th of June, and 2,000,000 on or before the 31st of December.
And it is further stipulated, that interest, at the rate of 5 per cent per annum, shall be paid by the Government of China on any portion of the above sums that are not punctually discharged at the periods fixed.

VIII. The Emperor of China agrees to release, unconditionally, all subjects of Her Britannic Majesty (whether natives of Europe or India), who may be in confinement at this moment in any part of the Chinese empire.

IX. The Emperor of China agrees to publish and promulgate, under his Imperial sign manual and seal, a full and entire amnesty and act of indemnity to all subjects of China, on account of their having resided under, or having had dealings and intercourse with, or having entered the service of Her Britannic Majesty, or of Her Majesty's officers; and His Imperial Majesty further engages to release all Chinese subjects who may be at this moment in confinement for similar reasons.

X. His Majesty the Emperor of China agrees to establish at all the ports which are, by the 2nd Article of this Treaty, to be thrown open for the resort of British merchants, a fair and regular tariff of export and import customs and other dues, which tariff shall be publicly notified and promulgated for general information; and the Emperor further engages, that when British merchandise shall have once paid at any of the said ports the regulated customs and dues, agreeable to the tariff to be hereafter fixed, such merchandise may be conveyed by Chinese merchants to any province or city in the interior of the Empire of China, on paying a further amount as transit duties, which shall not exceed [see Declaration respecting Transit Duties below] on the tariff value of such goods.

XI. It is agreed that Her Britannic Majesty's Chief High Officer in China shall correspond with the Chinese High Officers, both at the Capital and in the Provinces, under the term "Communication" [chinese characters]. The Subordinate British Officers and Chinese High Officers in the Provinces under the terms "Statement" [chinese characters] on the part of the former, and on the part of the latter "Declaration" [chinese characters], and the Subordinates of both Countries on a footing of perfect equality. Merchants and others not holding official situations and, therefore, not included in the above, on both sides, to use the term "Representation" [chinese characters] in all Papers addressed to, or intended for the notice of the respective Governments.

XII. On the assent of the Emperor of China to this Treaty being received, and the discharge of the first instalment of money, Her Britannic Majesty's forces will retire from Nanking and the Grand Canal, and will no longer molest or stop the trade of China. The military post at Chinhai will also be withdrawn, but the Islands of Koolangsoo, and that of Chusan, will continue to be held by Her Majesty's forces until the money payments, and the arrangements for opening the ports to British merchants, be completed.

XIII. The ratification of this Treaty by Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, &c., and His Majesty the Emperor of China, shall be exchanged as soon as the great distance which separates England from China will admit; but in the meantime, counterpart copies of it, signed and sealed by the.Plenipotentiaries on behalf of their respective Sovereigns, shall be mutually delivered, and all its provisions and arrangements shall take effect. Done at Nanking, and signed and sealed by the Plenipotentiaries on board Her Britannic Majesty's ship Cornwallis, this 29th day of August, 1842, corresponding with the Chinese date, twenty-fourth day of the seventh month in the twenty-second Year of TAOU KWANG.

(L.S.) HENRY POTTINGER.

[SIGNATURES OF THE THREE CHINESE PLENIPOTENTIARIES]

DECLARATION respecting Transit Duties.

Whereas by the Xth Article of the Treaty between Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and His Majesty the Emperor of China, concluded and signed on board Her Britannic Majesty's ship Cornwallis, at Nanking, on the 29th day of August, 1842 . . . . it is stipulated and agreed, that His Majesty the Emperor of China shall establish at all the ports which, by the 2nd Article of the said Treaty, are to be thrown open for the resort of British merchants, a fair and regular tariff of export and import customs and other dues, which tariff shall be publicly notified and promulgated for general information; and further, that when British merchandise shall have once paid, at any of the said ports, the regulated customs and dues, agreeable to the tariff to be hereafter fixed, such merchandise may be conveyed by Chinese merchants to any province or city in the interior of the Empire of China, on paying a further amount of duty as transit duty;

And whereas the rate of transit duty to be so levied was not fixed by the said Treaty; Now, therefore, the undersigned Plenipotentiaries of Her Britannic Majesty, and of His Majesty the Emperor of China, do hereby, on proceeding to the exchange of the Ratifications of the said Treaty, agree and declare, that the further amount of duty to be so levied on British merchandise, as transit duty, shall not exceed the present rates, which are upon a moderate scale; and the Ratifications of the said Treaty are exchanged subject to the express declaration and stipulation herein contained. In witness whereof the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed the present declaration, and have affixed thereto their respective seals.

Done at Hong-Kong, the 26th day of June, 1843 . . . . .

(L.S.) HENRY POTTINGER.
[SEAL AND SIGNATURE OF THE CHINESE PLENIPOTENTIARY]

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《江寧條約》

茲因大清大皇帝，大英君主，欲以近來之不和之端解釋，止肇釁，為此議定設立永久和約。是以大清大皇帝特派欽差便宜行事大臣太子少保鎮守廣東廣州將軍宗室耆英，頭品頂戴花翎前閣督部堂乍浦副都統紅帶子伊里布；大英伊耳蘭等國君主特派全權公使大臣英國所屬印度等處三等將軍世襲男爵璞鼎查；公同各將所奉之上諭便宜行事及敕賜全權之命互相較閱，俱屬善當，即便議擬各條，陳列于左：

一、嗣後大清大皇帝、大英國君主永存平和，所屬華英人民彼此友睦，各住他國者必受該國保佑身家全安。

一、自今以後，大皇帝恩准英國人民帶同所屬家眷，寄居大清沿海之廣州、福州、廈門、寧波、上海等五處港口，貿易通商無礙；且大英國君主派設領事、管事等官住該五處城邑，專理商賈事宜，與各該地方官公文往來；令英人按照下條開敘之列，清楚交納貨稅、鈔餉等費。

一、因大英商船遠路涉洋，往往有損壞須修補者，自應給予沿海一處，以便修船及存守所用物料。今大皇帝準將香港一島給予大英國君主暨嗣後世襲主位者常遠據守主掌，任便立法治理。

一、因大清欽差大憲等於道光十九年二月間經將大英國領事官及民人等強留粵省，嚇以死罪，索出鴉片以為贖命，今大皇帝准以洋銀六百萬員償補原價。

一、凡大英商民在粵貿易，向例全歸額設行商，亦稱公行者承辦，今大皇帝准以嗣後不必仍照向例，乃凡有英商等赴各該口貿易者，勿論與何商交易，均聽其便；且向例額設行商等內有累欠英商甚多無措清還者，今酌定洋銀三百萬員，作為商欠之數，准明由中國官為償還。

一、因大清欽命大臣等向大英官民人等不公強辦，致須撥發軍士討求伸理，今酌定水陸軍費洋銀一千二百萬員，大皇帝准為償補，惟自道光二十一年六月十五日以後，英國因贖各城收過銀兩之數，大英全權公使大臣為君主准可，按數扣除。

一、以上三條酌定銀數共二千一百萬員應如何分期交清開列于左：

此時交銀六百萬員； 癸卯年六月間交銀三百萬員，十二月間交銀三百萬員，共銀六百萬員； 甲辰年六月間交銀二百五十萬員，十二月間交銀二百五十萬員，共銀五百萬員； 乙巳年六月間交銀二百萬員，十二月間交銀二百萬員，共銀四百萬員； 自壬寅年起至乙巳年止，四年共交銀二千一百萬員。 倘有按期未能交足之數，則酌定每年每百員加息五員。

一、凡系大英國人，無論本國、屬國軍民等，今在中國所管轄各地方被禁者，大清大皇帝准即釋放。

一、凡系中國人，前在英人所據之邑居住者，或與英人有來往者，或有跟隨及候候英國官人者，均由大皇帝俯降禦旨，譽錄天下，恩准全然免罪；且凡系中國人，為英國事被拿監禁受難者，亦加恩釋放。

一、前第二條內言明開關俾英國商民居住通商之廣州等五處，應納進口、出口貨稅、餉費，均宜秉公議定則例，由部頒發曉示，以便英商按例交納；今又議定，英國貨物自在某港按例納稅後，即准由中國商人遍運天下，而路所經過稅關不得加重稅例，只可按估價則例若干，每兩加稅不過分。

一、議定英國住中國之總管大員，與大清大臣無論京內、京外者，有文書來往，用照會字樣；英國屬員，用申陳字樣；大臣批覆用劄行字樣；兩國屬員往來，必當平行照會。若兩國商賈上達官憲，不在議內，仍用稟明字樣為著。

一、俟奉大清大皇帝允准和約各條施行，並以此時准交之六百萬員交清，大英水陸軍士當即退出江寧、京口等處江面，並不再行攔阻中國各省商賈貿易。至鎮海之招寶山，亦將退讓。惟有定海縣之舟山海島、廈門廳之古浪嶼小島，仍歸英兵暫為駐守；迨及所議洋銀全數交清，而前議各海口均已開闢俾英人通商後，即將駐守二處軍士退出，不復佔據。

一、以上各條均關議和要約，應候大臣等分別奏明大清大皇帝、大英君主各用？、親筆批准後，即速行相交，俾兩國分執一冊，以昭信守；惟兩國相離遙遠，不得一旦而到，是以另繕二冊，先由大清欽差便宜行事大臣等、大英欽奉全權公使大臣各為君上定事，蓋用關防印信，各執一冊為據，俾即日按照和約開載之條，施行妥辦無礙矣。要至和約者。

(L.S.) HENRY POTTINGER.
[SEAL AND SIGNATURE OF THE CHINESE PLENIPOTENTIARY]
道光二十二年七月二十四日即英國記年之 一千八百四十二年八月二十九日由江寧省會行 大英君主汗華船上鈴關防

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NOTE:

In the following year, on Oct. 8, a supplementary treaty 虎門條約 was concluded which included extraterritorial provisions regarding crimes and offences committed both by British subjects and Chinese at the five ports. Art. XI stated that 'lawless natives of China' found in Hong Kong or aboard British vessels would be handed over to Chinese officials for trial. Likewise, China was to hand over to British officials any British subjects who fled to Chinese territory.

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