text were not arranged with sufficient care by him; and indeed,
any one who studies the treatise attentively, will probably come
to the conclusion that the part of it forming the first six
chapters of commentary in the present Work is but a fragment. It
would not be a difficult task to propose an arrangement of the
text different from any which I have yet seen; but such an
undertaking would not be interesting out of China. My object here
is simply to mention the Chinese scholars wh have rendered
themselves famous or notorious in their own country by what
they hav done in this way. The first was Ch'ang Hao, a native of
Lo-yang in Ho-nan Province, in the eleventh century [1]. His
designation of Po-shun, but since his death he has been known
chiefly by the style of Ming-tao [2], which we may render the
Wise-in-doctrine. The eulogies heaped on him by Chu Hsi and
others are extravagant, and he is placed immediately after
Mencious in the list of great scholars. Doubtless he was a man of
vast literary acquirements. The greatest change which he
introduced into the Great Learning, was to read sin [3] for ch'in
[4], at the commencement, making the second object proposed in
the treatise to be the renovation of the people, instead of loving
them. This alteration and his various transpositions of the text
are found in Mao Hsi-ho's treatise on 'The Attested Text of the
Great Learning [5].'
Hardly less illustrious than Ch'ang Hao was his younger
brother Ch'ang I, known by the style of Chang-shu [6], and since
his death by that of I-chwan [7]. He followed Hao in the adoption
of the reading 'to renovate,' instead of 'to love.' But he transposed
the text differently, more akin to the arrangement afterwards
made by Chu Hsi, suggesting also that there were some
superfluous sentences in the old text which might conveniently be
erased. The Work, as proposed to be read by him, will be found in
the volume of Mao just referred to.
We come to the name of Chu Hsi who entered into the labors
of the brothers Ch'ang, the young of whom he styles his Master, in
his introductory note to the Great Learning. His arrangement of
the text is that now current in all the editions of the Four Books,
and it had nearly displaced the ancient text
1 程子顥﹐字伯淳﹐河南﹐洛陽人.
2 明道.
3 新.
4 親.
5 大學證.
6 程子頤﹐字正叔﹐明道之弟.
7 伊川.
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