Dr. Linebarger has analyzed Dr. Sun’s political ideas, and also his plans for the political rehabilitation of China, with a view to the interests of Western students of politics. For this task his training and experience have given him exceptional competence. The result is a book, which not only renders obsolete all previous volumes in Western languages on modern Chinese political philosophy, but also makes available for the political scientists and politicians of the West the best political thought of the Far East on the fundamental problems of Western politics. ARTHUR N. HOLCOMBE _Harvard University_ PREFACE. This book represents an exploration into a field of political thought which is still more or less unknown. The Chinese revolution has received much attention from publicists and historians, and a vast number of works dealing with almost every phase of Chinese life and events appears every year in the West. The extraordinary difficulty of the language, the obscurity—to Westerners—of the Chinese cultural background, and the greater vividness of events as compared with theories have led Western scholars to devote their attention, for the most part, to descriptions of Chinese politics rather than to venture into the more difficult field of Chinese political thought, without which, however, the political events are scarcely intelligible. The author has sought to examine one small part of modern Chinese political thought, partly as a sample of the whole body of thought, and partly because the selection, although small, is an important one. Sun Yat-sen is by far the most conspicuous figure in recent Chinese history, and his doctrines, irrespective of the effectiveness or permanence of the consequences of their propagation, have a certain distinct position in history. The _San Min Chu I_, his chief work, not only represents an important phase in the revolution of Chinese social and political thought, but solely and simply as doctrine, may be regarded as a Chinese expression of tendencies of political thought current in the Western world.