習學記言

Xíxué jìyán 習學記言

Notes on Records of My Studies

by 葉適 (Yè Shì, 1150–1223; zì Zhèngzé 正則, hào Shuǐxīn 水心 — leading exponent of the Yǒngjiā xuépài 永嘉學派)

About the work

The mature philosophical-philological magnum opus of Yè Shì 葉適, principal Southern-Sòng exponent of the Yǒngjiā 永嘉 shìgōng 事功 (“statecraft-utility”) school. Xíxué jìyán is a 50-juan reading-notes book ranging systematically across the entire literary inheritance — fourteen juan on the Classics (Yìjīng, Shàngshū, Shī, Zhōulǐ, Yílǐ, Lǐjì, Chūnqiū, Zuǒzhuàn, Guóyǔ, Lúnyǔ, Mèngzǐ); seven juan on the Zhūzǐ (Lǎozǐ, Zǐhuázǐ, Jiāyǔ, Kǒngcóngzǐ, Zhànguócè, Xúnzǐ, Yángzǐ, Guǎnzǐ, Sūnzǐ, Wúzǐ, Sīmǎfǎ, Liùtāo, Sānlüè, Wèiliáozǐ, LǐWèigōng wènduì); twenty-five juan on the standard histories from the Shǐjì through the Wǔdài shǐ; and four juan on the literary anthology Lǚshì wénjiàn 呂氏文鑑 of Lǚ Zǔqiān 呂祖謙. Each work is treated by short critical comments and source-critical strictures. The book is the principal monument of Yǒngjiā exegesis: source-critical, anti-metaphysical, and willing to break with the LuòMǐn 洛閩 (ChéngZhū) consensus that was hardening into examination orthodoxy in Yè’s late life. Catalogued under Záxué zhī shǔ 雜學之屬 of the Zájiā 雜家 division.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Xíxué jìyán in fifty juan was composed by Yè Shì of the Sòng. Shì, zì Zhèngzé 正則, self-styled Shuǐxīn jūshì 水心居士, of Yǒngjiā 永嘉; jìnshì of Chúnxī 5 [1178], rising in office to Bǎowéngé xuéshì 寶文閣學士, posthumous title Zhōngdìng 忠定; his deeds are recorded in the Sòng shǐ · Rúlín zhuàn. The book gathers and records [Yè’s notes on] the classics, the histories, and the hundred schools, each made into a discourse and arranged in a connected edition: in all fourteen juan on the Classics, seven juan on the zǐ, twenty-five juan on the histories, and four juan on the Wénjiàn. The discussions take pleasure in the new and surprising and refuse to go gleaning after the worn-out tags of received commentary. Hence Chén Zhènsūn 陳振孫 said his prose is “sharp-edged and finely-wrought, but its [moral] meaning has not yet attained the pure-bright correctness of orthodoxy”; and Liú Kèzhuāng 劉克莊, writing the preface to Zhào Xūzhāi’s 趙虛齋 Notes to the Zhuāngzǐ, also says “his lecturing and analysis differ much from the elder Confucians” — such was the contemporary verdict.

Among his arguments, things like calling the language about Tàijí generating the Liǎngyí “shallow in word and inferior in meaning”; saying the Tángōng 檀弓 chapter “is plain in moral but cramped in language”; saying that Mèngzǐ’s [judgement that] “Zǐchǎn was no good at governing, [and that] Zhòngní did not go to extremes” — these are all intemperate, and the type undeniably affronts established taste. But then his observation that those who read the Shī are stuck on the old text and miss the meaning of the poems, that throwing away the Old Preface in its entirety multiplies the errors; or his remark that the Guóyǔ is not the work of [Zuǒqiūmíng] Zuǒshì; or his investigation of the dates of Zǐsī’s birth and death; or his rebuttal of the Hàn talk of Wǔxíng portents in the Hóngfàn — all are confidently grounded and quite a match for his powerful talent for argument. As for his discussions of the Táng shǐ, much is said with an eye to Sòng affairs — the source of order and disorder, the well-spring of timely change — these are spoken of most exhaustively, and the discernment is not easily met. Particularly so when, at the very close of the Sòng dynasty, the orthodoxy was meticulously guarding the LuòMǐn 洛閩 [ChéngZhū] line and Yè alone could not avoid divergence — hence Zhènsūn and others’ frequent dissatisfaction. To be sure his stubbornness is unmistakable, but the precision and breadth of his investigation, the strength and brilliance of his discussions, are seldom matched in his time.

Respectfully revised and submitted, tenth month of the forty-second year of Qiánlóng [1777].

General Compilers: Jǐ Yún 紀昀 (note: 均 in the original is a typographical slip for 昀), Lù Xīxióng 陸錫熊, Sūn Shìyì 孫士毅. General Reviser: Lù Fèichí 陸費墀.

Abstract

Yè Shì 葉適 (1150–1223), jìnshì of 1178 (in fact bǎngyǎn 榜眼, second place), was the third great teacher — after Xuē Jìxuān 薛季宣 and Chén Fùliáng 陳傅良 — of the Yǒngjiā 永嘉 school of shìgōng zhī xué 事功之學, the Southern-Sòng school of practical, statecraft-oriented learning that arose in Wēnzhōu 溫州 in active rivalry with the ChéngZhū Dàoxué 道學 of Zhū Xī 朱熹 and Lǚ Zǔqiān 呂祖謙 and the Xīnxué 心學 of Lù Jiǔyuān 陸九淵. Xíxué jìyán is Yè’s mature work of intellectual history and source criticism, sharply Yǒngjiā in method: he is unwilling to accept the canonical glosses passed down through the school of Chéng Yí 程頤 and Zhū Xī, and instead prefers the discipline of going back to the texts themselves and reading them sceptically against the historical record.

The text was composed in stages over Yè’s late life — the bulk of it must postdate his examination success of 1178, when his career-trajectory left him the leisure for sustained reading and writing, and the latest layers must precede his death in 1223. The dating bracket adopted here (notBefore 1178, notAfter 1223) reflects this composition window. The Sìkù editors’ tiyao is one of the more interesting in the Zájiā division: they record both the standard contemporary criticism (Chén Zhènsūn’s complaint of doctrinal looseness, Liú Kèzhuāng’s note that Yè “differs much from the elder Confucians”) and acknowledge the work’s real strengths — its fearlessness on the Hóngfàn portents, its rejection of the dogmatic qù xù 去序 dismissal of the Mǎo Shī prefaces, its identification of the Guóyǔ as not by Zuǒqiūmíng, its sustained reading of Táng shǐ with Sòng problems in mind. The book is a direct philological vehicle for the Yǒngjiā school’s anti-metaphysical, statecraft-oriented intellectual program.

The work is included in Sòngshǐ · Yìwén zhì, Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí, and the Sìkù. Wilkinson groups it with three other major SòngYuánMíng dúshū jì 讀書記 — Zhēn Déxiù’s 真德秀 Xīshān dúshū jì 西山讀書記, Huáng Zhèn’s 黃震 Huángshì rìchāo 黃氏日鈔, and Xuē Xuān’s 薛瑄 Xuē Wénqīnggōng dúshū lù 薛文清公讀書錄 — collectively published in the Dúshū jì sìzhǒng 讀書記四種 (Běijīng túshūguǎn, 1998), as the canonical SòngYuánMíng systematic reading-notes corpus.

The conventional title is Xíxué jìyán; the version printed in the Dúshū jì sìzhǒng and several modern editions is titled Xíxué jìyán xùmù 習學記言序目 (with separate subject prefaces). The two are the same work.

Translations and research

No complete European-language translation exists. Yè Shì’s thought is treated in:

• Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Confucian Discourse and Chu Hsi’s Ascendancy (University of Hawaii Press, 1992), with extended discussion of Yè Shì within the late-twelfth-century dàoxué polemic.
• Hoyt Cleveland Tillman, Utilitarian Confucianism: Ch’en Liang’s Challenge to Chu Hsi (Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard, 1982). Treats the Yǒngjiā / Yǒngkāng 永嘉永康 gōnglì 功利 schools as the systematic Southern-Sòng alternative to dàoxué; Yè is the central figure of Yǒngjiā alongside Chén Liàng 陳亮 of Yǒngkāng.
• Niu Pu, “Confucian Statecraft in Song China: Ye Shi and the Yongjia School” (PhD diss., Arizona State University, 1998).
• Dong Pingyu 董平, Yè Shì pīngzhuàn 葉適評傳 (Nánjīng dàxué chūbǎnshè, 2006), in the Zhōngguó sīxiǎngjiā píngzhuàn cóngshū. The standard modern Chinese critical biography.
• Zhōu Mèngjiāng 周夢江, Yè Shì yǔ Yǒngjiā xuépài 葉適與永嘉學派 (Zhèjiāng gǔjí, 1992; 2nd ed. 2005).
• Liú Gōngchún 劉公純, Wáng Xiāoyú 王孝魚 et al. (eds.), Yè Shì jí 葉適集, 3 vols (Zhōnghuá Shūjú, 1961, repr.). Standard modern collected works.
• Xíxué jìyán xùmù 習學記言序目, 2 vols (Zhōnghuá Shūjú, 1977; repr. in Lǐxué cóngshū 理學叢書, 2009). The standard punctuated edition of the present work.

Other points of interest

The Xíxué jìyán’s treatment of the Mǎo Shī prefaces and of the Hóngfàn wǔxíng portent material is among the most pointed Sòng-era critiques of the ascendant ChéngZhū exegetical synthesis. The reading-notes form gave Yè a flexibility the standard sub-commentary genre denied: he could reject not only the gloss but the critical-presupposition behind it, and the genre invited the kind of compressed, source-citing, comparative argument that Xíxué jìyán deploys at scale. The book is consequently a key source not only for the history of Yǒngjiā statecraft thought but for any history of Southern-Sòng critical reading.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi, Xíxué jìyán entry.
• Wikipedia: Ye Shi (Song dynasty); Yongjia school.
• Wikidata: Q11071017.
• Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual (6th ed., Endymion Wilkinson, 2022), §9.9.1, citing the Dúshū jì sìzhǒng.