On the Differences and Similarities in the Thought of Hu Shi and Ding Wenjiang

SPRING 2006 33

LEI Y I

In 1919, Hu Shi and Ding Wenjiang were introduced to each other by a mutual friend. Hu Shi was twenty-eight years old at the time, one of the leaders of the then vigorous New Culture movement and at the apex of his fame. Ding Wenjiang, thirty-two years old, was the director of the first modern Chinese geological survey and was enduring great hardship in pioneering this modern Chinese scientific enterprise. They both had established careers and their thinking had basically been fixed. The notable thing is that before they had met or been influenced by each other, the development of their thinking was basically similar, and therefore they felt like old acquaintances at their first meeting, becoming bosom friends. Interestingly, Hu Shi, the humanist, was doing his best to pro- claim his advocacy and defense of science, whereas Ding Wenjiang, the scientist, was very fond of the humanities and devoted his thought and cudgeled his brains for ways to unite science and the humanities.

Translation © 2006 by M.E. Sharpe, Inc. from the Chinese text, originally published in Hu Shi and Advocates for Democracy, ed. Li Yu-ning (New York: Outer Sky Press, 1998), pp. 207–26. Reprinted with permission. Revised for this edition. Translated by Sylvia Chia. Lei Yi is a research fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Chinese Acad- emy of Social Sciences, Beijing.

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Of course, although their ideas were largely similar, there were still minor differences between them; and they even had heated disputes. But regardless of how heated the disputes were, their private friendship was never hurt. In a sense, their common and different views, their contradictions and vexations, their hopes and despair, their pursuits and failures, their aims and dashed ideals, all reflected the journey within the Chinese liberal intellectuals of their generation.

Philosophical Thought

Similar experiences had likely formed their similar thoughts. Hu Shi had received an education in traditional Chinese culture as a child in his native village in Anhui province. He had read from the Four Books and Five Confucian Classics all the way to romantic novels. Later he studied “new learning” in Shanghai and in 1910 at the age of nineteen he went to the Unites States to study. After a short period of time there studying agriculture, he acknowl- edged John Dewey as his master and majored in experimentalist philosophy. Ding Wenjiang had also received an education in traditional Chinese culture in his native village in northern Jiangsu province as a child. He said: “I began to study under a teacher at the age of five. Whatever books I looked over I could read aloud. I finished studying the Four Books and the Five Confucian Classics in just four years. Aside from my studies at private school, I also often skimmed through the ancient and modern novels.”1 At the age of fifteen, he was influenced by the “new learning” and went to Ja- pan to study. Two years later he again went to Britain where he majored in geology and studied various kinds of Western doctrines on the side. Thus we can see that they both received a traditional Chinese education as children, were affected by the “new learning” a little later, and spent their youth in study abroad. We can say their ideas were formed in Britain and America and were deeply influenced by the Anglo-Saxon tradition. The political philosophy of John Locke and John Milton, the utilitarian ethics and liberalism of John

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Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, and the philosophical thoughts of David Hume, John Dewey, and Karl Pearson had all deeply impressed them, not to mention the theory of evolution of Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley. Of course there were some acciden- tal elements in the respective experiences of Hu Shi and Ding Wenjiang. However, this kind of accident reflected a certain his- torical trend and the current of the times. Their experiences indi- cate that at the beginning of the twentieth century, the influence of Western culture had expanded and penetrated from the Chinese coastal regions into the southeast farming villages. They also indi- cate that more and more Chinese students had foreign educations, their professions had become many and varied, and they had formed an entirely different professional intelligentsia vis-à-vis traditional Chinese scholars. They were destined to play a major role in the course of the modernization of China. In the domain of thought, they were no longer introducing “West- ern learning” in a general way. Instead, they concretely introduced the various Western schools of thought and hoped to use these ideas to make China rich and strong in order to save the nation from subjugation and ensure its survival. Therefore, the various Western philosophers, from Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and from Auguste Comte to Bertrand Russell and John Dewey, all had their believers and propagandists in China. Hu Shi and Ding Wenjiang were among the most influential Chi- nese endorsers and propagandists of the Anglo-Saxon philosophical tradition. Nevertheless, although both were adherents of experimentalist philosophy and enthusiastic defenders of science, their understanding of science was not identical. In the 1923 “polemic of science and metaphysics,” the similarities and differences between their philosophical ideas were apparent. The author does not intend to carry out an overall study of this polemic here; instead, he only hopes to explain these similarities and differences through this polemic. From the slogan “Learning the skills of the foreigners in order to check the foreigners” of the period of the Opium War to the slogan of “Down with the Confucian store” of the May Fourth movement, we can see the general yielding of Chinese culture and

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the gradual penetration of Western culture in the collision between the two in China. However, the extremely tragic World War I ex- posed the inner contradictions of Western culture. Pessimism and despair enveloped Europe and deeply affected the Chinese circle of thinkers. In 1920, Liang Qichao, once a famous propagandist of new thinking, wrote Thoughts and Feelings from Travel in Europe [Ouyou xinyinglu], in which he sighed with feeling about the suf- ferings science had brought to human beings and cried out in alarm: “Science has become bankrupt!” Liang Shuming, in his Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies [Dongxi wenhua jiqizhexue], also believed that Western civilization was a material civilization, that Eastern civilization was a spiritual civilization, and that Confucianism would certainly revive in the future. In all fairness, this criticism of the conservatives, which ran counter to the tidal current of the May Fourth movement period’s “new culture,” was sharp and somewhat reasonable, and had made the conservatives basically different from the “foreign affairs school” of those years who supported using Chinese learning as a base and Western learning as an application. It was in just this kind of atmosphere that Zhang Junmai, who had studied in Germany under the German idealist philosopher Lorenz Oken, gave a speech at Qinghua University in February 1923, the topic of which was “The View of Life.” In this speech, he put forward the viewpoint that “no matter how developed science is, it can never resolve the issue of the view of life.”2 He then talked about the differences between science and the view of life and said, “Science is objective and the view of life is subjective. . . . Science is governed by logical method, whereas the view of life is governed by intuition. . . . Science can be approached using analy- sis, whereas the view of life is comprehensive. . . . Science originates in the similar phenomena of the target, whereas the view of life originates in the singularity of personality”; therefore, “No matter how developed science is, it can never resolve the issue of the view of life; human beings themselves will have to resolve this issue.” At this point, Zhang Junmai put forward significant topics like “science and value,” “science and ethics,” and the “limita- tions of science.” He had basically inherited the nonrationalistic

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philosophy of continental Europe. He sought the absolute metaphysical existence that transcended feelings on the one hand, and stressed the nonrational intuition and impulse of the inner world on the other. After the publication of Zhang Junmai’s essay, Ding Wenjiang immediately published an essay entitled “Metaphysics and Sci- ence: Commenting on the ‘View of Life’ by Junmai” [Xuanxue yu kexue—ping Junmaide “renshengkuan”], in which he sharply refuted Zhang Junmai, condemning him as a “metaphysical ghost.”3 Ding Wenjiang’s criticism was entirely based on the experimental philosophical tradition of Britain and the United States. He said: “What we call ‘material’ includes mainly many recorded thoughts and feelings of the sensory organs, plus a little bit of the direct thoughts and feelings of the sensory organs.” On this basis, he further believed that “this kind of psychological substance is all scientific material. What we know as material is originally but psychological thought and feeling of the sensory organs. From perceptions concepts can be formed. From concepts inferences are born. What, then, is the difference between spiritual science and material science?” He thought the similarity of sensory organs had decided the similarity of the substance of feeling, and this had led to the similarity of psychological substance; therefore, “the nature of the psychological substance of the average human beings are the same.” He was skeptical of anything outside of feelings and thought, and said “one should not talk about whether there is something outside of the thought and feelings of the sensory organs or behind consciousness, or what the intrinsic quality of substance is. One should leave the question open.” He called his own viewpoint the “idealism of leaving questions open.” This was the typical viewpoint of experimental philosophy. However, experimental philosophy can develop into idealism on the one hand and into materialism on the other. In this polemic, Hu Shi, going the same way as Ding Wenjiang and also opposed to the “metaphysical ghosts,” was dissatisfied with Ding Wenjiang’s idealism of leaving questions open. He was more inclined toward the mate- rialistic viewpoint. During the period of this polemic, Hu Shi, who was recuperat-

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ing in faraway Hangzhou, wrote a short essay entitled “Sun the Monkey and Zhang Junmai” [Sunxingzhe yu Zhang Junmai], in which he pointed out a number of contradictions in the views of Zhang Junmai. Later, in the preface of the symposium Science and the View of Life [Kexue yu renshengguan], he more systemati- cally criticized Zhang Junmai’s arguments and said that aside from Wu Zhihui, “Ding Wenjiang and the other scholars of the ‘science school’ have made a common mistake: they do not concretely explain what the scientific view of life is, yet abstractly insist that science can resolve the issue of the view of life.”4 The basic reason for this mistake is that “although those who support science abstractly admit that science can resolve the issue of the view of life, they eventually are unwilling to openly admit that the concrete ‘purely material and purely mechanical view of life’ is the scientific view of life.” Thus he definitively agreed with Chen Duxiu’s criticism against Ding Wenjiang’s “idealism of leaving the question open” and said: “We the believers in science might as well make a large-scale hypothesis. As long as our hypothesis is always constructed on the known facts, as long as we admit that our construction is only a most satisfactory hypothesis and can be revised according to new evidence, we might as well charge into unknown territory.” He developed Wu Zhihui’s “The World View and View of Life of a New Faith” [Yige xinxinyangde yuzhouguan ji renshengguan] and constructed the system of a “scientific view of life” on the basis of the various disciplines of natural science. The central idea of this system includes “letting people know that the movements and changes of the cosmos and everything in it are natural, letting people know that human beings are but one genus of the animals,” and “especially making them deeply believe in the importance of helping one another, . . . making them see the importance of human effort in reducing the cruelty and waste of natural competition.” One important characteristic of modern experimental philosophy is the rejection of metaphysics, absolutely refusing to discuss the issue of super-experimental ontology. It is apparent that Ding Wenjiang’s viewpoints are closer to this philosophy. Yet Hu Shi praised Wu Zhihui’s view that he “would rather be called a ‘meta-

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physical ghost’ and charge into the ‘unknown territory’ for a fight” to show his disapproval of Ding Wenjiang’s prudent attitude. It is worth noting that the judgment regarding science of Hu Shi the humanist was even more arbitrary and absolute than the judgment regarding science of Ding Wenjiang the scientist. Due to inad- equate evidence, Ding Wenjiang did not dare to rashly construct a system of the view of life, whereas Hu Shi was bold enough to bravely construct a complete system in the name of science. Also, he actually treated this system as a kind of end value, a closed system. Of course, although some of his arguments certainly were far-fetched, his kind of bold and resolute spirit was what made the new culture prevail in its polemic with cultural conservatism and enabled science to spread far and wide. Thus it had its positive significance. But we should be aware that the great impetus of science in modern China was due largely to the efforts of the hu- manists and thus actually had strong ideological coloring.

Political Thought

Modern China had been subject to repeated domestic troubles and foreign aggression. Needless to say, its extremely perilous and keyed-up political environment had given liberal intellectuals like Hu Shi and Ding Wenjiang—intellectuals who worried abut the country and the people—great pain and trouble. On the one hand, they had inherited the spirit of the traditional Chinese scholar- officials who worried and planned ahead of the people and en- joyed life only after they were assured of peace and happiness. And like those scholar-officials, they thought they were respon- sible for the world and had a strong sense of responsibility, mis- sion, and participation in striving to realize their ideals. On the other hand, as intellectuals deeply influenced by British and Ameri- can democratic views, they were consciously or unconsciously accustomed to using British and American democratic institutions as references in judging the political reality of Chinese society and hoped to shape Chinese politics accordingly. Therefore, they had more or less kept Chinese society at a distance and lacked the necessary social base. Accordingly, in the intense national contra-

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diction and class struggle, they felt a profound sense of powerlessness. Thus, while they were actively engaged in political activi- ties, they also often complained with a sigh that there was no way out. During those turbulent years, Hu Shi and Ding Wenjiang were deeply involved in politics in spite of themselves. In the 1920s, they jointly established Work Hard Weekly [Nuli zhoubao] to advocate “government of good people,” hoping to reform Chinese politics through actually engaging in politics. After many setbacks, they then jointly established Independent Review magazine [Duli pinglun] in the 1930s, hoping to influence politics through public opinion in their capacity as independent intellectuals. They had common political pursuits but also sharp and deep differences and disputes. Their political ideas deeply reflected the contradictions and pain as well as the zeal and powerlessness of a whole generation of intellectuals. In the summer of 1917, Hu Shi, who had just returned from the United States and was shocked by the corruption and darkness of Chinese politics, “decides to not talk about politics in the next years and hopes to lay an intellectual and artistic innovative foundation for Chinese politics.”5 However, things did not go according to plan. Hu Shi, who had become a great celebrity six months earlier because of his essay “My Humble Opinion on Literary Reform” [Wenxue gailiang zhuyi], published in New Youth magazine [Xinqingnian], was gradually and unavoidably drawn into the political whirlpool. Hu Shi was a prominent leader of the New Culture movement. He was doing all he could to advocate the ver- nacular style of writing and Ibsenism and criticize traditional lit- erature. Indeed, he was trying to be very careful in limiting his efforts to the domain of culture. But the New Culture movement was both an enlightenment movement and a patriotic one. It aimed at saving the nation from extinction. Where was China heading? This was an unavoidable issue. He really could not stand being confronted with the various “isms,” especially the Marxism which was arriving like a flood, and therefore made a firm resolution to talk about politics.6 In July 1919, he published an essay entitled “Do More Research on Issues and Talk Less About ‘Isms’”

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[Duoyanjiuxie wenti, shaotanxiezhuyi] and stirred up the purely political controversy regarding “issues and ‘isms.’” Two years later, he again participated in the founding of the Work Hard Society, striving for the improvement of Chinese politics and the progress of Chinese society. In 1922, the society finally started to publish Work Hard Weekly. Hu Shi drafted and published in it “Our Politi- cal Views” [Womende zhengzhi zhuzhang], hoping to establish a “good government,” a “constitutional government,” an “open government.” After this, he often published essays commenting on current affairs and politics, and eventually broke his promise of “not talking about politics in the next twenty years.” He explained: “I am now stepping forward to talk abut politics; not only because I have been aroused by corrupt domestic politics, but also, and more importantly, because I have been aroused by the ‘new trend of public opinion’ of ‘indulging in loud political talk and studying nonissues.’”7 Like Hu Shi, Ding Wenjiang was also drawn into the whirlpool of politics despite the fact he had been indifferent toward it. In May 1911, Ding Wenjiang left Britain just before the 1911 Revo- lution. He trudged over the mountains and rivers of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Hunan provinces, dedicating himself to the practi- cal work of geological survey and paying little attention to the political situation which was like a rising wind and scudding clouds. The earthshaking 1911 Revolution broke out three months after he had returned to his native place; it eventually overthrew the autocratic monarchy that had prevailed in China for thousands of years. During these years of great turbulence, Ding only advocated the organization of local groups of guards in order to main- tain local peace and order.8 He had politely refused his friend’s invitation to serve as secretary to the commander of the Republi- can Army in Nanjing, because he thought educated people could make a contribution to China by initiating scientific and industrial work.9 Therefore, during the drastic changes of early Republican society, he taught high school for two years in Shanghai and then worked in the mining section in the Ministry of Industry and Com- merce of the Beijing government and started to organize the Geo- logical Institute, leading a peaceful scholarly life. But geological

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fieldwork made him more directly understand the corruption of Chinese society. Since his large-scale geological enterprise could not proceed without the support of the government, he experienced the darkness of politics more directly and realized that political reform was a necessary condition for other reforms. Thus, after he became acquainted with Hu Shi, he criticized Hu Shi’s slogan of “not doing or talking about politics for the next twenty years” and warned people not to be fooled by Hu Shi. He blamed Hu Shi, saying “Your views are a kind of wishful thinking. None of your literary revolution, intellectual reform, and cultural construction can stand political wrecking. Good politics is the necessary condition for all peaceful social improvement.”10 Eventually he joined Hu Shi and some other people in starting Work Hard Weekly and inextricably landed in politics. In the first issue of Work Hard Weekly, Hu Shi wrote a “Work Hard” song [Nulige] to express their determination: “You should say: ‘If I don’t do it, should I wait for someone else to do it?’ Nothing in the world is impossible until you and I, we the people who think we are good people, say it is impossible.” But with this kind of determination, they also had inevitable difficulty and pain. Hu Shi asked in “Post-Work Hard” song [Hou nulige]: “Without good society, how can there be good government? Without good government, how can there be good society? Without good education, how can there be good politics? Without good politics, how can there be good education?” And he sighed helplessly: “How can we undo this chain of rings?”11 Ding Wenjiang, in his fictitious essay, “Sincere Advice from a Foreign Friend to a Chinese Stu- dent with a Foreign Education” [Yige waiguopengyou duiyu yigeliuxuesheng dezhonggai],12 expressed the same pain: a student returns to China from abroad, and seeing the political corruption, realizes that “without clean and just politics, there is no office for a good person.” So he gives up politics for business and hopes to save the country through industry. But a foreign friend questions him sharply: “Can you make politics clean and just by doing business? . . . Without developed education and industry, politics cannot be clean and just; without clean and just politics, can education and industry develop?” Finally, Ding Wenjiang borrowed the voice

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of the “foreign friend” to express his own aspiration: “I always think that in China the Chinese with foreign educations have the most complete knowledge and enjoy the greatest power in Chi- nese society. Thus I congratulate you on your business success, but hope you will not forget about politics!” Obviously, in their thinking there was a mixture of a sense of responsibility regarding society and history and a kind of good faith; they thought the country was their responsibility and they were the only clear-headed thinkers. So they actively engaged in politics, yet were closer to the rulers than the masses. They fan- cied that the warlords would improve themselves and would organize a “cabinet of good people.” But merciless reality quickly crushed their wishful thinking. The so-called cabinet of good people was toyed with by the warlords and was dismissed in two months in November 1922. In October 1923, the publication of Work Hard Weekly was also suspended. Hu Shi sighed: “We the people who talk about politics have come to this! We really have no hope.”13 Needless to say, the dismissal of the “cabinet of good people” and the failure of Work Hard Weekly dealt a heavy blow to Hu Shi and Ding Wenjiang. From 1923 to 1928, Hu Shi again devoted himself to learning. Relatively speaking, Ding Wenjiang had kept more political enthusiasm. He again associated with the warlords and became Songhu commercial port manager under Sun Chuanfang in May 1926. He had hoped to benefit society by serv- ing at this post, but actually he entered the opposite side of the progressive force. On the eve of Shanghai’s occupation by the Northward Expedition Army, he handed in his resignation and returned to the scientific circle. For Hu Shi and Ding Wenjiang, this certainly was a painful experience. At the end of a period of despondency, however, social reality again forced Hu Shi to comment on politics once more. After its establishment, the National Government did not adopt British- and American-style democracy or guarantee basic human rights. Culturally it advocated venerating Confucius, reading the Confucian Classics, and cultural conservatism. These were hard for Hu Shi to tolerate. In 1929, he again published a series of political essays (including “Human Rights and Provisional Constitu-

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tion” [Renquan yu yuefa]) in New Moon Monthly [Xinyue], which had just started publication, sharply attacking the authorities. He asked the authorities to “quickly formulate a provisional constitution to establish the foundation of a legal system! Quickly formulate a provisional constitution to guarantee human rights!”14 He criticized Sun Yat-sen for abandoning the idea of a provisional constitution and talking only about military government and political tutelage. He wrote: “We do not believe there can be political tutelage without a constitution; political tutelage without a constitution is just autocracy!”15 He further criticized Sun Yat-sen’s theory of “it is easier to do a thing than to know the why,” saying its true meaning was to make people believe in persons of fore- sight and obey the leaders.16 As a leader of the New Culture movement, Hu Shi was very angry at the cultural policy of the Guomindang (GMD), saying: “When the GMD completely loses the sympathy of the thinkers, it will be finished. If it cannot imple- ment these few minimum policies, then even if my bones are burnt into ashes, in the future there will still be someone to confer the reactionary posthumous title to the GMD.”17 The GMD responded vehemently to this. The executive committee of the special Shang- hai municipal headquarters of the GMD asked the central executive committee to let the Ministry of Education remove Hu Shi from office and take disciplinary action against him. Soon after, the Ministry of Education sent Hu Shi a warning. At the same time, the GMD organized various forces to criticize Hu Shi, de- claring they would not tolerate Hu Shi’s baloney.18 Under such high pressure, Hu Shi no longer loudly criticized the GMD. Later, he wrote the essay “Which Road Should We Take?” [Women zounatiaolu?], saying: “Our real enemies are poverty, disease, ig- norance, corruption, and disturbances,” and these “cannot be beaten by violent revolution,”19 clearly indicating his hope for gradual improvement instead of violent revolution. The fact that Ding Wenjiang had once worked for [the warlord] Sun Chuanfang cast a shadow over his political career. He later left politics and devoted himself to learning. As a result, this constituted a period of the most fruitful academic achievement of his life.

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The outbreak of the “918 Incident” again awakened their political enthusiasm. The two of them and Jiang Tingfu, Fu Sinian, Tao Menghe, and others wrote that they “feel that aside from writing books and doing research, we should be doing more things for the country,”20 so they created the Independent Review to comment on politics again. Hu Shi wrote in the “Introduction” to the first issue: “We call this publication Independent Review, for we hope we can always keep a bit of an independent spirit. We do not want to at- tach ourselves to any political party; we do not have blind faith in any preconceived ideas. We just want to express the results of our own thinking. This is the independent spirit.” Although this dem- onstrates their determination to keep their own independence, it also shows that at this time they already no longer had the courage and enthusiasm with which they had participated in politics before. The two major topics of discussion in Independent Review were Chinese policy toward Japan and the issue of war or peace. Gener- ally speaking, in those years the magazine upheld peace but was pessimistic in tone. Hu Shi and Ding Wenjiang shared many common points of view. They were both pessimistic and wrote many essays in favor of compromise vis-à-vis Japan. Jiang Tingfu later wrote: “Generally speaking, not one of our friends at the Indepen- dent Review Society was a vigorous supporter of war with Japan. We all stood for peace, but we just had different levels and different conditions for peace. Zaijun [Ding Wenjiang] was the most fervent supporter of peace, next came Shizhi [Hu Shi] and myself, Mengzhen [Fu Sinian] was a bit more excited and indignant.”21 Yet as far as domestic politics was concerned, Hu Shi and Ding Wenjiang were quite different. In the polemic of the mid-1930s on democracy and autocracy, the two of them had intense disputes. In November 1933, the “Fujian Incident” occurred and made some individuals worry even more about the further breaking-up of China. Jiang Tingfu immediately published “Revolution and Autocracy” [Geming yu zhuanzhi]22 in Independent Review, in which he wrote: “The basic situation in China is that without con- solidated political power, government cannot be good.” He stressed that Western European countries had all gone through monarchy and autocracy before they became unified national countries,

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whereas “our country is still a dynastic country instead of a national country.” He also believed that Chinese nationals lacked basic political skill and China had no conditions for a democratic and republican system. Thus he was strongly in favor of enlightened autocracy. Countering Jiang Tingfu’s arguments, Hu Shi published “On Building up the Country and Autocracy” [Jianguo yu zhuanzhi] and then “Again on Building up the Country and Autocracy” [Zailun jianguo yu zhuanzhi],23 strongly advocating democracy. He believed that China had been a national country since the Qin and the Han dynasties and said: “Although unified political power is essential in building up a country, unified political power does not necessarily have to depend on autocracy.” He asked in reply: “Since old-style Chinese autocracy did not accomplish the great enterprise of building up our country, should today’s enterprise of building up our country go through a new-style autocracy?” He believed that the economic operation and political life of a modern society were extremely complicated, and the highly centralized autocratic rule aiming at the overall control of all these aspects was “the most complicated and difficult enterprise in the world.” Finally, he put forward an important judgment: “I feel that democratic constitutionalism is just a kind of naïve political system and can best fit the training of a nation that lacks political experience. . . . The advantage of democracy lies in the fact that it has no great need of outstanding people of ability. . . . Instead it lies in giving most mediocre people a chance to participate in politics and training them to protect and cherish their rights. In short, democratic politics is the politics of common sense, whereas enlightened autocracy is the politics of the special elite. The special elite is hard to come by, whereas it is comparatively easy to train people with common sense”; therefore, “democratic constitutionalism is just the most naive political school and best fits taking in our naive and unworthy citizens.” Hu Shi’s theory was oversimplified, crude, and had many deficiencies, and it was vehemently attacked by its op- ponents. But the important thing is: Hu Shi’s argument broke through the traditional elitism and at least theoretically suggested the inevitability and possibility of politics for the common people.

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Ding Wenjiang, on the other hand, was strongly in favor of autocracy. He thought if autocracy could not unify China, then it was even more unlikely that democracy could. He refuted Hu Shi by saying: “Actually, in those countries where a democratic constitution has had some success, the nation has had the richest political experience. . . . Therefore a democratic constitution is not as naive as Mr. Hu suggests.” Countering Hu Shi’s argument that the advantage of democracy lay in the fact that it had no great need of people of outstanding ability, Ding Wenjiang said “many mediocre people cannot make a brilliant person,” expressing his strong elitism.24 This elitism can be traced back to his scientific view. As early as 1919, he had written some essays to propagate eugenics, as in “Eugenics and Genealogy” [Youshengxue yu pudie], and believed that congenital heredity was more important than postna- tal exertion. Using the eugenics theory, he concluded that the progress of society depended on an elite minority. In 1923, he wrote an essay, “The Responsibility of the Minority” [Shaoshuren dezeren],25 in which he said: “We do not have political chaos in China because of the naiveté of the Chinese nationals, or because of the corruption of politicians and bureaucrats, or because of the peremptoriness of the military and warlords, but because ‘the minority’ have no sense of responsibility and no ability to do their duty.” Favoring this kind of political elitism, Ding Wenjiang strongly supported autocracy and proclaimed: “At present, this kind of autocracy is not yet possible in China. But we should try hard to make it possible in a short period of time. The first step in this direction is to give up the idea of democracy.”26 Of course scholars like Ding Wenjiang who stood for autocracy did not approve of the traditional autocratic system of China, and thus they suggested a “new-style autocracy.” What was the new-style autocracy like? Ding Wenjiang delineated four standards: (1) taking care of the interests of the country and only having the interests of the country in mind; (2) thoroughly understanding the nature of modern- ized countries; (3) being capable of making use of able professionals in the country; and (4) making use of the present national disaster to rouse the feelings and reason of all Chinese who were qualified to engage in politics.27 The author does not

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wish to analyze the appropriateness of these four standards here; instead, he merely wants to point out that Ding Wenjiang’s expec- tation regarding “new-style autocracy” indicates that his thoughts still remained at the stage of “government of good people.” More importantly, they show the remnants of the traditional political culture of the “sage emperors” in the minds of the new generation of intellectuals and also reflect their powerlessness and the fact that they could only dream of letting a political strong man repre- sent their own interests. Although the views of Hu Shi and Ding Wenjiang were dia- metrically opposed, their motives were identical: they both wanted to save the country. It is noteworthy that Hu Shi’s viewpoint was completely technical. He believed that democracy would facili- tate the salvation and unification of the country because it was efficient and unifying. Yet he had consciously or unconsciously ignored the value of democracy in affirming personal rights. To him the significance of representative democracy and the parlia- mentary system of division of powers did not lie in checks and balances and realizing the political participation of citizens through certain processes; instead, the aim of founding an organization that symbolized the various nations of the country and letting resi- dents of all the provinces come to the capital to participate in national politics constituted the most effective first step in fostering the centripetal force of the provinces.28 He once said: “The parlia- mentarian system we talk about is but a system that is the most brief and to the point and can symbolize the political unification of the country.”29 On the other hand, Ding Wenjiang said power- lessly that he would rather be a Russian geologist than be a white Russian in Paris: “I would rather be a technician under autocratic politics than commit suicide or be a person who surrenders to the new Japanese lords!”30 Indeed, the perilous international environment and the cruel domestic politics modern China was faced with had forced these liberal intellectuals to make a choice! The most significant common characteristic of the ideas of Hu Shi and Ding Wenjiang is that they both believed in the power of science and reason and extended the laws and methods of the natural sciences to cover all aspects of human life. There was a rationalis-

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tic hypothesis in their theories: they believed that human beings were reasonable animals and that all disputes could be resolved by reasonable methods or the methods of the natural sciences. Be- cause of this, they were necessarily powerless, confused, and at their wit’s end when confronting violent international conflicts and life-and-death class struggles. Entirely unlike traditional scholar-officials, both Hu Shi and Ding Wenjiang had their own profession. The emergence of professional intellectuals marked the formal appearance of the new-style intellectuals. They had never given up their own profession, yet they were constantly concerned about the country and the people and therefore were often drawn into stormy political situations. The corruption of actual politics tired them, yet roused their ambition to straighten out the country and relieve the people. When they entered politics, they were also sentimentally attached to scholarly undertakings. When they engaged in scholarship, they could not forget about current affairs and politics. They wavered and faltered between learning and politics and were thus caught in a dilemma. This was the predicament and tragedy from which their generation of intellectuals could not extricate themselves.

Notes

1. Ding Wentao, “Wangdi Zaijun tongnianyishi zhuiyilu” (Recollections concerning childhood anecdotes of my deceased younger brother Zaijun [Ding Wenjiang]), Independent Review 188. 2. Zhang Junmai, “Renshengguan” (The view of life), in Science and the View of Life I (Shanghai: Yadong Library, 1923). 3. Ding Wenjiang, “Metaphysics and Science,” in Science and the View of Life. 4. Hu Shi, “Preface,” in Science and the View of Life. 5. Hu Shi, “Wode qilu” (My forked road), in Hu Shi Wencun (Collected works of Hu Shi) II, vol. 3. 6. Work Hard Weekly 7, June 18, 1922. 7. Ibid. 8. Ding Wentao, “Recollections Concerning Childhood Anecdotes of My Deceased Younger Brother Zaijun.” 9. Ding Wenjiang, ed., Liang Rengong xiansheng nianpuchangbianchugao (Preliminary manuscripts of detailed chronicle of Mr. Liang Qichao), 5–6. 10. Hu Shi, “Ding Wenjiang zhuan” (Biography of Ding Wenjiang), in Hu Shi zuopinji (Collected writings of Hu Shi) (Taipei: Yuanliu Press), vol. 23, 58.

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11. Hu Shi, “Post-Work Hard Song,” Work Hard Weekly 4. 12. Work Hard Weekly 42. 13. Hu Shi, “Yinianban de huigu” (Looking back at the one-and-half years), Work Hard Weekly 42. 14. Hu Shi, “Human Rights and Provisional Constitution,” New Moon Monthly 2, no. 2. 15. Hu Shi, “Women shenmoshihow caikeyiyouxianfa” (When can we have a constitution after all?), New Moon Monthly 2, no. 4. 16. Hu Shi, “Zhinan, xingyibuyi” (Knowing the why is hard, doing a thing is not easy either), New Moon Monthly 2, no. 4. 17. Hu Shi, “Xinwenhuayundong yu guomindang” (The new culture movement and the Guomindang), New Moon Monthly 2, no. 6. 18. Chen Dezheng, “Hu Shuo” (Baloney), “Xingqipinglun” (Weekly review), Minguo ribao (Republican daily news). 19. New Moon Monthly 2, no. 10. 20. Jiang Tingfu, “Wosuozidede Ding Zaijun” (The Ding Wenjiang I remem- ber), in Ding Wenjiang zhegeren (Ding Wenjiang the person) (Taipei: Yuanliu Press, 1934), 176–81. 21. Ibid. 22. Independent Review 80 (December 1933). 23. Independent Review 81 and 82 (December 1933). 24. Ding Wenjiang, “Minzhu zhengzhi yu ducaizhengzhi” (Democracy and autocracy), Independent Review 133 (December 1934). 25. Ding Wenjiang, “The Responsibility of the Minority,” Work Hard Weekly 67 (August 1923). 26. Ding Wenjiang, “Democracy and Autocracy,” Independent Review 133 (December 1934). 27. Ibid. 28. Hu Shi, “Zhengzhitongyi de yiyi” (The meaning of political unification), Independent Review 86 (January 1934). 29. Hu Shi, “Zhengzhitongyi de tujing” (The road to political unification), Independent Review 86 (October 1934). 30. Ding Wenjiang, “Zailun minzhuyuducai” (Again on democracy and autocracy), Independent Review 137 (January 1935).

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