Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 1.pdf/561

 a quarter of a century before (1637). This, the most important of his works, is the 思辨錄 Ssŭ-pien lu. It is a series of discussions set forth under fourteen headings, the titles and ideas of which were patterned after, or suggested by, passages in The Great Learning. It covers a large field: ethics, political philosophy, education, metaphysics, astronomy, geography, agricultural economics, conservation work, strategics, feudal institutions. Originally it was so voluminous that compiled a synopsis of it in 35 chüan, entitled the Ssŭ-pien lu chi-yao (輯要), of which 22 chüan were printed in the Chêng-i t'ang ch'üan-shu (see under ). Later it was recompiled from extant fragments of the original edition, and reprinted in 1837 in 35 chüan. In 1887 it was revised and enlarged. A collection of 21 of Lu's works entitled 陸子遺書 Lu tzŭ i-shu, was edited by T'ang Shou-ch'i 唐受祺 and printed in Peking in 1900. The first volume of this compilation contains a chronological biography by T'ang, and two other biographical sketches: a hsing-chuang 行狀 by Ch'ên Hu 陳瑚 with whom Lu established a lifelong friendship after 1627, and a hsing-shih 行實 by Lu's son, Lu Yün-chêng 陸允正 (T. 師程).

Lu's writings are commended for their firm maintenance of the traditional rites and customs, for their not making empty the merits of the moral nature, for their freedom from vain dialectical play upon the meaning of words, and for the practical character of their doctrines. In 1875, by imperial edict, his name was placed in the Temple of Confucius. He was unofficially given two posthumous names: Tsun-tao 尊道 and Wên-ch'ien 文潛.

[T'ang Shou-ch'i, Tsun-tao hsien-shêng nien-p'u in Lu tzŭ i-shu (1900); 1/486/12b; 2/66/11a; 3/398/1a; 4/127/7a; Chung-kuo chin san-pai nien hsüeh-shu shih (see bibl. under ), pp. 155–159; T. Watters, A Guide to the Tablets in a Temple of Confucius (1879), pp. 229–232; Ssŭ-k'u, passim.]

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 LU Wên-ch'ao 盧文弨, July 11, 1717–1796, Jan. 7, scholar, was a native of Hangchow, Chekiang, the place to which his family had moved from Yü-yao in the same province, at the close of the Ming dynasty. His father, Lu Ts'un-hsin 盧存心, was an unsuccessful candidate for the second special examination known as po-hsüeh hung-tz'ŭ (see under ) which was held in 1736. His mother was the daughter of Fêng Ching 馮景, a well known scholar, but she died in 1721 when her son was only five sui. Thereafter he was cared for by his paternal grandparents. Lu Wên-ch'ao was a diligent student who early in life took to the practice of copying books to enrich his private collection. In 1736 he began to study under the scholar, Sang Tiao-yüan 桑調元. Two years later he was in Peking and there became a chü-jên. But in 1739 he returned to Hangchow where he taught in a private family. In 1741 he returned to Peking, living in the house of Chin Jung 金溶, then a censor. A year later, after passing an examination, he was appointed a secretary of the Grand Secretariat. In this capacity he served for the following ten years (1742–52) during which he was several times selected a calligrapher or collator of official works then in course of compilation. In 1747 he was one of twenty scholars chosen for their skill in calligraphy (ten from the Grand Secretariat and ten from the Hanlin Academy) to make a manuscript copy of the anthology, Chao-ming wên-hsüan (see under ). It was the first of four manuscript copies of this anthology made during the Ch'ien-lung period by order of Emperor Kao-tsung—the other three being written in 1749, 1754, and 1770.

In addition to his work as an official, Lu Wênch'ao applied himself diligently to the Classics and the histories. In 1750 he began to live in the home of where he had access to Huang's large collection of books and had an opportunity to meet eminent scholars of the day. In 1752 he became a chin-shih with high honors (third of the first class of three). He was made a compiler in the Hanlin Academy and six years later a sub-reader. In 1759 his father died and he returned home to observe the period of mourning. In 1764 he was promoted to be a reader, and from 1765 to 1767 served as educational commissioner of Hunan. But because he ventured in a memorial to ask for more lenient treatment of students, he was recalled in 1768, subjected to a severe reprimand, and apparently was cashiered. At any rate, he left 549