Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/171

 exacting and laborious research, and constitutes the major part of his collected writings. The title, K'ao-hsin lu, was derived from a phrase in the Shih-chi (see ) by Ssŭ-ma Ch'ien, "Though scholars [have at their disposal] a great many documents, they still must verify their beliefs by the Six Classics" (夫學者載籍極博, 猶考信於六藝). His is, therefore, "A Record of Beliefs Investigated". The direction in which his doubts led him can be inferred from the fact that he rejected much of the data about Confucius and his disciples in the Historical Record; he believed that the Preface to the Odes, and much in the last five sections of the Analects, belong to a later time; he did not think that Tsêng-tzu 曾子 wrote the Great Learning, or that Tz'ŭ-ssŭ 子思 wrote the Doctrine of the Mean; he repudiated the current text of the Bamboo Annals; he regarded the Shan-hai ching (see under ) as a work of the Han period; he rejected the traditional dating of the Stone Drums; and regarded the 孔子家語 K'ung-tzŭ chia-yü ("Family Sayings of Confucius") as a forgery. Though not all of his conclusions can now be accepted, and though some of them seem now rather naive, he defended his positions with such critical acumen and with such palpable integrity that he must be reckoned among the great critical historians of any place or time. The comment which his great disciple, Ch'ên Li-ho (see below), made on the K'ao-hsin lu is both just and singularly prophetic. "Since his [Tsui's] ideas were of no practical advantage in the examination halls, there were few who believed in him. On the contrary, there were those who seized upon his most trustworthy conclusions and on his clearest expositions to discredit him. Within the next century there will surely be some in this broad empire who will truly understand him".

In 1769 Ts'ui Shu went to Peking to compete for the chin-shih degree. He was unsuccessful; but during this sojourn he met, one of the few great scholarly contemporaries whom he came to know in person. Upon his return he resigned himself to a life of scholarship, supporting himself precariously as a village schoolmaster. In 1772 he wrote a brief account of his fathers life, 先府君行述 Hsien fu-chün hsing-shu, which is marked by manly pathos and deep understanding. Extant also is a biographical sketch of his mother, 先孺人行述 Hsien ju-jên hsing-shu, written by him in 1782. Stirred by recurring droughts and the sufferings of the farmers in his neighborhood, he completed in 1774 a work on food in times of famine, entitled 救荒策 Chiu-huang ts'ê which, more than other treatises of this nature, penetrates beneath the official ineptitude and the popular vagaries of his day. To this he appended a note in 1814 asserting that in the meantime the economic condition of the people had steadily deteriorated. Doubtless the ravages incident to the wars of the White Lotus Sect had been a factor (see under ). After the decease of his brother, Ts'ui began (178T) a long treatise on mourning rituals, entitled 五服異同彙考 Wu fu i-tung hui-k'ao, on which he labored assiduously for eight years, tracing the history of these rituals from earliest times with critical comments upon them. In 1789, when he was fifty sui, he brought together some two hundred of his poems in various meters under the title 知非集 Chih-fei chi. Except for a few verses which appeared in the above-mentioned Chi-fu shih-chuan in 1839, this collection was lost until, in 1931, William Hung discovered a nearly complete manuscript of it in the Yenching University Library.

When, in 1784, Chang Wei-chi (see under ), the magistrate of Ta-ming, initiated the compilation of a revised gazetteer of that district, Ts'ui Shu was one of the editors, as was also his brother-in-law, Ch'êng Shih 成詩, a chü-jên of 1774. The celebrated historian,, is known likewise to have advised the magistrate of Ta-ming on the arrangement of this gazetteer, but there is so far no evidence that Chang Hsüeh-ch'êng and Ts'ui Shu ever met. The gazetteer, completed under another magistrate in 1789, is of interest because it contains, among other items by Ts'ui Shu, a work on river control in his neighborhood, entitled 大名水道考 Ta-ming shui-tao k'ao. Though listed in the index to Tsui's collected works, it was not included, thus making its preservation in the gazetteer, and its discovery by Hu Shih (see below), a fortunate circumstance. During this period (1785) Ts'ui wrote a preface to the genealogical record of a certain Tsao family which displays, from another angle, his persistent interest in historical veracity. He commends the compiler for including in his genealogy only verifiable data and for declining to trace his ancestry back, as so many genealogies do, to a questionable antiquity. One of Tsui's very practical minor essays, entitled 爭論 Chêng-lun ("On Conflict"), is likewise significant because he there takes a position diametrically opposed to one of the most prevalent ethical doctrines 773