"As for me," Qin Si Yuan said slowly, "I aim to guide people towards desire, and thus towards the principles of Heaven. Search: (Complete Book Divine Station) to read high-quality literature for free."

In the warm study, Qin Si Yuan spoke these words slowly, while Ning Yi, on the other side, tilted his head, a look of immense complexity flashing across his face.

"In this world, all men have selfish desires. When these desires swell, they blind people, making them unable to see the right and wrong of their actions. For so many years, we Confucian scholars have explored various schools of thought, all in pursuit of a single path – the path of Great Harmony, the path of the Noble Man. Ultimately, these paths converge, leading to order in all things, ensuring that everyone in the world fulfills their duty. If one is greedy, he should be taught what is worth coveting and what is not, taught that the Noble Man loves wealth, but acquires it through just means. If one is disheartened, he should be taught the correct path forward."

He paused, then continued, "Why is the world as it is, why must it be so? Ultimately, people must find the answer, so that they are not lost. This is reason, this is the principle of Heaven. In my sixty-odd years, I have stumbled and struggled, unable to find a direct path. However, my humble insights into how one should be, and why, are all written within the annotations of these books."

Yao Zu Nian uttered words that seemed to be praise, but Qin Si Yuan smiled and shook his head. Ning Yi, however, murmured, "Preserve the principles of Heaven, extinguish human desire…"

"What Li Heng speaks of sounds like the realm of sages I aspire to," Qin Si Yuan chuckled. "To guide human desire into alignment with the principles of Heaven is to unite the small self with the great self. But in this world, how many can truly achieve this unity? When we write books and promote education, the most important thing is not to tell them the destination of the path, but the reason behind the path itself, allowing them to understand and walk it themselves. If they can understand the principles, they can naturally guide their desires towards the principles of Heaven. As for those who can preserve the principles of Heaven and extinguish human desire, it can only be said that their desires and the principles of Heaven have already become one, like Confucius, who at seventy could follow his heart's desire without overstepping the bounds. His desires no longer deviated from the Great Way. In that case, it could be said that he extinguished human desire… But Confucius reached this stage at the age of seventy, we… I fear it is difficult to achieve in this lifetime. We can only share our meager wisdom with others."

As he spoke, he sighed with some regret, "To digress, in my decades, I have seen countless examples of human foolishness, yet from another perspective, they all seem to be clever people. They… seem to understand what the greater good is, yet they are always compelled by circumstances. Officials are greedy, how can they not be? When everyone around them is greedy, how dare they not be? Generals are cowardly, how can they not be? When everyone around them is running away, how dare they not? It sounds like everyone is compelled by circumstances. If you should criticize them, it seems you shouldn’t criticize them. In my life, I have used scheming too much. Whenever I think of it, I feel that it will be difficult to gain a good name after death. But if I didn't do it this way, it would always be difficult to succeed…"

"I wondered, is there a way to correct this? After much thought, I can only clearly explain the principles. If everyone can understand the principles, selfish desires may lessen. If soldiers and generals can understand the principles, they will not fear death in battle. If officials understand the principles, they may be less corrupt. If the merchants hoarding grain today could understand the principles, they might know that their actions are greatly harmful to the family and the nation. Perhaps this means could be lighter, and perhaps… Lin Qu Ting would not have died."

He shook his head and smiled, "Of course, I am thinking too much. Although these books are annotated from time to time, it is hard to say how many people will read them. Li Heng, your publishing house is doing quite well. When I finish writing them, you must help me print them and send them out. If I can get the approval of two or three friends, I will have left something behind in my life."

Ning Yi looked at him, and after a moment, nodded, "…Of course."

Qin Si Yuan's explanation of these books basically ended there. His thoughts were already in the books, so he didn't need to explain too much verbally, only answering a few questions when Yao Zu Nian, Wen Ren Bu Er, and others occasionally asked. Ning Yi buried himself in the books, searching for annotations and extrapolating from them, his mind flashing back to those two years.

Guiding human desire, towards the principles of Heaven. Preserving the principles of Heaven, extinguishing human desire…

This is… Neo-Confucianism…

In his previous life, Ning Yi hadn't studied Neo-Confucianism in detail, and he only appreciated Confucianism. But with his abilities, even if it was just appreciation, he could still deconstruct some things. Neo-Confucianism was often criticized in later generations, but for Ning Yi, anything that could circulate for thousands of years and continue to develop, if someone said it was purely dross with no reason behind it, he would simply regard that person as an idiot with zero intelligence.

Neo-Confucianism and Confucianism were purely blindly abandoned by the May Fourth Movement. In the eyes of some scholars or angry youth in later generations, there was a saying: Chinese people have no sense of awe. This was not a lie. Before the May Fourth Movement, the Chinese people suffered the greatest humiliation. Therefore, when foreign culture invaded, they eagerly overthrew and struck down everything they had originally. This invasion of foreign culture had an advanced side at that time, but the Chinese people at that time overthrew their previous culture, but did not learn the core spirit of the other party's culture. The long period of pain later, the collapse of spiritual civilization and the lack of place to return, was very miserable.

In Ning Yi's view, Confucianism, including all other schools of thought, studies how people should conduct themselves in this society, how to get along with others, how people should restrain and guide selfish desires, and what form of country can make the country the most glorious and the people's spiritual outlook the best. This is the foundation of all philosophical systems, and it has never changed from thousands of years ago to later generations.

So, what exactly is Confucianism about? If you read it from beginning to end, Confucius, who created it, was not the moral master of later generations. He was actually very practical. On the one hand, he took the pursuit of morality as the highest standard. On the other hand, he actually took social reality as a consideration and taught people how to do things. From the story of Zi Gong redeeming people to the admonition of repaying resentment with uprightness, to the arguments such as "the villager's wish is the thief of virtue," compared with the later Confucianism that developed to "ritual comes before reason," and then to the more later generations who blindly taught people to be humble, retreat, but never understood how to define personal rights "talking about ritual without talking about reason," the starting point of Confucianism was actually "talking about reason first, then talking about ritual."

After Confucius, Confucianism developed for more than a thousand years. In the Song Dynasty in another period of history, social productivity had developed to a certain degree. When interests began to guide people's desires to a greater extent and commerce developed, the class began to become chaotic. The society needed a more definite standard, or even a more elaborate fetter, to tell others what you should do, what you should not do, where your position is, and what you can pursue. At that time, it was indeed the most reasonable to establish a country in this way.

The philosophical center of Neo-Confucianism is reason and the principle of Heaven. How can a country composed of 100 million people be the most harmonious and stable? This is the principle of Heaven. Even in later generations, people know the differences between the great self and the small self, the differences between the individual and the country. To go from the small self to the great self, the individual's unbridled desires must be suppressed and guided.

Human beings themselves are mediocre and have unlimited possibilities. But only in terms of social composition, what is the most solid society? India's caste system has the most rigid classes, but for thousands of years, their country has not even had a decent uprising. How solid it is. While defining the rules, Confucianism actually preserved people's way to go up. It hopes that some people can stand out, and even hopes that "one day" the world will be the same and everyone will be like a dragon. It is also for this reason that China created the most glorious civilization in those thousands of years, unlike India, which is so quiet and lifeless.

For great Confucians, creating a learning has their own profound connotations, seeking a confidant. At that time, there was a principle of learning, you are willing to learn, I will tell you, you don't understand, then you are mostly stupid. Zhu Xi's "preserve the principles of Heaven and extinguish human desire" is the highest state of a saint's pursuit. The so-called human desire is not desire, but selfish desire. What they discussed was how a country could achieve the most ideal state, and of course there were all kinds of harshness. But as ordinary people or ordinary people, they may not be able to understand "why", so, I will tell you what to do.

In the end, there are only frameworks and rules left, and there are not many people who understand the principles.

The people can be made to know it, but not, to be made to follow it: If you can understand it, I will tell you the reason. If you can't understand it, then I will tell you what to do.

The rules and regulations of Neo-Confucianism have never been a setback in human nature or academics. In academics, it is a leap forward. The more rules and regulations there are, the more it does make people lose some blood, but the men on the grasslands drink blood, and they have the most blood. Who wants to be? Since Neo-Confucianism, Confucianism has truly found a soul and gene code that runs through it from beginning to end, so that in the following dynasties, dynasties changed, but Confucianism has always existed, because without Confucianism, there is no way to govern the country.

As for Wang Yangming's philosophy of mind, its core is "unity of knowledge and action", which is also the highest pursuit of a saint, and the highest pursuit of concepts such as goodness, righteousness, sincerity and intention, but relatively speaking, for governing the country, it is not as meaningful as "preserving the principles of Heaven and extinguishing human desire". This is just the highest state of personal pursuit. It can only be regarded as pure academic development. Of course, in later generations, it was even distorted into "we must face our selfish desires truthfully" and "decisively kill and face the original heart", which is the most ridiculous thing.

After Wang Yangming, the last great Confucian was Zeng Guofan. His learning emphasized self-cultivation and treating people, and because of the world environment at that time, he also emphasized the pragmatism of managing the world and benefiting the people. It was only a matter of time before a change that had not occurred in thousands of years arrived, and Confucianism was pushed into the mud. His learning only influenced a large number of senior leaders, including Mao Gong and Jiang Gong. And how high is the so-called saint and gentleman? It can be seen from one thing about Zeng Guofan: he once imitated Zeng Shen and reflected on himself three times a day - am I disloyal in planning for others? Am I untrustworthy in my dealings with friends? Do I not practice what I have been taught? He persisted in this way every day for a month, and eventually suffered from tinnitus, blurred vision, and vomited blood and fainted in self-reflection, because he thought too much. And this strict standard of reflecting on oneself three times a day could only be achieved in his old age.

When the industrial revolution began, the world underwent unprecedented changes. The root cause is that the development of science and technology enables one person to exert the strength of dozens or hundreds of people, and can create the productivity of dozens or hundreds of people in the past. And in the previous society, no matter what, one person was used as one person. Confucianism and the caste system are all human rule under this premise. Without the advancement of technology, they can almost always be self-consistent.

However, the development of technology requires people to expand their selfish desires and desires, and give play to everyone's subjective initiative, which fundamentally shakes the essence of the original human rule. The unconstrained human nature can exert amazing and huge light. Of course, later it became "unconstrained and positive human nature." The liberalism and universal values ​​of the United States in later generations, and the Western literary spirit, all come from this center.

Confucianism was finally overthrown - and it should indeed be overthrown, but there are too many Confucian imprints on the roots of the Chinese people, so that when the old culture was all overthrown and the new culture was not born, there were too many pains. And the thinking mode of Chinese people in later generations is still too different from that of the West.

The way Chinese people analyze things is from the whole to the part, while the Western scientific analysis method is from the part to the whole. This is the core of the so-called difference between Chinese and Western thinking. However, from the whole to the part, a formed whole is needed first. If not, you can only think of course. And from the part to the whole, you only need strict logical concatenation. No matter what the final whole looks like, in short, it can move. This has led to the overall gap between China and the West in scientific development.

On the social basis, the core of the Western spirit of freedom lies in talking about reason first, that is to say, first stipulate how many rights each person has, and then define virtues. For example, if a lifeboat is about to sink because it is carrying too many people, and someone else wants to come up, you can push him down. This is the reason, no one criticizes, it is a matter of course, if you still save him at the risk of your life, this is a virtue. In terms of Chinese people, first define too many virtues, you should give in, you should not fight, you should treat others with tolerance, so that the society is harmonious and happy, even if the stipulated social rights are one, everyone can only get zero point seven forever, and where the other zero point three of each person has gone, they are often plundered by those who are unwilling to tolerate and do not care about face. So, only good people or those who want to be good people are always criticized, as for bad people... people's desires are like this, isn't that a matter of course of selfish desires - when the principles of Heaven are preserved and the human desires are extinguished, most people completely go to the other extreme.

Of course, this is also a purely digressive deduction.

******************

Ning Yi and others stayed in that study for a long time, roughly flipping through the book a little. Yao Zu Nian and Qin Si Yuan had already started a heated discussion. It could be seen that Yao Zu Nian was very excited.

Neo-Confucianism…

Ning Yi sighed in his heart. He should indeed be excited.

If things are deduced from the things in these books, many things will become orderly, and civil rights, monarchical rights, official rights, etc. will even be affected to a certain extent. People in this world need shackles. These shackles can lock away some selfish desires that should not exist, and people also need some metaphysical pursuits. These pursuits can make people passionate, even if there are thousands of people, I will go. "Being forced" and "human nature" can never be the reason for people to do anything. No one's ambition when he comes into the world will be "I want to be a traitor". If Qin Hui in another period of history is similar to this, then he also reached the final position in all kinds of "human nature".

But that is a traitor.

In every dynasty, people set up one or two to say: "Look, the society was destroyed by them." Therefore, the distance between the two sides is clarified, and they will never feel any similarity with him. In fact, if it were not for every moth that hollows out the country to hollow out a healthy country to the point of collapse, foreign insults would not occur, and it would never be the turn of a few treacherous officials to act, and heroes would not need to bleed.

The harm of corrupt officials, the harm of treacherous merchants, and the harm eventually gathered by every numb person are actually not less than that of traitors. It's just that scolding traitors is too enjoyable, and reflecting on yourself will make you vomit blood.

It was already late at night when everyone walked out of the room. Outside the room was a desolate courtyard with shadows of trees. Under the corridor, warm yellow light was shining from the room. The night wind was cold, Ning Yi stood there, slightly raised his head, and went out from the layers of courtyards. He seemed to be able to see the huge city, eight thousand miles of roads, wilderness, mountains, forests, rivers, ships, and human residences. Everything echoed quietly with the stars in the night sky.

In every era, there will be some people who gather the power of an era, exhaust their lives and wisdom, and finally emit a light that is more dazzling than the stars.

Ning Yi turned his head. The old man was at the door of the room, smiling and waving to them. Ning Yi sighed. He could understand the old man's hard work and painstaking efforts over the years, and he could also understand the responsibility and love for this era contained in the book, as well as the hysterical roar.

Because he understood, he was sad.

Because he also understood best that the time belonging to this prosperous age might not be much…

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