One of Characteristics of Chinese Thought Found in Commentaries on the Classics (No. 550 Commemoration Issue)

第五百五十號記念特集號Chinese people thought that all the truth was existed in the classics such as Ching-shu 経書, Lao-tzu 老子 and Chuang-tzu 荘子. From this point of view, the truth cannot be what is newly discoverd, nor invented, but it should be searched for in the classics and extracted from there properly. Therefore Chinese philosophers didn't dare to state their views apart from the classics. The most important duty for them was to interpret the classics accurately. Thus commentary is not an instrumental book to read on the classics, but the means to form one's thought and to express oneself. It is commentary that has restricted the way of thinking of Chinese, and here we can find one of pecurialities of commentaries in China. Commentaries are divided roughly into theoretical one and hsünku 訓詁 (exegetics). Theoretical commentary is what one interprets ideas of the text directly and develops them. For instance, Lao-tzu-chu 老子注 by Wang-Pi 王弼, Chuang-tzu-chu 荘子注 by Guo-Hsiang 郭象, Ch'un-ch'iu-kung-yang-chuang-chieh-ku 春秋公羊伝解詁 by Hê-Hsiu 何休 and Ssu-shu chi chu 四書集注 by Chu-tzu 朱子 are all included in this division. Any of these books didn't aim to interpret literally and objectively, rather, under the guise of commentary, they intended to propagate their own thoughts. So, in each books we can find emphases on the ideas such as Wu 無 (the Nothing), tzu-tê 自得 (self-satisfaction), san-k'o-chiu-chih 三科九旨 (the three most important ideas of Ch'un-ch'iu, which are made of three factors) and li 理 that are all principal propositions of their thoughts. The other hand, in hsün-ku it seems that there is no room for subjectivity. But the fact is quite different. Because to interpret a certain letter by the other letter is no other than to select letters suited to one's own thought according to his presuppositions. This is fairly apparent in hsinghsün 形訓 (interpretation by the style of letters) and shêng-hsün 声訓 (interpretation by the tone of the letters) which are principal technics used typically in Shuo-wen-chieh-tzu 説文解字 and Shih-ming 釈名. So far as one seeks for the truth in the classics and forms his thought depending on them, even hsün-ku cannot be free from subjectivity. As a matter of course, Kao-zhêng-hsüeh 考証学 in Ch'in 清 Dynasty that advocates the independence of hsün-ku cannot be an exception