Eighth year of Chongzhen

Chapter 866 Practice is the only criterion for testing truth
At the time when the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty achieved a great victory in Kyushu Island, in the territory of the Ming Dynasty, a great discussion centering on traditional Confucianism and the study of mind was being vigorously carried out among the entire scholar class.

From Zhu Cilang's departure from Beijing at the end of summer to the arrival of late autumn, during the nearly two months, various people including many middle and high-level officials, famous scholars and great scholars appeared on the stage, expressing publicly or privately For my own views and standpoints, the Huangming Weekly News Office, which had always been deserted, became the busiest place in the capital. Editor-in-chief Zhu Shunshui, deputy editor-in-chief Wu Weiye, and editor-in-chief Qian Mu also became the focus of attention of scholars all over the world.

The cause of this great controversy and discussion was a signed article published in Huangming Weekly not long after Zhu Cihong left Beijing.

This article titled "Practice is the only criterion for testing truth" was written by Zhu Shunshui, Wu Weiye, and Qian Mu under the instruction of Zhu Youjian, and after repeated revisions several times, it was published in the current issue of Huangming Weekly , signed by Wu Qiuzhen, obtaining means that the truth must be pursued.

Although the author's signature is a pseudonym, shortly after the article was published, the news that Zhu Shunshui and the other three were behind the scenes spread like wildfire as the debate over its content became more intense.

At the same time, because of the heated discussions on the topic of this issue, this issue of the newspaper was out of stock, and finally had to print [-] copies to finish the job.

Regardless of whether it is the current Ming Dynasty or the later generations of China, there are too many people involved in certain matters, and it is impossible to keep them secret.

Zhu Youjian had long expected that this article would cause controversy, so he specifically asked Zhu Shunshui and others to use pseudonyms when publishing the article, but after all, they couldn't stand the noisy people in the newspaper, and in the end the news was spread to everyone.

Within a few days, many celebrities and Confucian scholars in the Gyeonggi area came to the door, and they kept saying that they wanted to debate the scriptures with the three people in order to refute some of the points in the article.

As newspapers were sold to various places through various channels, after reading the articles, countless literati from all over the Ming Dynasty headed for Beijing on horseback, boat, or carriage, vowing to distinguish themselves from Zhu Shunshui and others.

Not long after, celebrities gathered in the capital, and the restaurants and inns were full. Later, more and more literati gathered in the capital, and the existing inns in the capital could no longer accommodate so many people, and many people in the capital vacated their houses One or several rooms were rented out, and the family crowded together to rest, so they also made a small fortune.

The reason why this article caused such a big commotion is that its opening theme is to deny the authoritative status of Confucianism for thousands of years, expressing the meaning that the most correct conclusion can be drawn only through countless personal practices.

The article reads, what is truth?Truth is an objective fact, and it is the correct reflection of people on objective things and their laws. Objective facts can withstand repeated scrutiny. Truth is objective, eternal and invariable.

But how can we continue to scrutinize the facts?

How to prove the objectivity of the facts?

How can we prove that the conclusions of the sages are true?
The answer is beyond doubt.

Practice is the only criterion for testing truth!

As the name suggests, it refers to the fact that the truth does not lie in the discovery or creation, but in the continuous use of practice to prove and test its rationality. If a certain point of view and conclusion of the sages can be recognized as truth without practice If it is true, then this point of view and conclusion is very likely to have obvious subjective tendencies, so it cannot be characterized as truth, and it should not be enshrined.

The article gives an example that Shennong knew the properties of various medicinal materials only after tasting a hundred herbs. Famous doctors use the various medicinal properties of Baicao to cure diseases and save lives.

Licorice invigorates the spleen and nourishes qi, eliminates phlegm and relieves cough; astragalus invigorates qi and solidifies the surface, detoxifies and diuretic; rhubarb has the effect of purging fire and detoxifying, but because of its cold nature and cool taste, taking it for weak and yang-deficiency patients will lead to physical weakness Worse.

Shennong was not a person born with knowledge. There are countless medicinal herbs in the world. He did not know their efficacy and what kind of disease they are suitable for at a glance.

The reason why truth is eternal in the world is that it survives and continues after countless repeated and extensive tests. Therefore, in today's world, it is not advisable to blindly worship sages and authorities.

The end of the article concludes: For anything, one should be brave in practice, try boldly, do things well in a down-to-earth manner, and seek truth from facts. If things go on like this, the truth will be self-evident. As long as there are more and more truths that are not recognized and accepted by the public, the whole Society will continue to progress and develop.

The purpose of Zhu Youjian’s instruction to publish this article is to break the shackles of the so-called Confucian civilization that has gone sour for thousands of years, so that more people can jump out of many conventional rules and regulations, and bravely create and practice , making the divergent way of thinking become the mainstream of society after a long period of time.

Zhu Youjian feels more and more that Confucian culture has developed to this day, and it is more used to play with people. It has lost its true academic value and has become a kind of manipulation by those in power. This is against the development of productivity. Extreme restrictions must be fundamentally changed, otherwise, the tragedy of death and political death will continue to be staged in this land.

After learning that the newspaper office was besieged by countless traditional literati, and that Zhu Shunshui and others had to spend a lot of energy on debating with the so-called great Confucianists every day, Zhu Youjian decisively ordered to send a small team of Jin Yiwei to the newspaper office to visit all the people who came to visit. The literati are registered in detail, and idlers are not allowed to enter and leave the newspaper office without permission.

If someone wants to express their different opinions, they can do it by writing an article and submitting it. Once the article has been reviewed by the corresponding personnel and procedures, it will be published in Huangming Weekly.

For this reason, Zhu Youjian specially ordered that a review team be formed from the Ministry of Rites to review the submitted articles. As long as a certain article is approved by the majority of members of the review team, it can be published immediately.

Considering that Zhu Shunshui and others were a bit lonely, Zhu Youjian also specially ordered people to recruit many well-known inheritors of Yangming's mind theory from the Jiangnan area to Beijing, and then they joined the process of debating with traditional Confucianism. Relieve the pressure on Wu Weiye and others.

The unity of knowledge and action is the main point of Yangming's philosophy of mind, which has the greatest commonality with the combination of theory and practice that Zhu Youjian wants to advocate, and it is also where he has the greatest confidence to initiate this debate.

This debate is destined to be protracted, but in the end, only he has the right to make a conclusion.

　Thanks to Wang Xiaoxiao for the reward.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)