Liang Qichao praised this school: "From ancient times to the present, there is no comparison"

Qian Mu commented on Yan Yuan: "As a master of academic thought for nearly three hundred years, Xi Zhai should be a giant. It's only three hundred years! "The representative works of the philosopher Yan Yuan in the early Qing Dynasty, including the "Compilation of Existence", "Compilation of Cunxue", "Compilation of Cunzhi", and "Compilation of Cunren", collectively known as "Four Compilations of Existence".

The Yan-Li School, which bears the surnames of Yan Yuan and Li Yuan, is a unique academic school in the history of Chinese thought. This school is marked by the practice of internship, started by Yan Yuan, further elaborated by Li Yuan and promoted with unremitting efforts, and has been widely believed and followed with the expansion of the scope of teachers and friends.

Yan Li advocated that "thinking is better than learning, and learning must be learned", which is a useful initiative to try to save the morale style and study style

Yan Yuan, a native of Boye, Zhili (present-day Hebei), was born in the eighth year of Ming Chongzhen (1635) and died in the forty-third year of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty (1704). At this time, it was at a time when the Ming and Qing dynasties were gradually consolidated. The decay of the late Ming Dynasty, the grief and indignation of the subjugation of the country, and the rule of foreign races not only made the integrists in a state of wandering and uncertainty in their lives because of the anti-Qing, but also caused them extremely strong trauma in their spirits. The exploration of the reasons for the fall of the homeland caused beginners in the late Ming and Qing dynasties to reflect on the past scholarship, and opened up the wind of criticism of the psychology of the late Ming Dynasty, and instead advocated the study of the application of the world. Sun Qifeng and others in the north, and Gu Yanwu, Wang Fuzhi, Huang Zongxi and other great Confucians in the south initiated this ideological and academic turn.

From the later yan yuan onwards, unlike the aforementioned Confucians, most of them triggered academic reflection due to the national fortunes of the times, and their thinking and gained from the examination and awareness of the discord between their own experience and belief in theory. He first learned from King Lu and followed Cheng Zhuzhi's saying, but when he was thirty-four years old, he fell ill and died of several illnesses during the funeral of his adoptive grandmother, and he felt that "Family Ritual" violated people's common feelings, so he consulted the ancient ritual book and found that it was improper to revise, thus realizing that the meditation reading advocated by King Cheng Zhulu was not the root of learning, and the six virtues, six elements, six arts of Zhou Gong, and the four teachings of Confucius were the right way to learn.

The following year, Yan Yuan wrote the "Compilation of Existence" and "Compilation of Existence", "Compilation of Existence", "Compilation of Existence" affirmed Mencius's theory of sexual goodness, refuted the Song Confucian theory of temperament and sexual evil, believing that evil was caused by the introduction of habits, and the "Compilation of Existence" opposed the method of memorizing poems and chapters and verses and meditating on the path of meditation and enlightenment, and advocated the restoration of the teaching method of Confucius's practical practice of the Six Arts. He also realized that "thinking is better than learning, and learning must be learned", so he changed the name of his residence from "Siguzhai" to "Xizhai", which marked the initial establishment of Yan Yuan's xixing thought.

Since then, Yan Yuan has not only been ideologically freed from superstition and blind obedience to existing doctrines, but also established the "Xizhai Dogma" of practical learning behavior in teaching practice. This dogma not only requires disciples to abide by moral constraints, abide by etiquette norms, and practice self-management, but also greatly expands the content of study, in addition to the common compositions and words, it goes far away from etiquette, music, shooting, imperial, book, number and soldiers, agriculture, money, valley, water, fire, work, and Yu, and stipulates the specific schedule of studying numbers, rituals, music, and shooting. This is undoubtedly a rectification of the pursuit of the merits of the imperial examination and the eight strands of literature as a wind of learning, and a useful pioneering effort to save the scholarly style and the style of study.

Yan Yuan has thoroughness and penetration in his thinking, and has consistency and firm execution in practice, however, he has neither a high-grade name nor a huge work, only a lifelong member of kifu countryside, plus his footprints are rare in the countryside, and his contacts are mostly limited to teachers, friends, relatives and friends, so that his thinking and practice cannot be limited to a certain scope. Fortunately, his proud disciple Li Yuan firmly believed that his ideas had the effect of saving the world's customs, inherited and expanded them, and spared no effort to praise and disseminate them, so that the study of Xi Xing could be recognized, recognized, and recognized on a wider scale, and the Yan and Li schools also established their status in the early Qing Dynasty.

Li Yu (李塨), a native of Li County, was born in the sixteenth year of Qing Shunzhi (1659) and died in the eleventh year of Yongzheng (1733). Li Yuan obeyed his father's orders, studied under Yan Yuan, and in addition to inheriting the learning and self-cultivation method of Xi Zhai, he also practiced the righteousness of practicing The Practice of Xi Zhai in practice, so as to put his deeds first. Compared with Yan Yuan, Li Yu traveled widely. No matter where he traveled, no matter who he was betrothed, Li Yu used every opportunity to widely spread the learning of Xi Zhai and praise the name of Xi Zhai, so that Yan Yuanzu did not go out of Lu and became known as the world's knowledge, and the learning of Xi Xing was also praised and practiced by people of the same way. Although Li Yuan's extensive travels once caused Yan Yuan to worry that he would be contaminated with fame and fortune, and Li Yuan's dedication to writing in his later years was not in line with Yan Yuan's spirit of emphasizing friendship and light writing, it was precisely these practices of Li Yuan that expanded the momentum and influence of the Yan and Li School, and provided ideological materials for future generations to understand, understand and study the Yan and Li School.

Yan Li attached great importance to practice and opposed the blind recitation and annotation of the classics as dogmas

Ideologically, Yan Yuan and Li Yuan, like most readers, were influenced by the process zhu Luwang to try to more accurately understand the meaning of the sages through their interpretation and interpretation of the classics, and what is valuable is that after discovering the inconsistencies, they did not submit to themselves like most readers, but went straight to the source to find answers, and through the direct interpretation of the classics to grasp the essence of the sages' righteousness, thus coming up with a unique understanding that was completely different from the Song Ming Confucians.

Yan Yuan concluded from the fact in the Analects that "the nature of the Master's words and the Heavenly Dao cannot be heard and heard", and concluded that the root of the study of Confucius gate lies in the practice of etiquette and the six arts, rather than the quiet reading advocated by later Generations of Confucians, nor is it contemplation. He focused on understanding the spirit and essence of the scriptures, believing that the classics were the guide to the actions of future generations, rather than immutable dogmas that were everywhere followed, and opposing the view that the annotated and annotated classics were only regarded as learning.

He attached great importance to practice, opposed the blind recitation and writing, especially the stupid behavior and serious consequences of damaging the health of the body due to excessive reading, and denounced the ugliness of the Confucian habit of becoming a woman since the Song and Yuan dynasties and the incompetence and uselessness of "talking about the nature of nothing and repaying the king when dying".

He agreed with the view of "holding the object by hand, and then knowing it", acknowledging that knowledge is obtained from practice, but also applied to practice, and its value is proved through practical effects, otherwise "the heart is awake, the mouth says, the paper is written, and it is useless not to learn from the body." On this basis, Yan Yuan put forward the concept of merit that "justify its righteousness for its own benefit, and understand its way and count its merits", criticizing the hypocrisy of the so-called utilitarians.

Liang Qichao highly praised the Yan-Li School, believing that "its insight and boldness are so great that I dare to say that there is no comparison between ancient times and the present."

In the name of restoring Zhou Kong, the Yan-Li school violently criticized the flaws of Song Ming's theory. In this regard, Liang Qichao commented in the "Academic History of China in the Past Three Hundred Years": "The height of his insight and the greatness of his courage are I dare to say that there is no comparison between ancient times and the present." Because all the learning in the two thousand years since the Han Dynasty has been completed by him. ”

However, after all, there are obvious differences between the Yan and Li school's xixing doctrine and the political ideas supported by the rulers, and its educational practice is not necessary for the scholars who pursue fame and fortune in the secular world, so its doctrine has not been valued for a long time, and it has been obliterated for a long time, so that the scene encountered by Dai Wang, who mainly lived in Xianfeng and Tongzhi years, was "every time Yan Li's surname is raised, then people are ignorant", but the ideas that are truly insightful and valuable are not manifested for a while, and it is difficult to hide their dazzling brilliance in the end. Once future generations encounter difficulties in reality, they are often accustomed to selecting ideological resources from the writings of ancient sages as the key to solving difficult problems.

In modern times, the invasion of the great powers, the study of the West and the East, which is very different from the traditional Chinese scholarship, has brought a strong shock to the traditional Chinese scholars, making them seek their own interests, and the study of Yan Lizhi, who is reverent and re-practicing, is regarded as a good recipe for helping the crisis and relieving the evils. During the Republic of China period, a climax of publishing Yan Li's works and studying xixing theory was formed.

The Yan-Li school did not limit itself to authoritative theories, but fully carried forward the spirit of the subject, based on China's reality, and opened up an independent ideological world, which is a dazzling achievement in the essence of traditional Chinese cultural thought. The Yan-Li School and its theory of practice are still a topic that is often said and often new in the history of philosophy, the history of academic thought, and the history of education.

(The author is a professor at the School of Marxism, Hebei Normal University)