"Jian" is an ancient mirror, mostly made of copper, "with copper as a mirror", that is, this meaning. "Taking history as a mirror" is to use history as a mirror, and the most authoritative use is that on the birthday of Tang Xuanzong, Zhang Jiuling revised a "Thousand Autumn Golden Records"; during the Song Shenzong period, Sima Guang compiled a "Zizhi Tongjian". Tang Taizong's "Taking the ancient as a mirror, you can know the rise and fall of the people", people are familiar with it, and they all mean "taking history as a mirror".
The late Ming Dynasty thinker Wang Fuzhi expounded on the "Capital" and "Jian" of the Zizhi Tongjian. How to understand this "capital": "Set yourself in the ancient times, for your own place; study the ancient plots, for your own responsibility." (Chuanshan Quanshu 10, Yuelu Book Society, 1996, p. 1182) How to understand "Jian"? "Therefore the commentator will gain from what he gains, and he will push him to gain; and he who loses will push him to lose." Both passages seem to interpret "learning from history".
The so-called "Jin Jian" or "Tong Jian" of the ancients was the main language of the emperor or the imperial court, and the theory of gain and loss also had the meaning of rise and fall, success or failure, and chaos. This shows that successive generations of rulers have always affirmed and attached importance to "taking history as a mirror." However, in modern history, Lu Simian, a scholarly and unobtrusive historian, has raised objections to this.
Lu Simian asked, "What is the use of history?" He pointed out: "This question, even those who know a little knowledge, will not hesitate to answer: History is a lesson from the past." What is the lesson of the past? They will not hesitate to reply: I can take as an example what the past people have done, and if they have made mistakes, they should try to avoid them; ..." (Lu Simian Collected Writings, vol. 18, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2005, p. 1) "History is a lesson from the past", is it not "taking history as a lesson"? It seems that in front of the mirror of history, future generations are passive and obedient followers, the "gains" of the predecessors, the later generations as an example, can only learn from the example; the "loss" of the predecessors, the posterity as a trap, so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
The question is, has there really been such a history in the past when time and space are separated and exactly the same? Like a mirror, let future generations obediently and obediently come to "dress properly", "know the gains and losses", and "know the happiness and replacement". Lu Simian questioned: "Where in the world is there really the same thing?" The so-called sameness is all imprecise and mistaken for different things. (Ibid.) On this point, Liang Qichao also holds the same position, "In the ancient and modern world, there is no historical relic of the same type of casting,......" "Covering history is purely a product of individuality, and personality can be said to be the same." ...... Every unit that becomes a historical fact has its own individual characteristics. ("Chinese Historical Research Law (Outer Two Kinds)", Hebei Publishing House, 2000, pp. 134, 137) Historians have been thinking for thousands of years, looking through thousands of miles, historical facts "never cast the same type", historical personality is biased and "no one is the same", and the mirror image of history is very different, how to be used as a reality observation?
There is no need to label scholars such as Liang Qichao and Lü Simian as class, and Engels also pointed out that the "historical result" is created by the historical "synergy" of "countless intersecting forces, parallelograms with countless forces", and is "the product of a force that plays a role as a whole, unconsciously and involuntarily." (The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. IV, p. 696) These include "many individual wills", "many peculiar conditions of life", "countless intertwined forces", "endless contingencies", and other factors. Even in the modern era of advanced science and technology, from this confusing historical chaos, how many similarities or similarities can people find, and how to find templates and examples for the past and the present? The British historian Hobsbawm pointed out: "History has given today's society what it has revealed, because they are completely different from the past, because they have no precedent to invoke." I'm not just referring to differences. Even when history makes the most effective generalizations—it seems to me that there is no value in history without generalization—there is always a difference. (On History, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2021, pp. 34-35) His views are more negative about "taking history as a mirror."
Logic is like that, and so is fact. According to Hegel, Chinese history "merely repeats the same solemn destruction of the ages." (Philosophy of History, Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House, 2001, p. 109) This means that China's history is nothing more than a big stage for passers-by to go on and off the stage; such a history is nothing more than a historical cycle of birth and death, a cycle of rise and fall. If this is the case, wouldn't it provide great convenience for "taking history as a mirror" to learn from it? If Fang Xing's Han Dynasty were to learn from the overthrowing Qin Dynasty, and the rising Tang Dynasty to be used as a model for the collapsed Sui Dynasty, how many dynastic changes and changes in the wang banner would be reduced in Chinese history? However, "the Tang family was defeated by the Sui family, and the world changed like a cloud." (Zhang Yanghao, "Hillside Sheep, Xianyang Huaigu") The success of the previous dynasty did not provide the experience of sufficient inheritance for future generations; the failures of later generations did not learn the lessons of stealing life and avoiding dangers from the former dynasty. It is not that the ancients did not want to "take history as a mirror", but in fact, there is no historical template that can be copied, urgently used to learn, and immediately effective in the past and the present.
History is always behind people, and people always have to go to the future. Does "taking history as a mirror" mean that there is a historical lesson hanging behind the people who are moving forward, and "taking history as a mirror" means constantly "looking backwards." However, after all, people can't always stare at the mirror behind them and walk backwards. If, like Confucius, he "repents of self-denial" all day long, "believes in the ancients", "Yao Shunyu", and "I follow the Zhou" style of "taking history as a mirror", there is always a suspicion of perverse and retro-ism. Canadian historian Macmillan points out that "history acts like the rearview mirror of a car." If you just look back at it while driving, you'll fall into the ditch; but the rearview mirror helps you know where you're from and lets you know who else is on the road. (The Use and Abuse of History, Guangxi Normal University Press, 2021, pp. 179-180), history leaves us with only results and conclusions, not templates or drawings. According to the "rearview mirror" theory, history can also provide us with direction and information today, so that we know where we came from and where we are going, and help us to overcome danger in times of danger. "Learning from history" may be understood in this way.
There is no need to be thick and thin, you may wish to use the past for the present. Today's Chinese people do not need to be ashamed of themselves for the dirty Tang Dynasty, nor do they have to be complacent about the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty, at least it is certain that the historical enlightenment that people have received from the Twenty-Four Histories is far less than benefiting from the development experience of the world today. People's behavior should not be shrouded in history, and people's thinking should not be controlled by the ancients. In this regard, Deng Xiaoping's "facing the future, facing the world, and facing modernization" is more valuable to the times.