"Xunzi" is a collection of essays on the situation of Xun during the Warring States period. Xun Zi (荀子), courtesy name, courtesy name Qing, date of birth and death unknown, was a Zhao man at the end of the Warring States period. Xun Zi was written by Xun Quan and his disciples. Liu Xiang of the Western Han Dynasty was divided into 32 articles, which can be roughly divided into three categories, one is the 22 articles written by Xunzi himself, one is the Xunzi words and deeds recorded by Xunzi disciples, a total of 5 articles, one is the material cited by Xunzi and his disciples, a total of 5 articles; the first two are direct materials for the study of Xunzi thought, which is the main body of the book "Xunzi".
Xunzi inherited Confucianism and developed into the most accomplished Confucian master after Confucius and Mencius in the pre-Qin period. He advocated that all human nature is evil, and believed that it was necessary for the saints to formulate rituals and indoctrination in order to turn people into good and society to be more stable. Politically he proposed the Law of Long Li. Attach importance to the people in the relationship between the monarch and the people. In terms of the relationship between heaven and man, Xunzi acknowledged the objective existence of heaven and believed that it should conform to the laws of nature. In terms of epistemology, Xun Zi especially proposed "unmasking", advocating that to understand things, we should be humble, attentive, and meditative, so as to achieve the subjective realm of great clarity. Xun Zi also constituted a logical system centered on the correct name, he revealed the essence of the name reflecting reality, formulated the theory of the division and deduction of names, and expounded the principles of name making. These doctrines are expressed in the book Xunzi. The two most famous of Xun's disciples were Han Fei and Li Si. Most of the classics of the Western Han Dynasty came from Xunmen teaching.
This Song carved Song seal "Xunzi" collected by the National Library of China is as big as money, ink is like dot paint, and it is exquisitely printed. The original many bibliographies are the Northern Song Dynasty Supervisors, which should be inscribed during the Southern Song Dynasty after examination. In the book, there are sun dynasty suyin, Shi Liju, Wang Shizhongzang, Han Yingjian collection of Song and Yuan famous banknotes and famous schools of rare books and reading useful book seals and other book seals, indicating that this book was once the collection of famous bibliophiles Sun Chaosu, Huang Pilie, Wang Shizhong, Han Yingxi and others in the Qing Dynasty. After the book, there is also the bibliophile Gu Guangxi's Paiwen.
In the past, scholars and literati and scholars received many secrets from good books, so those who studied "Xunzi" at that time were deeply sorry because they could not see this version. The book later spread out and fell into the hands of Chen Qinghua. Chen Qinghua, a native of Qiyang, Hunan, who stayed in the United States, engaged in the financial industry after returning to China, and after the 1930s, began to collect rare books of ancient Chinese books. After purchasing the Song version of "Xunzi" for ten thousand gold, he met the famous bibliophile Fu Zengxiang, and Mr. Fu laughed and said: "Junfei is not the one who obtained The Xunzi with ten thousand gold? It is possible to 'Xun' to be named Zhai Yi. Thus "郇斋" became the name of the Chen library. Chen's old collection of secrets such as Han's Reading useful books, Yuan's Later Hundred Song Dynasties, Qu's Tieqin Bronze Sword Building, Fu's Shuangjian Building, etc., the number of books in the collection has grown rapidly, song and yuan rare books, Ming and Qing banknote proofread manuscripts, rare shantuo, more than 500, ordinary rare books and ancient books. The quantity and quality of his collection of books are so large that there is no match in Jiangnan, and he and Tianjin Zhou Shuhan are called "Southern Chen and Northern Zhou", becoming one of the two major bibliophiles during the Republic of China. On the eve of liberation, Mr. Chen was in Shanghai and later came to Hong Kong with the book of the best. In 1965, Chen Wanted to sell a number of national treasure-level ancient books, including "Xunzi", and after receiving the news, under the personal care of Premier Zhou Enlai, the state bought them at a heavy cost and entered the National Library.
After this precious "Xunzi" was entered into the National Library, in order to provide research reference for all parties, it was photocopied and published in 1975 in cooperation with the Cultural Relics Publishing House. In 2002, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Culture approved the "Chinese Reconstruction rare books" project again selected this book as the first phase of the selection, the ancestors have painstakingly preserved hundreds of years of rare book secrets using modern printing technology, color original large photocopy production and publication, incarnated into thousands, into scientific research institutions, put on the researcher's book case, into the collector's library, the National Library also gave it as a gift to Chen's descendants, the publication quality has been widely praised, has achieved wide influence.