Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/103

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T'an
T'an

of blood there was no hope for a new China. He preferred to be the first martyr to the cause of reform in modern Chinese history. Arrested on the 25th, he was executed the 28th, together with the following five active proponents of the movement: Yang Jui, Lin Hsü, Liu Kuang-ti, K'ang Kuang-jên 康廣仁 (original ming 有溥 H. 幼博, died age 32 sui), younger brother of K'ang Yu-wei and persistent advocate of the abolition of the official examinations; and Yang Shên-hsiu 楊深秀 (original ming 毓秀 T. 漪村, 儀村, 漪春, 1849–1898), a native of Wên-hsi, Shansi, chin-shih of 1889, a censor, who made many proposals for reform, and submitted to the throne a large number of memorials, prepared by others, which could scarcely have been presented otherwise. These six persons are now honored as the Six Martyrs of the Reform Movement of 1898. Other supporters, such as Ch'ên Pao-chên and Hsü Chih-ching, were cashiered or imprisoned. After this event the conservative and anti-reform groups of Peking and of Hunan held full sway, and their policies culminated in the Boxer Uprising of 1900.

The earliest collection of T'an Ssŭ-t'ung's works, entitled 東海褰冥氏三十以前舊學 Tung-hai ch'ien-ming-shih san-shih i-ch'ien chiu-hsüeh, was printed about 1897 and contained four volumes. Three of these works, namely: 廖天一閣文 Liao-t'ien-i ko wên, in 2 chüan; 集外文 Chi-wai wên, in 1 chüan; and 莽蒼蒼齋詩 Mang-ts'ang-ts'ang chai shih, in 2 chüan, were included in a collection of works by the Six Martyrs, entitled 戊戌六君子遺集 Wu-hsü liu chün-tzŭ i-chi (1917). A complete collection of T'an's writings, bearing the title 譚瀏陽全集 T'an Liu-yang ch'üan-chi, comprising 5 items, 8 + 1 chüan, with an appendix containing his nien-p'u, was published in 1925.

Though T'an Ssŭ-t'ung is chiefly remembered as a martyr of the reform movement, he nevertheless occupies a prominent place in the history et Chinese philosophy owing to his important work, 仁學 Jên-hsüeh, "A Study of Benevolence", 2 chüan, written in the years 1896–98 and printed in December 1898. The Jên-hsüeh represents T'an's dynamic philosophy which he evolved by an ingenious combination of Confucian, Buddhist and Christian ideas together with what he had learned about Western science. He hoped by this eclecticism to arrive at a new way of life more congenial to human beings. As it states in his preface, his purpose in writing at book was to break the net of fame, self-interest and traditionalism; lay aside all thought of emperor-worship and blind respect for antiquity; transcend all particular philosophies and religions in favor of the boundless, the unrestricted, and the revolutionary. Although the ideas in the Jên-hsüeh constitute an obviously premature attempt at synthesis, they nevertheless permit T'an to be regarded as a "new comet" in the intellectual circles of his time.


[1/460/1a, 470/1b; 2/59/38a; 5/30/15a; 6/6/11b, 10/24a, 12/3b, 37/16; 19 jên-shang 45b; Chang Po-chên 張伯楨, 南海康先生傳 Nan-hai K'ang hsien-shêng chuan (1932); "A Chronological Sketch of the Life of K'ang Yu-wei", Shih-hsüeh nien-pao (Historical Annual), vol. 2, no. 1 (1934); "A Critical Study of the Philosophy of K'ang Yu-wei", Tsinghua hsüeh-pao (Tsinghua Journal), vol. XI, no. 3 (1936); "Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, a Biographical Sketch", T'u-shu kuan hsüeh chi-k'an (Library Science Quart.), vol. 3, nos. 1–2; Tao Liang Cho-ju hsien-shêng (Obituary of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao), Hsüeh-hêng (The Critical Review) no. 67 (1929); Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Yin-ping shih wên-chi (Collected Works), chüan 9, article entitled Wu-hsü chêng-pien (The Reforms Advocated in 1898); Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Ch'ing-tai hsüeh-shu kai-lun (see bibl. under Fang Tung-shu); Fung Yu-lan, Chung-kuo chê-hsüeh shih (History of Chinese Philosophy, 1934); Kuo Chan-po 郭湛波, Chin wu-shih-nien Chung-kuo ssŭ-hsiang shih (History of Chinese Thought in the Last Fifty Years, 1935); 戊戌奏藁 Wu-hsü tsou-kao (1911); Soothill, William E., Timothy Richard of China (1924); "On the Effort to Introduce Legal and Other Reforms in the Years 1894–98" (in Chinese), Wu-Han Quart. Jour. of Liberal Arts, vol. 3, no. 1 (1933).]

Têng Ssŭ-yü


T'AN Ying 譚瑩 (T. 兆仁, H. 玉生), Mar. 17, 1800–1871, Oct.–Nov., editor and man of letters, was a native of Canton. Graduated in 1831 as a senior licentiate, he was selected a student of the Imperial Academy. Later he purchased a post as director of schools. In 1838 he was made a superintendent of the Hsüeh-hai t'ang Academy (see under Juan Yüan), a position he held for about thirty years. In 1844 he became a chü-jên, and went to Peking where he competed for the chin-shih degree, but failed. In the succeeding decade or so, he served as director of schools at Chao-ch'ing, Ch'ü-chiang, Chia-ying, Po-lo and Hua-chou in Kwangtung; and finally, when he was appointed prefectural director of schools at Ch'iung-chou in the same province, he declined

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