The Hall of Three Pines: An Account of My Life

Translator's Preface

Feng Youlan (Fung Yulan) was the first person in the twentieth century to combine a thorough knowledge of Chinese thought with a formal academic grounding inWestern philosophy. From this special vantage point, he wrote the first comprehensive history of Chinese philosophy and edited China’s first academic journal of philosophy.As acting dean of humanities at Qinghua University, he helped establish philosophy as a discipline in his country, and he shepherded it through the difficult period of World War II. The young FengYoulan was groomed to absorb “new learning” at a time when China was reeling from the impact of Western technological might.He began his philosophical studies not merely in the spirit of intellectual curiosity but with a sense of mission—a need to understand Chinese culture’s position as it collided with Western ways. FengYoulan’s entire life, not just as a scholar but as a man of conscience, was an effort to keep China’s wisdom tradition alive. He had no scruples about change, but he saw that the evolution of an Eastern philosophy was integral to his nation’s identity. He carried this conviction into the midst of an ideological storm that had been stirred up by other, more humiliating burdens of history. He could no more abandon his conviction than stop his heart from beating.He did not run away to exile because he realized that a people ’s philosophy must go through the stress and pressure of their travails. vii t r a n s l a t o r ’ s p r e f a c e viii : translator’s preface That was why he endured humiliation, with his eyes fixed on the future. That was why he questioned and negated himself and made mistakes.And that was why he was ready, when China’s political doors opened in 1979, to begin the eleven-year project of writing his New History of Chinese Philosophy in seven volumes. Beginning in the summer of 1987, I had the honor of visiting Professor FengYoulan three times in his home at Beijing University.The visits were arranged by Mr. HuangYouyi, an editor at Foreign Languages Press. Professor Feng’s house, a tile-roofed cottage set back in a lowwalled garden, was one of the few single-family dwellings on the Beida campus. Professor Feng had lived there since 1951. I was admitted to the sitting room by Zhongpu (style name Zongpu), Feng’s daughter. “My father walks slowly,”she said.“Just sit tight.”I sat listening to shuffling steps and a tapping cane approaching for five full minutes down the hallway. When Feng appeared in the doorway, I rose to greet him, but he motioned me to sit. His stance was solidly planted, but each step was small and cautious. With a self-deprecating look on his face, he took the last twenty steps to his chair. His determination to walk unassisted was for me a physical symbol of the realm he had courageously explored in a lifetime of contemplation. Feng received his doctorate from Columbia University in 1923, and he spoke to me in the cultivated English reflecting that era. His old friend Derk Bodde at the University of Pennsylvania and his own mentor John Dewey had encouraged him to transmit what he knew of Chinese philosophy and to tell his life story. I told him that translating his autobiography was an encounter with history for me. I said that the drama of this story, as played out in his own life, was so impressive that it was difficult for me to grasp in its entirety. I was sure that English-speaking readers would find his experience inspiring. On my second visit, in the winter of 1987, I talked withTuYouguang, Feng’s assistant and former student. Tu told me that he had translated Feng’s Shorter History of Chinese Philosophy into Chinese. Feng wrote it in 1946, but it remains to this day the most coherent popular introduction to the subject available.This visit was hardly a personal encounter with Feng.There was a television crew in the house filming Feng in his study. The camera focused on Feng as he wielded an inkbrush over a sheet of rice paper. For the edification of the television audience, he wrote out Zhang Zai’s dictum:“Establish a mind for Heaven and Earth; transmit lost knowledge for those who go on...