In China Historical Research Law, he put forward 12 criteria for distinguishing fake books, 6 criteria for verifying genuine books and 7 criteria for distinguishing fake things. These standards have not only summarized the methods of discriminating falsehood in Si Zheng by Hu Yinglin and other predecessors, but also have their own innovations.
In his book "The Academic History of China in the Past 300 Years", he specially set up a section on "Distinguishing Fake Books", explaining in detail "Why there are so many fake books in China", "What are the types of fake books, and what are the motives for counterfeiting". He classified ancient and modern fake books into 10 categories according to their nature, and each category was illustrated with examples. On the basis of summing up the methods of distinguishing forgeries in Qing Dynasty, he put forward the viewpoints of "from narration and teaching", "from deeds, systems or books cited in this book", "from styles and sentences", "from the origin of ideas", "from the original materials relied on by forgers" and "from the disproof the original book", and compared Confucianism in Qing Dynasty with Confucianism in Song Dynasty. Song Ruoduo despised ancient books, and his motive for discriminating forgeries was often subjective impulse. Confucianism in the Qing Dynasty paid more attention to ancient books, and its forgery identification procedures mostly adopted objective and rigorous tests. " He has his own unique view on distinguishing forgeries in the Summary of the General Contents of Sikuquanshu: "As an official book, Sikuquanshu was inevitably perfunctory and written in the middle of Qianlong, and many problems did not occur or be solved. In short, it is not necessarily true to conclude that it is true, but it is false, not necessarily false, I dare to assert. " His theory is incisive and original.
The book Authenticity and Age of Ancient Books is Liang Qichao's monograph on distinguishing fakes. The book is divided into two parts: 1 part is the general introduction, which is divided into five chapters, systematically summarizing the significance, history, methods and values of fake books in theory; The second part is the sub-theory, which examines the authenticity of the classics before Han Dynasty 14, such as Yi and Shangshu.
There are three main reasons why these three books construct the theoretical system of counterfeit money identification: First, it is systematic. The three books not only systematically summarized the history of counterfeit books discrimination from ancient times to the present, but also systematically commented on the achievements of counterfeit books discrimination from Sima Qian to Liu Zhiji, Liu Zongyuan, Ouyang Xiu, Zhu, Song Lian, Hu Yinglin, Yao Jiheng, Yan Ruoqu, Hu Wei and Kang Youwei, and systematically clarified and summarized the significance, reasons, methods, types and values of counterfeit books discrimination. Its exposition runs through ancient and modern times, with distinct stages and clear context. The second is science. The three books all run through the characteristics of the times, that is, on the basis of textual research of Gan Jia, modern academic thoughts and methods are injected, especially modern western academic thoughts, including some natural science theories and methods, which make the theory and methods of distinguishing fakes have a new era style and stricter scientific nature. The third is groundbreaking. The three books are not only groundbreaking in theory, but also innovative in methods. Liang Qichao's theory of distinguishing falsehood is still shining today. For example, 82 pieces of Sun Wu's Art of War appeared in An 1996, the so-called "family biography", which was verified by some scholars as "based on Liang Qichao's thought of" distinguishing forged books first, then distinguishing forged things "(see China Historical Research Law) (Wu Jiulong: textual research on 82 pieces of Sun Wu's Art of War). At the beginning of the 20th century, the biggest breakthrough in the method of distinguishing forged documents was Wang Guowei's creation of a famous one. This method breaks through the traditional methods of scholars' identification of authenticity, such as "verifying classics" or circling in notes and notes, and puts forward for the first time that cultural relics unearthed underground should be verified with ancient books handed down from ancient times, thus promoting the scientific historical view of attaching importance to material evidence and the scientific attitude of seeking truth from facts.
It is no accident that the "double evidence law" came from Wang Guowei. First of all, from the end of 19 to the beginning of the 20th century, a large number of discoveries, such as Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Yin Ruins, bamboo slips in Han and Jin Dynasties, and Dunhuang suicide notes, shocked Chinese and foreign academic circles, greatly broadened scholars' horizons, and provided favorable conditions and thinking modes for Wang Guowei to create new research methods. As Wang Guowei said, "New knowledge in ancient times is mostly due to new discoveries." (China's newly discovered knowledge in the last twenty or thirty years) Second, he was deeply influenced by modern western philosophy, especially positivism, and with his solid knowledge of Chinese studies, he naturally refused to stick to traditional textual research methods. Therefore, it can be said that the "double evidence law" is also the product of the times, as he himself said: "This" double evidence law "was only produced today." (New evidence of ancient history)
Wang Guowei has made great achievements in studying Shangshu, Shijing, Zuozhuan, Shiji and the history of Shang Dynasty with Oracle Bone Inscriptions and inscriptions on bronze, Han history and northwest geography with bamboo slips, Tang Shi with Dunhuang suicide note, and national history with inscriptions on bronze and inscriptions on bronze, which provides a brand-new method for later identification. The establishment of "double evidence law" is a sign that the method of identifying counterfeit goods has changed from tradition to science.
The "double evidence law" is still regarded as the standard by scholars, and it was unearthed in a large number in the 1970s, which set off the craze of discriminating fakes in the 1980s and even showed the strong vitality of the "double evidence law". In the twenties and thirties of this century, there was a wave of discrimination against falsehood in China academic circles, which not only led to the emergence of the school of discrimination against falsehood in ancient history, but also produced a large number of results of discrimination against falsehood, thus promoting the development of discrimination against falsehood.
Under the influence of the May 4th New Culture Movement, a group of scholars, represented by Hu Shi, Qian, Gu Jiegang and others, who are good at traditional Chinese studies and influenced by modern western academic trends, flaunt their doubts about the past and seek truth, and advocate that "anyone who has no sufficient basis will be strictly disbelieved" (Hu Cun Volume II of Fifty Years' World Philosophy). Under their advocacy, the historical doubt movement was revived in modern times. Among them, the most prominent is the rise of the "ancient history discrimination" school headed by Gu Jiegang.
Hu Shi is well versed in Chinese studies and deeply influenced by Cui Shu and Yao Jiheng's spirit of doubting the ancient and distinguishing the false. During his stay in the United States, influenced by Huxley's Bring Evidence and Dewey's Experimentalism, he took skepticism as his philosophical belief, emphasized questioning the past and testing the original meaning, and put forward the famous research method of "boldly assuming and carefully verifying". As early as 19 18, he put forward five methods of obtaining evidence from historical events, words, styles, thoughts and circumstantial evidence (that is, obtaining evidence from other books to distinguish authenticity) in the introduction to the Outline of China's Philosophy History. He fully demonstrated every method of identifying fakes. For example, from the ideological evidence, Hu Shi believes that an era has an era of ideas, and everyone who writes books always has an ideological system to find, and there will never be big contradictions. Therefore, seeing whether the theories in a book can be related will also help to prove whether the book is true or not.
Qian even pointed the finger at Confucian classics and idols, claiming that he "didn't believe in Confucius' Six Classics at all" and thought that "Classics" was just a broken newspaper left in ancient times (Ancient History 1 Volume, reprinted by Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House 1982, page 242). He advocated not only distinguishing fake books, but also distinguishing fake things, and put forward that "not only history, but all' national heritage', to study them, we must always take distinguishing fake as the first step" (China Ancient Classics Research and Distinguishing Fake Series Distinguishing Ancient History, volume 1).
Influenced by Yao Jiheng, Kang Youwei and inspired by the skeptical spirit of Hu Shi and Qian Wei, Gu Jiegang put forward the famous conclusion that "the ancient history of China is caused by layers" in 1923: he thinks that the later the times, the longer the legendary ancient history period; The longer the time, the more information about the legendary figures in the ancient history center, and the greater the image. The ancient history made in this way naturally contains a lot of false elements, and its authenticity must be verified. When this statement came out, it shocked the world and had a great response. Famous scholars such as Hu Shi, Qian,, Luo Genze all supported Gu Jiegang's argument, but there were many opponents, which triggered an unprecedented debate in academic circles and formed the school of "Debate on Ancient History".
The school of "Discrimination of Ancient History" changed the discrimination of Confucianism in the past into that of historians, and developed the research of discrimination of falsehood into that of history, which made the research of discrimination of falsehood in China reach a new stage. But it can't be said that "what the school of ancient history distinguishes is basically a question of historical materials;" As soon as they come into contact with more essential humanistic connotations and artistic expressions, they often show helplessness and even deliberately avoid talking about it. " (Xu Gongzhi: On the modernization process of China's classical literature research in the 20th century, China Social Sciences No.2, 1998) Gu Jiegang and others also think: "We who study history should see that everything becomes historical materials." Therefore, the identification of ancient history is not so much a history of identification of forgeries as a book of identification of forgeries. Gu Jiegang also said that people have reason to think that his book is an "ancient book debate" rather than an "ancient history debate" (ibid.).
The rise of the school of "Distinguishing Ancient History" has made it a common practice in academic circles to doubt and verify the authenticity of ancient books and histories, which has produced a large number of achievements in discriminating fakes, cleared up the absurd legends about ancient books and histories in China to a certain extent, and made the dust settled on historical materials in advance for the establishment of modern historiography in China. Hu Sheng said: "The view that the historical materials of China's ancient history are all shrouded in dense smog, and the ancient history is made up of layers of accumulation does provide a useful key for textual research on ancient legends. Marxists have no reason not to face it squarely and pay no attention to it. " (The historical value of Gu Jiegang's On Distinguishing Ancient History, Learning and Exploration, No.3, 1994) During this period, it has become fashionable to doubt the ancient and distinguish the false. By the end of 1930s, the number of scholars who put new ideas and methods into the debate on ancient books and history, and the number of famous Wen Zhuo who doubted the ancient and discriminated the false were unprecedented. There are only seven volumes of Ancient History, from 1926 to 194 1, and there are as many as 350 papers on ancient books in China, which is amazing. It can be seen how active and enthusiastic scholars were at that time to participate in ancient books and historical research.
During this period, monographs on distinguishing fakes have also been published. The most famous book is Textual Research and Supplement of Ancient and Modern Pseudographs written by Huang in the early 1930s (1932 edition, 1959, 1964 reprint, 1980 Qilu Bookstore rearrangement). In the late 1930s, Steven Zhang's "Exam of Fake Books" was published. This is a comprehensive paper on distinguishing counterfeiting. Taking the title of the book as the key link, it lists the Confucian theory of distinguishing fakes in previous dynasties. Citations indicate the source, and the editor's case notes are listed at the end of each theory. The textual research content is quite rich and easy to refer to. When it was first published, the book included 1059 kinds of textual research books. In 1950s, it was revised and reprinted, adding 45 species, *** 1 104. It is the most comprehensive and comprehensive reference book for distinguishing fakes.
In identifying false papers, many of the 350 articles included in Distinguishing Ancient History are original ideas. For example, the volume 1 includes Gu Jiegang's book Discrimination of Falsifications, Examples of Falsification History, General Examination and Discrimination of Falsifications, History of Falsifications and Series of Falsifications. There are also Hu Shi's "Disciplining Reading and Examining Fake Books", Qian's "On Identifying Fake People and Reading Books" and so on. Others include Yang Honglie's Research on China's Fake Books (New Theory of History and Geography, pp. 25-42, Morning News 16, 17, 18 in July 1994) and Gao Benhan's "The Authenticity of China's Ancient Books". 193 1 April), Pu Xuan's The Reasons for Ancient Books being Tampered (Journal of Women's Teachers College, 4 volumes, 1-2, June 1937), Juxian Wei's On the Authenticity and Nature of Zuo Zhuan (Peking University Sinology Monthly) and Xianjiu's.
Scholars in this period not only studied ancient books and history, but also paid attention to the authenticity of some modern historical materials. For example, Luo Ergang published Notes on Reading Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Poems in Ta Kung Pao in the autumn of 1934, and made textual research on the false poems in Notes on Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Poems published by 193 1 Commercial Press, and put forward the problem of distinguishing false historical materials of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which attracted the attention of academic circles. Post-Liu Yazi admitted that "Shi Dakai's poem" World Nine "was written by his late friend Gao (Xu) when he advocated the revolution in the late Qing Dynasty, in order to arouse public anger". Hu also admitted in Shanghai's Current Affairs News that he fabricated a poem by Huang of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in order to fight against the Qing Dynasty and advocate revolution, which proved that "many of them are fakes of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and one of the important reasons is that some people who publicized the revolution in the late Qing Dynasty mistakenly entrusted the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to publicize the revolution" (Luo Ergang: Revision of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Poems and Banknotes, Collection of Historical Materials of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Joint Publishing Company, 650). Although the motive of this forgery is not bad, if it is not clarified, it will cause greater confusion between historical materials and facts.