王船山《四書訓義》「仁」論要義探究

Exploration of the Essential Meaning of Benevolence in Wang Chuan-Shan’s Explanation on The Four Books

船山《四書訓義》卷帙甚廣，字數亦多。雖云《訓義》，所承仍自朱子而來。朱子繼二程之後，思想源頭，猶在孔孟。孔孟旨微，又在仁道。是以直探儒門本意，其端乃在盡己及人之仁。以盡己說，基本之義，乃在己心之德的確立，心之德有所確立，於沉穩自己外，復能施愛於他者。以是仁之愛，當非只是一己，亦必推而及於己外之人，能推而及於己外之人，則仁者愛人，即由基本義推向社會義，故知泛愛眾而親仁，其泛其親，皆非紙上意見，必得實質工夫，而謂為親泛者，才能見得其是。然則在宗族群集的體制下，仁的社會義，毋寧展現宗族的倫理義，此倫理義，船山《訓義》雖未特別標明，然其反映在政治的是非上，卻隨處可見，簡單如「均無貧」、「和無寡」、「安無傾」等等；要如社會皆「均」、「和」、「安」，百姓安和樂利，一切昇平，盜竊亂賊不作，則儒家政治豈非瞬息可及，乃知船山對政治特有意見，以其由此可深切推廣人道之故。總之，仁者，由人心進至道心；下學之外，復能上達。最終理想，即在人我合一，使天下人皆得其所愛。

Wang Chuan-Shan’s Explanation on The Four Books consisted of many chapters,and was written with a lot of words. Although the work was named as an “Explanation,” the contents inside still mainly came from Zhu Xi’s concepts and ideas. Apart from borrowing the ideas of the two Cheng’s, namely Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi, Zhu Xi actually had his concepts following the ideas of Confucius and Mencius. Confucius and Mencius did not make clear the main objectives of their ideas, but simply advocated the reason of benevolence. Therefore, Zhu Xi directly explored the real meanings of Confucian thinking, which was originated from doing one’s best and benevolence of human beings. Speaking of doing one’s best, its basic meaning is that the virtue of one’s heart should be established in oneself. Regarding the establishment of the virtue of one’s heart, one should firstly make himself/herself calm, and then could bestow love on other people. Therefore, the love in benevolence should not only for oneself, but should also be put in the place of others and given to others. If one could extend love to people than himself/herself, this is called benevolent love. Its meaning just extends from the basic aspect to the social aspect. Therefore, regarding the saying about extending love to others and establishing friendship with those people having the virtue of benevolence, these words are not only the opinions written on paper, but also have to be acted in life substantially; otherwise, we cannot see the real meaning of the so-called “love” and “friendship.” Nevertheless, under the system of clan groups, the social meaning of benevolence might not necessarily present the ethical meaning of clan groups. Although Wang Chuan-Shan did not specifically indicate such ethical meaning in his work Explanation on The Four Books, it could be seen everywhere in its reflection of the political argumentation. The commonly seen examples are: “when wealth is evenly distributed among people, there will be no poverty”; when the country is peaceful, there will not be the feeling of inadequate population”; and “when the society is stable, the country will not be capsized. If the society is completely “fair,” “peaceful” and “stable,” all the common people will be living in harmony and happiness, and the country will be full of peaceful and prosperous atmosphere. Thieves, robbers and rioters will not do evil things. Then, isn’t it available to achieve Confucian politics rapidly? From this point, it is shown that Wang Chuan-Shan is especially insightful towards politics. Also from here, we can know his profound idea towards humane. After all, for benevolence, it goes to the heart of reason from the hearts of people. Not only general people should learn to be benevolent, benevolence should also be passed on to the top level. The final ideals are that others and oneself can be combined as one, and all the people in the world can get their love.