高郵王念孫、王引之父子治學方法析論

An Analysis of Kaoyu Nien-sun Wang and Yin-chi Wang’s Research Methods

乾、嘉時期，考證學興起，吳、皖學派之外，學術能與二派相抗衡者，當為揚州學派。這派學者，不偏古，也不騖今，其所治學，惟在順著歸納方法，從古籍中尋找證據，使湮暗難懂的文詞得以舒然而解，其中重要人物，即王念孫、王引之父子。王氏父子治學精謹，所重在於證據，即「有一分證據，說一分話。」不望文生義，也不勉強推斷，務必字字有來歷，句句合文意。所以研治古書，所採方法，有比對，有校正；此外，依聲為訓，辨識通假，使上下句式條貫通達，是又異於其他學者之處。整體說來，王氏父子治經，是以歸納為前提，而以綜輯為旨要，方法不出假借的相互判別，但從古書字裡行間，找到文義訛誤的蛛絲馬跡，有類偵探從細微事物中，找到破案佐證，工夫就非常人能勝任。因之，「嚴謹」與「鍥而不舍」的態度，應是二先生治學優點，也是嘉惠後學最好的精神與價值。

When the Ch’ing dynasty evidential research movement was rising in the Ch’ien-lung and Chia-ch’ing period, only the Yangchou School could compete with the two leading schools, the Wu and the Wan, in this field. Scholars of the Yangchou School paid equal attention to both traditional and contemporary research methods. In line with induction, they often searched enormous amount of ancient books and documents for evidence to clarify obscure words and phrases. In the Yangchou School, Nien-sun Wang and his son, Yin-chi Wang, were two of the leading figures. The two Wangs studied conscientiously and precisely. They did not take the words literally or infer the meaning of any sentence without cautious examination; instead, they laid great stress on evidence and searched for the origin of every word to make all sentences logical and consistent with the context. When studying ancient books, they adopted the comparative method to correct all mistakes. In addition, they explained the meaning of disputable characters based on their sounds and analyzed the application of homophones to make the ambiguous parts comprehensible. It was these research methods that made the two Wangs different and outstanding. To sum up, the Wang father and son combined the methods of induction, integration and comparison to study Confucian classics. As a modern detective finds out potential evidence from all traces to break a case, the two Wangs made every effort to seek any possible clue from the context to correct all errors. Since the research methods and spirits of other contemporary scholars were barely comparable to those of the two Wangs’, it is safe to assume that conscientiousness and persistence were the two Wangs’ merits on research and were also the best example to encourage the later generation.