文如其人——孟子與莊子的文風與聖人觀比較

The Style is The Man: Mencius’ and Zhuangzi’s Writings and their Views of the Sages

一個人如何思考是否影響他如何行文？本文藉由探討孟子與莊子的聖人觀與文風，證成此中聯繫。孟子以堯舜為聖人，提倡堯舜之道，並強調「舜可學而致」，創建了堯舜禹湯一路傳承的道統，且以聖人之後繼者自居，賦予自身「舍我其誰」的道德使命與濟世責任；但是，包括「性善說」在內的這許多主張，孟子實則沒有嚴密的邏輯推理或歷史證據，而更是他自己的「實踐體悟之知」，難以證明，卻在他的浩然氣勢中沛然不可抵禦。在《莊子》中，堯舜雖也力行仁政，卻往往是反面角色，遭到許由等高士的訓誨，藉由這樣的對比，莊子突顯出他所要傳達的境界——「至人無己，神人無功，聖人無名」；在莊子關於「神人、至人、真人、聖人」神話般的描述中，我們注意到他們共同的兩項特質，即「遊」的形式和「道」的體現，這兩項特質也適用於其文，前者體現為書寫視角的多變與廣闊，從而型塑莊子寓言之擬人擬物、變化多端的「謬悠、荒唐、無端崖」風格；後者則使莊子的誇張比喻都不離他所要傳達的「道」的本體，也令他在表面的自由揮灑下，仍具有內在精髓的分寸拿捏；兩者配合，交織成莊子寫作的收放自如。綜而觀之，本文認為一個人的修養論與思維方式構成其聖人觀，語用觀與寫作手法則構成其文風整體的呈現；因而我們在體會其聖人觀與感受其文風時，會有極為類似的美學體驗。

How does a person's thinking influence his writing style? I try to clarify this relationship by researching Mencius’ and Zhuangzi's writings and their views of the sages. Mencius took Yao and Shun as sages, promoted their ways, emphasized that everyone can learn to be as good as Shun, build up the inheritance from Yao, Shun, Yu, and others from Tang to Confucius, and took the responsibility of carrying out the sages' moral mission. However, ideas advocated by Mencius, including ''Human Nature is Good'', had no strict logical reasoning or manifestations but rather, were based on his knowledge gained from experience. Although difficult to prove, his beliefs are expressed well through his awe-inspiring actions. On the other hand, Yao and Shun fulfil the opposite role in Zhuangzi’s thought, even though they still symbolize benevolent government. By using contrast, Zhuangzi highlighted his idea: the perfect person is selfless, without fame or achievements. The two characteristics of Zhuangzi's sages are their meanderings and the spirit of Tao, which also feature in his writing. The former was embodied as the broad and changing perspective, which resulted in his strange, mystical and extravagant writing style. The latter correlated all his metaphors with the purpose of Tao. To conclude, as the theory of cultivation and the ways of thinking constitute one's view of the sages, so the ideas of language usage and writing methods constitute one's writing style. Thus it is natural that we should have a very similar aesthetic experience when considering one writer’s view of the sages and his writing style.