Foreword.

[pg v]Foreword.The importance of introducing Western political thought to the Far East has long been emphasized in the West. The Chinese conception of a rational world order was manifestly incompatible with the Western system of independent sovereign states and the Chinese code of political ethics was difficult to reconcile with the Western preference for a reign of law. No argument has been necessary to persuade Westerners that Chinese political philosophy would be improved by the influence of Western political science.The superior qualifications of Sun Yat-sen for the interpretation of Western political science to the Chinese have also been widely recognized in the West, particularly in the United States. Dr. Sun received a modern education in medicine and surgery and presumably grasped the spirit of Western science. He read widely, more widely perhaps than any contemporary political leader of the first rank except Woodrow Wilson, in the literature of Western political science. He was thoroughly familiar with the development of American political thought and full of sympathy for American political ideals. His aspiration to build a modern democratic republic amidst the ruins of the medieval Manchu Empire, Americans at least can readily understand.What is only beginning to be understood, however, in the West is, that it is equally important to interpret Chinese political philosophy to the rest of the world. Western political science has contributed a great deal to the development of political power. But it has failed lamentably to illuminate the ends for which such power should be used. Political ethics is by no means superfluous in lands where a government of law is supposed to be established in lieu of a government of men. The limitation[pg vi]of the authority of sovereign states in the interest of a better world order is an enterprise to which at last, it may be hoped not too late, Westerners are beginning to dedicate themselves.As an interpreter of Chinese political philosophy to the West Dr. Sun has no peer. Better than any other Chinese revolutionary leader he appreciated the durable values in the classical political philosophy of the Far East. He understood the necessity for preserving those values, while introducing the Western political ideas deemed most proper for adapting the Chinese political system to its new place in the modern world. His system of political thought, therefore, forms a blend of Far Eastern political philosophy and Western political science. It suggests at the same time both what is suitable in Western political science for the use of the Far East and what is desirable in Far Eastern political philosophy for the improvement of the West.Dr. Linebarger has analyzed Dr. Sun's political ideas, and also his plans for the political rehabilitation of China, with a view to the interests of Western students of politics. For this task his training and experience have given him exceptional competence. The result is a book, which not only renders obsolete all previous volumes in Western languages on modern Chinese political philosophy, but also makes available for the political scientists and politicians of the West the best political thought of the Far East on the fundamental problems of Western politics.Arthur N. HolcombeHarvard University[pg vii]Preface.This book represents an exploration into a field of political thought which is still more or less unknown. The Chinese revolution has received much attention from publicists and historians, and a vast number of works dealing with almost every phase of Chinese life and events appears every year in the West. The extraordinary difficulty of the language, the obscurity—to Westerners—of the Chinese cultural background, and the greater vividness of events as compared with theories have led Western scholars to devote their attention, for the most part, to descriptions of Chinese politics rather than to venture into the more difficult field of Chinese political thought, without which, however, the political events are scarcely intelligible.The author has sought to examine one small part of modern Chinese political thought, partly as a sample of the whole body of thought, and partly because the selection, although small, is an important one. Sun Yat-sen is by far the most conspicuous figure in recent Chinese history, and his doctrines, irrespective of the effectiveness or permanence of the consequences of their propagation, have a certain distinct position in history. TheSan Min Chu I, his chief work, not only represents an important phase in the revolution of Chinese social and political thought, but solely and simply as doctrine, may be regarded as a Chinese expression of tendencies of political thought current in the Western world.The personal motives, arising out of an early and rather intimate family relationship with the Chinese nationalist movement centering around the person of Sun Yat-sen, that led the author to undertake this subject, have their advantages and disadvantages. The chief disadvantage lies in the fact that the thesis must of necessity[pg viii]treat of many matters which are the objects of hot controversy, and that the author, friendly to the movement as a whole but neutral as between its factions, may seem at times to deal unjustly or over-generously with certain persons and groups. The younger widow of Sun Yat-sen (née Soong Ching-ling) may regard the mention of her husband and the Nanking government in the same breath as an act of treachery. Devoted to the memory of her husband, she has turned, nevertheless, to the Left, and works on cordial terms with the Communists. She said:“... the Nanking Government has crushed every open liberal, democratic, or humanitarian movement in our country. It has destroyed all trade unions, smashed every strike of the workers for the right to existence, has thrown hordes of criminal gangsters who are simultaneously Fascist‘Blue Shirts’against every labor, cultural, or national revolutionary movement in the country.”1The author, from what he himself has seen of the National Government, is positive that it is not merely dictatorial, ruthless, cruel, treacherous, or historically unnecessary; nor would he, contrarily, assert that the National Government lives up to or surpasses the brilliant ideals of Sun Yat-sen. He seeks to deal charitably with all factions, to follow a middle course whenever he can, and in any case to state fairly the positions of both sides.The advantages may serve to offset the disadvantages. In the first place, the author's acquaintance with the Nationalist movement has given him something of a background from which to present his exposition. This background cannot, of course, be documented, but it may serve to make the presentation more assured and more vivid. In the second place, the author has had access to certain[pg ix]private manuscripts and papers, and has had the benefit of his father's counsel on several points in this work.2The author believes that on the basis of this material and background he is justified in venturing into this comparatively unknown field.The primary sources for this work have been Sun Yat-sen's own works. A considerable number of these were written originally in the English language. Translations of his major Chinese works are more or less fully available in English, German, French, or Spanish. The author's highly inadequate knowledge of the Chinese written language has led him to depend almost altogether upon translations, but he has sought—in some cases, perhaps, unsuccessfully—to minimize the possibility of misunderstanding or error by checking the translations against one another. Through the assistance of his Chinese friends,[pg x]he has been able to refer to Sun's complete works in Chinese and to Chinese books on Sun wherever such reference was imperatively necessary. A list of the Chinese titles thus made available is included in the bibliography. The language difficulty, while an annoyance and a handicap, has not been so considerable as to give the author reason to suppose that his conclusions would have been different in any significant respect had he been able to make free and continuous use of Chinese and Russian sources.The author has thought of the present work as a contribution to political theory rather than to sinology, and has tried to keep the discussion of sinological questions at a minimum. In the transliteration of Chinese words and names he has adhered more or less closely to the Wade system, and has rendered most terms in thekuo yü, or national language. Despite this rule, he gives the name of President Sun in its more commonly known Cantonese form, Sun Yat-sen, rather than in thekuo yü, Sun I-hsien.In acknowledging assistance and encouragement received, the author must first of all turn to his father, Judge Paul Myron Wentworth Linebarger, Legal Advisor to The National Government of China, counsellor to and biographer of Sun Yat-sen during the latter's lifetime. Without his patient encouragement and his concrete assistance, this book could neither have been begun nor brought to a conclusion after it was started. The author desires, however, to make it perfectly clear that this work has no relation to the connections of Judge Linebarger with the Chinese Government or with the Nationalist Party. No[pg xi]information coming to the knowledge of Judge Linebarger in the course of his official duties has been here incorporated. Anxiously scrupulous to maintain a completely detached point of view, the author has refrained from communicating with or submitting the book to Chinese Government or Party officials, and writes purely as an American student of China.Professor James Hart, formerly at The Johns Hopkins University and now at The University of Virginia, Professor Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Johns Hopkins University, Professor Harley Farnsworth MacNair and Dr. Ernest Price, both of The University of Chicago, have rendered inestimable assistance by reading the manuscript and giving the author the benefit of their advice. Professor Hart has criticized the work as an enterprise in political science. Professor Lovejoy assisted the author by reading the first third of the work, and selections of the later parts, and applying his thorough and stimulating criticism; the author regrets that he was unable to adopt all of Professor Lovejoy's suggestions in full, and is deeply grateful for the help. Professor MacNair read the book as a referee for a dissertation, and made a great number of comments which have made the book clearer and more accurate; the author would not have ventured to present this work to the public had it not been for the reassurances and encouragement given him by Professor MacNair. Dr. Ernest Price, while at The Hopkins, supervised the composition of the first drafts; his judicious and balanced criticism, based upon sixteen years' intimacy with the public and private life of the Chinese, and a sensitive appreciation of Chinese values, were of great value to the author in establishing his perspective and lines of study. The author takes this opportunity to thank these four gentlemen for their great kindness and invaluable assistance.It is with deep regret that the author abbreviates his acknowledgments and thanks for the inspiration and the[pg xii]favors he received in his study of Chinese politics from Dr. C. Walter Young; Professor Frederic Ogg, of The University of Wisconsin; Professors Kenneth Colegrove, William McGovern, and Ikuo Oyama, of The Northwestern University; Dr. Arthur Hummel, of The Library of Congress; Professor Frederick Dunn, of Yale University; Professor Arthur Holcombe, of Harvard University; Professor Quincy Wright, of The University of Chicago; and Dr. Wallace McClure, of The Department of State. Many of the author's Chinese friends assisted by reading the manuscript and criticizing it from their more intimate knowledge of their own country, among them being Messrs. Miao Chung-yi and Djang Chu, at The Johns Hopkins University; Professor Jên T'ai, of Nankai University; and Messrs. Wang Kung-shou, Ch'ing Ju-chi, and Lin Mou-sheng, of The University of Chicago, made many helpful suggestions. The author must thank his teachers at The Johns Hopkins University, to whom he is indebted for three years of the most patient assistance and stimulating instruction, in respect of both the present work and other fields in the study of government: Dr. Johannes Mattern; Dr. Albert Weinberg; Mr. Leon Sachs; and Professor W. W. Willoughby. Finally, he must acknowledge his indebtedness to his wife, Margaret Snow Linebarger, for her patient assistance in preparing this volume for the press.Paul M. A. Linebarger.December, 1936.[pg 001]Introduction.The Problem of theSan Min Chu I.The Materials.Sun Yat-sen played many rôles in the history of his times. He was one of those dramatic and somewhat formidable figures who engage the world's attention at the very outset of their careers. In the late years of the nineteenth century, he was already winning some renown in the West; it was picturesque that a Cantonese, a Christian physician, should engage in desperate conspiracies against the Manchu throne. Sun became known as a political adventurer, a forerunner, as it were, of such mutually dissimilar personages as Trotsky, Lawrence, and Major-General Doihara. With the illusory success of the revolution of 1911, and his Presidency of the first Republic, Sun ceased being a conspirator in the eyes of the world's press, and became the George Washington of China. It is in this rôle that he is most commonly known, and his name most generally recalled. After the world war, in the atmosphere of extreme tension developed, perhaps, by the Bolshevik revolution, Sun was regarded as an enigmatic leader, especially significant in the struggle between Asiatic nationalisms allied with the Soviets against the traditional capitalist state-system. It was through him that the Red anti-imperialist policy was pushed to its greatest success, and he was hated and admired, ridiculed and feared, down to the last moments of his life. When he died, American reporters in Latvia cabled New York their reports of Russian comments on the event.3More, perhaps, than any other Chinese of modern times, Sun symbolized the entrance of China into[pg 002]world affairs, and the inevitable confluence of Western and Far Eastern history.It is characteristic of Sun that he should have appeared in another and final rôle after his death. He had been thought of as conspirator, statesman, and mass leader; but with the advent of his party to power it became publicly apparent that he had also been a political philosopher. The tremendous prestige enjoyed by him as state-founder and party leader was enhanced by his importance as prophet and law-giver. His doctrines became the state philosophy of China, and for a while his most zealous followers sought to have him canonized in a quite literal fashion, and at one stroke to make him replace Confucius and the Sons of Heaven. After the extreme enthusiasms of the Sun Yat-sen cult subsided, Sun remained the great national hero-sage of modern China. Even in those territories where the authority of his political heirs was not completely effective, his flag was flown and his doctrines taught.His doctrines have provided the theories upon which the Nationalist revolution was based; they form the extra-juridical constitution of the National Government of China. When the forces hostile to Sun Yat-sen and his followers are considered, it is amazing that his ideas and ideals should have survived. An empire established with the aid of Japanese arms, and still under Japanese hegemony, controls Manchuria; parts of north China are ruled by a bastard government, born of a compromise between enemies; a largely unrecognized but powerful Soviet Republic exists in outer Mongolia; the lamaist oligarchy goes on in Tibet; and somewhere, in central and western China, a Soviet group, not quite a government but more than a conspiracy, is fighting for existence. It is quite probable that nowhere else in the world can there be found a greater variety of principles, each scheme of principles fostered by an armed organization struggling with its[pg 003]rivals. In this chaos the National Government has made the most effective bid for authority and the greatest effort for the reëstablishment of order; through it the principles of Sun Yat-sen rule the political life of a population greater than that of the United States or of the Soviet Union.It is difficult to evaluate the importance of political doctrines. Even ifThe Three Principlesis judged by the extent of the population which its followers control, it has achieved greater results in practical politics in fifteen years than has Marxism in ninety. Such a criterion may well be disputed, but, whatever the test, it cannot be denied that the thought of Sun Yat-sen has played a major part in the political development of his native land. It may continue into the indefinitely remote future, or may succumb to the perils that surround its advocates; in any case, these doctrines have been taught long enough and broadly enough to make an impress on the age, and have been so significant in political and cultural history that they can never sink into complete obscurity.What are these doctrines? Sun Yat-sen was so voluminous a writer that it would be impossible for his followers to digest and codify all his writings into one neat and coherent handbook; he himself did not provide one. Before printing became common, there was a certain automatic process of condensation which preserved the important utterances of great men, and let their trivial sayings perish. Sun, however, must have realized that he was leaving a vast legacy of materials which are not altogether coherent or consistent with one another. Certain of his works were naturally more important than others, but, to make the choice definitive, he himself indicated four sources which his followers might draw upon for a definitive statement of his views.4[pg 004]HisPolitical Testamentcites theChien Kuo Fang Lo(The Program of National Reconstruction), theChien Kuo Ta Kang(The Outline of National Reconstruction), theSan Min Chu I(The Triple Demism, also translated asThe Three Principles of the People), and theManifestoissued by the first national congress of the Party.5These four items differ quite sharply from one another in form. No one of them can be relied upon to give the whole of Sun's doctrines.TheChien Kuo Fang Lo(The Program of National Reconstruction) is in reality three works, only remotely related to one another. The first item in the trilogy is theSun Wên Hsüeh Shê(The Philosophy of Sun Wên); it is a series of familiar essays on the Chinese way of thought.6The second is theMin Ch'üan Ts'u Pu,The Primer of Democracy, which is little more than a text on parliamentary law.7The third is theShih Yeh Chi Hua, known in English asThe International Development[pg 005]of China, which Sun wrote in both English and Chinese.8These three works, under the alternate titles of“The Program of Psychological Reconstruction,”“The Program of Social Reconstruction,”and“The Program of Material Reconstruction”formThe Program of National Reconstruction.TheChien Kuo Ta Kang, The Outline of National Reconstruction, is an outline of twenty-five points, giving the necessary steps towards the national reconstruction in their most concise form.9TheSan Min Chu Iis Sun's most important work. It comprises sixteen lectures setting forth his socio-political theories and his programs. The title most commonly used in Western versions isThe Three Principles of the People.10The last document mentioned in Sun Yat-sen's will was theManifestoof the first national congress of the Kuomintang. This was not written by himself, but was drafted by Wang Ch'ing-wei, one of his closest followers, and embodies essentially the same ideas as do the other three items, even though Borodin—the emissary of the Third International—had been consulted in its preparation.11Sun undoubtedly regretted leaving such a heterogeneous and ill-assembled group of works as his literary bequest.[pg 006]Throughout the latter years of his life he was studying political science in the hope that he might be able to complete a great treatise which he had projected, an analysis and statement of the programs of the Chinese nationalists. One attempt toward actualization of this work was frustrated when Sun's manuscripts and a great part of his library were burned in the attack launched against him by Ch'en Ch'iung-ming in 1922. His apology for the makeshift volume on theSan Min Chu Iis pathetic:“As I had neither time to prepare nor books to use as references, I could do nothing else in these lectures but improvise after I ascended the platform. Thus I have omitted and forgotten many things which were in my original manuscript. Although before having them printed, I revised them, added (passages) and eliminated (others), yet, those lectures are far from coming up to my original manuscripts, either in the subject matter itself, or in the concatenations of the discussion, or in the facts adduced as proofs.”12Sun was in all probability a more assiduous and widely read student of political science than any other world leader of his day except Wilson; he studied innumerable treatises on government, and was surprisingly familiar with the general background of Western politics, in theory and practice. He was aware of the shabby appearance that these undigested occasional pieces would present when put forth as the bible of a new China, and earnestly enjoined his followers to carry on his labors and bring them to fruition.13The various works included in theChien Kuo Fang Lo, while satisfactory for the purposes Sun had in mind when he wrote them, are not enough to outline the fundamentals both of political theory and a governmental plan. The familiar essays have an important bearing on the formation of the ideology of a new China; the primer[pg 007]of democracy, less; the industrial plan is one of those magnificent dreams which, in the turn of a decade, may inspire an equally great reality. The outline and the manifesto are no more suited to the rôle of classics; they are decalogues rather than bibles.14There remains theSan Min Chu I.TheSan Min Chu Iis a collection of sixteen lectures delivered in Canton in 1924. There were to have been eighteen, but Sun was unable to give the last two. Legend has it that Borodin persuaded Sun to give the series.15Whatever the cause of their being offered, they attracted immediate attention. Interest in Sun and in his ideas was at a fever heat; his friends turned to the printed lectures for guidance; his enemies, for statements which could be turned against him. Both friends and enemies found what they wanted. To the friends, theSan Min Chu Ipresented a fairly complete outline of Sun's political and social thought in such a form that it could be preserved and broadcast readily. There was danger, before the book appeared, that the intrinsic unity in Sun's thinking would be lost sight of by posterity, that his ideas would appear as a disconnected jumble of brilliant inspirations. The sixteen lectures incorporated a great part of the doctrines which he had been preaching for more than a generation. To the enemies of Sun, the work was welcome. They pointed out the numerous simplifications and inconsistencies, the frequent contradictions in matters of detail, the then outrageous denunciations of the economic and political system predominant in the Far East. They ridiculed Sun because he was Chinese, and because he was not Chinese enough, and backed up their criticisms with passages from the book.16[pg 008]When Sun gave the lectures, he was a sick man. He carried an ivory-headed sword cane with him on the platform; occasionally, holding it behind him and locking his arms through it, he would press it against his back to relieve the intolerable pain.17The business awaiting him after each lecture was vitally important; the revolution was proceeding by leaps and bounds. The lectures are the lectures of a sick man, given to a popular audience in the uproar of revolution, without adequate preparation, improvised in large part, and offered as one side of a crucial and bitterly disputed question. The secretaries who took down the lectures may not have succeeded in following them completely; Sun had no leisure to do more than skim through the book before releasing it to the press.These improvised lectures have had to serve as the fundamental document of Nationalist China. Sun Yat-sen died without writing the treatise he had planned. The materials he left behind were a challenge to scholars and to his followers. Many persons set to work interpreting them, each with a conscious or unconscious end in view. A German Marxian showed Sun to be a forerunner of bolshevism; an American liberal showed Sun to be a bulwark against bolshevism. A Chinese classicist demonstrated Sun's reverence for the past; a Jesuit father explained much by Sun's modern and Christian background. His works have been translated into Western[pg 009]languages without notes; the improvised lectures, torn from their context of a revolutionary crisis, have served poorly to explain the ideology of Sun Yat-sen, and his long range political, social, and economic plans.The Necessity of an Exposition.Followers of Sun who knew him personally, or were members of that circle in which his ideas and opinions were well known, have found theSan Min Chu Iand other literary remains helpful; they have been able to turn to the documents to refresh their memories of Sun on some particular point, or to experience the encouraging force of his faith and enthusiasm again. They need not be reminded of the main tenets of his thought, or of the fundamental values upon which he based his life and his political activities. His sense of leadership, which strangers have at times thought fantastic, is one which they admire in him, since they, too, have felt the power of his personality and have experienced that leadership in the course of their own lives. His voice is ringing in their consciences; they feel no need of a guide to his mind. At the present day many members of Sun's own family, and a considerable number of his veteran disciples are still living; the control of the National Government is in their hands. They are people who need no commentary on Sun Yat-sen; to them, he died only yesterday.Others, who met Sun only casually, or who could know him only through his writings, have a quite different impression of his thought. They perforce assume that he thought as he wrote, and fail to realize that virtually all his writings and speeches were occasional pieces, improvisations designed as propaganda. One of the most respected American authorities on China says that in theSan Min Chu I“... there is a combination of sound social analysis, keen comment on comparative political[pg 010]science, and bombast, journalistic inaccuracy, jejune philosophizing and sophomoric economics.”18This view is one which can scarcely be attacked, if one considers only the printed lectures, and overlooks the other utterances and the personality of Sun. To apply this, or any similar estimate (and there are many of them), to all of Sun Yat-sen's thought would be woefully inaccurate. It is not the critic's fault that Sun never found time to write a sober, definitive political treatise expressing his ideas; it is, nevertheless, the critic's responsibility to weigh the value of theSan Min Chu I, and consider the importance which Sun himself attached to it, before judging Sun's whole philosophy by a hastily-composed and poorly written book.Yet, if the Western student of modern Chinese history were to look elsewhere for some general exposition of Sun Yat-sen's political ideas, he would find none. He could discover several excellent translations of the sixteen lectures, and parts of the other work of Sun. He would be helped by the prefatory notes to some of these translations.19A few treatises would be available to him on special phases of Sun's thought: the influence of Maurice William, and the influence of the Russian Communists.20In addition, there would be the biographies, of which there are more than a dozen, and a few other useful although not general works. None of these sifts Sun's thought, seeking to separate the transitory from the permanent in his ideas. For this the searcher would have to rely on brief outlines of Sun's ideas, to be found in[pg 011]works dealing with modern China or the Chinese revolution.21This relative scarcity of exegetic material concerning the ideology and programs of Sun is not the result of any inadequacy on the part of those persons, both Chinese and Western, who have devoted thought and time to his life or to the translation of his works. It is one thing to point out a task that has yet to be done; and quite another, actually to perform it. An interpretation or exposition of Sun's thought, to be worthy of the great significance of the original, must be very thorough; but scarcely enough time has elapsed to allow a perspective of all the materials, let alone an orientation of Sun in the Far Eastern scene. Yet the importance of Sun demands that something be done to bring his thought to the attention of the world, so that the usual distortion of his personality—arising from the lack of commentaries—may be avoided in present day works. In a sense, the time is not ripe for a definitive treatment of Sun, either as a figure in history or as a contributor to the significant and enduring political thought of modern times; any work now done will, as time passes, fall grotesquely far short of adequacy. On the other hand, there is so much material of a perishable nature—anecdotes and legends not yet committed to print, and the memories of living men—now available, that a present-day work on Sun may gain[pg 012]in color and intimacy what it loses in judgment and objectivity, may gain in proximity what it has to forgo in detachment. And, lastly, the complete absence of any systematic presentation of Sun's ideas in any Western language is so great a deficiency in the fields of Far Eastern history and world political thought, that even a relatively inadequate exposition of the thought of Sun Yat-sen may prove to be not without value. Sun himself never explained his philosophy, whether theoretical or applied, in any broad, systematic fashion; nor has anyone else done so.If the permissibility of an exposition of Sun Yat-sen's thought be conceded, there still remains the vexing problem of a choice of method. While the far-flung peripheries of Sun's thought touch almost every field of knowledge and opinion, a systematic condensation of his views cannot hope to survey the same broad ranges. The problem of proportion, of just emphasis, involves the nice appraisal of the degree of importance which each of Sun's minor rôles had in his intellectual career as a whole. Nor do the difficulties concerning method end with the consideration of proportion; they merely begin, for there remains the far more important and perplexing problem of a technique of interpretation.Interpretation obviously relates to the problem of language. The translation of theoretical terms from Chinese into English constitutes a formidable difficulty which proves, in several instances, to be insuperable. No satisfactory equivalent formin shêng(usually rendered“livelihood”) can be found in English; even simpler and less specialized terms are extremely difficult to render. Sometimes it would be convenient to employ four or five alternative translations for one Chinese term. Sun uses the word“nationalism”in the sense that a Westerner would, in advocating national consciousness in a China hitherto unfamiliar with the conception of nation-states; but, in[pg 013]a different context, he uses it in the sense of“patriotism.”22These difficulties must be faced and, somehow or other, overcome. When the Western reader encounters a familiar term in an unexpected place, he must be prepared to meet a shift of meaning. No amount of definition can make a Chinese term, which has no exact Western equivalent, completely clear. It is simpler to grow accustomed to the term, to gather together its connotations, to understand something of the frame of reference wherein it is set, and thereby to learn it as a child learns a word. A dictionary is no help to a baby; in a realm of unfamiliar ideas even scholars must learn terms step by step.Less obviously than language, the translation of ideas and of values is also involved in interpretation. In dealing with the intellectual content of a civilization as alien as that of China, the Westerner must be wary of the easy analogy. The full, forceful application of Western ideas and values in a world to which they are completely irrelevant produced strange results during the nineteenth century. Western notions of goodness and reasonableness did not fit the Chinese scheme of things. Under such a test a wildly distorted image of China was obtained. China seemed peculiar, topsy-turvy, fantastic. To themselves the Chinese still seemed quite matter-of-fact, and the Westerners thought even this odd and ridiculous: not only was China upside-down, but the Chinese did not know it! In any case, the present-day scholar, to whom so much material concerning the Chinese is available and China so near, has little justification for applying Western tests of virtue and rationality to things Chinese.If the application of Western values to China is avoided, there is still the danger that the Chinese scheme of things may not be interpreted at all. The literal translation[pg 014]of Chinese terms strips them of their contexts. The result may be unintelligibility. The Chinese termjênis frequently rendered“benevolence,”a Western word which, while at times an approximate equivalent, fails to carry the full burden of meaning. Sun speaks of an interpretation of history antagonistic to dialectical materialism—the interpretation of history byjên. A“benevolent”interpretation of history means nothing whatever to a Westerner. Ifjênis translated into a different configuration of words, and given as“group-consciousness”or“social fellow-feeling,”the result, while still not an exact equivalent of the Chinese, is distinctly more intelligible.To effect this translation of ideas and values, several methods are available. The issue cannot be dodged by a denial of its existence; the mere act of explanation involves some process, whether deliberate or unconscious, of translation and transvaluation. If the interpreter refuses to deal with the problem consciously, he will nevertheless be guided by his unrevealed assumptions. To give an accounting for what he has done, he must, first, admit that he is interpreting, and second, seek to make plain what he is doing, so that his readers may allow for the process. The demonstration of the consequences of interpretation minimizes their possible adverse effects. The simplest way to allow for the alterations (beyond mere reproduction) arising from interpretation would be to adopt a technique so widely known that others could, in their own minds, try to re-trace the steps of the process and negate the changes. Among such widely known techniques are the Marxian and the sociological.Both these scarcely seem adapted to the problems presented by an interpretation of Sun Yat-sen. The Marxian terminology is so peculiarly suited to the ulterior purposes the Marxians keep in mind, and is so esoteric when applied to matters not related to the general fields in which the Marxians are interested, that it could scarcely[pg 015]be applied in the present instance. A non-Marxian would find it a hazardous task. The interpreter of Sun Yat-sen must interpretintosomething; what, depends on the audience. Dialectical materialism, in the abstract excellent as a technique, would scarcely make Sun understandable to most Americans of the present day. Sun himself rejected the Marxian method of interpretation; an American audience would also reject it; these two factors outweigh all the conceivable advantages.The sociological technique of interpretation is quite another question. The various methods of analysis developed by each of the schools of sociologists are still the objects rather than the tools of study. Such men as Max Weber and Vilfredo Pareto have made contributions to Western social thought which enrich the scope and method of the social studies. Their methods of analysis are not weighted down by a body of extraneous considerations, as is the Marxian, and they promise an objectivity not otherwise attainable. On the other hand, they are still at that stage of development where the technique obtrudes itself; it has not, as has the inductive method in general, become so much taken for granted as to be invisible.The sociological approach need not, however, be carried to the full extent thought necessary by its advocates. In the study of law, the consideration of extra-juridical materials is called sociological in contrast to the strictly juristic. If the legal scholar goes beyond the strict framework of the law, and considers other elements in man's behavior and knowledge while dealing with legal problems, he is apt to be called a sociological jurist. In doing so he is not committed, however, to belief in or use of any particular form of what is known as the science of society or sociology. He may adopt almost any sort of social outlook, or may be committed to any one of many doctrines of social value and to any one of widely varying methods of social study.[pg 016]This negative, broad sense of the sociological, when applied to the study of politics, has commonly meant that the scholars employing it began with the notion of the political, but, finding it too narrow, touched upon related fields. An interpretation of Sun Yat-sen's politics might be based on this method. It would still be a political work, in that it sought to associate his ideas with the ideas concerning government to be found in the West, but would be free, nevertheless, to touch upon non-political materials relevant to Sun's politics. The Chinese have had notions of authority and control radically different from those developed in the West; a purely juristic interpretation of the various Chinese politics would simply scrape the lacquer off the screen.The Chinese have not had the sharp distinction of disciplines which runs through all Western learning. Since one of the most conspicuous ingredients in their thought—conspicuous, that is, to Westerners looking in from outside—has been the ethical, many Westerners have dismissed Chinese historical, political and more strictly philosophical thought as being loosely and amiably ethical but never getting anywhere. The Chinese did not departmentalize their learning to any considerable degree. Politics was not the special activity of a definite group of men, or the study of a select body of scholars. Politics ran through and across most of the activities in society, and was largely the interest of that intellectual élite by which China has been so distinguished on the roster of civilizations. In becoming everything, politics ceased being politics; that is, those elements in man's thought and behavior which Westerners have termed political were not separated and labelled. The Westerner must say that politics was everything in China, or that it was nothing.An interpretation of Sun Yat-sen must keep in mind these differences between Chinese and Western categories. In doing so it will pass beyond the limits of what is commonly[pg 017]known as politics, since no sharp boundaries of“politics”are to be found in China. Yet, as an interpretation designed to serve Western readers, it must return again and again to Western politics, making comparisons when they are justified, pointing out differences between China and the West as they become relevant and clear. The interpretation will thus weave back and forth between conventional Western political science, with its state-mindedness, and the wholly different material of traditions and customs out of which Sun sought to construct an ideology and a system of working politics for China in the modern world.How can this interpretation seek to avoid the misfortunes and errors into which so many similar attempts have fallen? It must proceed without the aid of such specialized techniques as dialectical-materialistic or Paretian analysis, and yet aim at the scientific, the rationally defensible, the objective. In seeking to apply a method in the interpretation of Sun Yat-sen, the work must face criticism of its method, must make the method explicit and simple enough to allow criticism. If the thought of Sun really is to emerge from the exposition, the exposition must allow itself to be judged, so that it can be appraised, and so that, one way or another, it may not interfere with the just evaluation of the materials which it seeks to present. Sun Yat-sen should not be judged poor because of a poor interpretation; nor, on the other hand, should his thought be adjudged more excellent or more exact than it seems to the Chinese, merely because the expositor has suggested an interpretation possibly more precise.The technique adopted in the present work is a relatively simple one. It is an attempt to startde novowith certain concepts of society and government. Several simple although novel terms are introduced, to provide a foundation upon which the procedure may rest. One of[pg 018]these, for instance, is“ideology,”which in the present work refers to the whole psychological conditioning of a group of persons.23No attempt is made, at the beginning or at any later phase of the exposition, to distinguish between the ideology as belief and the ideology as truth. Whether the Chinese were and are right, or the Westerners, are questions, not for the student of comparative political science, but for the philosopher and the psychologist. The interpretation seeks, as far as possible, to transpose certain parts of the traditional Chinese ideology, as they were, and as Sun Yat-sen re-shaped them, into one frame of reference provided by the ideology of twentieth-century America. What the“real truth”is, does not matter; the Marxians would say that both ideologies were inexact; so might the Roman Catholics. If the[pg 019]ideology of old China, and the ideology that Sun wished to see developed in the minds of the Chinese people of the future, can be made comprehensible in terms of contemporary American beliefs, of fact or of value, this venture will have been successful.The Chinese ideology cannot be explained in its own terms; these exist only in the Chinese language. If Sun Yat-sen's own arrangement of his works is inadequate for the Chinese, rearrangement is a task for the Chinese and not for the Western scholars to perform. The Westerners who deal with Sun can contribute substantially only if they give what the Chinese cannot—enough of a reference to their own ideology to permit a broader scale for the analysis and the appreciation of Sun's thought. Their knowledge of their own world of ideas is the special tool which justifies their intervention in this Chinese field of knowledge.In avoiding the unjustifiable imposition of Western ideas and values upon the Chinese, and yet orienting Sun's thought with respect to the West, the interpretation will have to resort to several fairly evident means. In the first place, it will have to transpose Chinese ideas into the Western ideology, and yet avoid distortions of meaning. This can be partly done by the use of neutral terms, of terms which are simple and clear enough to reproduce the Chinese, and nevertheless not so heavily burdened with connotations that they will cause a reading-in of Western ideas not relevant to the point in question. More simply, the Chinese ideas must be represented by terms which approximate the same set of values in the West that their originals have in China. This will sometimes require the use of unfamiliar periphrases: the words“music”and“rites”may be given as“the rhythm of life”and“conformity to the ideology.”Secondly, the Chinese ideology need not be given as a whole; it is improbable that it could, without a terrific expansion[pg 020]of the Western ideology to accommodate it; but enough of the Chinese ideology must be given to explain the significant differences between the Chinese system of controlling the behavior of men, and the Western. This latter involves the choice of material, and is therefore by its nature challengeable.Again, in demonstrating significant differences instead of merely seeking analogous (and probably misleading) examples, the interpretation might turn to certain aspects of Chinese philosophy which appear as strikingly illustrative of the point of view of the Chinese. Confucius the political thinker is only a small part of Confucius the man and the philosopher; Chinese political thought, although a vast field, is only a small part of the social thought of the Chinese. Only an infinitesimal part of this comparatively minor area of Chinese study will suffice to make clear some, at least, of the sharp differences of outlook between China and the West.A recapitulation of this declaration of technique may be found helpful, for an understanding of Sun Yat-sen by Westerners is necessary because of the vastly different background of his thought. Even apart from the strangeness of his thought to the West, it is scattered in the original, and must be pieced together. An exposition of his ideas which would, at one and the same time, present a systematic outline of his ideas, and transpose them into a frame of reference where Western scholars might grasp them, might be a labor meriting performance. His terms would have to be rendered by neutral words (not overladen with particular Western contexts) or by neologisms, or simply left in the original, to develop meaning as a configuration of related ideas is built up about them. The problem of interpretation cannot, however, be solved by settling the difficulty of language: there still remains the question of a technique which can pretend to the scientific, the exact, the rationally defensible. Despite their great[pg 021]merits, the Marxian and Paretian techniques are not suited to the present task. The point of view and means of study of political science may be kept, if a few necessary borrowings from sociological thought (not necessarily sociology) are introduced. Such borrowing includes the use of notions such as non-political society, patterns of authority, and ideology, none of which are to be found in the more law-minded part of political science. By seeking to point out the Chinese, then the Western, ideas involved, without confusing the two, the presentation may succeed in transposing the ideology of Sun Yat-sen, as well as his beliefs concerning working politics, into the English language and into an explanatory but not distorting background. To do this, a small sampling of certain aspects of old Chinese social thought and behavior will be a required preliminary.[pg 022]

[pg v]Foreword.The importance of introducing Western political thought to the Far East has long been emphasized in the West. The Chinese conception of a rational world order was manifestly incompatible with the Western system of independent sovereign states and the Chinese code of political ethics was difficult to reconcile with the Western preference for a reign of law. No argument has been necessary to persuade Westerners that Chinese political philosophy would be improved by the influence of Western political science.The superior qualifications of Sun Yat-sen for the interpretation of Western political science to the Chinese have also been widely recognized in the West, particularly in the United States. Dr. Sun received a modern education in medicine and surgery and presumably grasped the spirit of Western science. He read widely, more widely perhaps than any contemporary political leader of the first rank except Woodrow Wilson, in the literature of Western political science. He was thoroughly familiar with the development of American political thought and full of sympathy for American political ideals. His aspiration to build a modern democratic republic amidst the ruins of the medieval Manchu Empire, Americans at least can readily understand.What is only beginning to be understood, however, in the West is, that it is equally important to interpret Chinese political philosophy to the rest of the world. Western political science has contributed a great deal to the development of political power. But it has failed lamentably to illuminate the ends for which such power should be used. Political ethics is by no means superfluous in lands where a government of law is supposed to be established in lieu of a government of men. The limitation[pg vi]of the authority of sovereign states in the interest of a better world order is an enterprise to which at last, it may be hoped not too late, Westerners are beginning to dedicate themselves.As an interpreter of Chinese political philosophy to the West Dr. Sun has no peer. Better than any other Chinese revolutionary leader he appreciated the durable values in the classical political philosophy of the Far East. He understood the necessity for preserving those values, while introducing the Western political ideas deemed most proper for adapting the Chinese political system to its new place in the modern world. His system of political thought, therefore, forms a blend of Far Eastern political philosophy and Western political science. It suggests at the same time both what is suitable in Western political science for the use of the Far East and what is desirable in Far Eastern political philosophy for the improvement of the West.Dr. Linebarger has analyzed Dr. Sun's political ideas, and also his plans for the political rehabilitation of China, with a view to the interests of Western students of politics. For this task his training and experience have given him exceptional competence. The result is a book, which not only renders obsolete all previous volumes in Western languages on modern Chinese political philosophy, but also makes available for the political scientists and politicians of the West the best political thought of the Far East on the fundamental problems of Western politics.Arthur N. HolcombeHarvard University[pg vii]Preface.This book represents an exploration into a field of political thought which is still more or less unknown. The Chinese revolution has received much attention from publicists and historians, and a vast number of works dealing with almost every phase of Chinese life and events appears every year in the West. The extraordinary difficulty of the language, the obscurity—to Westerners—of the Chinese cultural background, and the greater vividness of events as compared with theories have led Western scholars to devote their attention, for the most part, to descriptions of Chinese politics rather than to venture into the more difficult field of Chinese political thought, without which, however, the political events are scarcely intelligible.The author has sought to examine one small part of modern Chinese political thought, partly as a sample of the whole body of thought, and partly because the selection, although small, is an important one. Sun Yat-sen is by far the most conspicuous figure in recent Chinese history, and his doctrines, irrespective of the effectiveness or permanence of the consequences of their propagation, have a certain distinct position in history. TheSan Min Chu I, his chief work, not only represents an important phase in the revolution of Chinese social and political thought, but solely and simply as doctrine, may be regarded as a Chinese expression of tendencies of political thought current in the Western world.The personal motives, arising out of an early and rather intimate family relationship with the Chinese nationalist movement centering around the person of Sun Yat-sen, that led the author to undertake this subject, have their advantages and disadvantages. The chief disadvantage lies in the fact that the thesis must of necessity[pg viii]treat of many matters which are the objects of hot controversy, and that the author, friendly to the movement as a whole but neutral as between its factions, may seem at times to deal unjustly or over-generously with certain persons and groups. The younger widow of Sun Yat-sen (née Soong Ching-ling) may regard the mention of her husband and the Nanking government in the same breath as an act of treachery. Devoted to the memory of her husband, she has turned, nevertheless, to the Left, and works on cordial terms with the Communists. She said:“... the Nanking Government has crushed every open liberal, democratic, or humanitarian movement in our country. It has destroyed all trade unions, smashed every strike of the workers for the right to existence, has thrown hordes of criminal gangsters who are simultaneously Fascist‘Blue Shirts’against every labor, cultural, or national revolutionary movement in the country.”1The author, from what he himself has seen of the National Government, is positive that it is not merely dictatorial, ruthless, cruel, treacherous, or historically unnecessary; nor would he, contrarily, assert that the National Government lives up to or surpasses the brilliant ideals of Sun Yat-sen. He seeks to deal charitably with all factions, to follow a middle course whenever he can, and in any case to state fairly the positions of both sides.The advantages may serve to offset the disadvantages. In the first place, the author's acquaintance with the Nationalist movement has given him something of a background from which to present his exposition. This background cannot, of course, be documented, but it may serve to make the presentation more assured and more vivid. In the second place, the author has had access to certain[pg ix]private manuscripts and papers, and has had the benefit of his father's counsel on several points in this work.2The author believes that on the basis of this material and background he is justified in venturing into this comparatively unknown field.The primary sources for this work have been Sun Yat-sen's own works. A considerable number of these were written originally in the English language. Translations of his major Chinese works are more or less fully available in English, German, French, or Spanish. The author's highly inadequate knowledge of the Chinese written language has led him to depend almost altogether upon translations, but he has sought—in some cases, perhaps, unsuccessfully—to minimize the possibility of misunderstanding or error by checking the translations against one another. Through the assistance of his Chinese friends,[pg x]he has been able to refer to Sun's complete works in Chinese and to Chinese books on Sun wherever such reference was imperatively necessary. A list of the Chinese titles thus made available is included in the bibliography. The language difficulty, while an annoyance and a handicap, has not been so considerable as to give the author reason to suppose that his conclusions would have been different in any significant respect had he been able to make free and continuous use of Chinese and Russian sources.The author has thought of the present work as a contribution to political theory rather than to sinology, and has tried to keep the discussion of sinological questions at a minimum. In the transliteration of Chinese words and names he has adhered more or less closely to the Wade system, and has rendered most terms in thekuo yü, or national language. Despite this rule, he gives the name of President Sun in its more commonly known Cantonese form, Sun Yat-sen, rather than in thekuo yü, Sun I-hsien.In acknowledging assistance and encouragement received, the author must first of all turn to his father, Judge Paul Myron Wentworth Linebarger, Legal Advisor to The National Government of China, counsellor to and biographer of Sun Yat-sen during the latter's lifetime. Without his patient encouragement and his concrete assistance, this book could neither have been begun nor brought to a conclusion after it was started. The author desires, however, to make it perfectly clear that this work has no relation to the connections of Judge Linebarger with the Chinese Government or with the Nationalist Party. No[pg xi]information coming to the knowledge of Judge Linebarger in the course of his official duties has been here incorporated. Anxiously scrupulous to maintain a completely detached point of view, the author has refrained from communicating with or submitting the book to Chinese Government or Party officials, and writes purely as an American student of China.Professor James Hart, formerly at The Johns Hopkins University and now at The University of Virginia, Professor Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Johns Hopkins University, Professor Harley Farnsworth MacNair and Dr. Ernest Price, both of The University of Chicago, have rendered inestimable assistance by reading the manuscript and giving the author the benefit of their advice. Professor Hart has criticized the work as an enterprise in political science. Professor Lovejoy assisted the author by reading the first third of the work, and selections of the later parts, and applying his thorough and stimulating criticism; the author regrets that he was unable to adopt all of Professor Lovejoy's suggestions in full, and is deeply grateful for the help. Professor MacNair read the book as a referee for a dissertation, and made a great number of comments which have made the book clearer and more accurate; the author would not have ventured to present this work to the public had it not been for the reassurances and encouragement given him by Professor MacNair. Dr. Ernest Price, while at The Hopkins, supervised the composition of the first drafts; his judicious and balanced criticism, based upon sixteen years' intimacy with the public and private life of the Chinese, and a sensitive appreciation of Chinese values, were of great value to the author in establishing his perspective and lines of study. The author takes this opportunity to thank these four gentlemen for their great kindness and invaluable assistance.It is with deep regret that the author abbreviates his acknowledgments and thanks for the inspiration and the[pg xii]favors he received in his study of Chinese politics from Dr. C. Walter Young; Professor Frederic Ogg, of The University of Wisconsin; Professors Kenneth Colegrove, William McGovern, and Ikuo Oyama, of The Northwestern University; Dr. Arthur Hummel, of The Library of Congress; Professor Frederick Dunn, of Yale University; Professor Arthur Holcombe, of Harvard University; Professor Quincy Wright, of The University of Chicago; and Dr. Wallace McClure, of The Department of State. Many of the author's Chinese friends assisted by reading the manuscript and criticizing it from their more intimate knowledge of their own country, among them being Messrs. Miao Chung-yi and Djang Chu, at The Johns Hopkins University; Professor Jên T'ai, of Nankai University; and Messrs. Wang Kung-shou, Ch'ing Ju-chi, and Lin Mou-sheng, of The University of Chicago, made many helpful suggestions. The author must thank his teachers at The Johns Hopkins University, to whom he is indebted for three years of the most patient assistance and stimulating instruction, in respect of both the present work and other fields in the study of government: Dr. Johannes Mattern; Dr. Albert Weinberg; Mr. Leon Sachs; and Professor W. W. Willoughby. Finally, he must acknowledge his indebtedness to his wife, Margaret Snow Linebarger, for her patient assistance in preparing this volume for the press.Paul M. A. Linebarger.December, 1936.[pg 001]Introduction.The Problem of theSan Min Chu I.The Materials.Sun Yat-sen played many rôles in the history of his times. He was one of those dramatic and somewhat formidable figures who engage the world's attention at the very outset of their careers. In the late years of the nineteenth century, he was already winning some renown in the West; it was picturesque that a Cantonese, a Christian physician, should engage in desperate conspiracies against the Manchu throne. Sun became known as a political adventurer, a forerunner, as it were, of such mutually dissimilar personages as Trotsky, Lawrence, and Major-General Doihara. With the illusory success of the revolution of 1911, and his Presidency of the first Republic, Sun ceased being a conspirator in the eyes of the world's press, and became the George Washington of China. It is in this rôle that he is most commonly known, and his name most generally recalled. After the world war, in the atmosphere of extreme tension developed, perhaps, by the Bolshevik revolution, Sun was regarded as an enigmatic leader, especially significant in the struggle between Asiatic nationalisms allied with the Soviets against the traditional capitalist state-system. It was through him that the Red anti-imperialist policy was pushed to its greatest success, and he was hated and admired, ridiculed and feared, down to the last moments of his life. When he died, American reporters in Latvia cabled New York their reports of Russian comments on the event.3More, perhaps, than any other Chinese of modern times, Sun symbolized the entrance of China into[pg 002]world affairs, and the inevitable confluence of Western and Far Eastern history.It is characteristic of Sun that he should have appeared in another and final rôle after his death. He had been thought of as conspirator, statesman, and mass leader; but with the advent of his party to power it became publicly apparent that he had also been a political philosopher. The tremendous prestige enjoyed by him as state-founder and party leader was enhanced by his importance as prophet and law-giver. His doctrines became the state philosophy of China, and for a while his most zealous followers sought to have him canonized in a quite literal fashion, and at one stroke to make him replace Confucius and the Sons of Heaven. After the extreme enthusiasms of the Sun Yat-sen cult subsided, Sun remained the great national hero-sage of modern China. Even in those territories where the authority of his political heirs was not completely effective, his flag was flown and his doctrines taught.His doctrines have provided the theories upon which the Nationalist revolution was based; they form the extra-juridical constitution of the National Government of China. When the forces hostile to Sun Yat-sen and his followers are considered, it is amazing that his ideas and ideals should have survived. An empire established with the aid of Japanese arms, and still under Japanese hegemony, controls Manchuria; parts of north China are ruled by a bastard government, born of a compromise between enemies; a largely unrecognized but powerful Soviet Republic exists in outer Mongolia; the lamaist oligarchy goes on in Tibet; and somewhere, in central and western China, a Soviet group, not quite a government but more than a conspiracy, is fighting for existence. It is quite probable that nowhere else in the world can there be found a greater variety of principles, each scheme of principles fostered by an armed organization struggling with its[pg 003]rivals. In this chaos the National Government has made the most effective bid for authority and the greatest effort for the reëstablishment of order; through it the principles of Sun Yat-sen rule the political life of a population greater than that of the United States or of the Soviet Union.It is difficult to evaluate the importance of political doctrines. Even ifThe Three Principlesis judged by the extent of the population which its followers control, it has achieved greater results in practical politics in fifteen years than has Marxism in ninety. Such a criterion may well be disputed, but, whatever the test, it cannot be denied that the thought of Sun Yat-sen has played a major part in the political development of his native land. It may continue into the indefinitely remote future, or may succumb to the perils that surround its advocates; in any case, these doctrines have been taught long enough and broadly enough to make an impress on the age, and have been so significant in political and cultural history that they can never sink into complete obscurity.What are these doctrines? Sun Yat-sen was so voluminous a writer that it would be impossible for his followers to digest and codify all his writings into one neat and coherent handbook; he himself did not provide one. Before printing became common, there was a certain automatic process of condensation which preserved the important utterances of great men, and let their trivial sayings perish. Sun, however, must have realized that he was leaving a vast legacy of materials which are not altogether coherent or consistent with one another. Certain of his works were naturally more important than others, but, to make the choice definitive, he himself indicated four sources which his followers might draw upon for a definitive statement of his views.4[pg 004]HisPolitical Testamentcites theChien Kuo Fang Lo(The Program of National Reconstruction), theChien Kuo Ta Kang(The Outline of National Reconstruction), theSan Min Chu I(The Triple Demism, also translated asThe Three Principles of the People), and theManifestoissued by the first national congress of the Party.5These four items differ quite sharply from one another in form. No one of them can be relied upon to give the whole of Sun's doctrines.TheChien Kuo Fang Lo(The Program of National Reconstruction) is in reality three works, only remotely related to one another. The first item in the trilogy is theSun Wên Hsüeh Shê(The Philosophy of Sun Wên); it is a series of familiar essays on the Chinese way of thought.6The second is theMin Ch'üan Ts'u Pu,The Primer of Democracy, which is little more than a text on parliamentary law.7The third is theShih Yeh Chi Hua, known in English asThe International Development[pg 005]of China, which Sun wrote in both English and Chinese.8These three works, under the alternate titles of“The Program of Psychological Reconstruction,”“The Program of Social Reconstruction,”and“The Program of Material Reconstruction”formThe Program of National Reconstruction.TheChien Kuo Ta Kang, The Outline of National Reconstruction, is an outline of twenty-five points, giving the necessary steps towards the national reconstruction in their most concise form.9TheSan Min Chu Iis Sun's most important work. It comprises sixteen lectures setting forth his socio-political theories and his programs. The title most commonly used in Western versions isThe Three Principles of the People.10The last document mentioned in Sun Yat-sen's will was theManifestoof the first national congress of the Kuomintang. This was not written by himself, but was drafted by Wang Ch'ing-wei, one of his closest followers, and embodies essentially the same ideas as do the other three items, even though Borodin—the emissary of the Third International—had been consulted in its preparation.11Sun undoubtedly regretted leaving such a heterogeneous and ill-assembled group of works as his literary bequest.[pg 006]Throughout the latter years of his life he was studying political science in the hope that he might be able to complete a great treatise which he had projected, an analysis and statement of the programs of the Chinese nationalists. One attempt toward actualization of this work was frustrated when Sun's manuscripts and a great part of his library were burned in the attack launched against him by Ch'en Ch'iung-ming in 1922. His apology for the makeshift volume on theSan Min Chu Iis pathetic:“As I had neither time to prepare nor books to use as references, I could do nothing else in these lectures but improvise after I ascended the platform. Thus I have omitted and forgotten many things which were in my original manuscript. Although before having them printed, I revised them, added (passages) and eliminated (others), yet, those lectures are far from coming up to my original manuscripts, either in the subject matter itself, or in the concatenations of the discussion, or in the facts adduced as proofs.”12Sun was in all probability a more assiduous and widely read student of political science than any other world leader of his day except Wilson; he studied innumerable treatises on government, and was surprisingly familiar with the general background of Western politics, in theory and practice. He was aware of the shabby appearance that these undigested occasional pieces would present when put forth as the bible of a new China, and earnestly enjoined his followers to carry on his labors and bring them to fruition.13The various works included in theChien Kuo Fang Lo, while satisfactory for the purposes Sun had in mind when he wrote them, are not enough to outline the fundamentals both of political theory and a governmental plan. The familiar essays have an important bearing on the formation of the ideology of a new China; the primer[pg 007]of democracy, less; the industrial plan is one of those magnificent dreams which, in the turn of a decade, may inspire an equally great reality. The outline and the manifesto are no more suited to the rôle of classics; they are decalogues rather than bibles.14There remains theSan Min Chu I.TheSan Min Chu Iis a collection of sixteen lectures delivered in Canton in 1924. There were to have been eighteen, but Sun was unable to give the last two. Legend has it that Borodin persuaded Sun to give the series.15Whatever the cause of their being offered, they attracted immediate attention. Interest in Sun and in his ideas was at a fever heat; his friends turned to the printed lectures for guidance; his enemies, for statements which could be turned against him. Both friends and enemies found what they wanted. To the friends, theSan Min Chu Ipresented a fairly complete outline of Sun's political and social thought in such a form that it could be preserved and broadcast readily. There was danger, before the book appeared, that the intrinsic unity in Sun's thinking would be lost sight of by posterity, that his ideas would appear as a disconnected jumble of brilliant inspirations. The sixteen lectures incorporated a great part of the doctrines which he had been preaching for more than a generation. To the enemies of Sun, the work was welcome. They pointed out the numerous simplifications and inconsistencies, the frequent contradictions in matters of detail, the then outrageous denunciations of the economic and political system predominant in the Far East. They ridiculed Sun because he was Chinese, and because he was not Chinese enough, and backed up their criticisms with passages from the book.16[pg 008]When Sun gave the lectures, he was a sick man. He carried an ivory-headed sword cane with him on the platform; occasionally, holding it behind him and locking his arms through it, he would press it against his back to relieve the intolerable pain.17The business awaiting him after each lecture was vitally important; the revolution was proceeding by leaps and bounds. The lectures are the lectures of a sick man, given to a popular audience in the uproar of revolution, without adequate preparation, improvised in large part, and offered as one side of a crucial and bitterly disputed question. The secretaries who took down the lectures may not have succeeded in following them completely; Sun had no leisure to do more than skim through the book before releasing it to the press.These improvised lectures have had to serve as the fundamental document of Nationalist China. Sun Yat-sen died without writing the treatise he had planned. The materials he left behind were a challenge to scholars and to his followers. Many persons set to work interpreting them, each with a conscious or unconscious end in view. A German Marxian showed Sun to be a forerunner of bolshevism; an American liberal showed Sun to be a bulwark against bolshevism. A Chinese classicist demonstrated Sun's reverence for the past; a Jesuit father explained much by Sun's modern and Christian background. His works have been translated into Western[pg 009]languages without notes; the improvised lectures, torn from their context of a revolutionary crisis, have served poorly to explain the ideology of Sun Yat-sen, and his long range political, social, and economic plans.The Necessity of an Exposition.Followers of Sun who knew him personally, or were members of that circle in which his ideas and opinions were well known, have found theSan Min Chu Iand other literary remains helpful; they have been able to turn to the documents to refresh their memories of Sun on some particular point, or to experience the encouraging force of his faith and enthusiasm again. They need not be reminded of the main tenets of his thought, or of the fundamental values upon which he based his life and his political activities. His sense of leadership, which strangers have at times thought fantastic, is one which they admire in him, since they, too, have felt the power of his personality and have experienced that leadership in the course of their own lives. His voice is ringing in their consciences; they feel no need of a guide to his mind. At the present day many members of Sun's own family, and a considerable number of his veteran disciples are still living; the control of the National Government is in their hands. They are people who need no commentary on Sun Yat-sen; to them, he died only yesterday.Others, who met Sun only casually, or who could know him only through his writings, have a quite different impression of his thought. They perforce assume that he thought as he wrote, and fail to realize that virtually all his writings and speeches were occasional pieces, improvisations designed as propaganda. One of the most respected American authorities on China says that in theSan Min Chu I“... there is a combination of sound social analysis, keen comment on comparative political[pg 010]science, and bombast, journalistic inaccuracy, jejune philosophizing and sophomoric economics.”18This view is one which can scarcely be attacked, if one considers only the printed lectures, and overlooks the other utterances and the personality of Sun. To apply this, or any similar estimate (and there are many of them), to all of Sun Yat-sen's thought would be woefully inaccurate. It is not the critic's fault that Sun never found time to write a sober, definitive political treatise expressing his ideas; it is, nevertheless, the critic's responsibility to weigh the value of theSan Min Chu I, and consider the importance which Sun himself attached to it, before judging Sun's whole philosophy by a hastily-composed and poorly written book.Yet, if the Western student of modern Chinese history were to look elsewhere for some general exposition of Sun Yat-sen's political ideas, he would find none. He could discover several excellent translations of the sixteen lectures, and parts of the other work of Sun. He would be helped by the prefatory notes to some of these translations.19A few treatises would be available to him on special phases of Sun's thought: the influence of Maurice William, and the influence of the Russian Communists.20In addition, there would be the biographies, of which there are more than a dozen, and a few other useful although not general works. None of these sifts Sun's thought, seeking to separate the transitory from the permanent in his ideas. For this the searcher would have to rely on brief outlines of Sun's ideas, to be found in[pg 011]works dealing with modern China or the Chinese revolution.21This relative scarcity of exegetic material concerning the ideology and programs of Sun is not the result of any inadequacy on the part of those persons, both Chinese and Western, who have devoted thought and time to his life or to the translation of his works. It is one thing to point out a task that has yet to be done; and quite another, actually to perform it. An interpretation or exposition of Sun's thought, to be worthy of the great significance of the original, must be very thorough; but scarcely enough time has elapsed to allow a perspective of all the materials, let alone an orientation of Sun in the Far Eastern scene. Yet the importance of Sun demands that something be done to bring his thought to the attention of the world, so that the usual distortion of his personality—arising from the lack of commentaries—may be avoided in present day works. In a sense, the time is not ripe for a definitive treatment of Sun, either as a figure in history or as a contributor to the significant and enduring political thought of modern times; any work now done will, as time passes, fall grotesquely far short of adequacy. On the other hand, there is so much material of a perishable nature—anecdotes and legends not yet committed to print, and the memories of living men—now available, that a present-day work on Sun may gain[pg 012]in color and intimacy what it loses in judgment and objectivity, may gain in proximity what it has to forgo in detachment. And, lastly, the complete absence of any systematic presentation of Sun's ideas in any Western language is so great a deficiency in the fields of Far Eastern history and world political thought, that even a relatively inadequate exposition of the thought of Sun Yat-sen may prove to be not without value. Sun himself never explained his philosophy, whether theoretical or applied, in any broad, systematic fashion; nor has anyone else done so.If the permissibility of an exposition of Sun Yat-sen's thought be conceded, there still remains the vexing problem of a choice of method. While the far-flung peripheries of Sun's thought touch almost every field of knowledge and opinion, a systematic condensation of his views cannot hope to survey the same broad ranges. The problem of proportion, of just emphasis, involves the nice appraisal of the degree of importance which each of Sun's minor rôles had in his intellectual career as a whole. Nor do the difficulties concerning method end with the consideration of proportion; they merely begin, for there remains the far more important and perplexing problem of a technique of interpretation.Interpretation obviously relates to the problem of language. The translation of theoretical terms from Chinese into English constitutes a formidable difficulty which proves, in several instances, to be insuperable. No satisfactory equivalent formin shêng(usually rendered“livelihood”) can be found in English; even simpler and less specialized terms are extremely difficult to render. Sometimes it would be convenient to employ four or five alternative translations for one Chinese term. Sun uses the word“nationalism”in the sense that a Westerner would, in advocating national consciousness in a China hitherto unfamiliar with the conception of nation-states; but, in[pg 013]a different context, he uses it in the sense of“patriotism.”22These difficulties must be faced and, somehow or other, overcome. When the Western reader encounters a familiar term in an unexpected place, he must be prepared to meet a shift of meaning. No amount of definition can make a Chinese term, which has no exact Western equivalent, completely clear. It is simpler to grow accustomed to the term, to gather together its connotations, to understand something of the frame of reference wherein it is set, and thereby to learn it as a child learns a word. A dictionary is no help to a baby; in a realm of unfamiliar ideas even scholars must learn terms step by step.Less obviously than language, the translation of ideas and of values is also involved in interpretation. In dealing with the intellectual content of a civilization as alien as that of China, the Westerner must be wary of the easy analogy. The full, forceful application of Western ideas and values in a world to which they are completely irrelevant produced strange results during the nineteenth century. Western notions of goodness and reasonableness did not fit the Chinese scheme of things. Under such a test a wildly distorted image of China was obtained. China seemed peculiar, topsy-turvy, fantastic. To themselves the Chinese still seemed quite matter-of-fact, and the Westerners thought even this odd and ridiculous: not only was China upside-down, but the Chinese did not know it! In any case, the present-day scholar, to whom so much material concerning the Chinese is available and China so near, has little justification for applying Western tests of virtue and rationality to things Chinese.If the application of Western values to China is avoided, there is still the danger that the Chinese scheme of things may not be interpreted at all. The literal translation[pg 014]of Chinese terms strips them of their contexts. The result may be unintelligibility. The Chinese termjênis frequently rendered“benevolence,”a Western word which, while at times an approximate equivalent, fails to carry the full burden of meaning. Sun speaks of an interpretation of history antagonistic to dialectical materialism—the interpretation of history byjên. A“benevolent”interpretation of history means nothing whatever to a Westerner. Ifjênis translated into a different configuration of words, and given as“group-consciousness”or“social fellow-feeling,”the result, while still not an exact equivalent of the Chinese, is distinctly more intelligible.To effect this translation of ideas and values, several methods are available. The issue cannot be dodged by a denial of its existence; the mere act of explanation involves some process, whether deliberate or unconscious, of translation and transvaluation. If the interpreter refuses to deal with the problem consciously, he will nevertheless be guided by his unrevealed assumptions. To give an accounting for what he has done, he must, first, admit that he is interpreting, and second, seek to make plain what he is doing, so that his readers may allow for the process. The demonstration of the consequences of interpretation minimizes their possible adverse effects. The simplest way to allow for the alterations (beyond mere reproduction) arising from interpretation would be to adopt a technique so widely known that others could, in their own minds, try to re-trace the steps of the process and negate the changes. Among such widely known techniques are the Marxian and the sociological.Both these scarcely seem adapted to the problems presented by an interpretation of Sun Yat-sen. The Marxian terminology is so peculiarly suited to the ulterior purposes the Marxians keep in mind, and is so esoteric when applied to matters not related to the general fields in which the Marxians are interested, that it could scarcely[pg 015]be applied in the present instance. A non-Marxian would find it a hazardous task. The interpreter of Sun Yat-sen must interpretintosomething; what, depends on the audience. Dialectical materialism, in the abstract excellent as a technique, would scarcely make Sun understandable to most Americans of the present day. Sun himself rejected the Marxian method of interpretation; an American audience would also reject it; these two factors outweigh all the conceivable advantages.The sociological technique of interpretation is quite another question. The various methods of analysis developed by each of the schools of sociologists are still the objects rather than the tools of study. Such men as Max Weber and Vilfredo Pareto have made contributions to Western social thought which enrich the scope and method of the social studies. Their methods of analysis are not weighted down by a body of extraneous considerations, as is the Marxian, and they promise an objectivity not otherwise attainable. On the other hand, they are still at that stage of development where the technique obtrudes itself; it has not, as has the inductive method in general, become so much taken for granted as to be invisible.The sociological approach need not, however, be carried to the full extent thought necessary by its advocates. In the study of law, the consideration of extra-juridical materials is called sociological in contrast to the strictly juristic. If the legal scholar goes beyond the strict framework of the law, and considers other elements in man's behavior and knowledge while dealing with legal problems, he is apt to be called a sociological jurist. In doing so he is not committed, however, to belief in or use of any particular form of what is known as the science of society or sociology. He may adopt almost any sort of social outlook, or may be committed to any one of many doctrines of social value and to any one of widely varying methods of social study.[pg 016]This negative, broad sense of the sociological, when applied to the study of politics, has commonly meant that the scholars employing it began with the notion of the political, but, finding it too narrow, touched upon related fields. An interpretation of Sun Yat-sen's politics might be based on this method. It would still be a political work, in that it sought to associate his ideas with the ideas concerning government to be found in the West, but would be free, nevertheless, to touch upon non-political materials relevant to Sun's politics. The Chinese have had notions of authority and control radically different from those developed in the West; a purely juristic interpretation of the various Chinese politics would simply scrape the lacquer off the screen.The Chinese have not had the sharp distinction of disciplines which runs through all Western learning. Since one of the most conspicuous ingredients in their thought—conspicuous, that is, to Westerners looking in from outside—has been the ethical, many Westerners have dismissed Chinese historical, political and more strictly philosophical thought as being loosely and amiably ethical but never getting anywhere. The Chinese did not departmentalize their learning to any considerable degree. Politics was not the special activity of a definite group of men, or the study of a select body of scholars. Politics ran through and across most of the activities in society, and was largely the interest of that intellectual élite by which China has been so distinguished on the roster of civilizations. In becoming everything, politics ceased being politics; that is, those elements in man's thought and behavior which Westerners have termed political were not separated and labelled. The Westerner must say that politics was everything in China, or that it was nothing.An interpretation of Sun Yat-sen must keep in mind these differences between Chinese and Western categories. In doing so it will pass beyond the limits of what is commonly[pg 017]known as politics, since no sharp boundaries of“politics”are to be found in China. Yet, as an interpretation designed to serve Western readers, it must return again and again to Western politics, making comparisons when they are justified, pointing out differences between China and the West as they become relevant and clear. The interpretation will thus weave back and forth between conventional Western political science, with its state-mindedness, and the wholly different material of traditions and customs out of which Sun sought to construct an ideology and a system of working politics for China in the modern world.How can this interpretation seek to avoid the misfortunes and errors into which so many similar attempts have fallen? It must proceed without the aid of such specialized techniques as dialectical-materialistic or Paretian analysis, and yet aim at the scientific, the rationally defensible, the objective. In seeking to apply a method in the interpretation of Sun Yat-sen, the work must face criticism of its method, must make the method explicit and simple enough to allow criticism. If the thought of Sun really is to emerge from the exposition, the exposition must allow itself to be judged, so that it can be appraised, and so that, one way or another, it may not interfere with the just evaluation of the materials which it seeks to present. Sun Yat-sen should not be judged poor because of a poor interpretation; nor, on the other hand, should his thought be adjudged more excellent or more exact than it seems to the Chinese, merely because the expositor has suggested an interpretation possibly more precise.The technique adopted in the present work is a relatively simple one. It is an attempt to startde novowith certain concepts of society and government. Several simple although novel terms are introduced, to provide a foundation upon which the procedure may rest. One of[pg 018]these, for instance, is“ideology,”which in the present work refers to the whole psychological conditioning of a group of persons.23No attempt is made, at the beginning or at any later phase of the exposition, to distinguish between the ideology as belief and the ideology as truth. Whether the Chinese were and are right, or the Westerners, are questions, not for the student of comparative political science, but for the philosopher and the psychologist. The interpretation seeks, as far as possible, to transpose certain parts of the traditional Chinese ideology, as they were, and as Sun Yat-sen re-shaped them, into one frame of reference provided by the ideology of twentieth-century America. What the“real truth”is, does not matter; the Marxians would say that both ideologies were inexact; so might the Roman Catholics. If the[pg 019]ideology of old China, and the ideology that Sun wished to see developed in the minds of the Chinese people of the future, can be made comprehensible in terms of contemporary American beliefs, of fact or of value, this venture will have been successful.The Chinese ideology cannot be explained in its own terms; these exist only in the Chinese language. If Sun Yat-sen's own arrangement of his works is inadequate for the Chinese, rearrangement is a task for the Chinese and not for the Western scholars to perform. The Westerners who deal with Sun can contribute substantially only if they give what the Chinese cannot—enough of a reference to their own ideology to permit a broader scale for the analysis and the appreciation of Sun's thought. Their knowledge of their own world of ideas is the special tool which justifies their intervention in this Chinese field of knowledge.In avoiding the unjustifiable imposition of Western ideas and values upon the Chinese, and yet orienting Sun's thought with respect to the West, the interpretation will have to resort to several fairly evident means. In the first place, it will have to transpose Chinese ideas into the Western ideology, and yet avoid distortions of meaning. This can be partly done by the use of neutral terms, of terms which are simple and clear enough to reproduce the Chinese, and nevertheless not so heavily burdened with connotations that they will cause a reading-in of Western ideas not relevant to the point in question. More simply, the Chinese ideas must be represented by terms which approximate the same set of values in the West that their originals have in China. This will sometimes require the use of unfamiliar periphrases: the words“music”and“rites”may be given as“the rhythm of life”and“conformity to the ideology.”Secondly, the Chinese ideology need not be given as a whole; it is improbable that it could, without a terrific expansion[pg 020]of the Western ideology to accommodate it; but enough of the Chinese ideology must be given to explain the significant differences between the Chinese system of controlling the behavior of men, and the Western. This latter involves the choice of material, and is therefore by its nature challengeable.Again, in demonstrating significant differences instead of merely seeking analogous (and probably misleading) examples, the interpretation might turn to certain aspects of Chinese philosophy which appear as strikingly illustrative of the point of view of the Chinese. Confucius the political thinker is only a small part of Confucius the man and the philosopher; Chinese political thought, although a vast field, is only a small part of the social thought of the Chinese. Only an infinitesimal part of this comparatively minor area of Chinese study will suffice to make clear some, at least, of the sharp differences of outlook between China and the West.A recapitulation of this declaration of technique may be found helpful, for an understanding of Sun Yat-sen by Westerners is necessary because of the vastly different background of his thought. Even apart from the strangeness of his thought to the West, it is scattered in the original, and must be pieced together. An exposition of his ideas which would, at one and the same time, present a systematic outline of his ideas, and transpose them into a frame of reference where Western scholars might grasp them, might be a labor meriting performance. His terms would have to be rendered by neutral words (not overladen with particular Western contexts) or by neologisms, or simply left in the original, to develop meaning as a configuration of related ideas is built up about them. The problem of interpretation cannot, however, be solved by settling the difficulty of language: there still remains the question of a technique which can pretend to the scientific, the exact, the rationally defensible. Despite their great[pg 021]merits, the Marxian and Paretian techniques are not suited to the present task. The point of view and means of study of political science may be kept, if a few necessary borrowings from sociological thought (not necessarily sociology) are introduced. Such borrowing includes the use of notions such as non-political society, patterns of authority, and ideology, none of which are to be found in the more law-minded part of political science. By seeking to point out the Chinese, then the Western, ideas involved, without confusing the two, the presentation may succeed in transposing the ideology of Sun Yat-sen, as well as his beliefs concerning working politics, into the English language and into an explanatory but not distorting background. To do this, a small sampling of certain aspects of old Chinese social thought and behavior will be a required preliminary.[pg 022]

Foreword.The importance of introducing Western political thought to the Far East has long been emphasized in the West. The Chinese conception of a rational world order was manifestly incompatible with the Western system of independent sovereign states and the Chinese code of political ethics was difficult to reconcile with the Western preference for a reign of law. No argument has been necessary to persuade Westerners that Chinese political philosophy would be improved by the influence of Western political science.The superior qualifications of Sun Yat-sen for the interpretation of Western political science to the Chinese have also been widely recognized in the West, particularly in the United States. Dr. Sun received a modern education in medicine and surgery and presumably grasped the spirit of Western science. He read widely, more widely perhaps than any contemporary political leader of the first rank except Woodrow Wilson, in the literature of Western political science. He was thoroughly familiar with the development of American political thought and full of sympathy for American political ideals. His aspiration to build a modern democratic republic amidst the ruins of the medieval Manchu Empire, Americans at least can readily understand.What is only beginning to be understood, however, in the West is, that it is equally important to interpret Chinese political philosophy to the rest of the world. Western political science has contributed a great deal to the development of political power. But it has failed lamentably to illuminate the ends for which such power should be used. Political ethics is by no means superfluous in lands where a government of law is supposed to be established in lieu of a government of men. The limitation[pg vi]of the authority of sovereign states in the interest of a better world order is an enterprise to which at last, it may be hoped not too late, Westerners are beginning to dedicate themselves.As an interpreter of Chinese political philosophy to the West Dr. Sun has no peer. Better than any other Chinese revolutionary leader he appreciated the durable values in the classical political philosophy of the Far East. He understood the necessity for preserving those values, while introducing the Western political ideas deemed most proper for adapting the Chinese political system to its new place in the modern world. His system of political thought, therefore, forms a blend of Far Eastern political philosophy and Western political science. It suggests at the same time both what is suitable in Western political science for the use of the Far East and what is desirable in Far Eastern political philosophy for the improvement of the West.Dr. Linebarger has analyzed Dr. Sun's political ideas, and also his plans for the political rehabilitation of China, with a view to the interests of Western students of politics. For this task his training and experience have given him exceptional competence. The result is a book, which not only renders obsolete all previous volumes in Western languages on modern Chinese political philosophy, but also makes available for the political scientists and politicians of the West the best political thought of the Far East on the fundamental problems of Western politics.Arthur N. HolcombeHarvard University

The importance of introducing Western political thought to the Far East has long been emphasized in the West. The Chinese conception of a rational world order was manifestly incompatible with the Western system of independent sovereign states and the Chinese code of political ethics was difficult to reconcile with the Western preference for a reign of law. No argument has been necessary to persuade Westerners that Chinese political philosophy would be improved by the influence of Western political science.

The superior qualifications of Sun Yat-sen for the interpretation of Western political science to the Chinese have also been widely recognized in the West, particularly in the United States. Dr. Sun received a modern education in medicine and surgery and presumably grasped the spirit of Western science. He read widely, more widely perhaps than any contemporary political leader of the first rank except Woodrow Wilson, in the literature of Western political science. He was thoroughly familiar with the development of American political thought and full of sympathy for American political ideals. His aspiration to build a modern democratic republic amidst the ruins of the medieval Manchu Empire, Americans at least can readily understand.

What is only beginning to be understood, however, in the West is, that it is equally important to interpret Chinese political philosophy to the rest of the world. Western political science has contributed a great deal to the development of political power. But it has failed lamentably to illuminate the ends for which such power should be used. Political ethics is by no means superfluous in lands where a government of law is supposed to be established in lieu of a government of men. The limitation[pg vi]of the authority of sovereign states in the interest of a better world order is an enterprise to which at last, it may be hoped not too late, Westerners are beginning to dedicate themselves.

As an interpreter of Chinese political philosophy to the West Dr. Sun has no peer. Better than any other Chinese revolutionary leader he appreciated the durable values in the classical political philosophy of the Far East. He understood the necessity for preserving those values, while introducing the Western political ideas deemed most proper for adapting the Chinese political system to its new place in the modern world. His system of political thought, therefore, forms a blend of Far Eastern political philosophy and Western political science. It suggests at the same time both what is suitable in Western political science for the use of the Far East and what is desirable in Far Eastern political philosophy for the improvement of the West.

Dr. Linebarger has analyzed Dr. Sun's political ideas, and also his plans for the political rehabilitation of China, with a view to the interests of Western students of politics. For this task his training and experience have given him exceptional competence. The result is a book, which not only renders obsolete all previous volumes in Western languages on modern Chinese political philosophy, but also makes available for the political scientists and politicians of the West the best political thought of the Far East on the fundamental problems of Western politics.

Arthur N. HolcombeHarvard University

Arthur N. Holcombe

Harvard University

Preface.This book represents an exploration into a field of political thought which is still more or less unknown. The Chinese revolution has received much attention from publicists and historians, and a vast number of works dealing with almost every phase of Chinese life and events appears every year in the West. The extraordinary difficulty of the language, the obscurity—to Westerners—of the Chinese cultural background, and the greater vividness of events as compared with theories have led Western scholars to devote their attention, for the most part, to descriptions of Chinese politics rather than to venture into the more difficult field of Chinese political thought, without which, however, the political events are scarcely intelligible.The author has sought to examine one small part of modern Chinese political thought, partly as a sample of the whole body of thought, and partly because the selection, although small, is an important one. Sun Yat-sen is by far the most conspicuous figure in recent Chinese history, and his doctrines, irrespective of the effectiveness or permanence of the consequences of their propagation, have a certain distinct position in history. TheSan Min Chu I, his chief work, not only represents an important phase in the revolution of Chinese social and political thought, but solely and simply as doctrine, may be regarded as a Chinese expression of tendencies of political thought current in the Western world.The personal motives, arising out of an early and rather intimate family relationship with the Chinese nationalist movement centering around the person of Sun Yat-sen, that led the author to undertake this subject, have their advantages and disadvantages. The chief disadvantage lies in the fact that the thesis must of necessity[pg viii]treat of many matters which are the objects of hot controversy, and that the author, friendly to the movement as a whole but neutral as between its factions, may seem at times to deal unjustly or over-generously with certain persons and groups. The younger widow of Sun Yat-sen (née Soong Ching-ling) may regard the mention of her husband and the Nanking government in the same breath as an act of treachery. Devoted to the memory of her husband, she has turned, nevertheless, to the Left, and works on cordial terms with the Communists. She said:“... the Nanking Government has crushed every open liberal, democratic, or humanitarian movement in our country. It has destroyed all trade unions, smashed every strike of the workers for the right to existence, has thrown hordes of criminal gangsters who are simultaneously Fascist‘Blue Shirts’against every labor, cultural, or national revolutionary movement in the country.”1The author, from what he himself has seen of the National Government, is positive that it is not merely dictatorial, ruthless, cruel, treacherous, or historically unnecessary; nor would he, contrarily, assert that the National Government lives up to or surpasses the brilliant ideals of Sun Yat-sen. He seeks to deal charitably with all factions, to follow a middle course whenever he can, and in any case to state fairly the positions of both sides.The advantages may serve to offset the disadvantages. In the first place, the author's acquaintance with the Nationalist movement has given him something of a background from which to present his exposition. This background cannot, of course, be documented, but it may serve to make the presentation more assured and more vivid. In the second place, the author has had access to certain[pg ix]private manuscripts and papers, and has had the benefit of his father's counsel on several points in this work.2The author believes that on the basis of this material and background he is justified in venturing into this comparatively unknown field.The primary sources for this work have been Sun Yat-sen's own works. A considerable number of these were written originally in the English language. Translations of his major Chinese works are more or less fully available in English, German, French, or Spanish. The author's highly inadequate knowledge of the Chinese written language has led him to depend almost altogether upon translations, but he has sought—in some cases, perhaps, unsuccessfully—to minimize the possibility of misunderstanding or error by checking the translations against one another. Through the assistance of his Chinese friends,[pg x]he has been able to refer to Sun's complete works in Chinese and to Chinese books on Sun wherever such reference was imperatively necessary. A list of the Chinese titles thus made available is included in the bibliography. The language difficulty, while an annoyance and a handicap, has not been so considerable as to give the author reason to suppose that his conclusions would have been different in any significant respect had he been able to make free and continuous use of Chinese and Russian sources.The author has thought of the present work as a contribution to political theory rather than to sinology, and has tried to keep the discussion of sinological questions at a minimum. In the transliteration of Chinese words and names he has adhered more or less closely to the Wade system, and has rendered most terms in thekuo yü, or national language. Despite this rule, he gives the name of President Sun in its more commonly known Cantonese form, Sun Yat-sen, rather than in thekuo yü, Sun I-hsien.In acknowledging assistance and encouragement received, the author must first of all turn to his father, Judge Paul Myron Wentworth Linebarger, Legal Advisor to The National Government of China, counsellor to and biographer of Sun Yat-sen during the latter's lifetime. Without his patient encouragement and his concrete assistance, this book could neither have been begun nor brought to a conclusion after it was started. The author desires, however, to make it perfectly clear that this work has no relation to the connections of Judge Linebarger with the Chinese Government or with the Nationalist Party. No[pg xi]information coming to the knowledge of Judge Linebarger in the course of his official duties has been here incorporated. Anxiously scrupulous to maintain a completely detached point of view, the author has refrained from communicating with or submitting the book to Chinese Government or Party officials, and writes purely as an American student of China.Professor James Hart, formerly at The Johns Hopkins University and now at The University of Virginia, Professor Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Johns Hopkins University, Professor Harley Farnsworth MacNair and Dr. Ernest Price, both of The University of Chicago, have rendered inestimable assistance by reading the manuscript and giving the author the benefit of their advice. Professor Hart has criticized the work as an enterprise in political science. Professor Lovejoy assisted the author by reading the first third of the work, and selections of the later parts, and applying his thorough and stimulating criticism; the author regrets that he was unable to adopt all of Professor Lovejoy's suggestions in full, and is deeply grateful for the help. Professor MacNair read the book as a referee for a dissertation, and made a great number of comments which have made the book clearer and more accurate; the author would not have ventured to present this work to the public had it not been for the reassurances and encouragement given him by Professor MacNair. Dr. Ernest Price, while at The Hopkins, supervised the composition of the first drafts; his judicious and balanced criticism, based upon sixteen years' intimacy with the public and private life of the Chinese, and a sensitive appreciation of Chinese values, were of great value to the author in establishing his perspective and lines of study. The author takes this opportunity to thank these four gentlemen for their great kindness and invaluable assistance.It is with deep regret that the author abbreviates his acknowledgments and thanks for the inspiration and the[pg xii]favors he received in his study of Chinese politics from Dr. C. Walter Young; Professor Frederic Ogg, of The University of Wisconsin; Professors Kenneth Colegrove, William McGovern, and Ikuo Oyama, of The Northwestern University; Dr. Arthur Hummel, of The Library of Congress; Professor Frederick Dunn, of Yale University; Professor Arthur Holcombe, of Harvard University; Professor Quincy Wright, of The University of Chicago; and Dr. Wallace McClure, of The Department of State. Many of the author's Chinese friends assisted by reading the manuscript and criticizing it from their more intimate knowledge of their own country, among them being Messrs. Miao Chung-yi and Djang Chu, at The Johns Hopkins University; Professor Jên T'ai, of Nankai University; and Messrs. Wang Kung-shou, Ch'ing Ju-chi, and Lin Mou-sheng, of The University of Chicago, made many helpful suggestions. The author must thank his teachers at The Johns Hopkins University, to whom he is indebted for three years of the most patient assistance and stimulating instruction, in respect of both the present work and other fields in the study of government: Dr. Johannes Mattern; Dr. Albert Weinberg; Mr. Leon Sachs; and Professor W. W. Willoughby. Finally, he must acknowledge his indebtedness to his wife, Margaret Snow Linebarger, for her patient assistance in preparing this volume for the press.Paul M. A. Linebarger.December, 1936.

This book represents an exploration into a field of political thought which is still more or less unknown. The Chinese revolution has received much attention from publicists and historians, and a vast number of works dealing with almost every phase of Chinese life and events appears every year in the West. The extraordinary difficulty of the language, the obscurity—to Westerners—of the Chinese cultural background, and the greater vividness of events as compared with theories have led Western scholars to devote their attention, for the most part, to descriptions of Chinese politics rather than to venture into the more difficult field of Chinese political thought, without which, however, the political events are scarcely intelligible.

The author has sought to examine one small part of modern Chinese political thought, partly as a sample of the whole body of thought, and partly because the selection, although small, is an important one. Sun Yat-sen is by far the most conspicuous figure in recent Chinese history, and his doctrines, irrespective of the effectiveness or permanence of the consequences of their propagation, have a certain distinct position in history. TheSan Min Chu I, his chief work, not only represents an important phase in the revolution of Chinese social and political thought, but solely and simply as doctrine, may be regarded as a Chinese expression of tendencies of political thought current in the Western world.

The personal motives, arising out of an early and rather intimate family relationship with the Chinese nationalist movement centering around the person of Sun Yat-sen, that led the author to undertake this subject, have their advantages and disadvantages. The chief disadvantage lies in the fact that the thesis must of necessity[pg viii]treat of many matters which are the objects of hot controversy, and that the author, friendly to the movement as a whole but neutral as between its factions, may seem at times to deal unjustly or over-generously with certain persons and groups. The younger widow of Sun Yat-sen (née Soong Ching-ling) may regard the mention of her husband and the Nanking government in the same breath as an act of treachery. Devoted to the memory of her husband, she has turned, nevertheless, to the Left, and works on cordial terms with the Communists. She said:“... the Nanking Government has crushed every open liberal, democratic, or humanitarian movement in our country. It has destroyed all trade unions, smashed every strike of the workers for the right to existence, has thrown hordes of criminal gangsters who are simultaneously Fascist‘Blue Shirts’against every labor, cultural, or national revolutionary movement in the country.”1The author, from what he himself has seen of the National Government, is positive that it is not merely dictatorial, ruthless, cruel, treacherous, or historically unnecessary; nor would he, contrarily, assert that the National Government lives up to or surpasses the brilliant ideals of Sun Yat-sen. He seeks to deal charitably with all factions, to follow a middle course whenever he can, and in any case to state fairly the positions of both sides.

The advantages may serve to offset the disadvantages. In the first place, the author's acquaintance with the Nationalist movement has given him something of a background from which to present his exposition. This background cannot, of course, be documented, but it may serve to make the presentation more assured and more vivid. In the second place, the author has had access to certain[pg ix]private manuscripts and papers, and has had the benefit of his father's counsel on several points in this work.2The author believes that on the basis of this material and background he is justified in venturing into this comparatively unknown field.

The primary sources for this work have been Sun Yat-sen's own works. A considerable number of these were written originally in the English language. Translations of his major Chinese works are more or less fully available in English, German, French, or Spanish. The author's highly inadequate knowledge of the Chinese written language has led him to depend almost altogether upon translations, but he has sought—in some cases, perhaps, unsuccessfully—to minimize the possibility of misunderstanding or error by checking the translations against one another. Through the assistance of his Chinese friends,[pg x]he has been able to refer to Sun's complete works in Chinese and to Chinese books on Sun wherever such reference was imperatively necessary. A list of the Chinese titles thus made available is included in the bibliography. The language difficulty, while an annoyance and a handicap, has not been so considerable as to give the author reason to suppose that his conclusions would have been different in any significant respect had he been able to make free and continuous use of Chinese and Russian sources.

The author has thought of the present work as a contribution to political theory rather than to sinology, and has tried to keep the discussion of sinological questions at a minimum. In the transliteration of Chinese words and names he has adhered more or less closely to the Wade system, and has rendered most terms in thekuo yü, or national language. Despite this rule, he gives the name of President Sun in its more commonly known Cantonese form, Sun Yat-sen, rather than in thekuo yü, Sun I-hsien.

In acknowledging assistance and encouragement received, the author must first of all turn to his father, Judge Paul Myron Wentworth Linebarger, Legal Advisor to The National Government of China, counsellor to and biographer of Sun Yat-sen during the latter's lifetime. Without his patient encouragement and his concrete assistance, this book could neither have been begun nor brought to a conclusion after it was started. The author desires, however, to make it perfectly clear that this work has no relation to the connections of Judge Linebarger with the Chinese Government or with the Nationalist Party. No[pg xi]information coming to the knowledge of Judge Linebarger in the course of his official duties has been here incorporated. Anxiously scrupulous to maintain a completely detached point of view, the author has refrained from communicating with or submitting the book to Chinese Government or Party officials, and writes purely as an American student of China.

Professor James Hart, formerly at The Johns Hopkins University and now at The University of Virginia, Professor Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Johns Hopkins University, Professor Harley Farnsworth MacNair and Dr. Ernest Price, both of The University of Chicago, have rendered inestimable assistance by reading the manuscript and giving the author the benefit of their advice. Professor Hart has criticized the work as an enterprise in political science. Professor Lovejoy assisted the author by reading the first third of the work, and selections of the later parts, and applying his thorough and stimulating criticism; the author regrets that he was unable to adopt all of Professor Lovejoy's suggestions in full, and is deeply grateful for the help. Professor MacNair read the book as a referee for a dissertation, and made a great number of comments which have made the book clearer and more accurate; the author would not have ventured to present this work to the public had it not been for the reassurances and encouragement given him by Professor MacNair. Dr. Ernest Price, while at The Hopkins, supervised the composition of the first drafts; his judicious and balanced criticism, based upon sixteen years' intimacy with the public and private life of the Chinese, and a sensitive appreciation of Chinese values, were of great value to the author in establishing his perspective and lines of study. The author takes this opportunity to thank these four gentlemen for their great kindness and invaluable assistance.

It is with deep regret that the author abbreviates his acknowledgments and thanks for the inspiration and the[pg xii]favors he received in his study of Chinese politics from Dr. C. Walter Young; Professor Frederic Ogg, of The University of Wisconsin; Professors Kenneth Colegrove, William McGovern, and Ikuo Oyama, of The Northwestern University; Dr. Arthur Hummel, of The Library of Congress; Professor Frederick Dunn, of Yale University; Professor Arthur Holcombe, of Harvard University; Professor Quincy Wright, of The University of Chicago; and Dr. Wallace McClure, of The Department of State. Many of the author's Chinese friends assisted by reading the manuscript and criticizing it from their more intimate knowledge of their own country, among them being Messrs. Miao Chung-yi and Djang Chu, at The Johns Hopkins University; Professor Jên T'ai, of Nankai University; and Messrs. Wang Kung-shou, Ch'ing Ju-chi, and Lin Mou-sheng, of The University of Chicago, made many helpful suggestions. The author must thank his teachers at The Johns Hopkins University, to whom he is indebted for three years of the most patient assistance and stimulating instruction, in respect of both the present work and other fields in the study of government: Dr. Johannes Mattern; Dr. Albert Weinberg; Mr. Leon Sachs; and Professor W. W. Willoughby. Finally, he must acknowledge his indebtedness to his wife, Margaret Snow Linebarger, for her patient assistance in preparing this volume for the press.

Paul M. A. Linebarger.

December, 1936.

Introduction.The Problem of theSan Min Chu I.The Materials.Sun Yat-sen played many rôles in the history of his times. He was one of those dramatic and somewhat formidable figures who engage the world's attention at the very outset of their careers. In the late years of the nineteenth century, he was already winning some renown in the West; it was picturesque that a Cantonese, a Christian physician, should engage in desperate conspiracies against the Manchu throne. Sun became known as a political adventurer, a forerunner, as it were, of such mutually dissimilar personages as Trotsky, Lawrence, and Major-General Doihara. With the illusory success of the revolution of 1911, and his Presidency of the first Republic, Sun ceased being a conspirator in the eyes of the world's press, and became the George Washington of China. It is in this rôle that he is most commonly known, and his name most generally recalled. After the world war, in the atmosphere of extreme tension developed, perhaps, by the Bolshevik revolution, Sun was regarded as an enigmatic leader, especially significant in the struggle between Asiatic nationalisms allied with the Soviets against the traditional capitalist state-system. It was through him that the Red anti-imperialist policy was pushed to its greatest success, and he was hated and admired, ridiculed and feared, down to the last moments of his life. When he died, American reporters in Latvia cabled New York their reports of Russian comments on the event.3More, perhaps, than any other Chinese of modern times, Sun symbolized the entrance of China into[pg 002]world affairs, and the inevitable confluence of Western and Far Eastern history.It is characteristic of Sun that he should have appeared in another and final rôle after his death. He had been thought of as conspirator, statesman, and mass leader; but with the advent of his party to power it became publicly apparent that he had also been a political philosopher. The tremendous prestige enjoyed by him as state-founder and party leader was enhanced by his importance as prophet and law-giver. His doctrines became the state philosophy of China, and for a while his most zealous followers sought to have him canonized in a quite literal fashion, and at one stroke to make him replace Confucius and the Sons of Heaven. After the extreme enthusiasms of the Sun Yat-sen cult subsided, Sun remained the great national hero-sage of modern China. Even in those territories where the authority of his political heirs was not completely effective, his flag was flown and his doctrines taught.His doctrines have provided the theories upon which the Nationalist revolution was based; they form the extra-juridical constitution of the National Government of China. When the forces hostile to Sun Yat-sen and his followers are considered, it is amazing that his ideas and ideals should have survived. An empire established with the aid of Japanese arms, and still under Japanese hegemony, controls Manchuria; parts of north China are ruled by a bastard government, born of a compromise between enemies; a largely unrecognized but powerful Soviet Republic exists in outer Mongolia; the lamaist oligarchy goes on in Tibet; and somewhere, in central and western China, a Soviet group, not quite a government but more than a conspiracy, is fighting for existence. It is quite probable that nowhere else in the world can there be found a greater variety of principles, each scheme of principles fostered by an armed organization struggling with its[pg 003]rivals. In this chaos the National Government has made the most effective bid for authority and the greatest effort for the reëstablishment of order; through it the principles of Sun Yat-sen rule the political life of a population greater than that of the United States or of the Soviet Union.It is difficult to evaluate the importance of political doctrines. Even ifThe Three Principlesis judged by the extent of the population which its followers control, it has achieved greater results in practical politics in fifteen years than has Marxism in ninety. Such a criterion may well be disputed, but, whatever the test, it cannot be denied that the thought of Sun Yat-sen has played a major part in the political development of his native land. It may continue into the indefinitely remote future, or may succumb to the perils that surround its advocates; in any case, these doctrines have been taught long enough and broadly enough to make an impress on the age, and have been so significant in political and cultural history that they can never sink into complete obscurity.What are these doctrines? Sun Yat-sen was so voluminous a writer that it would be impossible for his followers to digest and codify all his writings into one neat and coherent handbook; he himself did not provide one. Before printing became common, there was a certain automatic process of condensation which preserved the important utterances of great men, and let their trivial sayings perish. Sun, however, must have realized that he was leaving a vast legacy of materials which are not altogether coherent or consistent with one another. Certain of his works were naturally more important than others, but, to make the choice definitive, he himself indicated four sources which his followers might draw upon for a definitive statement of his views.4[pg 004]HisPolitical Testamentcites theChien Kuo Fang Lo(The Program of National Reconstruction), theChien Kuo Ta Kang(The Outline of National Reconstruction), theSan Min Chu I(The Triple Demism, also translated asThe Three Principles of the People), and theManifestoissued by the first national congress of the Party.5These four items differ quite sharply from one another in form. No one of them can be relied upon to give the whole of Sun's doctrines.TheChien Kuo Fang Lo(The Program of National Reconstruction) is in reality three works, only remotely related to one another. The first item in the trilogy is theSun Wên Hsüeh Shê(The Philosophy of Sun Wên); it is a series of familiar essays on the Chinese way of thought.6The second is theMin Ch'üan Ts'u Pu,The Primer of Democracy, which is little more than a text on parliamentary law.7The third is theShih Yeh Chi Hua, known in English asThe International Development[pg 005]of China, which Sun wrote in both English and Chinese.8These three works, under the alternate titles of“The Program of Psychological Reconstruction,”“The Program of Social Reconstruction,”and“The Program of Material Reconstruction”formThe Program of National Reconstruction.TheChien Kuo Ta Kang, The Outline of National Reconstruction, is an outline of twenty-five points, giving the necessary steps towards the national reconstruction in their most concise form.9TheSan Min Chu Iis Sun's most important work. It comprises sixteen lectures setting forth his socio-political theories and his programs. The title most commonly used in Western versions isThe Three Principles of the People.10The last document mentioned in Sun Yat-sen's will was theManifestoof the first national congress of the Kuomintang. This was not written by himself, but was drafted by Wang Ch'ing-wei, one of his closest followers, and embodies essentially the same ideas as do the other three items, even though Borodin—the emissary of the Third International—had been consulted in its preparation.11Sun undoubtedly regretted leaving such a heterogeneous and ill-assembled group of works as his literary bequest.[pg 006]Throughout the latter years of his life he was studying political science in the hope that he might be able to complete a great treatise which he had projected, an analysis and statement of the programs of the Chinese nationalists. One attempt toward actualization of this work was frustrated when Sun's manuscripts and a great part of his library were burned in the attack launched against him by Ch'en Ch'iung-ming in 1922. His apology for the makeshift volume on theSan Min Chu Iis pathetic:“As I had neither time to prepare nor books to use as references, I could do nothing else in these lectures but improvise after I ascended the platform. Thus I have omitted and forgotten many things which were in my original manuscript. Although before having them printed, I revised them, added (passages) and eliminated (others), yet, those lectures are far from coming up to my original manuscripts, either in the subject matter itself, or in the concatenations of the discussion, or in the facts adduced as proofs.”12Sun was in all probability a more assiduous and widely read student of political science than any other world leader of his day except Wilson; he studied innumerable treatises on government, and was surprisingly familiar with the general background of Western politics, in theory and practice. He was aware of the shabby appearance that these undigested occasional pieces would present when put forth as the bible of a new China, and earnestly enjoined his followers to carry on his labors and bring them to fruition.13The various works included in theChien Kuo Fang Lo, while satisfactory for the purposes Sun had in mind when he wrote them, are not enough to outline the fundamentals both of political theory and a governmental plan. The familiar essays have an important bearing on the formation of the ideology of a new China; the primer[pg 007]of democracy, less; the industrial plan is one of those magnificent dreams which, in the turn of a decade, may inspire an equally great reality. The outline and the manifesto are no more suited to the rôle of classics; they are decalogues rather than bibles.14There remains theSan Min Chu I.TheSan Min Chu Iis a collection of sixteen lectures delivered in Canton in 1924. There were to have been eighteen, but Sun was unable to give the last two. Legend has it that Borodin persuaded Sun to give the series.15Whatever the cause of their being offered, they attracted immediate attention. Interest in Sun and in his ideas was at a fever heat; his friends turned to the printed lectures for guidance; his enemies, for statements which could be turned against him. Both friends and enemies found what they wanted. To the friends, theSan Min Chu Ipresented a fairly complete outline of Sun's political and social thought in such a form that it could be preserved and broadcast readily. There was danger, before the book appeared, that the intrinsic unity in Sun's thinking would be lost sight of by posterity, that his ideas would appear as a disconnected jumble of brilliant inspirations. The sixteen lectures incorporated a great part of the doctrines which he had been preaching for more than a generation. To the enemies of Sun, the work was welcome. They pointed out the numerous simplifications and inconsistencies, the frequent contradictions in matters of detail, the then outrageous denunciations of the economic and political system predominant in the Far East. They ridiculed Sun because he was Chinese, and because he was not Chinese enough, and backed up their criticisms with passages from the book.16[pg 008]When Sun gave the lectures, he was a sick man. He carried an ivory-headed sword cane with him on the platform; occasionally, holding it behind him and locking his arms through it, he would press it against his back to relieve the intolerable pain.17The business awaiting him after each lecture was vitally important; the revolution was proceeding by leaps and bounds. The lectures are the lectures of a sick man, given to a popular audience in the uproar of revolution, without adequate preparation, improvised in large part, and offered as one side of a crucial and bitterly disputed question. The secretaries who took down the lectures may not have succeeded in following them completely; Sun had no leisure to do more than skim through the book before releasing it to the press.These improvised lectures have had to serve as the fundamental document of Nationalist China. Sun Yat-sen died without writing the treatise he had planned. The materials he left behind were a challenge to scholars and to his followers. Many persons set to work interpreting them, each with a conscious or unconscious end in view. A German Marxian showed Sun to be a forerunner of bolshevism; an American liberal showed Sun to be a bulwark against bolshevism. A Chinese classicist demonstrated Sun's reverence for the past; a Jesuit father explained much by Sun's modern and Christian background. His works have been translated into Western[pg 009]languages without notes; the improvised lectures, torn from their context of a revolutionary crisis, have served poorly to explain the ideology of Sun Yat-sen, and his long range political, social, and economic plans.The Necessity of an Exposition.Followers of Sun who knew him personally, or were members of that circle in which his ideas and opinions were well known, have found theSan Min Chu Iand other literary remains helpful; they have been able to turn to the documents to refresh their memories of Sun on some particular point, or to experience the encouraging force of his faith and enthusiasm again. They need not be reminded of the main tenets of his thought, or of the fundamental values upon which he based his life and his political activities. His sense of leadership, which strangers have at times thought fantastic, is one which they admire in him, since they, too, have felt the power of his personality and have experienced that leadership in the course of their own lives. His voice is ringing in their consciences; they feel no need of a guide to his mind. At the present day many members of Sun's own family, and a considerable number of his veteran disciples are still living; the control of the National Government is in their hands. They are people who need no commentary on Sun Yat-sen; to them, he died only yesterday.Others, who met Sun only casually, or who could know him only through his writings, have a quite different impression of his thought. They perforce assume that he thought as he wrote, and fail to realize that virtually all his writings and speeches were occasional pieces, improvisations designed as propaganda. One of the most respected American authorities on China says that in theSan Min Chu I“... there is a combination of sound social analysis, keen comment on comparative political[pg 010]science, and bombast, journalistic inaccuracy, jejune philosophizing and sophomoric economics.”18This view is one which can scarcely be attacked, if one considers only the printed lectures, and overlooks the other utterances and the personality of Sun. To apply this, or any similar estimate (and there are many of them), to all of Sun Yat-sen's thought would be woefully inaccurate. It is not the critic's fault that Sun never found time to write a sober, definitive political treatise expressing his ideas; it is, nevertheless, the critic's responsibility to weigh the value of theSan Min Chu I, and consider the importance which Sun himself attached to it, before judging Sun's whole philosophy by a hastily-composed and poorly written book.Yet, if the Western student of modern Chinese history were to look elsewhere for some general exposition of Sun Yat-sen's political ideas, he would find none. He could discover several excellent translations of the sixteen lectures, and parts of the other work of Sun. He would be helped by the prefatory notes to some of these translations.19A few treatises would be available to him on special phases of Sun's thought: the influence of Maurice William, and the influence of the Russian Communists.20In addition, there would be the biographies, of which there are more than a dozen, and a few other useful although not general works. None of these sifts Sun's thought, seeking to separate the transitory from the permanent in his ideas. For this the searcher would have to rely on brief outlines of Sun's ideas, to be found in[pg 011]works dealing with modern China or the Chinese revolution.21This relative scarcity of exegetic material concerning the ideology and programs of Sun is not the result of any inadequacy on the part of those persons, both Chinese and Western, who have devoted thought and time to his life or to the translation of his works. It is one thing to point out a task that has yet to be done; and quite another, actually to perform it. An interpretation or exposition of Sun's thought, to be worthy of the great significance of the original, must be very thorough; but scarcely enough time has elapsed to allow a perspective of all the materials, let alone an orientation of Sun in the Far Eastern scene. Yet the importance of Sun demands that something be done to bring his thought to the attention of the world, so that the usual distortion of his personality—arising from the lack of commentaries—may be avoided in present day works. In a sense, the time is not ripe for a definitive treatment of Sun, either as a figure in history or as a contributor to the significant and enduring political thought of modern times; any work now done will, as time passes, fall grotesquely far short of adequacy. On the other hand, there is so much material of a perishable nature—anecdotes and legends not yet committed to print, and the memories of living men—now available, that a present-day work on Sun may gain[pg 012]in color and intimacy what it loses in judgment and objectivity, may gain in proximity what it has to forgo in detachment. And, lastly, the complete absence of any systematic presentation of Sun's ideas in any Western language is so great a deficiency in the fields of Far Eastern history and world political thought, that even a relatively inadequate exposition of the thought of Sun Yat-sen may prove to be not without value. Sun himself never explained his philosophy, whether theoretical or applied, in any broad, systematic fashion; nor has anyone else done so.If the permissibility of an exposition of Sun Yat-sen's thought be conceded, there still remains the vexing problem of a choice of method. While the far-flung peripheries of Sun's thought touch almost every field of knowledge and opinion, a systematic condensation of his views cannot hope to survey the same broad ranges. The problem of proportion, of just emphasis, involves the nice appraisal of the degree of importance which each of Sun's minor rôles had in his intellectual career as a whole. Nor do the difficulties concerning method end with the consideration of proportion; they merely begin, for there remains the far more important and perplexing problem of a technique of interpretation.Interpretation obviously relates to the problem of language. The translation of theoretical terms from Chinese into English constitutes a formidable difficulty which proves, in several instances, to be insuperable. No satisfactory equivalent formin shêng(usually rendered“livelihood”) can be found in English; even simpler and less specialized terms are extremely difficult to render. Sometimes it would be convenient to employ four or five alternative translations for one Chinese term. Sun uses the word“nationalism”in the sense that a Westerner would, in advocating national consciousness in a China hitherto unfamiliar with the conception of nation-states; but, in[pg 013]a different context, he uses it in the sense of“patriotism.”22These difficulties must be faced and, somehow or other, overcome. When the Western reader encounters a familiar term in an unexpected place, he must be prepared to meet a shift of meaning. No amount of definition can make a Chinese term, which has no exact Western equivalent, completely clear. It is simpler to grow accustomed to the term, to gather together its connotations, to understand something of the frame of reference wherein it is set, and thereby to learn it as a child learns a word. A dictionary is no help to a baby; in a realm of unfamiliar ideas even scholars must learn terms step by step.Less obviously than language, the translation of ideas and of values is also involved in interpretation. In dealing with the intellectual content of a civilization as alien as that of China, the Westerner must be wary of the easy analogy. The full, forceful application of Western ideas and values in a world to which they are completely irrelevant produced strange results during the nineteenth century. Western notions of goodness and reasonableness did not fit the Chinese scheme of things. Under such a test a wildly distorted image of China was obtained. China seemed peculiar, topsy-turvy, fantastic. To themselves the Chinese still seemed quite matter-of-fact, and the Westerners thought even this odd and ridiculous: not only was China upside-down, but the Chinese did not know it! In any case, the present-day scholar, to whom so much material concerning the Chinese is available and China so near, has little justification for applying Western tests of virtue and rationality to things Chinese.If the application of Western values to China is avoided, there is still the danger that the Chinese scheme of things may not be interpreted at all. The literal translation[pg 014]of Chinese terms strips them of their contexts. The result may be unintelligibility. The Chinese termjênis frequently rendered“benevolence,”a Western word which, while at times an approximate equivalent, fails to carry the full burden of meaning. Sun speaks of an interpretation of history antagonistic to dialectical materialism—the interpretation of history byjên. A“benevolent”interpretation of history means nothing whatever to a Westerner. Ifjênis translated into a different configuration of words, and given as“group-consciousness”or“social fellow-feeling,”the result, while still not an exact equivalent of the Chinese, is distinctly more intelligible.To effect this translation of ideas and values, several methods are available. The issue cannot be dodged by a denial of its existence; the mere act of explanation involves some process, whether deliberate or unconscious, of translation and transvaluation. If the interpreter refuses to deal with the problem consciously, he will nevertheless be guided by his unrevealed assumptions. To give an accounting for what he has done, he must, first, admit that he is interpreting, and second, seek to make plain what he is doing, so that his readers may allow for the process. The demonstration of the consequences of interpretation minimizes their possible adverse effects. The simplest way to allow for the alterations (beyond mere reproduction) arising from interpretation would be to adopt a technique so widely known that others could, in their own minds, try to re-trace the steps of the process and negate the changes. Among such widely known techniques are the Marxian and the sociological.Both these scarcely seem adapted to the problems presented by an interpretation of Sun Yat-sen. The Marxian terminology is so peculiarly suited to the ulterior purposes the Marxians keep in mind, and is so esoteric when applied to matters not related to the general fields in which the Marxians are interested, that it could scarcely[pg 015]be applied in the present instance. A non-Marxian would find it a hazardous task. The interpreter of Sun Yat-sen must interpretintosomething; what, depends on the audience. Dialectical materialism, in the abstract excellent as a technique, would scarcely make Sun understandable to most Americans of the present day. Sun himself rejected the Marxian method of interpretation; an American audience would also reject it; these two factors outweigh all the conceivable advantages.The sociological technique of interpretation is quite another question. The various methods of analysis developed by each of the schools of sociologists are still the objects rather than the tools of study. Such men as Max Weber and Vilfredo Pareto have made contributions to Western social thought which enrich the scope and method of the social studies. Their methods of analysis are not weighted down by a body of extraneous considerations, as is the Marxian, and they promise an objectivity not otherwise attainable. On the other hand, they are still at that stage of development where the technique obtrudes itself; it has not, as has the inductive method in general, become so much taken for granted as to be invisible.The sociological approach need not, however, be carried to the full extent thought necessary by its advocates. In the study of law, the consideration of extra-juridical materials is called sociological in contrast to the strictly juristic. If the legal scholar goes beyond the strict framework of the law, and considers other elements in man's behavior and knowledge while dealing with legal problems, he is apt to be called a sociological jurist. In doing so he is not committed, however, to belief in or use of any particular form of what is known as the science of society or sociology. He may adopt almost any sort of social outlook, or may be committed to any one of many doctrines of social value and to any one of widely varying methods of social study.[pg 016]This negative, broad sense of the sociological, when applied to the study of politics, has commonly meant that the scholars employing it began with the notion of the political, but, finding it too narrow, touched upon related fields. An interpretation of Sun Yat-sen's politics might be based on this method. It would still be a political work, in that it sought to associate his ideas with the ideas concerning government to be found in the West, but would be free, nevertheless, to touch upon non-political materials relevant to Sun's politics. The Chinese have had notions of authority and control radically different from those developed in the West; a purely juristic interpretation of the various Chinese politics would simply scrape the lacquer off the screen.The Chinese have not had the sharp distinction of disciplines which runs through all Western learning. Since one of the most conspicuous ingredients in their thought—conspicuous, that is, to Westerners looking in from outside—has been the ethical, many Westerners have dismissed Chinese historical, political and more strictly philosophical thought as being loosely and amiably ethical but never getting anywhere. The Chinese did not departmentalize their learning to any considerable degree. Politics was not the special activity of a definite group of men, or the study of a select body of scholars. Politics ran through and across most of the activities in society, and was largely the interest of that intellectual élite by which China has been so distinguished on the roster of civilizations. In becoming everything, politics ceased being politics; that is, those elements in man's thought and behavior which Westerners have termed political were not separated and labelled. The Westerner must say that politics was everything in China, or that it was nothing.An interpretation of Sun Yat-sen must keep in mind these differences between Chinese and Western categories. In doing so it will pass beyond the limits of what is commonly[pg 017]known as politics, since no sharp boundaries of“politics”are to be found in China. Yet, as an interpretation designed to serve Western readers, it must return again and again to Western politics, making comparisons when they are justified, pointing out differences between China and the West as they become relevant and clear. The interpretation will thus weave back and forth between conventional Western political science, with its state-mindedness, and the wholly different material of traditions and customs out of which Sun sought to construct an ideology and a system of working politics for China in the modern world.How can this interpretation seek to avoid the misfortunes and errors into which so many similar attempts have fallen? It must proceed without the aid of such specialized techniques as dialectical-materialistic or Paretian analysis, and yet aim at the scientific, the rationally defensible, the objective. In seeking to apply a method in the interpretation of Sun Yat-sen, the work must face criticism of its method, must make the method explicit and simple enough to allow criticism. If the thought of Sun really is to emerge from the exposition, the exposition must allow itself to be judged, so that it can be appraised, and so that, one way or another, it may not interfere with the just evaluation of the materials which it seeks to present. Sun Yat-sen should not be judged poor because of a poor interpretation; nor, on the other hand, should his thought be adjudged more excellent or more exact than it seems to the Chinese, merely because the expositor has suggested an interpretation possibly more precise.The technique adopted in the present work is a relatively simple one. It is an attempt to startde novowith certain concepts of society and government. Several simple although novel terms are introduced, to provide a foundation upon which the procedure may rest. One of[pg 018]these, for instance, is“ideology,”which in the present work refers to the whole psychological conditioning of a group of persons.23No attempt is made, at the beginning or at any later phase of the exposition, to distinguish between the ideology as belief and the ideology as truth. Whether the Chinese were and are right, or the Westerners, are questions, not for the student of comparative political science, but for the philosopher and the psychologist. The interpretation seeks, as far as possible, to transpose certain parts of the traditional Chinese ideology, as they were, and as Sun Yat-sen re-shaped them, into one frame of reference provided by the ideology of twentieth-century America. What the“real truth”is, does not matter; the Marxians would say that both ideologies were inexact; so might the Roman Catholics. If the[pg 019]ideology of old China, and the ideology that Sun wished to see developed in the minds of the Chinese people of the future, can be made comprehensible in terms of contemporary American beliefs, of fact or of value, this venture will have been successful.The Chinese ideology cannot be explained in its own terms; these exist only in the Chinese language. If Sun Yat-sen's own arrangement of his works is inadequate for the Chinese, rearrangement is a task for the Chinese and not for the Western scholars to perform. The Westerners who deal with Sun can contribute substantially only if they give what the Chinese cannot—enough of a reference to their own ideology to permit a broader scale for the analysis and the appreciation of Sun's thought. Their knowledge of their own world of ideas is the special tool which justifies their intervention in this Chinese field of knowledge.In avoiding the unjustifiable imposition of Western ideas and values upon the Chinese, and yet orienting Sun's thought with respect to the West, the interpretation will have to resort to several fairly evident means. In the first place, it will have to transpose Chinese ideas into the Western ideology, and yet avoid distortions of meaning. This can be partly done by the use of neutral terms, of terms which are simple and clear enough to reproduce the Chinese, and nevertheless not so heavily burdened with connotations that they will cause a reading-in of Western ideas not relevant to the point in question. More simply, the Chinese ideas must be represented by terms which approximate the same set of values in the West that their originals have in China. This will sometimes require the use of unfamiliar periphrases: the words“music”and“rites”may be given as“the rhythm of life”and“conformity to the ideology.”Secondly, the Chinese ideology need not be given as a whole; it is improbable that it could, without a terrific expansion[pg 020]of the Western ideology to accommodate it; but enough of the Chinese ideology must be given to explain the significant differences between the Chinese system of controlling the behavior of men, and the Western. This latter involves the choice of material, and is therefore by its nature challengeable.Again, in demonstrating significant differences instead of merely seeking analogous (and probably misleading) examples, the interpretation might turn to certain aspects of Chinese philosophy which appear as strikingly illustrative of the point of view of the Chinese. Confucius the political thinker is only a small part of Confucius the man and the philosopher; Chinese political thought, although a vast field, is only a small part of the social thought of the Chinese. Only an infinitesimal part of this comparatively minor area of Chinese study will suffice to make clear some, at least, of the sharp differences of outlook between China and the West.A recapitulation of this declaration of technique may be found helpful, for an understanding of Sun Yat-sen by Westerners is necessary because of the vastly different background of his thought. Even apart from the strangeness of his thought to the West, it is scattered in the original, and must be pieced together. An exposition of his ideas which would, at one and the same time, present a systematic outline of his ideas, and transpose them into a frame of reference where Western scholars might grasp them, might be a labor meriting performance. His terms would have to be rendered by neutral words (not overladen with particular Western contexts) or by neologisms, or simply left in the original, to develop meaning as a configuration of related ideas is built up about them. The problem of interpretation cannot, however, be solved by settling the difficulty of language: there still remains the question of a technique which can pretend to the scientific, the exact, the rationally defensible. Despite their great[pg 021]merits, the Marxian and Paretian techniques are not suited to the present task. The point of view and means of study of political science may be kept, if a few necessary borrowings from sociological thought (not necessarily sociology) are introduced. Such borrowing includes the use of notions such as non-political society, patterns of authority, and ideology, none of which are to be found in the more law-minded part of political science. By seeking to point out the Chinese, then the Western, ideas involved, without confusing the two, the presentation may succeed in transposing the ideology of Sun Yat-sen, as well as his beliefs concerning working politics, into the English language and into an explanatory but not distorting background. To do this, a small sampling of certain aspects of old Chinese social thought and behavior will be a required preliminary.

The Problem of theSan Min Chu I.The Materials.Sun Yat-sen played many rôles in the history of his times. He was one of those dramatic and somewhat formidable figures who engage the world's attention at the very outset of their careers. In the late years of the nineteenth century, he was already winning some renown in the West; it was picturesque that a Cantonese, a Christian physician, should engage in desperate conspiracies against the Manchu throne. Sun became known as a political adventurer, a forerunner, as it were, of such mutually dissimilar personages as Trotsky, Lawrence, and Major-General Doihara. With the illusory success of the revolution of 1911, and his Presidency of the first Republic, Sun ceased being a conspirator in the eyes of the world's press, and became the George Washington of China. It is in this rôle that he is most commonly known, and his name most generally recalled. After the world war, in the atmosphere of extreme tension developed, perhaps, by the Bolshevik revolution, Sun was regarded as an enigmatic leader, especially significant in the struggle between Asiatic nationalisms allied with the Soviets against the traditional capitalist state-system. It was through him that the Red anti-imperialist policy was pushed to its greatest success, and he was hated and admired, ridiculed and feared, down to the last moments of his life. When he died, American reporters in Latvia cabled New York their reports of Russian comments on the event.3More, perhaps, than any other Chinese of modern times, Sun symbolized the entrance of China into[pg 002]world affairs, and the inevitable confluence of Western and Far Eastern history.It is characteristic of Sun that he should have appeared in another and final rôle after his death. He had been thought of as conspirator, statesman, and mass leader; but with the advent of his party to power it became publicly apparent that he had also been a political philosopher. The tremendous prestige enjoyed by him as state-founder and party leader was enhanced by his importance as prophet and law-giver. His doctrines became the state philosophy of China, and for a while his most zealous followers sought to have him canonized in a quite literal fashion, and at one stroke to make him replace Confucius and the Sons of Heaven. After the extreme enthusiasms of the Sun Yat-sen cult subsided, Sun remained the great national hero-sage of modern China. Even in those territories where the authority of his political heirs was not completely effective, his flag was flown and his doctrines taught.His doctrines have provided the theories upon which the Nationalist revolution was based; they form the extra-juridical constitution of the National Government of China. When the forces hostile to Sun Yat-sen and his followers are considered, it is amazing that his ideas and ideals should have survived. An empire established with the aid of Japanese arms, and still under Japanese hegemony, controls Manchuria; parts of north China are ruled by a bastard government, born of a compromise between enemies; a largely unrecognized but powerful Soviet Republic exists in outer Mongolia; the lamaist oligarchy goes on in Tibet; and somewhere, in central and western China, a Soviet group, not quite a government but more than a conspiracy, is fighting for existence. It is quite probable that nowhere else in the world can there be found a greater variety of principles, each scheme of principles fostered by an armed organization struggling with its[pg 003]rivals. In this chaos the National Government has made the most effective bid for authority and the greatest effort for the reëstablishment of order; through it the principles of Sun Yat-sen rule the political life of a population greater than that of the United States or of the Soviet Union.It is difficult to evaluate the importance of political doctrines. Even ifThe Three Principlesis judged by the extent of the population which its followers control, it has achieved greater results in practical politics in fifteen years than has Marxism in ninety. Such a criterion may well be disputed, but, whatever the test, it cannot be denied that the thought of Sun Yat-sen has played a major part in the political development of his native land. It may continue into the indefinitely remote future, or may succumb to the perils that surround its advocates; in any case, these doctrines have been taught long enough and broadly enough to make an impress on the age, and have been so significant in political and cultural history that they can never sink into complete obscurity.What are these doctrines? Sun Yat-sen was so voluminous a writer that it would be impossible for his followers to digest and codify all his writings into one neat and coherent handbook; he himself did not provide one. Before printing became common, there was a certain automatic process of condensation which preserved the important utterances of great men, and let their trivial sayings perish. Sun, however, must have realized that he was leaving a vast legacy of materials which are not altogether coherent or consistent with one another. Certain of his works were naturally more important than others, but, to make the choice definitive, he himself indicated four sources which his followers might draw upon for a definitive statement of his views.4[pg 004]HisPolitical Testamentcites theChien Kuo Fang Lo(The Program of National Reconstruction), theChien Kuo Ta Kang(The Outline of National Reconstruction), theSan Min Chu I(The Triple Demism, also translated asThe Three Principles of the People), and theManifestoissued by the first national congress of the Party.5These four items differ quite sharply from one another in form. No one of them can be relied upon to give the whole of Sun's doctrines.TheChien Kuo Fang Lo(The Program of National Reconstruction) is in reality three works, only remotely related to one another. The first item in the trilogy is theSun Wên Hsüeh Shê(The Philosophy of Sun Wên); it is a series of familiar essays on the Chinese way of thought.6The second is theMin Ch'üan Ts'u Pu,The Primer of Democracy, which is little more than a text on parliamentary law.7The third is theShih Yeh Chi Hua, known in English asThe International Development[pg 005]of China, which Sun wrote in both English and Chinese.8These three works, under the alternate titles of“The Program of Psychological Reconstruction,”“The Program of Social Reconstruction,”and“The Program of Material Reconstruction”formThe Program of National Reconstruction.TheChien Kuo Ta Kang, The Outline of National Reconstruction, is an outline of twenty-five points, giving the necessary steps towards the national reconstruction in their most concise form.9TheSan Min Chu Iis Sun's most important work. It comprises sixteen lectures setting forth his socio-political theories and his programs. The title most commonly used in Western versions isThe Three Principles of the People.10The last document mentioned in Sun Yat-sen's will was theManifestoof the first national congress of the Kuomintang. This was not written by himself, but was drafted by Wang Ch'ing-wei, one of his closest followers, and embodies essentially the same ideas as do the other three items, even though Borodin—the emissary of the Third International—had been consulted in its preparation.11Sun undoubtedly regretted leaving such a heterogeneous and ill-assembled group of works as his literary bequest.[pg 006]Throughout the latter years of his life he was studying political science in the hope that he might be able to complete a great treatise which he had projected, an analysis and statement of the programs of the Chinese nationalists. One attempt toward actualization of this work was frustrated when Sun's manuscripts and a great part of his library were burned in the attack launched against him by Ch'en Ch'iung-ming in 1922. His apology for the makeshift volume on theSan Min Chu Iis pathetic:“As I had neither time to prepare nor books to use as references, I could do nothing else in these lectures but improvise after I ascended the platform. Thus I have omitted and forgotten many things which were in my original manuscript. Although before having them printed, I revised them, added (passages) and eliminated (others), yet, those lectures are far from coming up to my original manuscripts, either in the subject matter itself, or in the concatenations of the discussion, or in the facts adduced as proofs.”12Sun was in all probability a more assiduous and widely read student of political science than any other world leader of his day except Wilson; he studied innumerable treatises on government, and was surprisingly familiar with the general background of Western politics, in theory and practice. He was aware of the shabby appearance that these undigested occasional pieces would present when put forth as the bible of a new China, and earnestly enjoined his followers to carry on his labors and bring them to fruition.13The various works included in theChien Kuo Fang Lo, while satisfactory for the purposes Sun had in mind when he wrote them, are not enough to outline the fundamentals both of political theory and a governmental plan. The familiar essays have an important bearing on the formation of the ideology of a new China; the primer[pg 007]of democracy, less; the industrial plan is one of those magnificent dreams which, in the turn of a decade, may inspire an equally great reality. The outline and the manifesto are no more suited to the rôle of classics; they are decalogues rather than bibles.14There remains theSan Min Chu I.TheSan Min Chu Iis a collection of sixteen lectures delivered in Canton in 1924. There were to have been eighteen, but Sun was unable to give the last two. Legend has it that Borodin persuaded Sun to give the series.15Whatever the cause of their being offered, they attracted immediate attention. Interest in Sun and in his ideas was at a fever heat; his friends turned to the printed lectures for guidance; his enemies, for statements which could be turned against him. Both friends and enemies found what they wanted. To the friends, theSan Min Chu Ipresented a fairly complete outline of Sun's political and social thought in such a form that it could be preserved and broadcast readily. There was danger, before the book appeared, that the intrinsic unity in Sun's thinking would be lost sight of by posterity, that his ideas would appear as a disconnected jumble of brilliant inspirations. The sixteen lectures incorporated a great part of the doctrines which he had been preaching for more than a generation. To the enemies of Sun, the work was welcome. They pointed out the numerous simplifications and inconsistencies, the frequent contradictions in matters of detail, the then outrageous denunciations of the economic and political system predominant in the Far East. They ridiculed Sun because he was Chinese, and because he was not Chinese enough, and backed up their criticisms with passages from the book.16[pg 008]When Sun gave the lectures, he was a sick man. He carried an ivory-headed sword cane with him on the platform; occasionally, holding it behind him and locking his arms through it, he would press it against his back to relieve the intolerable pain.17The business awaiting him after each lecture was vitally important; the revolution was proceeding by leaps and bounds. The lectures are the lectures of a sick man, given to a popular audience in the uproar of revolution, without adequate preparation, improvised in large part, and offered as one side of a crucial and bitterly disputed question. The secretaries who took down the lectures may not have succeeded in following them completely; Sun had no leisure to do more than skim through the book before releasing it to the press.These improvised lectures have had to serve as the fundamental document of Nationalist China. Sun Yat-sen died without writing the treatise he had planned. The materials he left behind were a challenge to scholars and to his followers. Many persons set to work interpreting them, each with a conscious or unconscious end in view. A German Marxian showed Sun to be a forerunner of bolshevism; an American liberal showed Sun to be a bulwark against bolshevism. A Chinese classicist demonstrated Sun's reverence for the past; a Jesuit father explained much by Sun's modern and Christian background. His works have been translated into Western[pg 009]languages without notes; the improvised lectures, torn from their context of a revolutionary crisis, have served poorly to explain the ideology of Sun Yat-sen, and his long range political, social, and economic plans.The Necessity of an Exposition.Followers of Sun who knew him personally, or were members of that circle in which his ideas and opinions were well known, have found theSan Min Chu Iand other literary remains helpful; they have been able to turn to the documents to refresh their memories of Sun on some particular point, or to experience the encouraging force of his faith and enthusiasm again. They need not be reminded of the main tenets of his thought, or of the fundamental values upon which he based his life and his political activities. His sense of leadership, which strangers have at times thought fantastic, is one which they admire in him, since they, too, have felt the power of his personality and have experienced that leadership in the course of their own lives. His voice is ringing in their consciences; they feel no need of a guide to his mind. At the present day many members of Sun's own family, and a considerable number of his veteran disciples are still living; the control of the National Government is in their hands. They are people who need no commentary on Sun Yat-sen; to them, he died only yesterday.Others, who met Sun only casually, or who could know him only through his writings, have a quite different impression of his thought. They perforce assume that he thought as he wrote, and fail to realize that virtually all his writings and speeches were occasional pieces, improvisations designed as propaganda. One of the most respected American authorities on China says that in theSan Min Chu I“... there is a combination of sound social analysis, keen comment on comparative political[pg 010]science, and bombast, journalistic inaccuracy, jejune philosophizing and sophomoric economics.”18This view is one which can scarcely be attacked, if one considers only the printed lectures, and overlooks the other utterances and the personality of Sun. To apply this, or any similar estimate (and there are many of them), to all of Sun Yat-sen's thought would be woefully inaccurate. It is not the critic's fault that Sun never found time to write a sober, definitive political treatise expressing his ideas; it is, nevertheless, the critic's responsibility to weigh the value of theSan Min Chu I, and consider the importance which Sun himself attached to it, before judging Sun's whole philosophy by a hastily-composed and poorly written book.Yet, if the Western student of modern Chinese history were to look elsewhere for some general exposition of Sun Yat-sen's political ideas, he would find none. He could discover several excellent translations of the sixteen lectures, and parts of the other work of Sun. He would be helped by the prefatory notes to some of these translations.19A few treatises would be available to him on special phases of Sun's thought: the influence of Maurice William, and the influence of the Russian Communists.20In addition, there would be the biographies, of which there are more than a dozen, and a few other useful although not general works. None of these sifts Sun's thought, seeking to separate the transitory from the permanent in his ideas. For this the searcher would have to rely on brief outlines of Sun's ideas, to be found in[pg 011]works dealing with modern China or the Chinese revolution.21This relative scarcity of exegetic material concerning the ideology and programs of Sun is not the result of any inadequacy on the part of those persons, both Chinese and Western, who have devoted thought and time to his life or to the translation of his works. It is one thing to point out a task that has yet to be done; and quite another, actually to perform it. An interpretation or exposition of Sun's thought, to be worthy of the great significance of the original, must be very thorough; but scarcely enough time has elapsed to allow a perspective of all the materials, let alone an orientation of Sun in the Far Eastern scene. Yet the importance of Sun demands that something be done to bring his thought to the attention of the world, so that the usual distortion of his personality—arising from the lack of commentaries—may be avoided in present day works. In a sense, the time is not ripe for a definitive treatment of Sun, either as a figure in history or as a contributor to the significant and enduring political thought of modern times; any work now done will, as time passes, fall grotesquely far short of adequacy. On the other hand, there is so much material of a perishable nature—anecdotes and legends not yet committed to print, and the memories of living men—now available, that a present-day work on Sun may gain[pg 012]in color and intimacy what it loses in judgment and objectivity, may gain in proximity what it has to forgo in detachment. And, lastly, the complete absence of any systematic presentation of Sun's ideas in any Western language is so great a deficiency in the fields of Far Eastern history and world political thought, that even a relatively inadequate exposition of the thought of Sun Yat-sen may prove to be not without value. Sun himself never explained his philosophy, whether theoretical or applied, in any broad, systematic fashion; nor has anyone else done so.If the permissibility of an exposition of Sun Yat-sen's thought be conceded, there still remains the vexing problem of a choice of method. While the far-flung peripheries of Sun's thought touch almost every field of knowledge and opinion, a systematic condensation of his views cannot hope to survey the same broad ranges. The problem of proportion, of just emphasis, involves the nice appraisal of the degree of importance which each of Sun's minor rôles had in his intellectual career as a whole. Nor do the difficulties concerning method end with the consideration of proportion; they merely begin, for there remains the far more important and perplexing problem of a technique of interpretation.Interpretation obviously relates to the problem of language. The translation of theoretical terms from Chinese into English constitutes a formidable difficulty which proves, in several instances, to be insuperable. No satisfactory equivalent formin shêng(usually rendered“livelihood”) can be found in English; even simpler and less specialized terms are extremely difficult to render. Sometimes it would be convenient to employ four or five alternative translations for one Chinese term. Sun uses the word“nationalism”in the sense that a Westerner would, in advocating national consciousness in a China hitherto unfamiliar with the conception of nation-states; but, in[pg 013]a different context, he uses it in the sense of“patriotism.”22These difficulties must be faced and, somehow or other, overcome. When the Western reader encounters a familiar term in an unexpected place, he must be prepared to meet a shift of meaning. No amount of definition can make a Chinese term, which has no exact Western equivalent, completely clear. It is simpler to grow accustomed to the term, to gather together its connotations, to understand something of the frame of reference wherein it is set, and thereby to learn it as a child learns a word. A dictionary is no help to a baby; in a realm of unfamiliar ideas even scholars must learn terms step by step.Less obviously than language, the translation of ideas and of values is also involved in interpretation. In dealing with the intellectual content of a civilization as alien as that of China, the Westerner must be wary of the easy analogy. The full, forceful application of Western ideas and values in a world to which they are completely irrelevant produced strange results during the nineteenth century. Western notions of goodness and reasonableness did not fit the Chinese scheme of things. Under such a test a wildly distorted image of China was obtained. China seemed peculiar, topsy-turvy, fantastic. To themselves the Chinese still seemed quite matter-of-fact, and the Westerners thought even this odd and ridiculous: not only was China upside-down, but the Chinese did not know it! In any case, the present-day scholar, to whom so much material concerning the Chinese is available and China so near, has little justification for applying Western tests of virtue and rationality to things Chinese.If the application of Western values to China is avoided, there is still the danger that the Chinese scheme of things may not be interpreted at all. The literal translation[pg 014]of Chinese terms strips them of their contexts. The result may be unintelligibility. The Chinese termjênis frequently rendered“benevolence,”a Western word which, while at times an approximate equivalent, fails to carry the full burden of meaning. Sun speaks of an interpretation of history antagonistic to dialectical materialism—the interpretation of history byjên. A“benevolent”interpretation of history means nothing whatever to a Westerner. Ifjênis translated into a different configuration of words, and given as“group-consciousness”or“social fellow-feeling,”the result, while still not an exact equivalent of the Chinese, is distinctly more intelligible.To effect this translation of ideas and values, several methods are available. The issue cannot be dodged by a denial of its existence; the mere act of explanation involves some process, whether deliberate or unconscious, of translation and transvaluation. If the interpreter refuses to deal with the problem consciously, he will nevertheless be guided by his unrevealed assumptions. To give an accounting for what he has done, he must, first, admit that he is interpreting, and second, seek to make plain what he is doing, so that his readers may allow for the process. The demonstration of the consequences of interpretation minimizes their possible adverse effects. The simplest way to allow for the alterations (beyond mere reproduction) arising from interpretation would be to adopt a technique so widely known that others could, in their own minds, try to re-trace the steps of the process and negate the changes. Among such widely known techniques are the Marxian and the sociological.Both these scarcely seem adapted to the problems presented by an interpretation of Sun Yat-sen. The Marxian terminology is so peculiarly suited to the ulterior purposes the Marxians keep in mind, and is so esoteric when applied to matters not related to the general fields in which the Marxians are interested, that it could scarcely[pg 015]be applied in the present instance. A non-Marxian would find it a hazardous task. The interpreter of Sun Yat-sen must interpretintosomething; what, depends on the audience. Dialectical materialism, in the abstract excellent as a technique, would scarcely make Sun understandable to most Americans of the present day. Sun himself rejected the Marxian method of interpretation; an American audience would also reject it; these two factors outweigh all the conceivable advantages.The sociological technique of interpretation is quite another question. The various methods of analysis developed by each of the schools of sociologists are still the objects rather than the tools of study. Such men as Max Weber and Vilfredo Pareto have made contributions to Western social thought which enrich the scope and method of the social studies. Their methods of analysis are not weighted down by a body of extraneous considerations, as is the Marxian, and they promise an objectivity not otherwise attainable. On the other hand, they are still at that stage of development where the technique obtrudes itself; it has not, as has the inductive method in general, become so much taken for granted as to be invisible.The sociological approach need not, however, be carried to the full extent thought necessary by its advocates. In the study of law, the consideration of extra-juridical materials is called sociological in contrast to the strictly juristic. If the legal scholar goes beyond the strict framework of the law, and considers other elements in man's behavior and knowledge while dealing with legal problems, he is apt to be called a sociological jurist. In doing so he is not committed, however, to belief in or use of any particular form of what is known as the science of society or sociology. He may adopt almost any sort of social outlook, or may be committed to any one of many doctrines of social value and to any one of widely varying methods of social study.[pg 016]This negative, broad sense of the sociological, when applied to the study of politics, has commonly meant that the scholars employing it began with the notion of the political, but, finding it too narrow, touched upon related fields. An interpretation of Sun Yat-sen's politics might be based on this method. It would still be a political work, in that it sought to associate his ideas with the ideas concerning government to be found in the West, but would be free, nevertheless, to touch upon non-political materials relevant to Sun's politics. The Chinese have had notions of authority and control radically different from those developed in the West; a purely juristic interpretation of the various Chinese politics would simply scrape the lacquer off the screen.The Chinese have not had the sharp distinction of disciplines which runs through all Western learning. Since one of the most conspicuous ingredients in their thought—conspicuous, that is, to Westerners looking in from outside—has been the ethical, many Westerners have dismissed Chinese historical, political and more strictly philosophical thought as being loosely and amiably ethical but never getting anywhere. The Chinese did not departmentalize their learning to any considerable degree. Politics was not the special activity of a definite group of men, or the study of a select body of scholars. Politics ran through and across most of the activities in society, and was largely the interest of that intellectual élite by which China has been so distinguished on the roster of civilizations. In becoming everything, politics ceased being politics; that is, those elements in man's thought and behavior which Westerners have termed political were not separated and labelled. The Westerner must say that politics was everything in China, or that it was nothing.An interpretation of Sun Yat-sen must keep in mind these differences between Chinese and Western categories. In doing so it will pass beyond the limits of what is commonly[pg 017]known as politics, since no sharp boundaries of“politics”are to be found in China. Yet, as an interpretation designed to serve Western readers, it must return again and again to Western politics, making comparisons when they are justified, pointing out differences between China and the West as they become relevant and clear. The interpretation will thus weave back and forth between conventional Western political science, with its state-mindedness, and the wholly different material of traditions and customs out of which Sun sought to construct an ideology and a system of working politics for China in the modern world.How can this interpretation seek to avoid the misfortunes and errors into which so many similar attempts have fallen? It must proceed without the aid of such specialized techniques as dialectical-materialistic or Paretian analysis, and yet aim at the scientific, the rationally defensible, the objective. In seeking to apply a method in the interpretation of Sun Yat-sen, the work must face criticism of its method, must make the method explicit and simple enough to allow criticism. If the thought of Sun really is to emerge from the exposition, the exposition must allow itself to be judged, so that it can be appraised, and so that, one way or another, it may not interfere with the just evaluation of the materials which it seeks to present. Sun Yat-sen should not be judged poor because of a poor interpretation; nor, on the other hand, should his thought be adjudged more excellent or more exact than it seems to the Chinese, merely because the expositor has suggested an interpretation possibly more precise.The technique adopted in the present work is a relatively simple one. It is an attempt to startde novowith certain concepts of society and government. Several simple although novel terms are introduced, to provide a foundation upon which the procedure may rest. One of[pg 018]these, for instance, is“ideology,”which in the present work refers to the whole psychological conditioning of a group of persons.23No attempt is made, at the beginning or at any later phase of the exposition, to distinguish between the ideology as belief and the ideology as truth. Whether the Chinese were and are right, or the Westerners, are questions, not for the student of comparative political science, but for the philosopher and the psychologist. The interpretation seeks, as far as possible, to transpose certain parts of the traditional Chinese ideology, as they were, and as Sun Yat-sen re-shaped them, into one frame of reference provided by the ideology of twentieth-century America. What the“real truth”is, does not matter; the Marxians would say that both ideologies were inexact; so might the Roman Catholics. If the[pg 019]ideology of old China, and the ideology that Sun wished to see developed in the minds of the Chinese people of the future, can be made comprehensible in terms of contemporary American beliefs, of fact or of value, this venture will have been successful.The Chinese ideology cannot be explained in its own terms; these exist only in the Chinese language. If Sun Yat-sen's own arrangement of his works is inadequate for the Chinese, rearrangement is a task for the Chinese and not for the Western scholars to perform. The Westerners who deal with Sun can contribute substantially only if they give what the Chinese cannot—enough of a reference to their own ideology to permit a broader scale for the analysis and the appreciation of Sun's thought. Their knowledge of their own world of ideas is the special tool which justifies their intervention in this Chinese field of knowledge.In avoiding the unjustifiable imposition of Western ideas and values upon the Chinese, and yet orienting Sun's thought with respect to the West, the interpretation will have to resort to several fairly evident means. In the first place, it will have to transpose Chinese ideas into the Western ideology, and yet avoid distortions of meaning. This can be partly done by the use of neutral terms, of terms which are simple and clear enough to reproduce the Chinese, and nevertheless not so heavily burdened with connotations that they will cause a reading-in of Western ideas not relevant to the point in question. More simply, the Chinese ideas must be represented by terms which approximate the same set of values in the West that their originals have in China. This will sometimes require the use of unfamiliar periphrases: the words“music”and“rites”may be given as“the rhythm of life”and“conformity to the ideology.”Secondly, the Chinese ideology need not be given as a whole; it is improbable that it could, without a terrific expansion[pg 020]of the Western ideology to accommodate it; but enough of the Chinese ideology must be given to explain the significant differences between the Chinese system of controlling the behavior of men, and the Western. This latter involves the choice of material, and is therefore by its nature challengeable.Again, in demonstrating significant differences instead of merely seeking analogous (and probably misleading) examples, the interpretation might turn to certain aspects of Chinese philosophy which appear as strikingly illustrative of the point of view of the Chinese. Confucius the political thinker is only a small part of Confucius the man and the philosopher; Chinese political thought, although a vast field, is only a small part of the social thought of the Chinese. Only an infinitesimal part of this comparatively minor area of Chinese study will suffice to make clear some, at least, of the sharp differences of outlook between China and the West.A recapitulation of this declaration of technique may be found helpful, for an understanding of Sun Yat-sen by Westerners is necessary because of the vastly different background of his thought. Even apart from the strangeness of his thought to the West, it is scattered in the original, and must be pieced together. An exposition of his ideas which would, at one and the same time, present a systematic outline of his ideas, and transpose them into a frame of reference where Western scholars might grasp them, might be a labor meriting performance. His terms would have to be rendered by neutral words (not overladen with particular Western contexts) or by neologisms, or simply left in the original, to develop meaning as a configuration of related ideas is built up about them. The problem of interpretation cannot, however, be solved by settling the difficulty of language: there still remains the question of a technique which can pretend to the scientific, the exact, the rationally defensible. Despite their great[pg 021]merits, the Marxian and Paretian techniques are not suited to the present task. The point of view and means of study of political science may be kept, if a few necessary borrowings from sociological thought (not necessarily sociology) are introduced. Such borrowing includes the use of notions such as non-political society, patterns of authority, and ideology, none of which are to be found in the more law-minded part of political science. By seeking to point out the Chinese, then the Western, ideas involved, without confusing the two, the presentation may succeed in transposing the ideology of Sun Yat-sen, as well as his beliefs concerning working politics, into the English language and into an explanatory but not distorting background. To do this, a small sampling of certain aspects of old Chinese social thought and behavior will be a required preliminary.

The Materials.Sun Yat-sen played many rôles in the history of his times. He was one of those dramatic and somewhat formidable figures who engage the world's attention at the very outset of their careers. In the late years of the nineteenth century, he was already winning some renown in the West; it was picturesque that a Cantonese, a Christian physician, should engage in desperate conspiracies against the Manchu throne. Sun became known as a political adventurer, a forerunner, as it were, of such mutually dissimilar personages as Trotsky, Lawrence, and Major-General Doihara. With the illusory success of the revolution of 1911, and his Presidency of the first Republic, Sun ceased being a conspirator in the eyes of the world's press, and became the George Washington of China. It is in this rôle that he is most commonly known, and his name most generally recalled. After the world war, in the atmosphere of extreme tension developed, perhaps, by the Bolshevik revolution, Sun was regarded as an enigmatic leader, especially significant in the struggle between Asiatic nationalisms allied with the Soviets against the traditional capitalist state-system. It was through him that the Red anti-imperialist policy was pushed to its greatest success, and he was hated and admired, ridiculed and feared, down to the last moments of his life. When he died, American reporters in Latvia cabled New York their reports of Russian comments on the event.3More, perhaps, than any other Chinese of modern times, Sun symbolized the entrance of China into[pg 002]world affairs, and the inevitable confluence of Western and Far Eastern history.It is characteristic of Sun that he should have appeared in another and final rôle after his death. He had been thought of as conspirator, statesman, and mass leader; but with the advent of his party to power it became publicly apparent that he had also been a political philosopher. The tremendous prestige enjoyed by him as state-founder and party leader was enhanced by his importance as prophet and law-giver. His doctrines became the state philosophy of China, and for a while his most zealous followers sought to have him canonized in a quite literal fashion, and at one stroke to make him replace Confucius and the Sons of Heaven. After the extreme enthusiasms of the Sun Yat-sen cult subsided, Sun remained the great national hero-sage of modern China. Even in those territories where the authority of his political heirs was not completely effective, his flag was flown and his doctrines taught.His doctrines have provided the theories upon which the Nationalist revolution was based; they form the extra-juridical constitution of the National Government of China. When the forces hostile to Sun Yat-sen and his followers are considered, it is amazing that his ideas and ideals should have survived. An empire established with the aid of Japanese arms, and still under Japanese hegemony, controls Manchuria; parts of north China are ruled by a bastard government, born of a compromise between enemies; a largely unrecognized but powerful Soviet Republic exists in outer Mongolia; the lamaist oligarchy goes on in Tibet; and somewhere, in central and western China, a Soviet group, not quite a government but more than a conspiracy, is fighting for existence. It is quite probable that nowhere else in the world can there be found a greater variety of principles, each scheme of principles fostered by an armed organization struggling with its[pg 003]rivals. In this chaos the National Government has made the most effective bid for authority and the greatest effort for the reëstablishment of order; through it the principles of Sun Yat-sen rule the political life of a population greater than that of the United States or of the Soviet Union.It is difficult to evaluate the importance of political doctrines. Even ifThe Three Principlesis judged by the extent of the population which its followers control, it has achieved greater results in practical politics in fifteen years than has Marxism in ninety. Such a criterion may well be disputed, but, whatever the test, it cannot be denied that the thought of Sun Yat-sen has played a major part in the political development of his native land. It may continue into the indefinitely remote future, or may succumb to the perils that surround its advocates; in any case, these doctrines have been taught long enough and broadly enough to make an impress on the age, and have been so significant in political and cultural history that they can never sink into complete obscurity.What are these doctrines? Sun Yat-sen was so voluminous a writer that it would be impossible for his followers to digest and codify all his writings into one neat and coherent handbook; he himself did not provide one. Before printing became common, there was a certain automatic process of condensation which preserved the important utterances of great men, and let their trivial sayings perish. Sun, however, must have realized that he was leaving a vast legacy of materials which are not altogether coherent or consistent with one another. Certain of his works were naturally more important than others, but, to make the choice definitive, he himself indicated four sources which his followers might draw upon for a definitive statement of his views.4[pg 004]HisPolitical Testamentcites theChien Kuo Fang Lo(The Program of National Reconstruction), theChien Kuo Ta Kang(The Outline of National Reconstruction), theSan Min Chu I(The Triple Demism, also translated asThe Three Principles of the People), and theManifestoissued by the first national congress of the Party.5These four items differ quite sharply from one another in form. No one of them can be relied upon to give the whole of Sun's doctrines.TheChien Kuo Fang Lo(The Program of National Reconstruction) is in reality three works, only remotely related to one another. The first item in the trilogy is theSun Wên Hsüeh Shê(The Philosophy of Sun Wên); it is a series of familiar essays on the Chinese way of thought.6The second is theMin Ch'üan Ts'u Pu,The Primer of Democracy, which is little more than a text on parliamentary law.7The third is theShih Yeh Chi Hua, known in English asThe International Development[pg 005]of China, which Sun wrote in both English and Chinese.8These three works, under the alternate titles of“The Program of Psychological Reconstruction,”“The Program of Social Reconstruction,”and“The Program of Material Reconstruction”formThe Program of National Reconstruction.TheChien Kuo Ta Kang, The Outline of National Reconstruction, is an outline of twenty-five points, giving the necessary steps towards the national reconstruction in their most concise form.9TheSan Min Chu Iis Sun's most important work. It comprises sixteen lectures setting forth his socio-political theories and his programs. The title most commonly used in Western versions isThe Three Principles of the People.10The last document mentioned in Sun Yat-sen's will was theManifestoof the first national congress of the Kuomintang. This was not written by himself, but was drafted by Wang Ch'ing-wei, one of his closest followers, and embodies essentially the same ideas as do the other three items, even though Borodin—the emissary of the Third International—had been consulted in its preparation.11Sun undoubtedly regretted leaving such a heterogeneous and ill-assembled group of works as his literary bequest.[pg 006]Throughout the latter years of his life he was studying political science in the hope that he might be able to complete a great treatise which he had projected, an analysis and statement of the programs of the Chinese nationalists. One attempt toward actualization of this work was frustrated when Sun's manuscripts and a great part of his library were burned in the attack launched against him by Ch'en Ch'iung-ming in 1922. His apology for the makeshift volume on theSan Min Chu Iis pathetic:“As I had neither time to prepare nor books to use as references, I could do nothing else in these lectures but improvise after I ascended the platform. Thus I have omitted and forgotten many things which were in my original manuscript. Although before having them printed, I revised them, added (passages) and eliminated (others), yet, those lectures are far from coming up to my original manuscripts, either in the subject matter itself, or in the concatenations of the discussion, or in the facts adduced as proofs.”12Sun was in all probability a more assiduous and widely read student of political science than any other world leader of his day except Wilson; he studied innumerable treatises on government, and was surprisingly familiar with the general background of Western politics, in theory and practice. He was aware of the shabby appearance that these undigested occasional pieces would present when put forth as the bible of a new China, and earnestly enjoined his followers to carry on his labors and bring them to fruition.13The various works included in theChien Kuo Fang Lo, while satisfactory for the purposes Sun had in mind when he wrote them, are not enough to outline the fundamentals both of political theory and a governmental plan. The familiar essays have an important bearing on the formation of the ideology of a new China; the primer[pg 007]of democracy, less; the industrial plan is one of those magnificent dreams which, in the turn of a decade, may inspire an equally great reality. The outline and the manifesto are no more suited to the rôle of classics; they are decalogues rather than bibles.14There remains theSan Min Chu I.TheSan Min Chu Iis a collection of sixteen lectures delivered in Canton in 1924. There were to have been eighteen, but Sun was unable to give the last two. Legend has it that Borodin persuaded Sun to give the series.15Whatever the cause of their being offered, they attracted immediate attention. Interest in Sun and in his ideas was at a fever heat; his friends turned to the printed lectures for guidance; his enemies, for statements which could be turned against him. Both friends and enemies found what they wanted. To the friends, theSan Min Chu Ipresented a fairly complete outline of Sun's political and social thought in such a form that it could be preserved and broadcast readily. There was danger, before the book appeared, that the intrinsic unity in Sun's thinking would be lost sight of by posterity, that his ideas would appear as a disconnected jumble of brilliant inspirations. The sixteen lectures incorporated a great part of the doctrines which he had been preaching for more than a generation. To the enemies of Sun, the work was welcome. They pointed out the numerous simplifications and inconsistencies, the frequent contradictions in matters of detail, the then outrageous denunciations of the economic and political system predominant in the Far East. They ridiculed Sun because he was Chinese, and because he was not Chinese enough, and backed up their criticisms with passages from the book.16[pg 008]When Sun gave the lectures, he was a sick man. He carried an ivory-headed sword cane with him on the platform; occasionally, holding it behind him and locking his arms through it, he would press it against his back to relieve the intolerable pain.17The business awaiting him after each lecture was vitally important; the revolution was proceeding by leaps and bounds. The lectures are the lectures of a sick man, given to a popular audience in the uproar of revolution, without adequate preparation, improvised in large part, and offered as one side of a crucial and bitterly disputed question. The secretaries who took down the lectures may not have succeeded in following them completely; Sun had no leisure to do more than skim through the book before releasing it to the press.These improvised lectures have had to serve as the fundamental document of Nationalist China. Sun Yat-sen died without writing the treatise he had planned. The materials he left behind were a challenge to scholars and to his followers. Many persons set to work interpreting them, each with a conscious or unconscious end in view. A German Marxian showed Sun to be a forerunner of bolshevism; an American liberal showed Sun to be a bulwark against bolshevism. A Chinese classicist demonstrated Sun's reverence for the past; a Jesuit father explained much by Sun's modern and Christian background. His works have been translated into Western[pg 009]languages without notes; the improvised lectures, torn from their context of a revolutionary crisis, have served poorly to explain the ideology of Sun Yat-sen, and his long range political, social, and economic plans.

Sun Yat-sen played many rôles in the history of his times. He was one of those dramatic and somewhat formidable figures who engage the world's attention at the very outset of their careers. In the late years of the nineteenth century, he was already winning some renown in the West; it was picturesque that a Cantonese, a Christian physician, should engage in desperate conspiracies against the Manchu throne. Sun became known as a political adventurer, a forerunner, as it were, of such mutually dissimilar personages as Trotsky, Lawrence, and Major-General Doihara. With the illusory success of the revolution of 1911, and his Presidency of the first Republic, Sun ceased being a conspirator in the eyes of the world's press, and became the George Washington of China. It is in this rôle that he is most commonly known, and his name most generally recalled. After the world war, in the atmosphere of extreme tension developed, perhaps, by the Bolshevik revolution, Sun was regarded as an enigmatic leader, especially significant in the struggle between Asiatic nationalisms allied with the Soviets against the traditional capitalist state-system. It was through him that the Red anti-imperialist policy was pushed to its greatest success, and he was hated and admired, ridiculed and feared, down to the last moments of his life. When he died, American reporters in Latvia cabled New York their reports of Russian comments on the event.3More, perhaps, than any other Chinese of modern times, Sun symbolized the entrance of China into[pg 002]world affairs, and the inevitable confluence of Western and Far Eastern history.

It is characteristic of Sun that he should have appeared in another and final rôle after his death. He had been thought of as conspirator, statesman, and mass leader; but with the advent of his party to power it became publicly apparent that he had also been a political philosopher. The tremendous prestige enjoyed by him as state-founder and party leader was enhanced by his importance as prophet and law-giver. His doctrines became the state philosophy of China, and for a while his most zealous followers sought to have him canonized in a quite literal fashion, and at one stroke to make him replace Confucius and the Sons of Heaven. After the extreme enthusiasms of the Sun Yat-sen cult subsided, Sun remained the great national hero-sage of modern China. Even in those territories where the authority of his political heirs was not completely effective, his flag was flown and his doctrines taught.

His doctrines have provided the theories upon which the Nationalist revolution was based; they form the extra-juridical constitution of the National Government of China. When the forces hostile to Sun Yat-sen and his followers are considered, it is amazing that his ideas and ideals should have survived. An empire established with the aid of Japanese arms, and still under Japanese hegemony, controls Manchuria; parts of north China are ruled by a bastard government, born of a compromise between enemies; a largely unrecognized but powerful Soviet Republic exists in outer Mongolia; the lamaist oligarchy goes on in Tibet; and somewhere, in central and western China, a Soviet group, not quite a government but more than a conspiracy, is fighting for existence. It is quite probable that nowhere else in the world can there be found a greater variety of principles, each scheme of principles fostered by an armed organization struggling with its[pg 003]rivals. In this chaos the National Government has made the most effective bid for authority and the greatest effort for the reëstablishment of order; through it the principles of Sun Yat-sen rule the political life of a population greater than that of the United States or of the Soviet Union.

It is difficult to evaluate the importance of political doctrines. Even ifThe Three Principlesis judged by the extent of the population which its followers control, it has achieved greater results in practical politics in fifteen years than has Marxism in ninety. Such a criterion may well be disputed, but, whatever the test, it cannot be denied that the thought of Sun Yat-sen has played a major part in the political development of his native land. It may continue into the indefinitely remote future, or may succumb to the perils that surround its advocates; in any case, these doctrines have been taught long enough and broadly enough to make an impress on the age, and have been so significant in political and cultural history that they can never sink into complete obscurity.

What are these doctrines? Sun Yat-sen was so voluminous a writer that it would be impossible for his followers to digest and codify all his writings into one neat and coherent handbook; he himself did not provide one. Before printing became common, there was a certain automatic process of condensation which preserved the important utterances of great men, and let their trivial sayings perish. Sun, however, must have realized that he was leaving a vast legacy of materials which are not altogether coherent or consistent with one another. Certain of his works were naturally more important than others, but, to make the choice definitive, he himself indicated four sources which his followers might draw upon for a definitive statement of his views.4

HisPolitical Testamentcites theChien Kuo Fang Lo(The Program of National Reconstruction), theChien Kuo Ta Kang(The Outline of National Reconstruction), theSan Min Chu I(The Triple Demism, also translated asThe Three Principles of the People), and theManifestoissued by the first national congress of the Party.5These four items differ quite sharply from one another in form. No one of them can be relied upon to give the whole of Sun's doctrines.

TheChien Kuo Fang Lo(The Program of National Reconstruction) is in reality three works, only remotely related to one another. The first item in the trilogy is theSun Wên Hsüeh Shê(The Philosophy of Sun Wên); it is a series of familiar essays on the Chinese way of thought.6The second is theMin Ch'üan Ts'u Pu,The Primer of Democracy, which is little more than a text on parliamentary law.7The third is theShih Yeh Chi Hua, known in English asThe International Development[pg 005]of China, which Sun wrote in both English and Chinese.8These three works, under the alternate titles of“The Program of Psychological Reconstruction,”“The Program of Social Reconstruction,”and“The Program of Material Reconstruction”formThe Program of National Reconstruction.

TheChien Kuo Ta Kang, The Outline of National Reconstruction, is an outline of twenty-five points, giving the necessary steps towards the national reconstruction in their most concise form.9

TheSan Min Chu Iis Sun's most important work. It comprises sixteen lectures setting forth his socio-political theories and his programs. The title most commonly used in Western versions isThe Three Principles of the People.10

The last document mentioned in Sun Yat-sen's will was theManifestoof the first national congress of the Kuomintang. This was not written by himself, but was drafted by Wang Ch'ing-wei, one of his closest followers, and embodies essentially the same ideas as do the other three items, even though Borodin—the emissary of the Third International—had been consulted in its preparation.11

Sun undoubtedly regretted leaving such a heterogeneous and ill-assembled group of works as his literary bequest.[pg 006]Throughout the latter years of his life he was studying political science in the hope that he might be able to complete a great treatise which he had projected, an analysis and statement of the programs of the Chinese nationalists. One attempt toward actualization of this work was frustrated when Sun's manuscripts and a great part of his library were burned in the attack launched against him by Ch'en Ch'iung-ming in 1922. His apology for the makeshift volume on theSan Min Chu Iis pathetic:“As I had neither time to prepare nor books to use as references, I could do nothing else in these lectures but improvise after I ascended the platform. Thus I have omitted and forgotten many things which were in my original manuscript. Although before having them printed, I revised them, added (passages) and eliminated (others), yet, those lectures are far from coming up to my original manuscripts, either in the subject matter itself, or in the concatenations of the discussion, or in the facts adduced as proofs.”12Sun was in all probability a more assiduous and widely read student of political science than any other world leader of his day except Wilson; he studied innumerable treatises on government, and was surprisingly familiar with the general background of Western politics, in theory and practice. He was aware of the shabby appearance that these undigested occasional pieces would present when put forth as the bible of a new China, and earnestly enjoined his followers to carry on his labors and bring them to fruition.13

The various works included in theChien Kuo Fang Lo, while satisfactory for the purposes Sun had in mind when he wrote them, are not enough to outline the fundamentals both of political theory and a governmental plan. The familiar essays have an important bearing on the formation of the ideology of a new China; the primer[pg 007]of democracy, less; the industrial plan is one of those magnificent dreams which, in the turn of a decade, may inspire an equally great reality. The outline and the manifesto are no more suited to the rôle of classics; they are decalogues rather than bibles.14There remains theSan Min Chu I.

TheSan Min Chu Iis a collection of sixteen lectures delivered in Canton in 1924. There were to have been eighteen, but Sun was unable to give the last two. Legend has it that Borodin persuaded Sun to give the series.15Whatever the cause of their being offered, they attracted immediate attention. Interest in Sun and in his ideas was at a fever heat; his friends turned to the printed lectures for guidance; his enemies, for statements which could be turned against him. Both friends and enemies found what they wanted. To the friends, theSan Min Chu Ipresented a fairly complete outline of Sun's political and social thought in such a form that it could be preserved and broadcast readily. There was danger, before the book appeared, that the intrinsic unity in Sun's thinking would be lost sight of by posterity, that his ideas would appear as a disconnected jumble of brilliant inspirations. The sixteen lectures incorporated a great part of the doctrines which he had been preaching for more than a generation. To the enemies of Sun, the work was welcome. They pointed out the numerous simplifications and inconsistencies, the frequent contradictions in matters of detail, the then outrageous denunciations of the economic and political system predominant in the Far East. They ridiculed Sun because he was Chinese, and because he was not Chinese enough, and backed up their criticisms with passages from the book.16

When Sun gave the lectures, he was a sick man. He carried an ivory-headed sword cane with him on the platform; occasionally, holding it behind him and locking his arms through it, he would press it against his back to relieve the intolerable pain.17The business awaiting him after each lecture was vitally important; the revolution was proceeding by leaps and bounds. The lectures are the lectures of a sick man, given to a popular audience in the uproar of revolution, without adequate preparation, improvised in large part, and offered as one side of a crucial and bitterly disputed question. The secretaries who took down the lectures may not have succeeded in following them completely; Sun had no leisure to do more than skim through the book before releasing it to the press.

These improvised lectures have had to serve as the fundamental document of Nationalist China. Sun Yat-sen died without writing the treatise he had planned. The materials he left behind were a challenge to scholars and to his followers. Many persons set to work interpreting them, each with a conscious or unconscious end in view. A German Marxian showed Sun to be a forerunner of bolshevism; an American liberal showed Sun to be a bulwark against bolshevism. A Chinese classicist demonstrated Sun's reverence for the past; a Jesuit father explained much by Sun's modern and Christian background. His works have been translated into Western[pg 009]languages without notes; the improvised lectures, torn from their context of a revolutionary crisis, have served poorly to explain the ideology of Sun Yat-sen, and his long range political, social, and economic plans.

The Necessity of an Exposition.Followers of Sun who knew him personally, or were members of that circle in which his ideas and opinions were well known, have found theSan Min Chu Iand other literary remains helpful; they have been able to turn to the documents to refresh their memories of Sun on some particular point, or to experience the encouraging force of his faith and enthusiasm again. They need not be reminded of the main tenets of his thought, or of the fundamental values upon which he based his life and his political activities. His sense of leadership, which strangers have at times thought fantastic, is one which they admire in him, since they, too, have felt the power of his personality and have experienced that leadership in the course of their own lives. His voice is ringing in their consciences; they feel no need of a guide to his mind. At the present day many members of Sun's own family, and a considerable number of his veteran disciples are still living; the control of the National Government is in their hands. They are people who need no commentary on Sun Yat-sen; to them, he died only yesterday.Others, who met Sun only casually, or who could know him only through his writings, have a quite different impression of his thought. They perforce assume that he thought as he wrote, and fail to realize that virtually all his writings and speeches were occasional pieces, improvisations designed as propaganda. One of the most respected American authorities on China says that in theSan Min Chu I“... there is a combination of sound social analysis, keen comment on comparative political[pg 010]science, and bombast, journalistic inaccuracy, jejune philosophizing and sophomoric economics.”18This view is one which can scarcely be attacked, if one considers only the printed lectures, and overlooks the other utterances and the personality of Sun. To apply this, or any similar estimate (and there are many of them), to all of Sun Yat-sen's thought would be woefully inaccurate. It is not the critic's fault that Sun never found time to write a sober, definitive political treatise expressing his ideas; it is, nevertheless, the critic's responsibility to weigh the value of theSan Min Chu I, and consider the importance which Sun himself attached to it, before judging Sun's whole philosophy by a hastily-composed and poorly written book.Yet, if the Western student of modern Chinese history were to look elsewhere for some general exposition of Sun Yat-sen's political ideas, he would find none. He could discover several excellent translations of the sixteen lectures, and parts of the other work of Sun. He would be helped by the prefatory notes to some of these translations.19A few treatises would be available to him on special phases of Sun's thought: the influence of Maurice William, and the influence of the Russian Communists.20In addition, there would be the biographies, of which there are more than a dozen, and a few other useful although not general works. None of these sifts Sun's thought, seeking to separate the transitory from the permanent in his ideas. For this the searcher would have to rely on brief outlines of Sun's ideas, to be found in[pg 011]works dealing with modern China or the Chinese revolution.21This relative scarcity of exegetic material concerning the ideology and programs of Sun is not the result of any inadequacy on the part of those persons, both Chinese and Western, who have devoted thought and time to his life or to the translation of his works. It is one thing to point out a task that has yet to be done; and quite another, actually to perform it. An interpretation or exposition of Sun's thought, to be worthy of the great significance of the original, must be very thorough; but scarcely enough time has elapsed to allow a perspective of all the materials, let alone an orientation of Sun in the Far Eastern scene. Yet the importance of Sun demands that something be done to bring his thought to the attention of the world, so that the usual distortion of his personality—arising from the lack of commentaries—may be avoided in present day works. In a sense, the time is not ripe for a definitive treatment of Sun, either as a figure in history or as a contributor to the significant and enduring political thought of modern times; any work now done will, as time passes, fall grotesquely far short of adequacy. On the other hand, there is so much material of a perishable nature—anecdotes and legends not yet committed to print, and the memories of living men—now available, that a present-day work on Sun may gain[pg 012]in color and intimacy what it loses in judgment and objectivity, may gain in proximity what it has to forgo in detachment. And, lastly, the complete absence of any systematic presentation of Sun's ideas in any Western language is so great a deficiency in the fields of Far Eastern history and world political thought, that even a relatively inadequate exposition of the thought of Sun Yat-sen may prove to be not without value. Sun himself never explained his philosophy, whether theoretical or applied, in any broad, systematic fashion; nor has anyone else done so.If the permissibility of an exposition of Sun Yat-sen's thought be conceded, there still remains the vexing problem of a choice of method. While the far-flung peripheries of Sun's thought touch almost every field of knowledge and opinion, a systematic condensation of his views cannot hope to survey the same broad ranges. The problem of proportion, of just emphasis, involves the nice appraisal of the degree of importance which each of Sun's minor rôles had in his intellectual career as a whole. Nor do the difficulties concerning method end with the consideration of proportion; they merely begin, for there remains the far more important and perplexing problem of a technique of interpretation.Interpretation obviously relates to the problem of language. The translation of theoretical terms from Chinese into English constitutes a formidable difficulty which proves, in several instances, to be insuperable. No satisfactory equivalent formin shêng(usually rendered“livelihood”) can be found in English; even simpler and less specialized terms are extremely difficult to render. Sometimes it would be convenient to employ four or five alternative translations for one Chinese term. Sun uses the word“nationalism”in the sense that a Westerner would, in advocating national consciousness in a China hitherto unfamiliar with the conception of nation-states; but, in[pg 013]a different context, he uses it in the sense of“patriotism.”22These difficulties must be faced and, somehow or other, overcome. When the Western reader encounters a familiar term in an unexpected place, he must be prepared to meet a shift of meaning. No amount of definition can make a Chinese term, which has no exact Western equivalent, completely clear. It is simpler to grow accustomed to the term, to gather together its connotations, to understand something of the frame of reference wherein it is set, and thereby to learn it as a child learns a word. A dictionary is no help to a baby; in a realm of unfamiliar ideas even scholars must learn terms step by step.Less obviously than language, the translation of ideas and of values is also involved in interpretation. In dealing with the intellectual content of a civilization as alien as that of China, the Westerner must be wary of the easy analogy. The full, forceful application of Western ideas and values in a world to which they are completely irrelevant produced strange results during the nineteenth century. Western notions of goodness and reasonableness did not fit the Chinese scheme of things. Under such a test a wildly distorted image of China was obtained. China seemed peculiar, topsy-turvy, fantastic. To themselves the Chinese still seemed quite matter-of-fact, and the Westerners thought even this odd and ridiculous: not only was China upside-down, but the Chinese did not know it! In any case, the present-day scholar, to whom so much material concerning the Chinese is available and China so near, has little justification for applying Western tests of virtue and rationality to things Chinese.If the application of Western values to China is avoided, there is still the danger that the Chinese scheme of things may not be interpreted at all. The literal translation[pg 014]of Chinese terms strips them of their contexts. The result may be unintelligibility. The Chinese termjênis frequently rendered“benevolence,”a Western word which, while at times an approximate equivalent, fails to carry the full burden of meaning. Sun speaks of an interpretation of history antagonistic to dialectical materialism—the interpretation of history byjên. A“benevolent”interpretation of history means nothing whatever to a Westerner. Ifjênis translated into a different configuration of words, and given as“group-consciousness”or“social fellow-feeling,”the result, while still not an exact equivalent of the Chinese, is distinctly more intelligible.To effect this translation of ideas and values, several methods are available. The issue cannot be dodged by a denial of its existence; the mere act of explanation involves some process, whether deliberate or unconscious, of translation and transvaluation. If the interpreter refuses to deal with the problem consciously, he will nevertheless be guided by his unrevealed assumptions. To give an accounting for what he has done, he must, first, admit that he is interpreting, and second, seek to make plain what he is doing, so that his readers may allow for the process. The demonstration of the consequences of interpretation minimizes their possible adverse effects. The simplest way to allow for the alterations (beyond mere reproduction) arising from interpretation would be to adopt a technique so widely known that others could, in their own minds, try to re-trace the steps of the process and negate the changes. Among such widely known techniques are the Marxian and the sociological.Both these scarcely seem adapted to the problems presented by an interpretation of Sun Yat-sen. The Marxian terminology is so peculiarly suited to the ulterior purposes the Marxians keep in mind, and is so esoteric when applied to matters not related to the general fields in which the Marxians are interested, that it could scarcely[pg 015]be applied in the present instance. A non-Marxian would find it a hazardous task. The interpreter of Sun Yat-sen must interpretintosomething; what, depends on the audience. Dialectical materialism, in the abstract excellent as a technique, would scarcely make Sun understandable to most Americans of the present day. Sun himself rejected the Marxian method of interpretation; an American audience would also reject it; these two factors outweigh all the conceivable advantages.The sociological technique of interpretation is quite another question. The various methods of analysis developed by each of the schools of sociologists are still the objects rather than the tools of study. Such men as Max Weber and Vilfredo Pareto have made contributions to Western social thought which enrich the scope and method of the social studies. Their methods of analysis are not weighted down by a body of extraneous considerations, as is the Marxian, and they promise an objectivity not otherwise attainable. On the other hand, they are still at that stage of development where the technique obtrudes itself; it has not, as has the inductive method in general, become so much taken for granted as to be invisible.The sociological approach need not, however, be carried to the full extent thought necessary by its advocates. In the study of law, the consideration of extra-juridical materials is called sociological in contrast to the strictly juristic. If the legal scholar goes beyond the strict framework of the law, and considers other elements in man's behavior and knowledge while dealing with legal problems, he is apt to be called a sociological jurist. In doing so he is not committed, however, to belief in or use of any particular form of what is known as the science of society or sociology. He may adopt almost any sort of social outlook, or may be committed to any one of many doctrines of social value and to any one of widely varying methods of social study.[pg 016]This negative, broad sense of the sociological, when applied to the study of politics, has commonly meant that the scholars employing it began with the notion of the political, but, finding it too narrow, touched upon related fields. An interpretation of Sun Yat-sen's politics might be based on this method. It would still be a political work, in that it sought to associate his ideas with the ideas concerning government to be found in the West, but would be free, nevertheless, to touch upon non-political materials relevant to Sun's politics. The Chinese have had notions of authority and control radically different from those developed in the West; a purely juristic interpretation of the various Chinese politics would simply scrape the lacquer off the screen.The Chinese have not had the sharp distinction of disciplines which runs through all Western learning. Since one of the most conspicuous ingredients in their thought—conspicuous, that is, to Westerners looking in from outside—has been the ethical, many Westerners have dismissed Chinese historical, political and more strictly philosophical thought as being loosely and amiably ethical but never getting anywhere. The Chinese did not departmentalize their learning to any considerable degree. Politics was not the special activity of a definite group of men, or the study of a select body of scholars. Politics ran through and across most of the activities in society, and was largely the interest of that intellectual élite by which China has been so distinguished on the roster of civilizations. In becoming everything, politics ceased being politics; that is, those elements in man's thought and behavior which Westerners have termed political were not separated and labelled. The Westerner must say that politics was everything in China, or that it was nothing.An interpretation of Sun Yat-sen must keep in mind these differences between Chinese and Western categories. In doing so it will pass beyond the limits of what is commonly[pg 017]known as politics, since no sharp boundaries of“politics”are to be found in China. Yet, as an interpretation designed to serve Western readers, it must return again and again to Western politics, making comparisons when they are justified, pointing out differences between China and the West as they become relevant and clear. The interpretation will thus weave back and forth between conventional Western political science, with its state-mindedness, and the wholly different material of traditions and customs out of which Sun sought to construct an ideology and a system of working politics for China in the modern world.How can this interpretation seek to avoid the misfortunes and errors into which so many similar attempts have fallen? It must proceed without the aid of such specialized techniques as dialectical-materialistic or Paretian analysis, and yet aim at the scientific, the rationally defensible, the objective. In seeking to apply a method in the interpretation of Sun Yat-sen, the work must face criticism of its method, must make the method explicit and simple enough to allow criticism. If the thought of Sun really is to emerge from the exposition, the exposition must allow itself to be judged, so that it can be appraised, and so that, one way or another, it may not interfere with the just evaluation of the materials which it seeks to present. Sun Yat-sen should not be judged poor because of a poor interpretation; nor, on the other hand, should his thought be adjudged more excellent or more exact than it seems to the Chinese, merely because the expositor has suggested an interpretation possibly more precise.The technique adopted in the present work is a relatively simple one. It is an attempt to startde novowith certain concepts of society and government. Several simple although novel terms are introduced, to provide a foundation upon which the procedure may rest. One of[pg 018]these, for instance, is“ideology,”which in the present work refers to the whole psychological conditioning of a group of persons.23No attempt is made, at the beginning or at any later phase of the exposition, to distinguish between the ideology as belief and the ideology as truth. Whether the Chinese were and are right, or the Westerners, are questions, not for the student of comparative political science, but for the philosopher and the psychologist. The interpretation seeks, as far as possible, to transpose certain parts of the traditional Chinese ideology, as they were, and as Sun Yat-sen re-shaped them, into one frame of reference provided by the ideology of twentieth-century America. What the“real truth”is, does not matter; the Marxians would say that both ideologies were inexact; so might the Roman Catholics. If the[pg 019]ideology of old China, and the ideology that Sun wished to see developed in the minds of the Chinese people of the future, can be made comprehensible in terms of contemporary American beliefs, of fact or of value, this venture will have been successful.The Chinese ideology cannot be explained in its own terms; these exist only in the Chinese language. If Sun Yat-sen's own arrangement of his works is inadequate for the Chinese, rearrangement is a task for the Chinese and not for the Western scholars to perform. The Westerners who deal with Sun can contribute substantially only if they give what the Chinese cannot—enough of a reference to their own ideology to permit a broader scale for the analysis and the appreciation of Sun's thought. Their knowledge of their own world of ideas is the special tool which justifies their intervention in this Chinese field of knowledge.In avoiding the unjustifiable imposition of Western ideas and values upon the Chinese, and yet orienting Sun's thought with respect to the West, the interpretation will have to resort to several fairly evident means. In the first place, it will have to transpose Chinese ideas into the Western ideology, and yet avoid distortions of meaning. This can be partly done by the use of neutral terms, of terms which are simple and clear enough to reproduce the Chinese, and nevertheless not so heavily burdened with connotations that they will cause a reading-in of Western ideas not relevant to the point in question. More simply, the Chinese ideas must be represented by terms which approximate the same set of values in the West that their originals have in China. This will sometimes require the use of unfamiliar periphrases: the words“music”and“rites”may be given as“the rhythm of life”and“conformity to the ideology.”Secondly, the Chinese ideology need not be given as a whole; it is improbable that it could, without a terrific expansion[pg 020]of the Western ideology to accommodate it; but enough of the Chinese ideology must be given to explain the significant differences between the Chinese system of controlling the behavior of men, and the Western. This latter involves the choice of material, and is therefore by its nature challengeable.Again, in demonstrating significant differences instead of merely seeking analogous (and probably misleading) examples, the interpretation might turn to certain aspects of Chinese philosophy which appear as strikingly illustrative of the point of view of the Chinese. Confucius the political thinker is only a small part of Confucius the man and the philosopher; Chinese political thought, although a vast field, is only a small part of the social thought of the Chinese. Only an infinitesimal part of this comparatively minor area of Chinese study will suffice to make clear some, at least, of the sharp differences of outlook between China and the West.A recapitulation of this declaration of technique may be found helpful, for an understanding of Sun Yat-sen by Westerners is necessary because of the vastly different background of his thought. Even apart from the strangeness of his thought to the West, it is scattered in the original, and must be pieced together. An exposition of his ideas which would, at one and the same time, present a systematic outline of his ideas, and transpose them into a frame of reference where Western scholars might grasp them, might be a labor meriting performance. His terms would have to be rendered by neutral words (not overladen with particular Western contexts) or by neologisms, or simply left in the original, to develop meaning as a configuration of related ideas is built up about them. The problem of interpretation cannot, however, be solved by settling the difficulty of language: there still remains the question of a technique which can pretend to the scientific, the exact, the rationally defensible. Despite their great[pg 021]merits, the Marxian and Paretian techniques are not suited to the present task. The point of view and means of study of political science may be kept, if a few necessary borrowings from sociological thought (not necessarily sociology) are introduced. Such borrowing includes the use of notions such as non-political society, patterns of authority, and ideology, none of which are to be found in the more law-minded part of political science. By seeking to point out the Chinese, then the Western, ideas involved, without confusing the two, the presentation may succeed in transposing the ideology of Sun Yat-sen, as well as his beliefs concerning working politics, into the English language and into an explanatory but not distorting background. To do this, a small sampling of certain aspects of old Chinese social thought and behavior will be a required preliminary.

Followers of Sun who knew him personally, or were members of that circle in which his ideas and opinions were well known, have found theSan Min Chu Iand other literary remains helpful; they have been able to turn to the documents to refresh their memories of Sun on some particular point, or to experience the encouraging force of his faith and enthusiasm again. They need not be reminded of the main tenets of his thought, or of the fundamental values upon which he based his life and his political activities. His sense of leadership, which strangers have at times thought fantastic, is one which they admire in him, since they, too, have felt the power of his personality and have experienced that leadership in the course of their own lives. His voice is ringing in their consciences; they feel no need of a guide to his mind. At the present day many members of Sun's own family, and a considerable number of his veteran disciples are still living; the control of the National Government is in their hands. They are people who need no commentary on Sun Yat-sen; to them, he died only yesterday.

Others, who met Sun only casually, or who could know him only through his writings, have a quite different impression of his thought. They perforce assume that he thought as he wrote, and fail to realize that virtually all his writings and speeches were occasional pieces, improvisations designed as propaganda. One of the most respected American authorities on China says that in theSan Min Chu I“... there is a combination of sound social analysis, keen comment on comparative political[pg 010]science, and bombast, journalistic inaccuracy, jejune philosophizing and sophomoric economics.”18This view is one which can scarcely be attacked, if one considers only the printed lectures, and overlooks the other utterances and the personality of Sun. To apply this, or any similar estimate (and there are many of them), to all of Sun Yat-sen's thought would be woefully inaccurate. It is not the critic's fault that Sun never found time to write a sober, definitive political treatise expressing his ideas; it is, nevertheless, the critic's responsibility to weigh the value of theSan Min Chu I, and consider the importance which Sun himself attached to it, before judging Sun's whole philosophy by a hastily-composed and poorly written book.

Yet, if the Western student of modern Chinese history were to look elsewhere for some general exposition of Sun Yat-sen's political ideas, he would find none. He could discover several excellent translations of the sixteen lectures, and parts of the other work of Sun. He would be helped by the prefatory notes to some of these translations.19A few treatises would be available to him on special phases of Sun's thought: the influence of Maurice William, and the influence of the Russian Communists.20In addition, there would be the biographies, of which there are more than a dozen, and a few other useful although not general works. None of these sifts Sun's thought, seeking to separate the transitory from the permanent in his ideas. For this the searcher would have to rely on brief outlines of Sun's ideas, to be found in[pg 011]works dealing with modern China or the Chinese revolution.21

This relative scarcity of exegetic material concerning the ideology and programs of Sun is not the result of any inadequacy on the part of those persons, both Chinese and Western, who have devoted thought and time to his life or to the translation of his works. It is one thing to point out a task that has yet to be done; and quite another, actually to perform it. An interpretation or exposition of Sun's thought, to be worthy of the great significance of the original, must be very thorough; but scarcely enough time has elapsed to allow a perspective of all the materials, let alone an orientation of Sun in the Far Eastern scene. Yet the importance of Sun demands that something be done to bring his thought to the attention of the world, so that the usual distortion of his personality—arising from the lack of commentaries—may be avoided in present day works. In a sense, the time is not ripe for a definitive treatment of Sun, either as a figure in history or as a contributor to the significant and enduring political thought of modern times; any work now done will, as time passes, fall grotesquely far short of adequacy. On the other hand, there is so much material of a perishable nature—anecdotes and legends not yet committed to print, and the memories of living men—now available, that a present-day work on Sun may gain[pg 012]in color and intimacy what it loses in judgment and objectivity, may gain in proximity what it has to forgo in detachment. And, lastly, the complete absence of any systematic presentation of Sun's ideas in any Western language is so great a deficiency in the fields of Far Eastern history and world political thought, that even a relatively inadequate exposition of the thought of Sun Yat-sen may prove to be not without value. Sun himself never explained his philosophy, whether theoretical or applied, in any broad, systematic fashion; nor has anyone else done so.

If the permissibility of an exposition of Sun Yat-sen's thought be conceded, there still remains the vexing problem of a choice of method. While the far-flung peripheries of Sun's thought touch almost every field of knowledge and opinion, a systematic condensation of his views cannot hope to survey the same broad ranges. The problem of proportion, of just emphasis, involves the nice appraisal of the degree of importance which each of Sun's minor rôles had in his intellectual career as a whole. Nor do the difficulties concerning method end with the consideration of proportion; they merely begin, for there remains the far more important and perplexing problem of a technique of interpretation.

Interpretation obviously relates to the problem of language. The translation of theoretical terms from Chinese into English constitutes a formidable difficulty which proves, in several instances, to be insuperable. No satisfactory equivalent formin shêng(usually rendered“livelihood”) can be found in English; even simpler and less specialized terms are extremely difficult to render. Sometimes it would be convenient to employ four or five alternative translations for one Chinese term. Sun uses the word“nationalism”in the sense that a Westerner would, in advocating national consciousness in a China hitherto unfamiliar with the conception of nation-states; but, in[pg 013]a different context, he uses it in the sense of“patriotism.”22These difficulties must be faced and, somehow or other, overcome. When the Western reader encounters a familiar term in an unexpected place, he must be prepared to meet a shift of meaning. No amount of definition can make a Chinese term, which has no exact Western equivalent, completely clear. It is simpler to grow accustomed to the term, to gather together its connotations, to understand something of the frame of reference wherein it is set, and thereby to learn it as a child learns a word. A dictionary is no help to a baby; in a realm of unfamiliar ideas even scholars must learn terms step by step.

Less obviously than language, the translation of ideas and of values is also involved in interpretation. In dealing with the intellectual content of a civilization as alien as that of China, the Westerner must be wary of the easy analogy. The full, forceful application of Western ideas and values in a world to which they are completely irrelevant produced strange results during the nineteenth century. Western notions of goodness and reasonableness did not fit the Chinese scheme of things. Under such a test a wildly distorted image of China was obtained. China seemed peculiar, topsy-turvy, fantastic. To themselves the Chinese still seemed quite matter-of-fact, and the Westerners thought even this odd and ridiculous: not only was China upside-down, but the Chinese did not know it! In any case, the present-day scholar, to whom so much material concerning the Chinese is available and China so near, has little justification for applying Western tests of virtue and rationality to things Chinese.

If the application of Western values to China is avoided, there is still the danger that the Chinese scheme of things may not be interpreted at all. The literal translation[pg 014]of Chinese terms strips them of their contexts. The result may be unintelligibility. The Chinese termjênis frequently rendered“benevolence,”a Western word which, while at times an approximate equivalent, fails to carry the full burden of meaning. Sun speaks of an interpretation of history antagonistic to dialectical materialism—the interpretation of history byjên. A“benevolent”interpretation of history means nothing whatever to a Westerner. Ifjênis translated into a different configuration of words, and given as“group-consciousness”or“social fellow-feeling,”the result, while still not an exact equivalent of the Chinese, is distinctly more intelligible.

To effect this translation of ideas and values, several methods are available. The issue cannot be dodged by a denial of its existence; the mere act of explanation involves some process, whether deliberate or unconscious, of translation and transvaluation. If the interpreter refuses to deal with the problem consciously, he will nevertheless be guided by his unrevealed assumptions. To give an accounting for what he has done, he must, first, admit that he is interpreting, and second, seek to make plain what he is doing, so that his readers may allow for the process. The demonstration of the consequences of interpretation minimizes their possible adverse effects. The simplest way to allow for the alterations (beyond mere reproduction) arising from interpretation would be to adopt a technique so widely known that others could, in their own minds, try to re-trace the steps of the process and negate the changes. Among such widely known techniques are the Marxian and the sociological.

Both these scarcely seem adapted to the problems presented by an interpretation of Sun Yat-sen. The Marxian terminology is so peculiarly suited to the ulterior purposes the Marxians keep in mind, and is so esoteric when applied to matters not related to the general fields in which the Marxians are interested, that it could scarcely[pg 015]be applied in the present instance. A non-Marxian would find it a hazardous task. The interpreter of Sun Yat-sen must interpretintosomething; what, depends on the audience. Dialectical materialism, in the abstract excellent as a technique, would scarcely make Sun understandable to most Americans of the present day. Sun himself rejected the Marxian method of interpretation; an American audience would also reject it; these two factors outweigh all the conceivable advantages.

The sociological technique of interpretation is quite another question. The various methods of analysis developed by each of the schools of sociologists are still the objects rather than the tools of study. Such men as Max Weber and Vilfredo Pareto have made contributions to Western social thought which enrich the scope and method of the social studies. Their methods of analysis are not weighted down by a body of extraneous considerations, as is the Marxian, and they promise an objectivity not otherwise attainable. On the other hand, they are still at that stage of development where the technique obtrudes itself; it has not, as has the inductive method in general, become so much taken for granted as to be invisible.

The sociological approach need not, however, be carried to the full extent thought necessary by its advocates. In the study of law, the consideration of extra-juridical materials is called sociological in contrast to the strictly juristic. If the legal scholar goes beyond the strict framework of the law, and considers other elements in man's behavior and knowledge while dealing with legal problems, he is apt to be called a sociological jurist. In doing so he is not committed, however, to belief in or use of any particular form of what is known as the science of society or sociology. He may adopt almost any sort of social outlook, or may be committed to any one of many doctrines of social value and to any one of widely varying methods of social study.

This negative, broad sense of the sociological, when applied to the study of politics, has commonly meant that the scholars employing it began with the notion of the political, but, finding it too narrow, touched upon related fields. An interpretation of Sun Yat-sen's politics might be based on this method. It would still be a political work, in that it sought to associate his ideas with the ideas concerning government to be found in the West, but would be free, nevertheless, to touch upon non-political materials relevant to Sun's politics. The Chinese have had notions of authority and control radically different from those developed in the West; a purely juristic interpretation of the various Chinese politics would simply scrape the lacquer off the screen.

The Chinese have not had the sharp distinction of disciplines which runs through all Western learning. Since one of the most conspicuous ingredients in their thought—conspicuous, that is, to Westerners looking in from outside—has been the ethical, many Westerners have dismissed Chinese historical, political and more strictly philosophical thought as being loosely and amiably ethical but never getting anywhere. The Chinese did not departmentalize their learning to any considerable degree. Politics was not the special activity of a definite group of men, or the study of a select body of scholars. Politics ran through and across most of the activities in society, and was largely the interest of that intellectual élite by which China has been so distinguished on the roster of civilizations. In becoming everything, politics ceased being politics; that is, those elements in man's thought and behavior which Westerners have termed political were not separated and labelled. The Westerner must say that politics was everything in China, or that it was nothing.

An interpretation of Sun Yat-sen must keep in mind these differences between Chinese and Western categories. In doing so it will pass beyond the limits of what is commonly[pg 017]known as politics, since no sharp boundaries of“politics”are to be found in China. Yet, as an interpretation designed to serve Western readers, it must return again and again to Western politics, making comparisons when they are justified, pointing out differences between China and the West as they become relevant and clear. The interpretation will thus weave back and forth between conventional Western political science, with its state-mindedness, and the wholly different material of traditions and customs out of which Sun sought to construct an ideology and a system of working politics for China in the modern world.

How can this interpretation seek to avoid the misfortunes and errors into which so many similar attempts have fallen? It must proceed without the aid of such specialized techniques as dialectical-materialistic or Paretian analysis, and yet aim at the scientific, the rationally defensible, the objective. In seeking to apply a method in the interpretation of Sun Yat-sen, the work must face criticism of its method, must make the method explicit and simple enough to allow criticism. If the thought of Sun really is to emerge from the exposition, the exposition must allow itself to be judged, so that it can be appraised, and so that, one way or another, it may not interfere with the just evaluation of the materials which it seeks to present. Sun Yat-sen should not be judged poor because of a poor interpretation; nor, on the other hand, should his thought be adjudged more excellent or more exact than it seems to the Chinese, merely because the expositor has suggested an interpretation possibly more precise.

The technique adopted in the present work is a relatively simple one. It is an attempt to startde novowith certain concepts of society and government. Several simple although novel terms are introduced, to provide a foundation upon which the procedure may rest. One of[pg 018]these, for instance, is“ideology,”which in the present work refers to the whole psychological conditioning of a group of persons.23No attempt is made, at the beginning or at any later phase of the exposition, to distinguish between the ideology as belief and the ideology as truth. Whether the Chinese were and are right, or the Westerners, are questions, not for the student of comparative political science, but for the philosopher and the psychologist. The interpretation seeks, as far as possible, to transpose certain parts of the traditional Chinese ideology, as they were, and as Sun Yat-sen re-shaped them, into one frame of reference provided by the ideology of twentieth-century America. What the“real truth”is, does not matter; the Marxians would say that both ideologies were inexact; so might the Roman Catholics. If the[pg 019]ideology of old China, and the ideology that Sun wished to see developed in the minds of the Chinese people of the future, can be made comprehensible in terms of contemporary American beliefs, of fact or of value, this venture will have been successful.

The Chinese ideology cannot be explained in its own terms; these exist only in the Chinese language. If Sun Yat-sen's own arrangement of his works is inadequate for the Chinese, rearrangement is a task for the Chinese and not for the Western scholars to perform. The Westerners who deal with Sun can contribute substantially only if they give what the Chinese cannot—enough of a reference to their own ideology to permit a broader scale for the analysis and the appreciation of Sun's thought. Their knowledge of their own world of ideas is the special tool which justifies their intervention in this Chinese field of knowledge.

In avoiding the unjustifiable imposition of Western ideas and values upon the Chinese, and yet orienting Sun's thought with respect to the West, the interpretation will have to resort to several fairly evident means. In the first place, it will have to transpose Chinese ideas into the Western ideology, and yet avoid distortions of meaning. This can be partly done by the use of neutral terms, of terms which are simple and clear enough to reproduce the Chinese, and nevertheless not so heavily burdened with connotations that they will cause a reading-in of Western ideas not relevant to the point in question. More simply, the Chinese ideas must be represented by terms which approximate the same set of values in the West that their originals have in China. This will sometimes require the use of unfamiliar periphrases: the words“music”and“rites”may be given as“the rhythm of life”and“conformity to the ideology.”Secondly, the Chinese ideology need not be given as a whole; it is improbable that it could, without a terrific expansion[pg 020]of the Western ideology to accommodate it; but enough of the Chinese ideology must be given to explain the significant differences between the Chinese system of controlling the behavior of men, and the Western. This latter involves the choice of material, and is therefore by its nature challengeable.

Again, in demonstrating significant differences instead of merely seeking analogous (and probably misleading) examples, the interpretation might turn to certain aspects of Chinese philosophy which appear as strikingly illustrative of the point of view of the Chinese. Confucius the political thinker is only a small part of Confucius the man and the philosopher; Chinese political thought, although a vast field, is only a small part of the social thought of the Chinese. Only an infinitesimal part of this comparatively minor area of Chinese study will suffice to make clear some, at least, of the sharp differences of outlook between China and the West.

A recapitulation of this declaration of technique may be found helpful, for an understanding of Sun Yat-sen by Westerners is necessary because of the vastly different background of his thought. Even apart from the strangeness of his thought to the West, it is scattered in the original, and must be pieced together. An exposition of his ideas which would, at one and the same time, present a systematic outline of his ideas, and transpose them into a frame of reference where Western scholars might grasp them, might be a labor meriting performance. His terms would have to be rendered by neutral words (not overladen with particular Western contexts) or by neologisms, or simply left in the original, to develop meaning as a configuration of related ideas is built up about them. The problem of interpretation cannot, however, be solved by settling the difficulty of language: there still remains the question of a technique which can pretend to the scientific, the exact, the rationally defensible. Despite their great[pg 021]merits, the Marxian and Paretian techniques are not suited to the present task. The point of view and means of study of political science may be kept, if a few necessary borrowings from sociological thought (not necessarily sociology) are introduced. Such borrowing includes the use of notions such as non-political society, patterns of authority, and ideology, none of which are to be found in the more law-minded part of political science. By seeking to point out the Chinese, then the Western, ideas involved, without confusing the two, the presentation may succeed in transposing the ideology of Sun Yat-sen, as well as his beliefs concerning working politics, into the English language and into an explanatory but not distorting background. To do this, a small sampling of certain aspects of old Chinese social thought and behavior will be a required preliminary.

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