Rensheng

Author: Tan Sitong, commented by Wu Hailan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-10-01
Features: A Treatise on the Heart is a work that comprehensively embodies Tan Sitong's political and academic ideals. Its intellectual sources include traditional Chinese Confucianism, the School of Names, and Buddhist thought, as well as Western theological, natural scientific, and social scientific ideas. The main content of this book criticizes the autocratic feudal system that promotes the Three Cardinal Guides and Five Constant Virtues, advocating for bourgeois equality and democratic concepts. It advocates for the reform and transformation of the nation and the development of capitalist economy. Tan Sitong's critique of old ideas and traditions under feudal autocratic rule serves as preparation for promoting reform and transformation and the development of capitalist economy. Meanwhile, his advocacy for Western capitalist politics and economy further deepens the critique of monarchy and the Confucian moral codes. His fierce condemnation of China's feudal politics, economy, and thought had a destructive and clarifying effect on the rigid and conservative social atmosphere of the late Qing Dynasty. It was regarded by the era as a whirlwind and a thunderstorm in late Qing intellectual circles, causing great shock among thinkers.