This collection, otherwise good, lacks certain brief notes on the dates of writing which are available in another manuscript of Chang's drafts in the possession of the late Professor Naitō (see below).
As the last scholar of the Eastern Chekiang School (浙東學派), which originated with Huang Tsung-hsi [q. v.], Chang Hsüeh-ch'êng was perhaps the most liberal and speculative exponent. On the basis of Liu Chih-chi's (see under Chi Yün [q. v.]) notable work on history, known as 史通 Shih-t'ung, (20 chüan, completed in 711), Chang developed, in his late twenties, his own genetic view of history as well as a method of studying it, which he later expanded and systematized. He maintained that history should be studied and written with a broad understanding of the underlying moral principle or meaning behind the events and the facts which constitute history. The talent to identify this principle was, in his opinion, the chief qualification of the historian. In his more philosophical and utilitarian approach he differed from the School of Han Learning (see under Ku Yen-wu and Hui Tung) which was concerned primarily with the minutiae of textual criticism, and with the study of history for its own sake. His aim was to criticize synthetically all types of literature in order to detect the meaning of history and for him, therefore, all the records of the past were materials to be utilized in that study. He would take for this purpose not only the works officially classified as history in the Imperial Catalogue (see under Chi Yün) but edicts, laws, public and private documents, the correspondence of the Six Boards, epitaphs, inscriptions on stone and bronze, local histories, genealogies, records of guilds, and even proverbs and songs. The breadth of his outlook is shown in the surviving table-of-contents of the lost 史籍考 Shih-chi k'ao, a catalogue of historical works in 325 chüan, compiled by him under the direction of Pi Yüan at Wuchang. All the records of the past being thus materials for history, Chang was concerned that they should be suitably preserved—preferably under official auspices in safe, centrally-located places. They should not merely be preserved, but should be classified, collated, the sources clearly indicated, and the whole conveniently indexed, and so made available to those who wish to obtain the facts upon which the accurate writing of history depends. His genetic view made him favor the general and topical forms, known as t'ung-shih 通史 and chi-shih pên-mo 紀事本末, rather than the traditional chronological (pien-nien 編年) and the biographical (chi-chuan 紀傳) treatment. For him the ideal arrangement was a general history in which important individual events are subordinated in the form of notes.
It was Chang Hsüeh-ch'êng who for the first time gave to the so-called local gazetteers or topographies (fang-chih 方志) the dignity of history. These gazetteers, compiled in the localities which they treat, had then as now a very limited circulation and were regarded as of purely local interest. They were originally (in the Southern Sung period) geographical works, but later came to treat historical and political matters, and so lost something of their unity. Chang maintained that they should be an organic part of the national history, worthy to be taken as sources for the compilation of that history. In this respect his contemporary, Tai Chên, opposed his standardization and stressed their sectional character.
Despite his brilliant theory and his sound method, Chang Hsüeh-ch'êng did not have an opportunity to write a general history according to his plan. Though he had an opportunity to apply it in several local histories he seems to have encountered more difficulty in practice than he anticipated. For about a century after his death his theoretical views fell into comparative oblivion. He antagonized his contemporaries by the tenacity with which he held his views, and it seems that only Shao Chin-han agreed with him in theory. Not until the close of the Ch'ing period did a few Chinese scholars, under the influence of K'ang Yu-wei (see under T'an Ssŭ-t'ung), appreciate the significance of his method and his point of view. The first scholar of recent times to study him seriously was the Japanese sinologist, Naitō Torajirō 內藤虎次郎 (H. 湖南, 1866–1934) who published in 1920 Chang's nien-p'u under the title 章實齋年譜 Shō Jitsusai nempu (Shinagaku, vol. I, nos. 3–4). Two years later Hu Shih 胡適 produced another, entitled 章實齋先生年譜 Chang Shih-chai hsien-shêng nien-p'u, which in turn was revised and supplemented (1931) by Yao Ming-ta 姚名達. Many studies of various aspects of Chang's scholarship have appeared in the past fifteen years.
[6/47/2a, 3b; Nien-p'u (see above); Naitō Torajirō (see above), 胡適之の近著章實齋年譜を讀む in Shinagaku, vol. III, no. 9 (1922), and 章實齋の史學 in 懷德 Kaitoku, no. 8 (1930); Okazaki Fumio 岡崎文夫, 章學誠の史學大要
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