This paper examines the ritual practice of several Confucian scholars centered on The Classic of Filial Piety, including recitation, copying, and meditating in specially constructed ritual contexts. The scholars discussed here include Yang Qiyuan (1547-1599), Lu Weiqi (1587-1641), Pan Pingge (1610-1677), Xu Sanli (1625-1691), and Huang Daozhou (1585-1646). All of these individuals were renowned Classic of Filial Piety scholars who annotated the text. Each also demonstrated a striking degree of belief in the spiritual power of the text. Although their practices had religious overtones, none of these scholars was a member of a religious organization; rather, many developed their own highly personalized practice of self-cultivation, which they then carried out in ritualized spaces constructed by themselves.

     A close analysis of their ritual practices demonstrates how these Confucian scholars created their own unique ritual settings, especially in their private domestic daily lives, and how The Classic of Filial Piety was an integral part of these settings. I also highlight the close relationship between the techniques each man created and his particular interpretation of the text. Despite a common interest in The Classic of Filial Piety and even engagement in similar acts of recitation, these scholars ascribed very different meanings to the text and to their personal practices. The multifarious and unceasing changes of meaning in ritual practice are demonstrated most clearly in these cases. Despite many differences in practice, they all considered The Classic of Filial Piety a special ritual text. Indeed, it became an important medium allowing practitioners to engage in self-cultivation and self-expression, as well as a means of communicating with a higher authority.

　　This article explores the British biologist Thomas Henry Huxley’s influence on Hu Shi’s thought. First, I clarify exactly how Hu read Huxley. Ever since Hu was a teenager, he had been influenced by Yan Fu’s translation of Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics (Tianyanlun). Furthermore, when he studied in America under John Dewey, he was attracted by the so-called “scientific method.” This led him to reread Huxley while maintaining his idea that one should “feel skeptical before accepting something.” Second, I argue that even though Hu was influenced by Huxley, differences remained between their ideas. This was mainly due to the influences on Hu of the concepts and the mode of thinking of Confucianism and Buddhism. If we use the analytical framework put forward by Thomas Metzger, Hu leaned toward “epistemological optimism” and misread Huxley’s “epistemological pessimism,” which Huxley had adopted from Descartes, Kant, and Hume. For example, although Hu claimed that he accepted Huxley’s idea of “agnosticism,” for Hu the knowable included not only judgments based on evidence but also moral values and metaphysical wisdom such as his ideas of buxiu (immortality) and “social religion.” Thus, the realm of the knowable for Hu is wider than for Huxley. This observation is compatible with the idea of seeing Hu as a believer in scientism. Third, I argue that Hu’s interpretation of Huxley was very similar to that of Yan Fu and Liang Qichao. They all emphasized the Chinese idea of social evolution (stressing people’s efforts with an optimistic view of the future), a balanced relationship between the self and the group, and the idea of “positive freedom” (in the sense later described by Isaiah Berlin). For these modern Chinese intellectuals, the most important thing for Chinese people to do is to nourish their virtue, wisdom, and physical strength through education in order to create new citizens. Yan, Liang, and Hu thus formed a genealogy of Chinese liberalism in twentieth-century China.

　　This paper attempts to give, on the basis of newly-found sources, a more detailed historical narrative of a long series of tripartite negotiations, first on the travel arrangements to Lhasa of a divine boy, recognized as the reincarnation of his predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama, and then on the official rituals to be conducted to confer on him the recognition of his spiritual leadership. Scarcely had the report that the boy-incarnate had been found in Amdo, Qinghai, a province under the complete control of the Muslim warlord Ma Bufang, circulated early in 1938 when Tibet, the Nationalist government, and Qinghai local authorities began playing a complex game to take advantage of the situation to achieve their calculated ends. Tibet needed the divine boy, and moreover to vindicate Tibet’s own rights, wanted to officially enthrone him as the 14th Dalai Lama without the intervention of other authorities. Ma Bufang refused to let the boy-incarnate be escorted out of Qinghai to Lhasa without payment of a large sum of money. The Nationalist government, having moved to Chongqing, Sichuan Province, because of the Japanese invasion (1937-1945), wanted to use the opportunity to assert its sovereign authority over Tibet by reference to the established model of the Qing dynasty. But, due to the weak position of the Nationalist government during the Sino-Japanese war, Wu Zhongxin, the chairman of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, and other Nationalist officials in Lhasa had to take great pains to have the recognition and installation ceremonies of the 14th Dalai Lama performed in accordance with the Qing precedents. They engaged in a series of difficult negotiations with the Tibetan senior spiritual and administrative officials. They attempted to portray their activities in a manner that suggested China still exercised sovereignty over the Lhasa authorities. The substantial discrepancy between what was happening in reality and what was chosen to be represented in their official reports and public accounts makes it more difficult to explore the already complicated relations between Republican China and Tibet.

　　To demobilize soldiers peacefully and reintegrate them into society is an important key to post-war socio-political stability. In the wake of the Chinese civil war, the defeated Nationalist government and its troops fled to Taiwan. The Cold War then stabilized a militarily wary antagonism across the Taiwan Straits. Communication between the two sides was strictly prohibited. Displaced Mainland veterans had to make a living in a society alien to them, a form of demobilization quite different from the usual sense of discharged soldiers returning to their homes. The Nationalist state formed a government institute—the Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Servicemen (VACRS)—to help Mainland veterans find jobs. This paper examines the history of veterans’ farms, the most important employment program of VACRS. Looking at various dimensions of veteran-farmers’ economic lives, I explore the process of settlement that rendered veterans a group of farmers different from their Taiwanese counterparts: how VACRS initially drew up a blueprint and later changed it, the evolution of their households, special schemes for ownership of farmlands, the function of veterans’ farm headquarters, interactions between the veterans’ farms and local society, and the income gaps among veteran-farmers. I also show the economic differences between veteran-farmers and Taiwanese farmers by analyzing household type, family labor, and economic behavior. Although VACRS started with unrealistic goals and implemented some inappropriate policies along the way, it did not insist on these problematic visions, but rather constantly adapted to unexpected developments. In addition to its flexibility, VACRS maintained state ownership of veterans’ farms. As a result, this labor pool was collectively and effectively organized, as were the resources VACRS invested in the farms.