The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Chapter 86: The spread of "The Theory of Heavenly Evolution"

The two walked on the mountain road for a while, and finally a small Taoist temple appeared in front of them.

Yang Dingjian said to Li Zhi: "Sir, that is Yanzhen Temple. All the students who came to listen to the lecture today are waiting in the temple."

Li Zhi looked at the Taoist temple and suddenly said to Yang Dingjian: "From a distance, it looks like what I saw the day I first arrived at Zhifo Temple..."

Yang Ding met Mo Ran.

Li Zhi began to laugh at himself: "I am a gentle person by nature, and I have learned to endure humiliation. If someone comes to kill me, I will be knifed. If someone comes to beat me, I will be punched. If someone comes to scold me, I will be punished. I only know how to advance, but I don’t know how to retreat. I thought that being upright and fair was in the heart of the people, how could I end up where I am today?”

"Sir..." Yang Dingjian was almost in tears, because few people in the world could understand Li Zhi's grievance at this time.

Not long after Li Zhi left Hubei, the eunuch Chen Feng caused the Huguang Civil Revolt.

During this turmoil, Feng Yingjing, who drove Li Zhi away, was one of the few officials in Huguang who dared to directly confront Chen Feng (the one Chen Feng tried to assassinate by putting nails in his food).

At this time, Feng Yingjing had been falsely accused by Chen Feng and taken to Jinyiwei for punishment. He refused to give in even after being punished, and his reputation became famous all over the world.

Feng Yingjing was not a bad person. When he drove Li Zhi away, he thought he was protecting the famous religion.

Li Zhi, who was driven away by him, had nothing to do with the civil uprising, but he added another crime for no reason.

Even the ordinary people in Huguang felt that since Feng Yingjing was a good official, Li Zhi, who was driven out by him, must be a heinous criminal. They insulted him and did not understand that Li Zhi was actually just an old man who wrote articles.

Li Zhi could not defend himself. He had done nothing wrong, but he was not tolerated by the whole world.

Looking back on the past few decades, every friend who took him in was criticized. Every time he wanted to leave, everyone yelled and beat him wherever he went.

He is over 70 years old, but he is still alone and has no fixed place to live. He wants to go to a temple to retire and die, but instead, all the monks in the temple are displaced and the ancient temple is burned to the ground.

When Li Zhi was young, he didn't take it seriously even if he was rebuked by the world. At that time, he only felt that what he said was true and could not be criticized by others.

But now that he has persisted for decades, the reputation he has received is only getting worse.

After the incident at Zhifo Temple, Li Zhi finally felt like leaving.

Yang Dingjian quickly persuaded the master: "People in the world misunderstand and don't know your heart, but as long as you have talked with him, you will know that he is upright and upright."

Li Zhi smiled and said nothing.

He always doubted whether what he did was wrong, but he didn't know where he went wrong.

He's too old and doesn't want to hold on anymore.

The two walked into the Taoist temple slowly. They heard that Li Zhi was going to give a lecture in the Taoist temple. There were already more than a dozen scholars nearby. They thought they would have a noisy conversation, but when they approached the side hall where he was going to give a lecture, they found that most of the people were honest. , sitting there, only one scholar was reading the article passionately, and his voice could be heard throughout the hall:

"Although the destiny of heaven changes, there are things that remain unchanged. What is unchanging? This is called heaven's evolution. It takes heaven's evolution as its body, and its uses are twofold: it is called the competition of things, and it is called natural selection. There is nothing like this among all things. Otherwise... If things compete with each other, they will survive... Jianyang said: "Natural selection will preserve the most suitable one." "Everything is competing for its existence, and Heaven chooses it based on the competition... After each struggle, a selection occurs, and changes occur..."

Li Zhi stood outside the shop and listened for a while, gradually falling into deep thought. After a while, he raised his head and asked Yang Dingjian beside him: "Who wrote this article?"

Yang Dingjian introduced: "This is a magnificent article that was uploaded by the Baoshan Literary Society in Quzhou half a month ago. It is said that it was written by Wang Jianyang of Fujian."

"Wang Jianyang, the author of "History of Portugal"?" Li Zhi nodded, "This article makes sense."

As early as when "History of Portugal" was first serialized, Li Zhi had read Wang Wenlong's articles and was very interested in "History of Portugal".However, because he lived in Shandong last year, he was unable to obtain the full version of "History of Portugal". Originally, when he returned to Hubei to retire this time, Li Zhi planned to obtain "History of Portugal" and study it carefully.

Li Zhi came into contact with Matteo Ricci, who preached in the Ming Dynasty, in Zhaoqing a few years ago, and later had in-depth conversations with Matteo Ricci's disciples.

Unlike the literati at that time who either regarded European knowledge as heresy or held it in high esteem and worshiped it, Li Zhi felt that the European science and technology passed down by Matteo Ricci was very brilliant, but the European academic theories he passed on were also Just average level.

Li Zhi is a completely objective thinker. He feels that the Europeans' technological prowess does not mean how powerful their culture is.

After talking and learning about the Catholicism preached by Matteo Ricci, he felt that this set of things was just ordinary religion, and it was not even worth mentioning in his book.

It wasn't until he read Wang Wenlong's "History of Portugal" that Li Zhi became interested in European history. He felt that the pioneering history of the Portuguese was far more valuable to study than the Christian theories spread by Matteo and others.

But at this time, the students in the main hall were already excited after listening to Wang Wenlong's article.

"Mr. Jianyang said it very well, natural selection, survival of the fittest."

"We should encourage ourselves to improve ourselves, learn from reality, and do practical things."

“It’s better to argue with words than to take action!”

"Compete bravely, waiting for the big choice!"

A group of scholars in the side hall spoke fiercely, and both Yang Dingjian and Li Zhi stopped in their tracks.

Yang Dingjian lowered his head and pondered the truth of Wang Wenlong's "Tianyan Lun", while Li Zhi wandered alone.

Li Zhi suddenly felt something from "The Theory of Heavenly Evolution":
Perhaps whether his theory is correct or not depends not on the opinions of the people of the world, but on the test of time.

Times will fail him, but maybe Tianyan will not.

Li Zhi smiled and seemed to be relieved from Wang Wenlong's "Tianyan Lun".

……

The Baoshan Literary Meeting that Huang Daozhou participated in was not a big gathering and did not cause any major disturbances in the original history. However, as Huang Daozhou took out Wang Wenlong's "The Theory of Heavenly Evolution", the gathering was directly recorded. In the annals of history. .

Wang Wenlong's "Tianyan Lun" and "Portuguese National History" two works respectively revealed the advanced ideas of scientific deduction method.

The last person to fully use the scientific deduction method in his work was Euclid. Wang Wenlong himself did not realize that his "On the Evolution of Heaven" was the first great work to clearly put forward the idea of ​​scientific deduction more than 1000 years later. of the history of philosophy.

"Tianyan Lun" was published in Baoshan Academy and quickly shocked the entire Quzhou academic circle.

Quzhou literati are different from other schools of thought who rely on celebrities and theories to become famous. Quzhou has a large number of Nan Kong Houyi who were promoted to academic officials in the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the biggest reliance of Quzhou literati at this time was the number of teachers in various academies in Quzhou Mountain and the state capital. There are many academic officials in Quzhou.

The exchanges between literati in Quzhou often took place through the academic administration of each province.

It is not obvious, but the information dissemination efficiency is extremely high.

As a result, this magnificent article caused a sensation in Quzhou and quickly spread through Taoist scholars in various places. It only took a few days for "Tianyan Lun" to spread to the cultural center of Nanjing. It aroused the surprise of a group of Quzhou literati in the Nanjing Imperial College and quickly spread along the Yangtze River to all directions. spread the word.

At this time, Wang Wenlong was still studying the Equal Temperament and writing music scores with Wang Jide in Dongyuan. By the time he learned that "Tianyan Lun" was actually popular all over the world, "Tianyan Lun" had even been published on the market in Suzhou.

(End of this chapter)