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speaks of its use by the secret societies. He said that since the secret societies saw "the impossibility of overthrowing the Tai-Tsings, they seized then on the idea of nationalism and began preaching it, handing it down from generation to generation. Their main object in organizing the Hung-Men societies was the overthrow of the Tai-Tsing dynasty and the restoration of the Ming dynasty. The idea of nationalism was for them auxiliary."16 Perhaps this is but a reflection of the obvious fact that his own nationalistic spirit along racial lines had been artificially wrought. Sun, after all, had not initially been anti-Manchu. His memorial of 1894 to Li Hung-chang, suggesting reforms, contained no such references. Yet, characteristically, Sun would bury this fact in the recounting of his own personal history, for ignoring the memorial to Li Hung-chang altogether, he said in his Memoirs that his anti-Manchu revolutionary course had begun in 1885, nine years earlier.17
And so, Sun's use of history, when it is an effect of nationalism or is influenced by it, must necessarily reflect his unusual and uncertain appreciation of nationalism itself. Sun the iconoclastic revolutionary was not as Liang Ch'i-Ch'ao, for example, alienated from a tradition he had personally and deeply known.18 He did not, therefore, feel as intensely the lingering emotional tie to it. He was consequently less disposed to an indulgence in too heavy a dose of cultural nationalism, in trying to preserve a semblance of identity for China in the face of extensive borrowing from the modern West.
But of course, Sun did feel the need to make some prideful assertions regarding what he believed to be superior features of China's past. We see in this a certain amount of cultural nationalism, but Sun's purpose as often as not had a practical political purpose in mind. He asserted, for example, the superiority of China's ancient virtues. “Loyalty, Filial Devotion, Kindness, Love, Faithfulness, and such are in their very nature superior to foreign virtues, but in the moral quality of Peace we will further surpass the people of other lands."19 Such is the source of the old moral power by means of which China could absorb the barbarians of the past. Likewise in politics, Sun declared that China had “a specimen of political philosophy so systematic and so clear that nothing has been discovered or spoken by foreign statesmen to
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speaks of its use by the secret societies. He said that since the secret societies saw "the impossibility of overthrowing the Tai- Tsings, they seized then on the idea of nationalism and began preaching it, handing it down from generation to generation. Their main object in organizing the Hung-Men societies was the over- throw of the Tai-Tsing dynasty and the restoration of the Ming dynasty. The idea of nationalism was for them auxiliary."16 Per- haps this is but a reflection of the obvious fact that his own na- tionalistic spirit along racial lines had been artificially wrought. Sun, after all, had not initially been anti-Manchu. His memorial of 1894 to Lị Hung-chang, suggesting reforms, contained no such references. Yet, characteristically, Sun would bury this fact in the recounting of his own personal history, for ignoring the memorial to Li Hung-chang altogether, he said in his Memoirs that his anti-Manchu revolutionary course had begun in 1885, nine years earlier. 17
And so, Sun's use of history, when it is an effect of nationalism or is influenced by it, must necessarily reflect his unusual and un- certain appreciation of nationalism itself. Sun the iconoclastic re- volutionary was not as Liang Ch'i-Ch'ao, for example, alienated from a tradition he had personally and deeply known.18 He did not, therefore, feel as intensely the lingering emotional tie to it. He was consequently less disposed to an indulgence in too heavy a dose of cultural nationalism, in trying to preserve a semblance of iden- tity for China in the face of extensive borrowing from the modern West.
But of course, Sun did feel the need to make some prideful assertions regarding what he believed to be superior features of China's past. We see in this a certain amount of cultural nation- alism, but Sun's purpose as often as not had a practical political purpose in mind. He asserted, for example, the superiority of China's ancient virtues. “Loyalty, Filial Devotion, Kindness, Love, Faithfulness, and such are in their very nature superior to foreign virtues, but in the moral quality of Peace we will further surpass the people of other lands."19 Such is the source of the old moral power by means of which China could absorb the barbarians of the past. Likewise in politics, Sun declared that China had “a specimen of political philosophy so systematic and so clear that nothing has been discovered or spoken by foreign statesmen to
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