Imperial Master of the Ming Dynasty

The Imperial Preceptor told them what were the main aspects of the contradiction, and what were the main and secondary contradictions in words that best fit their cognition.

It is precisely because the truth becomes clearer with more arguments that they realize that the Imperial Master does not seem to be the kind of treacherous minister who brings trouble to the imperial court as rumored in the market.

This Imperial Master, like them, is a young man with the ideal and ambition to help the world and the people.

Moreover, this Imperial Master is more knowledgeable than them and handles things more calmly.

This undoubtedly caused many people's attitudes towards Jiang Xinghuo and the reform to change.

It also made them, after being impulsive, begin to reflect on whether what they had done would really benefit the Ming Dynasty in strengthening the country and enriching the people.

"I dare to ask the master, now that we have clearly explained how Tai Chi works, can we talk about how to understand the nature of things tonight? How can the theory of mind and heart make the nature of the human heart as clear as a mirror? "

Professor Wang's words broke the silence in the crowd.

As soon as these words came out, the students' eyes turned hot when they looked at Jiang Xinghuo.

At this time, many people just remembered that the national master just talked about the first problem of "how Tai Chi works."

Could it be that tonight, they will witness once and for all how the last three peak-like problems standing in front of the orthodoxy were removed?

This is destined to be a night that goes down in history.

Dao Yan under the tree, oh no, Rongguo Gong Yao Guangxiao, looked at the eyes of the students and said silently in his heart.

"Silly children, you don't know that what is hidden behind these three questions is not the ultimate answer of Neo-Confucianism, but the science that will surely destroy Neo-Confucianism!"

Yes, the answer to the first question certainly explains the problem of "how does two give rise to three" that lies between the two and the three that give rise to all things in Neo-Confucianism's "Heaven Theory".

But this is a question at the philosophical level. In other words, as long as philosophers at home and abroad do not turn to religion, their final conclusions are almost the same.

That is, there must be some kind of existence in this world such as "Heavenly Principle", "Tao", and "Universal Will". When it comes to Yin and Yang specifically, using the theory of contradiction with motion as the core and looking at the problem from a dynamic point of view, it is also possible to It must be able to solve the troubles caused by static philosophical views.

But for Neo-Confucianism, unfortunately, Jiang Xinghuo only had an explanation for the first question, which could help them complete the edifice of Neo-Confucianism.

The second and third questions are respectively about the investigation of things and the investigation of the mind.

The answers to these two questions will be in a way that is clever and close to Neo-Confucian theory, and will fundamentally destroy Neo-Confucianism's "Concept of Li Qi" and "Theory of Mind".

Regardless of Yao Guangxiao's thoughts, Jiang Xinghuo answered Professor Wang's question.

"The second question, how to understand the laws of nature by studying things, can of course be answered, and the answer is not complicated, just fifteen words."

"Bold assumptions, careful verification, only through practice can you get true knowledge."

Seeing that Professor Wang was a little confused, Jiang Xinghuo explained in a way that he could understand.

"The so-called knowledge lies in the investigation of things. If we want to know something, we must understand the things and understand their principles. Therefore, starting from the "Great Learning" will make scholars understand everything in the world, and they will all benefit from the principles they already know. To pursue it to the extreme.”

"Studying things to gain knowledge" is originally a chapter and sentence in "The Great Learning". When Zhu Xi was annotating the Four Books, he put a lot of effort into this sentence. That is to say, through the investigation of things, we must exhaustively deduce the principles of things, and we must also go to the extreme. achieve.

This actually coincides with scientific research methods.

Of course, it is only limited to this point.

"Since we already know that contradictions are manifestations of heavenly principles, then what we need to know to study things is the manifestations of contradictions in things."

"For example, the source of today's misunderstanding is that rain has its own destiny, so why does it exist?"

"Then if you think about it carefully, can we think about the contradiction of rain in terms of 'bold assumptions, careful verification, and practice can lead to true knowledge'?"

Jiang Xinghuo's words made these students feel a little confused.

No one told them what Yu's contradiction was, it was completely beyond their knowledge.

"The contradiction between rain, is it raining or not raining? So why does the phenomenon of raining and not raining occur? What is the root phenomenon that promotes the transformation of rain from 'not falling' to 'falling'?"

"If we assume that this root phenomenon is the concrete manifestation of the laws of nature in things, can we understand raindrops in the same way that 'the more people there are, the more power they have'?"

"What did Yu go through from the individual state of a 'human' to the overall state of a 'people'? What were the key points during this period? What factors contributed to the final result?"

Jiang Xinghuo's words seemed to bring them to another cognitive world.

They had never thought that the natural principles and contradictions of a thing could be analyzed in such a regular manner.

This is a new way of thinking.

Some of the brighter students were fascinated by it almost immediately, as if they had opened the door to a new world.

Oh, it turns out that there is really a way to "investigate things" to find out the natural laws of things in this world!

Jiang Xinghuo's words continued.

"We can hypothesize about these, and we can also conduct experiments to verify them."

"We make bold assumptions again and again, and verify carefully again and again. If the number of times is enough, will there be one time when we can figure out the natural principle of something?"

"As long as there is a practical method of studying things, although there are many things, the principles of heaven are always limited. One day, we can be infinitely close to understanding all the principles of heaven, or in other words, understand the principles of most things in our world."

This means that science itself is to make subjective knowledge conform to objective reality, that is, the original appearance of objective things, including both real connections and laws of change, and to create objective reality that conforms to subjective knowledge through scientific experiments and practices. Practice.

When the study of things to achieve knowledge is replaced by "bold assumptions, careful verification" through scientific methods, and finally proving the truth through experiments and inferences, once this view begins to spread, it may not matter at first, but in the end the Neo-Confucianism The building will inevitably be destroyed by scientific systems that emerge one after another.

Because science will eventually destroy the "Concept of Regulating Qi" of Neo-Confucianism and make people realize that there is no such thing as pure Qi or turbid Qi in this world. The difference between a gentleman and a villain is not because of the different Qi in the body. It exists objectively in the world. Just atoms, molecules, etc.

But at the moment, this very first step, the Fifteen-Character Jue, does perfectly explain "how to study things to understand the principles of nature."

At this time, some students who could follow Jiang Xinghuo's thinking and realized the ingenuity of this method of studying things to gain knowledge began to think and raise specific questions about how to study the "natural principles of rain" through this methodology. .

"Since the Imperial Master published this article in the Di Bao, he must have some assumptions about the nature of rain? If he has an assumption, how can he verify it?"

The person who looked at the question was the classmate next to Fan Weixing.

Jiang Xinghuo tried his best to answer in a voice that most people could hear clearly.

"Jiang's hypothesis is that rain is condensed from extremely small, water-vapor-like cloud droplets."

"As for how to verify it."

"Jiang will personally demonstrate the verification process for everyone in March of the first year of Yongle."

As soon as the words fell, there was a burst of discussion among the crowd of Imperial College students.

Jiang Xinghuo didn't mention flying to the sky, so they naturally wouldn't think of going up into the sky and using expensively refined silver iodide to catalyze the formation of rain.

Even if someone thought about it, they would not think about flying into the sky. They just thought that they would use some method to simulate the formation of rain on the ground.

However, Jiang Xinghuo's hypothesis that "rain is condensed by cloud droplets" instantly aroused the interest of many supervisors.

This was also the first time that these young people in the Ming Empire, who had received the best education and had the most open-minded thinking, felt the charm of scientific methodology.

This is a breakthrough from scratch.

The original Neo-Confucianism will only tell you that rain has a natural reason, but it has no idea what the natural reason for rain is, how to guess it, and how to prove it.

The national master's research methods allowed all of them to release some kind of "shackles" from their minds.

They began to think about the truth contained in things like Wang Yangming in Jiang Xinghuo's previous life.

Unlike Wang Yangming, who was exhausted after studying bamboo for seven days and seven nights, they were lucky. With the guidance of Jiang Xinghuo's scientific methodology, at least they understood that the first step was to make bold assumptions.

Jiang Xinghuo also gave his own hypothesis.

Regardless of whether it is right or not, they never dare to think about it. This is the first step for these young people to move towards science.

This is the meaning of "borrowing chickens to hatch eggs". First, borrow the "investigation of things to gain knowledge" from Neo-Confucianism to incubate scientific research methods. After a group of people turn from Neo-Confucianism to believers in science, they will accept and spread them in experiments one after another. Science, science will grow.

When it grows up, as science enlightens the creative power and the audience base begins to cultivate, then there will be feedback, and science will become an existence that can truly compete with Neo-Confucianism or even completely destroy it.

And this is far more clever than using science that has almost no believers to force Neo-Confucianism from the beginning, and it will not lose the principle of scientific research.

"As for the third question, that is, how to make the nature of the human heart and destiny as clear as a mirror, which is the grid mind of the mind-nature theory. Jiang also has an answer to this question, but it is not appropriate to throw it out now. When the third question is solved, We may as well continue to discuss the empirical evidence on these two issues through Di Bao in the future."

"National Master, tell me now!"

"Yeah, tell us clearly!"

Looking at the reluctant young people, Jiang Xinghuo waved his hand.

"It's late at night, go back and rest, the sun will rise as usual tomorrow."

Around Taiping Street, countless soldiers received orders and silently made way for these young people to return to the Imperial College.

A catastrophic disaster disappeared in the night.