There are two origins for this piece. One is that a couple of days ago, on the Philosophy board of a BBS, I saw someone post Marx’s essay written when he was seventeen and graduating from high school, “The Consideration of a Young Person in Choosing a Profession,” and I was suddenly moved by a flood of emotion… The other is that just now Chongge recommended me an article; I haven’t read it closely yet, but merely seeing the phrase “the germination of capitalism” in it set off some associations…
In fact, I had only suddenly recalled some of my own ideas from middle school—that is, by the time I was in junior high I already knew about Marx’s essay written at seventeen, and had roughly read it; after reading it, of course, I admired it immensely. At the time, what I thought was this: when someone becomes a great man, then all the articles he wrote from childhood to adulthood, in any setting, to any person, for any purpose, may be gathered together by later generations into a collected edition. And a truly qualified great person, every single piece of writing he leaves behind, really does have value for later generations to gather and study! So back then I secretly resolved this for myself: though it would certainly be hard for me to become a great man, it is always good to learn from great men, and I too must make sure that—no matter how many years later—every stroke of my writing would still be something I could “bring out with confidence”! So in my writing I have always required myself to speak from the heart, to avoid deceit, and not to write anything against my conscience; this conviction has continued to this day!
Marx’s writing from his middle-school years was so noble and great—so what was I like at seventeen? I almost had all but forgotten… Seeing the words “the germination of capitalism,” I finally remembered: that was a paper I wrote in my senior year of high school—when I was a freshman I wrote a 10,000-word “New Philosophy,” which at the beginning of sophomore year I expanded into a 20,000-word “The Great Unification of Philosophy”; at the end of sophomore year I excerpted from it a 6,500-word “The Original Meaning of Metaphysics”; and then, when I was graduating from middle school, the completely new paper I wrote was this “My View of the Germination of Capitalism in China.” Counting it now, it actually comes to eight thousand characters. Reading it again, I can see that the philosophy papers from back then carried an excessive air of wild self-confidence; not good! But that same kind of exuberant ambition to “encompass and accept” everything seems to have continued right up to the present, doesn’t it~! That paper, “My View of the Germination of Capitalism in China,” still reads as if I thought rather well of myself—perhaps because in these past two years I haven’t read many history books, and have made no progress in this respect? In any case, whether it is the presumptuous “Great Unification of Philosophy” or the still-satisfying “My View of the Germination of Capitalism in China,” heh heh, they are all writings I can bring out with confidence! I had already posted it on the blog before, but it was always hidden; as of yesterday it has all been made public~ It can also serve as a little diversion for everyone to look at~
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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