DR. HU SHIH (胡适), A PHILOSOPHE

To a few, Dr. Hu Shih is either a good enemy or a very good friend. To the rest, he is a big brother (老大哥). All own him to be affable and charming—even his worst foes. He knows all the graces of a gallant, without himself being a gallant. In all those little, but indispensable, "airy nothings" which endear a man to society, especially to the company of ladies, Dr. Hu is an adept. He has the happy knack of making everybody feel at home in his company. The proud are flattered by his attentions; and nincompoops feel important by his treatment of them as his equals. In the best sense of the word, Dr. Hu is a democrat: he has not a touch of either social or intellectual snobbishness.

Dr. Hu keeps open house on Sundays. Nobody then is refused entrance to his house. With everyone, whether student or communist or businessman or robber, he is equally patient in hearing as in speaking. Those in distress, he helps. For those who want jobs, he writes letters of introduction. Some who seek enlightenment on points of scholarship, he tries to the best of his ability to satisfy. Others who just go to say "How do you do?", he entertains by odds and ends of news. All go away from his house with a sense of time well spent.

A little over forty, Dr. Hu looks much younger than his age. Clean shaven and neatly attired, he is neatness itself. Hair all jet black, with no touch of gray, prominent Augustan forehead, with eyes large and frank, a mobile pair of lips, suggestive of eloquence and an easy flow of speech, a good complexion, Dr. Hu's face suggests neither a scholar's "simple living and high thinking," nor a man-of-the-world's "good board and fast living."Of medium height, just right in size, agile and free in his movements, Dr. Hu has the appearance of a man-of-the-world turned scholar, rather than a scholar turned man-of-the-world.

Dr. Hu's knowledge is prodigious. Something of everything, he knows from the composition of aphrodisiacs to the most abstruse doctrines of Buddhism. He reads extensively: Tchehov, some of whose stories he has translated; Chinese poetry, of which he has formed an anthology(词选); early Chinese philosophy, on which he has written a book; Buddhist philosophy, of which we have scraps from his pen, now and again; Chinese and European novels; and so on ad infinitum. And he writes on the most diverse of subjects—politics, social questions, history, evolutionary theories, textual criticism, etc. etc. A mere glance at the contents of his collection of articles (胡适文存) will give us some idea of the range and versatility of his mind. This plus his conversation, breezy, often informative, never pedantic, will give us a complete picture of his mind.

Dr. Hu is not one of those who keep and hide their talents underground. What he has, he shows. What he is, is all there—in his books, in his conversation, in his ways. He does not believe in hiding anything. There is no mystery in him: all is sunshine, and no shadow. His mind is like one vast, brilliantly lighted lake, where are no deep romantic chasms nor echoes of the other world. In such a lake, we are not interested in its depth, but in its surface, which reflects everything, and which has the power of giving us neat, clean, ordered pictures of Cosmos. In such pictures, nuance, soul, religion have no place.

Dr. Hu is justly admired for the lucidity of his style. Le style, c'est l'homme. We think of the lucidity of Haeckel's style, and then, all at once, a simple scheme of the Universe, explanable in terms of matter, force, and the inheritance of acquired characters, forms itself in our minds. We think of the lucidity of Huxley's style, and then, all at once, Man becomes a very simple animal to understand. We think of the lucidity of John Stuart Mill's style, and then, all at once, we find the processes of thought all arranging themselves under syllogisms and propositions. Have not Haeckel, Huxley, and Mill, had something to do with the admirable lucidity of Dr. Hu's style, and with the still more admirable lucidity of his Credo?

Because Dr. Hu has taught philosophy for many years in Peking National University, he has been called a philosopher. Of course, he is that; but surely, the term "philosopher" hardly describes all his activities. Because Dr. Hu writes very often in periodicals on subjects of general interest, he has been called a pamphleteer. Yes, he is that; but it would be a gross libel if any one were to think that he has the opportunism and the mentality of a pamphleteer. Because Dr. Hu never denies himself the goods of this world, he has been dubbed a man-of-the-world. Of course, he is that too; but such an impression of him can only be possible to one, who only knows him at dinner-parties. If there is one word to describe the kind of man Dr. Hu is, I think the word philosophe, in its eighteenth century sense, would fit in pat. Voltaire, D'Alembert, Holbach, Helvétius, Diderot, Jeremy Bentham, were all philosophes. They all had in them something of the worldling, something of the scholar, something of the man of affairs, and something of the philosopher. They had precise views about the scheme of the universe; and they all wrote with the optimism and the confidence of a man of affairs, in a style as authoritative as it is clear, on all sorts of subjects under the sun. Right or wrong, they had the courage of their opinions. Of this band of philosophes, Dr. Hu is not the least distinguished member. And in China, I am not sure that he is not the sole, modern instance.

[No. 9; Mar. 1, 1934]

胡适博士¹，一位哲人

胡适博士，在少数人心目中，不是厉害的对手就是很好的朋友。对于其他人而言，他是老大哥。所有人都承认他和蔼可亲、招人喜爱，甚至他的死对头也这样认为。他不是风流绅士，但是风流绅士处世交友那一套他都不生疏。在寒暄、恭维、献点小殷勤等以博取社交界特别是女士们的好感这些不足挂齿却又不可或缺的手段方面，他都算得上高手。他有本事使每一个和他相处的人都无所拘束。傲慢的人由于得到他的殷勤款待而沾沾自喜，庸碌之辈会由于受到平等对待而觉得身价倍增。胡博士是最佳意义上的民主人士，没有沾染一点点无论是基于社会地位还是知识水平的势利习气。

胡博士的家门每星期天都对外开放，来者不拒。任何人，不论是大学生还是共产主义者，是商人还是盗贼，只要开口，他都会耐心倾听、耐心叙谈。对于深陷困境的，他会给予帮助；对于寻求工作的，他给写介绍信。有些人来请教学术问题，他总是尽其所能加以满足；也有些人只是前来问候，他便飨以零零碎碎的新闻或消息。所有的来客离去时都会觉得不虚此行。

四十出头的胡博士，看上去要比实际年龄年轻得多。刮得干干净净的一张脸，整洁入时的衣着，称得上衣冠楚楚。他头发乌黑，不见一丝灰白；饱满的奥古斯都²式额头，一双坦率的大眼睛，两片显得能言善辩的、灵活的嘴唇，面色红润。胡博士的面孔既不会使你想到学者的“大脑发达、生活简朴”，也不会使你想到俗人的“饮食丰美、生活放荡”。胡博士中等身材，肢体匀称，反应灵敏，举止自如，看上去更像是由俗人变成的学者，而不是学者变成的俗人。

胡博士学识渊博，他对万事万物——从春药的配制到佛教的深奥佛理——全都有所了解。他涉猎颇广：契诃夫³，他翻译过他的短篇小说；中国诗词，他编选过一部《词选》；中国早期哲学，他写过相关的著作；佛教哲学，他常有长短不拘的文字问世；中国和欧洲的小说；诸如此类，不胜枚举。他执笔议论的问题是五花八门——政治、社会问题、历史、进化论、文本考证等等。只消看一眼《胡适文存》的目录，就可以对他的多才多艺和涉猎之广多少有个印象。再加上他风雅有趣、常常是知识丰富而并非卖弄学问的谈吐，就能给我们一个完整的印象。

胡博士并不是喜欢把自己的才能掩藏起来的那种人：他有什么，就显示出什么；他是什么，就都在那儿了——在他的著作、他的谈吐、他的行为方式中。他不想有所隐瞒，在他的身上没有什么神秘：只有阳光，没有阴影。他的心胸仿佛是一片明亮如镜的广阔湖泊，没有浪漫的深沟，没有彼岸的回音。对于这样的湖，我们关心的不是深度，而是如镜的湖面。那湖面反映一切，能够把一幅幅精致、明净、有序的宇宙映像呈现在我们眼前。在这样的画面里，没有玄妙、灵魂和宗教的位置。

胡博士的文风简洁明快，当之无愧地受到了称赞——文如其人。我们想起海克尔⁴的简洁文风，一个可以用物质、力、获得性状遗传加以解释的宇宙模型，就会立刻出现在我们的脑海里。我们想起赫胥黎⁵的简洁文风，人就立刻变成了非常简单的动物而不难理解。我们想起约翰·斯图尔特·穆勒⁶的简洁文风，我们就能立刻认识到思想按照三段论和命题形成的过程。海克尔、赫胥黎和穆勒与胡博士文风值得赞叹的简洁，甚至与他那更加值得赞叹的信条的简洁，是不是也存在着某种关系呢？

因为胡博士在国立北京大学讲授哲学多年，人们称他为哲学家。当然，他的确是个哲学家，但是“哲学家”这个称呼却不足以描述他所有的活动。因为他时常给刊物写文章，对普遍关心的问题发表议论，他也被称为小册子作家。不错，他的确是个小册子作家，但是，如果认为他也有小册子作家那种机会主义和心理状态，这一称呼对于他就成了极大的污蔑。因为胡博士从不摈弃世俗财富，有人就说他是个俗人。是的，他也实在是个俗人，不过，能够产生这样一种印象的，也只限于仅在宴会上认识他的人。如果世界上有一个名称能够用来称呼胡博士这样一种人，我想18世纪那种用法的philosophe（哲人）⁷就恰好合适。伏尔泰⁸、达兰贝尔⁹、霍尔巴赫¹⁰、爱尔维修¹¹、狄德罗¹²和杰里米·边沁¹³全都是哲人。在他们身上，俗人、学者、实干家和哲学家的成分全都有。他们对宇宙的结构模式都有个精确的看法，写东西都有一种实干家的乐观和自信，都用明快而有权威的文笔谈论太阳底下各种各样的问题。无论是对是错，他们全都有勇气发表和坚持自己的主张。放在这一群哲人中间，胡博士也不是最逊色的一个。而在中国，我不敢说他就不是唯一的当代哲人。

［第9期，1934年3月1日］