What is a comprehension of the past and present?

The "understanding of the past and present" is a great tradition of ancient Chinese historians. This tradition has the same connotation as the Confucian classic "The Book of Rites", which refers to the "sparse notification of distance". It mainly refers to the fact that historians, when applying historical knowledge, should have a high level of insight that integrates the past and the present. This includes both the summarization of historical experience and the grasp of current historical trends and future trends.

Because the mode of history management of "integrating the past and the present" has a magnificent historical vision and a unique role in revealing the characteristics of history, it has won the favor of historians, and has also been favored by readers as a matter of course. The repeated appearance of general history works in the field of ancient Chinese historiography is the strongest example. Of course, the popularity of general history works also has its profound background and significance. Qing Dynasty historian Zhang Xuecheng had in the "Wen Shi Tongyi - interpretation of the pass" in a special section focusing on the advantages of the general history: "the revision of the general history, the convenience of six: one is said to be free of repetition, two is said to be even class example, three is said to Ambrose with the four is said to be equal right and wrong, five is said to go to conflict, six is said to be detailed neighboring things. Its long has two: one said with cut, two said to set up the family law". Zhang's bow evaluation of today, one by one discussion of the so-called "six便"、"Two long", the discussion of the detailed, the evaluation of the high, can be said to be unprecedented.

Even at today's high level, the way of history management, which is to be understood from the past to the present, has a very important significance. First of all, the way of history requires people to have a sense of change. By the so-called sense of change, I mean that the whole history is constantly changing. Only through change can history advance. Only through change can society develop. The ancient philosophical work "Zhou Yi" is the fountainhead of the idea of flux and change, and many learned men in history have been the practitioners of this idea. Sima Qian, who wrote the Records of the Grand Historian with the idea of change in mind, clearly labeled the purpose of his work as "understanding the changes of the past and the present". Liang Qichao, the vanguard of the Hundred Days' Reform, not only brought into play the "poor is change, change is through, through is a long time" (Changes in the General Discussion of the Law - Preface) of the idea of change, but also further crystallized the idea of Sima Qian "to carry on my change": "The law will be implemented for ten years, or for several decades, or for a hundred years, but it will be worn out" and "it will be worn out, but it will be changed, and this is the way of heaven" ("On the Harmfulness of Not Changing the Law"). The consciousness of change not only has the dialectical thought of the opposite of the extreme, the transformation of prosperity and decline, but also contains the dominant role of human beings in it. As long as we look at the problem from the viewpoint of change, we will notice the difference between the past and the present and the current changes while noting the historical experience and the connection between the past and the present, and formulate new countermeasures. Secondly, the way of governing history that is through the past and present requires people to grasp things scientifically. In other words, we should use the position, viewpoints and methods of dialectical materialism and historical materialism to scientifically reveal the development process and laws in the long history of the past, to objectively summarize the experience and knowledge of the past in the process of historical development, and also to make use of these laws, experience and knowledge to elucidate the trend of development of our times, and ultimately to achieve the purpose of serving the contemporary society.