Research On The Culmination And Decline Of Mohism

Based on the analysis on the historical background in which the Mohist was produced, the era characteristics, the rise and fall of the Mohism, and the comment on the Mohism from different scholars in all ages, this essay will restore the Mohism in history and the history of it, and will explore the rise-and-fall process of the Mohism and reveal the reason why the Mohism declined from its culmination instead of dying out.The Mohism and the Confucianism used to coexist, both of which occupied a position of prestige in the ancient Chinese culture. With the research of the rise and fall of the Mohism, we can have a better understanding of the core and the theoretical deficiency of the Mohism, and then we can assess the Mohism itself and its influence on the social life and the development of traditional culture in ancient China. On the other hand, it may help us understand the academic thought in ancient China soundly and the inner relationship between culture and the social development thoroughly, especially the dialectic rules by which the theory of the culture celebrities before Qin Dynasty spread and developed.The fundamental purpose of researching the traditional culture is to carry forward the tradition and forge ahead into the future, namely to uphold the splendid national culture and make it serve the present and future cultural creation and undertakings. Based on the study of its process from one-hundred-year culmination to one-thousand-year decay, this essay aims at drawing lessons from experience during the development of the Mohism, revealing the basic law of cultural development and providing useful reference and guidance for the contemporary advanced cultural undertakings.This essay will mainly adopt the research method of the combination of history and logic. With huge amounts of historical material, this essay will restore the real feature of the Mohism and reveals its general trend from culmination to decline, declining but not dying out and its inner inevitability with analytical and comparative method and induction and deduction.The originality of this essay lies in taking the Mohism's decline from culmination as a gradational historical process, and revealing the fundamental cause as its thought of Universal Love and Condemnation of Aggression. The Mohist neglected the cruelty and complication of the class conflict, and staked all their social hope on the governing class, which is the taboo in class society.In a word, though the Mohism declined from its culmination as a gradational historical process in two thousand years, its social thought of Great Harmony and Universal Love, the natural philosophy in advance of the age, the rational scientific spirit, and the national integrity have all merged into the Chinese culture and become the Chinese spiritual wealth.