China and the West

Liang, Shiqiu. Guan yu Baibide xian sheng ji qi. [ID D28821].
"The often celebrated idea of 'élan vital' (vital impulse) in Bergson's philosophy is, according to Irving Babbitt, not worth mentioning. 'Elan vital' should give way to 'frein vital (vital control). To do a thing would require strength, but to refrain oneself from doing something would require greater strength. This kind of attitude seems very compatible with what Confucians called 'Refrain oneself and return to the ritual' (ge ji fu li)."
"Though Babbitt has been said not to have shed his puritan thinking, I must say that he retained a great deal of elements of stoicism. I translated Marcus Aurelius' Meditations a few years ago because, inspired by Babbitt's implicit instruction, I wished to express my infinite respect for this great stoic philosopher."
"When Xue heng was started, I was still a university student, one who was swept up in the wave of so-called modern thought. At that time I had a negative reaction after reading Xue heng, in which the classical Chinese characters scrawled all over the paper kept people from further probing into its content. In this way, Babbitt and his thought were cold-shouldered in China."
"Those people like Lu Xun had never read Babbitt, Lu Xun could never understand Babbitt.
Hou Chien : Starting out as a romantic and nationalist, Liang Shiqiu recalls that he went to Babbitt's class with an ax to grind. He went as a challenger but came out a convert to Babbittian classicism. He said nothing at all about Babbitt's Chinese scholarship, though in a private communication. Liang thinks that, in his respect for and promotion of classicism, and in his emphasis on reason, Babbitt shows an affinity of Confucian thinking. Liang does point out, though that Babbitt, in his insistence on the dualistic view of human nature, is inclined to say nothing about the Confucian creed of a human nature innately good.
Bai Liping : Liang wrote about Babbitt's conception of three possible levels of human life : naturalistic, humanistic, and religious. Liang argued that the naturalistic life, though in a sense inevitable, should be subject to balance and restraint ; the life maintaining truly human nature is what we should always try to attain ; the religious way of life is, of course, the most sublime, but, being also the most difficult and beyond the realistic capability of most people, should not serve as an excuse for the latter to live life less than fully at the humanistic level. Liang remarked that Babbitt's New humanism was considered by many Americans to be 'reactionary, fogeyish, and impractical' and to have had a limited influence during his lifetime'.