Lord Shang Revisited 9

12. Summary

SJS is usually read, if at all, as though its chapters were of the same date, and of equal authority. Starting from some details at the word level, and working out their implications, we have reached a point from which it is possible to see development in the text; to better understand where it came from, and where it ended. We also see better what it contended against, and by implication, what political history in Chin may have been like during the time of its formation. We may also be able to see a little more of the larger history of Legalism than we could when we started. This tiny contribution to intellectual history is offered as a sample of what philology can do for history, and why philology itself is still worth doing.

Envoi

I here come to the end of what I felt there would be time to share with you, from this work still in progress. I noted at the outset that my talk was offered as a token of homage to Joseph Scaliger. Let me conclude by thanking those present, for patiently assisting in that gesture of respect. I will do so by quoting the words of Dominicus Baudius, at the end of his funeral oration for Scaliger, on 26 January 1609:

"Finally, as custom and duty prescribe, I thank this most honorable assembly, that you have seen fit to honor with your attendance this address of mine, which is not an example of understanding or eloquence, but the last service of devotion to the spirit of a man who was pre-eminent in all ages, in every kind of humanistic learning."

 

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