人类所知的一切都应归功于历史——谈马苏第《黄金草原》的史识问题

All Human's Knowledge Should Be Attributed to the History

作为一个历史学家,史识是至关重要的。史识层次的高低决定了历史学家的成就与贡献大小。综观中外史学,中外史家的史识大致分为四个层次,其一,稽考史料,考据辨证史实,以求真实。其二,搜集保存史料,以免历史因日久天长淡忘而泯灭。其三,以史为鉴,垂训与教育后代。其四,探究事件的本质与历史规律,创建史学思想与理论。这四种史识于历史研究都有作用与贡献,但史识的深浅不一样。在马苏第看来,研究历史首先任务在于尽量多地搜寻资料,汇集资料。《黄金草原》书中广征博引资料,把他那个时代所能搜集到的书本资料、口头传说、走访调查所得统统按专题归类汇编起来。通观《黄金草原》全书,规律性的抽象与理论创建均无。马苏第是一位伟大的历史学家,学识渊博。《黄金草原》是一部世界名著与经典之作。我们可以原谅马苏第的时代局限,但对史识层次不高而导致全书缺乏理论与思想建树的弊窦是不能遮掩的,应当正视。

Historical knowledg is very important for a historian. The different level of historical knowledge results in the different achievements that the historians get and the different contributions that the historians make. Throughout the Chinese and foreign history, the historical knowledge of all the Chinese and foreign historians has four levels： The first groups ascertain the historical materials, all the textual researches are dialectical and authentic; The second groups collect and reserve the historical materials, so that the history would die out because of long history; The third groups learn from the history, and educate the next generation; The fourth groups probe into the nature of the event and law of the history, and create the historical thought and theory. All these four groups of historical knowledge play roles and make contributions to the historical researches, but they have different understanding about the historical knowledge. According to Masudi, the primary task of historical researches is to search for and collect the materials. So in the book ＂Golden Grassland＂, he collected much materials, including all the written materials, oral legend, and visiting investigations that Masudi could get in his time and compiled them according to their category. Reading through the book ＂Golden Grassland＂, I found there isn＇t any creation of the regularity of abstract and theory. Masudi is a great and learned historian. The book ＂Golden Grassland＂ is the world famous and classical work by Masudi. We can forgive Masudi for the limitation of the times, but we should not neglect his shortcoming in lacking theoretical and thinking creation in the book because of his low level of historical knoweledge.