II

So much above for the art of translating—translating words, phrases, and clauses. To me, however, translation can be science, as well as art. And it ought to be science when we come to the translation of sentences. This leads us to the logical methodology of translation. With such a new methodological problem in the foreground, I have, therefore, since the beginning of this work, thought of disclosing possibilities, if any, of applying logical principles to the translation of one language into another, as for example here, of Chinese into English, both being mutually so different. Thought the time is not as yet ripe for me to claim any success in the problem-solving effort, yet a few words about the application of the most general principles of logic to the science of translation may, it is hoped, be suggestive to my future comrades in the same field of exploration.

It is a truism that however different and numerous languages may be, the thought behind any language can be expressed in all of them equally well, provided that the thinker can skilfully command all the different systems of vocal gestures. It is practically the same as to say that one melody applies equally well to all different languages. What judgments are to thinking, so are melodies to feeling. Though single words of different languages may have different units of thought which they represent, yet every judgment laid down by reasoning always has its quantity and quality, regardless of the language it chooses for expression; just as the same melody, whether sung in Chinese or English, has its unique time and notes. Translation, therefore, is a restatement of thought in a different tongue with sentences rather than words as its basic units.

As judgments expressed in language make propositions, it is possible to make a logical analysis of every sentence of any language and then restate it in the appropriate form of a proposition and finally put it in the symbolic form of a judgment. When the judgment is thus determined, the original proposition in Chinese can be accordingly rendered into English. And, if the English rendering expresses the same unit of thought quantitatively and qualitatively, the translation, however grammatically and idiomatically different from the original, will then in substance be faithful to the idea of the author.

However, just as judgments differ from suspicions, so do propositions differ from questions. Yet certain types of questions customarily used are rhetorical and are more frequently found in Chinese than in English—such questions as, for instance, "Is it possible to rescue a misgoverned state from going to ruin?" or "How could it be justified to confer honours on loafers and demand services from warriors?" Inasmuch as such questions are suspicions in word but judgments in thought, in many cases my rendering chooses the form of propositions instead of questions.

As regards the three accepted types of propositions, they are as a rule interchangeable, since the categorical proposition is the origin of the hypothetical and alternative propositions. In the case of a categorical proposition, if the writing in the English rendering of the original sentence appears to be awkward or not intelligible to English readers, it ought to be advisable to apply the doctrines of opposition and eduction and see if the writing of the immediate inference from the original proposition is elegant in style and proficient in composition. For instance, there are in Chinese found such expressions as, "Man never fails to have father and mother," which implies "Everybody has parents". Now, compared with the former, which is the transfusion of the meaning of the original, the latter, which is the transfusion of an immediate inference of the original, certainly sounds elegant and proficient, without losing any portion of the original thought. Likewise, it is possible to express the substance of the original, which is a categorical proposition into a hypothetical or an alternative proposition. In short, wherever the transfusion of the meaning or direct sense fails, there the transfusion of the implication or indirect sense is preferable, although it is not always easy to determine at what point the validity of transfusing the meaning of a statement ends and the necessity of transfusing the implication begins. Herein lies an everlasting difficulty in the way of translation as well as the need of practice to master the skill of it.

Furthermore, in classical Chinese writing, judgments are very often expressed in hypothetical propositions, which the English-speaking people customarily prefer to express either in alternative or in categorical propositions. For instance, the saying, "Whoever advocates strict legalism, if not executed by public authorities, is infallibly assassinated by private swordsmen," is hypothetical, and can be restated in an alternative proposition, "Every advocate of strict legalism is either executed by public authorities or assassinated by private swordsmen." Of these two modes of expression, the latter seemingly sounds more idiomatically English than the former, while the sense remains the same. Another kind of hypothetical proposition, such as, for example, "When peace reigns, the state feeds loafers; once an emergency comes, she uses warriors," is the Chinese way of expression; but the equivalent categorical proposition, "In time of peace loafers are supported; in case of emergency warriors are employed," sounds far more idiomatically English than the original. In most cases like these, I have retained the native colour at the expense of idiomatic English.

The last, but by no means the least, important point throughout my English rendering is the distinction of "if" from "when" and "where". "If" is used in universal propositions to introduce "conditions" of certain events while "when" is used in particular propositions to introduce "temporal instances" and "where" to introduce "spatial instances" of certain events. Similarly, "if" introduces in general "conditions" of certain events, while "whenever" and "wherever" specify their temporal and spatial aspects respectively.

Such being the case, it is evident that translation is as closely allied with psychology and logic as with grammar and rhetoric and its objective is basically concerned with thought rather than with word. In as much as most readers of Han Fei Tzŭ's writings have been primarily interested in his thought since his days, the present translation with the aid of logic and psychology devotes more attention to the author's philosophical, than to his etymological, background.