From Manancun's "The Secret of Not Wanting Secrets".

1. Original text

“We now advocate reading with a critical eye, extracting the essence and discarding the dross. Ancient scholars did not have the courage to propose this idea.”

2. Explanation

Essence: the best part of something.

Dregs: Things such as distiller’s grains and bean dregs, metaphorically referring to useless things.

Absorb the best from things and discard the bad and useless things from things. Extended information

"Essence" and "dregs" actually have two different meanings and two different understandings.

One is substantial and the other is value.

The meaning of substantiality is to regard the "essence" and "dross" as inherent in traditional culture and the inherent nature of various cultural phenomena, and to believe that some of them are good in themselves. , is the "essence".

Other things are bad in themselves and are "dross"; the essence is the essence, and the dross is dross. As long as they exist, they have always been like this and will not change; our job is to make them Once found, keep the "essence" and eliminate the "dross".

The meaning of value is to regard the "essence" and "dross" as the meaning and role of existing cultural phenomena under real conditions, that is, taking our current survival and development as the standard, looking at the legacy of the past What comes down is good or bad.

An implicit premise here is not to believe that the meaning of good or bad phenomena is always the same or fixed, but to recognize that good or bad essentially changes depending on people and time. Therefore, our job is to look at the past objectively, and the focus is to select and transform them based on the actual development of people and society.

The two different meanings and understandings show profound differences in philosophical ways of thinking. The former understanding is relatively simple and intuitive, so it is more common in people's opinions and represents a traditional way of thinking, but it has great doubts and misunderstandings. Theoretically speaking, the latter understanding is more realistic, in-depth and reasonable.

Baidu Encyclopedia-take the essence and discard the dross