The "heart" of "establishing heaven and earth" here is similar to "heart" and "heart". It is symbolic, that is, it establishes moral standards for human society and forms some values. People are "intentional", so they have rules, order, purpose, direction and goal. Heaven and earth are "intentional" and human society will be orderly.
The purpose of "standing for heaven and earth" is "standing for the people". "Standing on the heart" serves "standing on life", and only in this way can we talk about "standing on life for the people". If the society is chaotic and there is no good order, people will not be able to make a living. In fact, people will not be able to settle down.
The "forgetting the past" here is not simply a question of which saint's knowledge will not be cut off, but in a broader sense, it refers to the wisdom of continuing human civilization. The slogan "Never forget the past and learn from the future" also concentrated on expressing the sense of cultural mission of scholars at that time. Through ideological and cultural construction, it not only provides theoretical basis for the establishment of social moral value system, but also provides cultural support for political legitimacy and rationality.
"Building peace for the world" is not only an independent task, but also the purpose and summary of the first three sentences. There is only one fundamental purpose of "establishing people's mind", "establishing life" and "following learning", all of which are for "opening peace" and "opening peace for all generations"
Origin: This is one of the precious ideological heritages left by Zhang Zai, a famous scholar in the Northern Song Dynasty. Because every sentence begins with the word "Wei", it is called "four sentences" for short.
Extended data
"Establish the heart of heaven and earth, establish the way of the people, learn the way of saints, and create the peace of the world" was first included in Zhang Zi's woodcut quotations in the Song Dynasty. Among the extant engraved quotations in Song Dynasty, Ming Dow, a Confucian scholar, is the earliest, while Wu Jian's engraved quotations is later. These four sentences are also found in recent thoughts. Zhu He once got a version of Quotations from Wang, which really belongs to Zhang Zai's works cited in Jin.
After Zhu, the quotations of Du Zheng and others also belong to the system of "establishing Tao". Scholars in the Yuan Dynasty have not quoted these four sentences. When Yuan Yingtai prefaced Shen's Book of Zhang Ziquan in Ming Dynasty, he quoted four sentences of "Li Dao" completely. In modern times, scholars have almost quoted these four sentences according to Ming Dow Ben, Wu Jianben's Quotations or Jin.