Abstract: During the Self-strengthening Movement (1860s—1890s), in response to the spread of Western knowledge, scholar-officials of the royal court initially adopted the cognitive psychology of “forced assimilation” to classify the knowledge with the concepts and frames inherent in the Chinese tradition. Their next step, in a deductive way, is to place it under the essence of Confucianism for evaluation. Such “cognition-evaluation psychology” was initially embodied in the theory of “Xi Xue Zhong Yuan” (Chinese knowledge is the root of the Western learning) and that of “Zhong Ben Xi Mo” (Chinese knowledge takes priority). However, with the deepening of their cognition of Western learning, some began to break through that psychology and put forward some additional views that further expanded “Zhong Ben Xi Mo”, such as “Zhong Xi Ge You Ben Mo” (Chinese and Western learning each have their own root), “Zhong Ben Yi Ke Bian” (the root of Chinese learning can be altered) and “Zhong Ben Zhong De Da Ben” (the major part of the root of Chinese learning), which, however, does not run out of the overall framework. Such a phenomenon, according to Macintyre’s theories, is explained by those officials’ failing to realize that the invasion of Western learning, for China, is essentially an “epistemological crisis”, a misinterpretation which renders them to adopt the traditional methods to deal with such crisis, hence the limited significance of such a shift in cognition.

Key words: forced assimilation, reflections of the sacred, Xi Xue Zhong Yuan, Zhong Ben Xi Mo, epistemological crisis, the Self-strengthening Movement (1860s—1890s)