Chapters 22 and 23｜All quotations cited on this page are tagged with chapter numbers; click a chapter name to return to the original.
Where the book's methodology sits
Of the thirty-three chapters, Chapter 22 'Methods of thinking and work' has thirty-eight entries - the longest. Chapter 23 'Investigation and research' has only seven, but weighs heavily. Together they form the book's complete statement on 'how a person should judge'. The editors place this part late, after the military, organizational and conduct chapters, so the reading order is stand first, then method.
The time-span of these quotations is wide: the earliest is 'Oppose book worship' (1930), the latest 'Where do correct ideas come from?' (1963). In other words, the editors reached back over thirty years to assemble a methodology.
Step one: knowledge comes from practice
The opening entries of Chapter 22 repeat one structure: knowledge does not come from books or the head, but from three kinds of practice - the struggle for production, class struggle, scientific experiment; once formed, knowledge must be returned to practice to be tested - success means correct, failure means wrong.
The book describes this as two 'leaps': the first from sense-data up to concept and judgement, the second taking that judgement back to practice to verify it. The editors stress the second - 'there is no other way to test truth'. That sentence is the landing-point of the whole epistemology.
Step two: investigate before you speak
Chapter 23 turns method into procedure. 'No investigation, no right to speak' is the most famous line, paired with 'investigation is like ten months' pregnancy, solving the problem like one day's birth' - the editors use the metaphor to insist the time cannot be skipped.
The chapter also fixes concrete practice: a survey meeting of three to eight people is enough, allow enough time, have a survey outline, write it yourself, and discuss with those present. These are executable steps, not rhetoric.
Step three: analyse contradiction, separate primary from secondary
A group of entries in the middle of Chapter 22 is on 'contradiction'. The core claim: in any process there are many contradictions, one of them principal; each side of a contradiction has a primary and secondary aspect, and the two can convert into each other.
The accompanying working demand, carried into the method section before Chapter 30, is: do not look at only one side, only the present, only your own line. The book names looking at one side 'one-sidedness' and looking only at the surface 'superficiality', both listed as faults to correct.
What to watch when reading this group
These quotations were lifted from thirty years of articles; the original sentences are kept but the context is cut. So when you meet concepts like 'practice', 'contradiction', 'leap', go back to the sourced original for the full argument - that is why every entry here is sourced.
Also, the book's epistemology carries a sharp period mark: it lists class struggle as one of the three practices - a 1950s-60s judgement. The reader must read that premise in too, to understand why some inferences feel unnatural today.
No investigation, no right to speak.
Practice, knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge: this form repeats itself endlessly.
The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal.
Key chronology
- 1930'Investigation first' from 'Oppose Book Worship'
- 1937'On Practice' and 'On Contradiction' found epistemology and the doctrine of contradiction
- 1941'Reform Our Study' and 'Rectify the Party's Style of Work' on seeking truth from facts
- 1957'On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People' on prioritising the principal contradiction
- 1963'Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?' summarises the two leaps
What the 'practice-knowledge' two leaps specifically mean
The book splits a judgement's journey from birth to confirmation into two moves. The first leap is from perceptual knowledge (what is seen and heard) up to rational knowledge (concepts, judgements, inference); the second leap is taking that rational knowledge back into practice to be tested - success proves it right, failure proves it wrong. The editors stress that the second leap is 'the more important' one: whether an idea is right cannot be settled by speculation, only by the result of acting on it.
This still reads as methodological common sense today: many plans are self-consistent on paper yet fall apart the moment they are executed, usually because the second leap was skipped. Most of Chapter 22's entries are variations on 'do not stop at the first leap'.
Why 'investigation' gets a whole chapter to itself
Chapter 23 has only seven entries and is among the shortest in the book, yet its position is key: it turns 'first understand the situation, then draw conclusions' from an attitude into a procedure. The book gives a concrete method - assemblies of three to eight people, an agenda, taking notes by hand, discussing with participants - and uses 'ten months' pregnancy' against 'one morning's birth' as a metaphor for the order and weight of investigation versus problem-solving.
Note that almost every quotation in this chapter comes from investigation reports of 1930 and 1941. That is, the editors present 'investigation' as an already-proven method they demand readers adopt, not as an optional suggestion.