The second stage of the three years Joint Research Project on the Generalized Science of Humanity started in April 2007 at our Research Institute. The new project name is ‘Constitution of the Generalized Science of Humanity (=GSH)’. The outline of the GSH as a new field of human sciences has appeared gradually in the first stage project of three years in the past: In brief, the GSH is an essay at synthesizing man's wisdom. At the same time, it is also an essay at reforming the present human wisdom by that synthesis.
     The attempt of the synthesis of wisdom seems as old as Homo sapiens's history. According to the recent research of the comparative mythology, the first myth would have been created by the human ancestors in Africa about 100,000 years ago. The creation and the end of the world come to be talked about to the myth which would begin to spread to the whole area of Eurasia from about 40,000 years ago. In the historic times since 10,000 years ago, the human race begins to compose the complicated and systematized myth; for example, the prototype of “Ama-no-iwato myth” of which versions are found in Greece, India, and Japan seems to have been fabricated in Central Asia about 4,000 years ago and have spread into those areas.
     More systematized compilations of knowledge have been effectuated since the appearance of ancient civilizations. In Mesopotamia, cuneiform was employed for writing a number of languages from about the end of the 4th millennium BC. The Code of Ur-Nammu was compiled in about 2100 BC. The Pyramid Texts, collection of Egyptian mortuary prayers and spells, were inscribed from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. The Old Testament was written originally in Hebrew from 1200 BC. The Rig Veda was compiled in the Northwest of India in about 1200 BC. In China, the Shang divination inscriptions form the earliest body of Chinese writing from the 17th century BC. The genealogy of kings of the Shang dynasty mentioned in the Shih-chi (“Historical Records”) written by Ssu-ma Ch'ien, historian of 2nd century BC, is confirmed by the inscriptional evidence. In Greece, Homer played the primary part in shaping the Iliad and the Odyssey in the 8th century BC.
     Educational institutions for the purpose of compilation and transmission of knowledge were also established. Plato opened a school of philosophy called Academeia about 387 BC. In 136 BC Chinese emperor Wu Ti, who announced formally that the ju school alone would receive state sponsorship, set up at court five Erudites of the Five Classics (metaphysical, political, poetic, social and historical visions).
     Encyclopedias were also compiled: Pliny The Elder wrote Naturalis historia in the 1st century AD. Wu Ti, first emperor of the Southern Liang dynasty (6th century), compiled a huge collection of excerpted texts completed at his academy after 8 years labor of 700 copyists（華林遍略 with 720 volumes）. In order to let the European science which was at lower level catch up with those Arabic or Greek, Roger Bacon in the 13th century strove to create a universal wisdom embracing all the sciences（integritas sapientiae） by studies in Hebrew, Greek and Arabic texts. Later on in Italy, in the same direction, was produced the spirit of the Renaissance expressed by the Humanism. The application and celebration of reason facilitated by the Humanism engendered Enlightenment thoughts and practices, which produced, in their turn, the first secularized theories of psychology and ethics. Francis Bacon in the 17th century attempted a redaction of a comprehensive work under the title of Instauratio Magna (“The Great Instauration”) which was never completed. But his works contain a detailed systematization of the whole range of human knowledge and an account of the method of acquiring natural knowledge (inductive reasoning). Denis Diderot, chief editor of the Encyclopédie, insisted that the character of a good dictionary is to change the manner of thinking.
     An integration of the wider range of knowledge seems to produce (or at least to be accompanied by) necessarily the change of view point as was suggested by the Renaissance, Enlightenment, F. Bacon or D. Diderot. This methodological reform is the second objective of the GSH. Its two objectives, i.e., integration and reform of knowledge, are thus successors of the intellectual activities since the oldest history of humankind.
     The integration of the most important information in the present world, however, will afford intelligence an incomparably wider perspective than ever. The GSH is not confined to a single civilization. It is totally divorced from the Europe-centered view point which formed or often forms the base of the modern scientific disciplines. It will not place absolute trust in humanism or even in science. It is true that the recent development in science (in neuroscience, molecular biology, informatics, for example) has clarified numbers of facts, disproving our common knowledge. The GSH will, therefore, actively obtain information of these new discoveries of advanced sciences. But it will never be closed to the facts that the present science can not give explanation.
     The special dynamics of incessant renewal of knowledge constitutes the unique method of the GSH. The simple accumulation of knowledge will not, in fact, produce any change in the cognitive way of knowledge. Only the true integration of whole ranges of knowledge will allow this dynamics. By creating direct interference between all specialists who submit, from their disciplines to the general discussion, the most important information about better lives, the GSH should bring about the renewal of the view point of each discipline engaged in the joint research. The GSH is thus a workspace of constant interference between specialists from diverse disciplines which will produce creative and open intelligence.