人類的知識，雖說千門萬戶，浩瀚無涯。扼要講，可以分為兩大類：一是屬於自然的，一是屬於人文的。整個世界一切現象，也不外乎這兩大類。自然指的是屬於人以外的一切，人文指的是屬於人類社會本身的一切。當然人生亦是自然中一部分，但我們站在人的立場，應該看重人生自己的地位，所以我們將整個世界分為『自然』『人文』兩大類，也並無不合自然處。
因為此兩大對象之不同，我們求獲關於兩大類知識的方法也不同。
Falco 譯:
Although human knowledge contains tens of thousands of broad subjects, they can be simply divided into two categories: nature and humanities. All phenomenon in the world also belong to these two categories. Nature refers to everything outside of the human race whereas humanities are all about the human society itself. Of course, human beings are part of the nature cycles, but we as humans should focus on the role of our own life. Thus, it follows the rules of nature that we divide our knowledge into nature and humanities.
Because of the difference between nature and humanities, we have different ways of learning these two kinds of knowledge.
--- 錢穆 《中國歷史精神》
