“Wisdom begins in wonder.”

— Socrates

Our Endeavour is built on the following Three Pillars.

First is the Voice of the Intellect which we propose to see as like the Intellectual Assets of the Humanities and constitutes an importance source of the Wealth created by the Humanities. Among these, the thoughts and ideas of 10 thinkers are of special significance and influence to our endeavours though this doesn’t necessarily mean that those of other thinkers are of less significance. We do not see it as that important to rank and we believe that it is far more important to understand and appreciate first and we would see one key aspect of our endeavor as an attempt to synthesize what the Voice of the Intellect can say about the Game of Life and the Civilisation of the entire Humanities , by which we mean the thoughts and deeds from All Those Who Have Lived and from All Walks of Life , East and West , Past and Present . 

Second is art and aesthetics. Wittgenstein has once made a remark that “a proposition cannot express anything which is higher”; and we understand well that there is a limit to what languages can say about this world. We think it is precisely in these areas that art and aesthetics can complement. Indeed, we see words, images and music as three powerful mediums to transmit human thoughts and feelings and we do attempt to bring these 3 mediums together when we come to express our thoughts and feelings on various subject matters.

If the two above pillars are more about the side of theories, than the third pillar is more about the practices. Among all the intellectual structures we have come across, we think that of Adam Smith provides the most clear, systematic, and inspiring framework under which we can put nearly all the others into places; and we see Hong Kong as one of the few — or even the only — place where some of the main ideas of Adam Smith have been seriously and consciously used in the formulation of its basic political economy structure.

While Adam Smith is almost a household name in the modern world and has been well respected for centuries as one of the greatest thinkers in human history, we still think that the world has yet to fully grasp many of the profound insights offered by him. Most importantly, we believe that Adam Smith has still some unspoken and unfulfilled visions on what are conceivable and attainable for Human Societies and Civilisation. And we also concur with Jerry Muller that “ The Wealth of Nations is the most important book ever written about capitalism and its moral ramification. It was intended to make men better, not just better-off.”

As such, the third pillar we use to build the intellectual framework of Our Endeavor is the thoughts of Adam Smith. We think Hong Kong comes into the picture because this tiny little island hanging in the Pacific Ocean may have been one of the few – or even the only – place where a serious political economy & social experiment along the ideas and thoughts of Adam Smith has been tried. Moreover, Hong Kong may well also be the only place which has been allowed and given the time, opportunity and necessary pre-conditions whereby the East can really meet and mix with the West, in its natural way and at its natural pace; and that include its economy; society; values and many other aspects of the civilization it belongs and which it can continue keep absorbing while trying to learn and take what it likes from the West or indeed any other civilisations on earth.

Herein may well lie some of the most important “lessons” or “laboratory findings” Hong Kong can offer to the rest of the Humanities as well as the over 200 years old but still yet-to-be properly answered question of How the East and the West are to come to terms with each other in the modern world? That also constitute one of the most important heritage of Hong Kong and secures for the little city a position in the Heritages of the entire Humanities. That too, perhaps, also make Hong Kong one of the key cities to the world on the endeavor to assimilate and cross-fertilise all civilisations that have been developed by the entire Humanities, East and West, Past and Present.