In his Zhonguo xiaoshuo shilue中国小说史略,Lu Xun鲁迅 devotes a special chapter to these four novels:Yesou puyan野叟曝言,Jinghua yuan镜花缘,Yanshan waishi燕山外史,and Yinshi鑘史,and identifies them as novels“showing caixue才学[academic and artistic achievements] through fiction writing”. Although this identification is not based on generic and stylistic criteria and those novels are still classified into the types of Shenmo神魔novels and Shiqing世情 novels respec-tively,what Lu Xun really wants to do here is to highlight the commonality in the creative motivation shared by their authors who manage to get their own aspirations and feelings expressed between the lines in their novels;and is to explore the significance of these novels for constructing a history of Chi-nese fiction. This is the direct result from his construction of the law governing the evolution of Chinese fiction:“novels,which were started as a by-product of literary creation,become one of the profession-al literary pursuits.”There is,however,some tension between the rationale behind and the exemplifi-cation for Lu Xun’s identification of novels“showing caixue through fiction writing”,which is inevita-bly skewed towards focusing on the novelists’ writing intentions. Researchers misunderstood Lu Xun’s concept of“showing caixue through fiction writing”merely as“caixue novels”.%《中国小说史略》专篇讨论《野叟曝言》、《镜花缘》、《燕山外史》及《鑘史》四部小说并名之“以小说见才学者”时，并非基于类型归纳或文体判断而言。这些小说依旧被归入“神魔小说”或才子佳人型的“世情小说”中。鲁迅此举实为强调此类小说写作者“自寓”、“寄慨”的创作倾向，突出“以小说见才学者”创作现象于小说史的叙述意义，是其建构“从无意为小说向有意为小说演进”的小说史演进规律之目的使然。这些意图及采用列举式的评判模式，导致《史略》并未妥善处理此类小说作者创作意图与作品实际书写之间的冲突，致使“以小说见才学者”最终偏向析解作者创作意图之一面。学者将“以小说见才学者”曲解为“才学小说”等，并当作重要的小说类型，进一步偏离鲁迅本意。关注古代小说演进过程中出现的“以小说见才学者”创作现象，将比拘囿于“才学小说”从概念到概念的圈定之举更有意义。
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