《尚書》「寧王、寧武、寧考、前寧人、寧人」之「寧」，漢至宋人多為「安」，謂是「安天下之王」、「安武事」、「寧祖聖考」、「祖宗安人」，義決不可通。至清吳大澂始發現此諸「寧」乃「文」字之誤，後人多深信不疑。惟吳汝綸闓生父子、章炳麟、西人高本漢疑二字形體尚不致相淆。余廣采古文字形，證二字形近易偽，以充實吳說。更因《尚書》言「寧王以德始受天命建國」，遍求文武事跡於經、經解、緯、史、子、彝銘及近人論文，證同文王昌始受天命創建周國稱王改元，而周武王發但繼受天命伐商定邦而已；且文獻盛稱文王美德，稱武王則鮮及其德望，故斷此「寧王」確是「文王昌」。《禮記》引《尚書．君奭》「寧王」作「文王」，鄭玄以下，頗有執以勘校《尚書》者，惜皆未盡正確。余通考全篇，貫穿文義，比次史跡，定其篇「前人、寧王、文王」同指姬昌一人，於是「寧」字誤、「文」字正，灼然無可疑矣。

　　　　　The character ning 寧 in ning-wang 寧王 , ning-wu 寧武 , ning-k'ao 寧考 , ch'ien ning-jen 前寧人 , ning jen 寧人, and ch'ien wen-jen 前文人 from the Book of Documents was interpreted as an 安（calm , stability）by scholars from the Han to the Sung Dynasties . According to them ning-wang means "a king who brings peace and stability to the world" , but in my opinion this definition is not acceptable . During the Ch'ing Dynasty Wu Ta-ch'eng 吳大澂 discovered that the character wen 文 had been mistaken for ning , and he convinced later generations . But later Chang Ping-lin 章炳麟 and the Swedish scholar Bernhard Karlgren argued that in terms of character form wen and ning were very unlikely to have been mistaken for each other , and thus another controversy began . In my article I examine the Classics together with their exegeses , history books , philosophy books , bronze inscriptions , and recent articles and prove that it was believed that King Wen 文王 had become the founder of the Chou Dynasty due to his merits as a ruler . The Book of Documents is filled with such praises of him . At the end of this article I conclude that ning-wang is without doubt the mistaken form of wen-wang.