司馬遷與劉知幾是眾所皆知的古代歷史名家，一以創紀傳體通史之《史記》，開廿五正史先河而成名，一以首撰史學批評專書《史通》論析古今史籍而聞世。兩書在各自領域，皆起過重大作用，名實相符。然觀兩氏著書之旨，一標以「究天人之際，通古今之變，成一家之言」，一提敘欲「辨其指歸，殫其體統」，似不相干，然細析其內容，由兩氏之歷史思想觀點、歷史方法論及歷史功用三方面入手取徑，竟得兩氏史學亦有其關聯性及一貫性，並從其關係中看出至少漢唐之間，乃至整個中國史學史中史學思想的優良傳統。

Ssu-ma Ch'ien and Liu Zhi-ji are two distinguished historians in ancient Chinese history. The former wrote the Records of the Historian (Shih-chi 史記), recognized as the first writings of general history with the annual-biography style in Chinese historiography. He is also a precursor for establishing a paradigm to the History Authority (Zheng-shih 正史) for the successive ages. The latter worte the Shih-t'ung (Generalities on History 史通), known as the first historical treatise on Chinese Historical criticism, based on which to analyze and criticize a variety of historical elements for the Chinese historiography authority from the Pre-Chin to the T'ang era. The two maxims individually advocated by these two well-known historians are disparity in manners, characteristics and intelligence at the first glance, and seemingly do not deserve to make any comparisons. Nevertheless, we manifest a definite connection and consistency between two maxims by scrutinizing their significance in conjunction with historical thoughts, methodology and functionality appealed by two outstanding historians. Furthermore, on the strength of correlations between two maxims we observe an excellent Chinese historiographical tradition from the Han to the T'ang dynasty as well as the entire Chinese historiography.