牟宗三的《五十自述》可說是一篇證道辭，在回憶中塑造自己，是以自己為法的試煉。順著情感性的基調，在回顧中既讓記憶流出，又重新塑造記憶，重複地形塑情感（苦、悲），這一書寫以情感為軸心，引出了讀者在修辭佈置中的想像。如果從其回憶所出現的他人來看，這些師友、故交構成記憶共同體的要素，國族、個體之間的命運類同以平行的方式被陳述。此一證道所透露的「證苦證悲」、「覺情」用語也顯示出此一共同體在慧命的連帶之外，有由記憶修辭所串起的情感連帶。從「自述」的修辭策略來看，波濤洶湧的五十年是中華現代性疊合在個人史上的大敘事根源；以證道的方式來診斷此一現代性衝擊，顯露出其中對於種種歷史斷裂、生命經歷斷裂的修補設想。

In reviewing the past, Mou Zongsan's Self Presentation at the Age of Fifty (Wushi zishu), with the tone of affection, evokes and reconstructs his memory in terms of expressing the affections in a repetitious way. Grounded in articulating feelings, his work stimulates readers' imagination through its disposition in rhetoric. One may take Self Presentation at the Age of Fifty as preachment, for it reveals a process of forming oneself in recollection and testifying oneself to achieve the authentic way of life. The friends, the teachers, and the enemies mentioned in the preachment constitute the elements of a community of memory. The analogy between the individual and the nation indicates a parallel to that of the community of memory. Besides the wisdom or intelligible destiny relevant to the community, there are affective connections evoked by the rhetoric of memory. Through the analysis of the biographical discourse, we find, in the case of Mou Zongsan, the overlap between Chinese modernity (culturally and nationally) and the individual history. Mou's preaching strategy responds to the challenge of modernity in exposing some historical ruptures and personal experiences on the way to a self-diagnostic. Viewed by this perspective, the text of Mou provides an excellent material for considering the relation between philosophical style of writing and modernity.