A Comment on the Official Seal Character Quality of "Shuowen Jiezi" (Remarks on the Character Structure)

there have been three different views with regard to the official character state of Remarks on the Character Structure: lesser character theory, ancient writings theory, and comprehensive theory. Reasonable as the former two are, they are biased. Comparatively, the third theory conforms to what Remarks on the Character Structure is about, though it is short of deep investigations and overlooks the historical role Xu Shen played in the formation of character in his works. The official character system as in Remarks on the Character Structure is the result of Xu Shen's effort in standardizing all character materials he has collected and is a new character system totally different from all previous ones. Xu Shen named it seal character.