Abstract: There is an inherent dilemma in the intellectual historiography, that is, to follow the intellectual logic or the historical connection. Generally speaking, it is characterized by intellectual blurriness in China due to the shortage of metaphysical and abstract way of thinking. A remark made by a thinker normally contains its specific signifier and signified, which varies from person to person, from place to place and from time to time. New foreign knowledge has poured into China since the modern times. However, very few doctrines have been developed systematically. It is a problem for the intellectual historiography to reconcile new foreign concepts and theories with old Chinese concepts and material. The intellectual historiography shall explain the disorder and fragmental condition of the intellectual history or construct a new order and system. If it is compiled according to the similarity of texts while ignoring the original space-time connections of ideas, an intellectual history may be inconsistent with the ideas of every thinker and it is nothing but a history in the author's mind. However, an intellectual history will be so scattered to blur the origin and evolution of thought if it pays too much attention to the complexity of history. It needs our efforts to balance history and logic to achieve an ideal intellectual historiography.

Key words: thought, history, system, philosophy, HU Shi