陶铸国民:严复与中国启蒙运动——纪念严复诞辰160周年

The Reform of the National Character:Yan Fu and Chinese Enlightenment——For Celebrating the 160 Anniversary of the Birth of Yan Fu

甲午之后,严复从海军先驱到启蒙之父的转变,表征着洋务时代的终结和启蒙时代的开端。严复译介的进化论以一个变动的、进化的、竞争的新宇宙观世界观颠覆了古典中国的意义世界,并激发了国人救亡图存的民族主义和改革意识。严复"开民智"的启蒙主义,深刻地影响了清末和五四两代启蒙知识分子之"改造国民性"的思想。在近代中国思想史上,严复第一个发现"自由"的现代性核心意义。其"以自由为体,以民主为用"的西方文明观,超越洋务派的"中体西用"论和维新派的君主立宪主义,深刻地揭示了自由主义的本质。他通过翻译输入斯密的市场经济理论和经济自由主义、孟德斯鸠的宪政理论、密尔的自由理论等古典自由主义经典理论,其在中国传播自由主义学理居功至伟。其市场经济、法治政府、公民自由、民主政治等理论在改革时代大行其道,成为引导中国社会转型的重要思想资源。

After Sino-Japanese War, Yan Fu changed himself from a navy pioneer to the father of the enlightenment, which symbolized the ending of Westernization era and the beginning of enlightenment. The theory of evolution he translated reversed the meaning of classical Chinese world with a new world view, and inspired Chinese nationalism and reform consciousness of saving the nation from subjugation. The Didacticism of Yah Fu had profound influence onthe enlightenment intellectuals of the late Qing Dynasty and the May Fourth period. He was the first one who found the modern core meaning of ＂ freedom＂ in the ideological history of modern Chinese. His Western civilization view which take freedom as the body and the democracy as use revealed the essence of liberalism profoundly, and transcended the western theory of the Westernization group and the constitutional monarchy doctrine of the reform scholars. He introduced many classical liberalism theory, such as the theory of market economy and economic liberalism of Adams Smith, Montesquieu＇s theory of constitutional government and Mill＇s theory of liberalism, and had an important influence on liberalism＇s dissemination in China. Especially his theories of market economy, the government under the rule of law, civil liberties and democracy were so popular in the reform era, and became important ideological resource of guiding Chinese social transformation.