晚清的“进化”魔咒：严复历史意识的再考察

Deviation of “Evolution” in Late Qing Dynasty: A Reexamination to Yan Fu's Historical Consciousness

进化论作为晚清变化与革命思潮的重要观念,得力于严复所翻译的《天演论》。严复并非简单地迻译,而是通过对道家、《易经》的理解,将社会进化论诠释为一种自然主义的宇宙进化论。但他并没有否定政治的矫正作用,相反,他认为人类是可以通过教化与治理,进化成为一种文明的社会形态。晚清的维新派与革命派虽然撷取了社会进化的观念,却在此基础上嫁接了文化民族主义与种族主义,从而产生出截然对立的两条社会进化路线,这也最终背离了严复以西方现代文明作为参照标准的进化目标。

The theory of evolution, being an important notion in the current of changing and revolution in late Qing Dynasty, owned to Yan Fu＇s translation of Tian Yah gun （translated from Thomas Henry Huxley＇s Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays）. But Yah did not just simply translate it. Instead, he, through his understanding to Taoism and The Book of Changes, interpreted social evolution as a naturalist cosmos evolution, while he did not deny a remedy function of politics. On the contrary, he believed that human beings can evolve to a civilized social form through teaching and governing. The reformists and revolutionaries, on this basis, grafted cultural nationalism and racialism, though they adopted the notion of social evolution. As a result, there produced two opposite lines of social evolution, and finally deviated Yan＇s target of introducing the theory of evolution with Western modern civilization as the criteria