进化之调律:斯宾塞与清末的种群竞争论述

Adjustments of Evolutionary Theories:Herbert Spencer and the Discourses of Struggle for Existence among the Races during the Late Qing Period

斯宾塞学说构成清末种群进化和竞争论述的主要外在资源。斯宾塞以进化的哲学思维来缀合威廉·卡彭特、查尔斯·赖尔所代表的动物生理学和生物历史知识,回应马尔萨斯的人口论。19世纪50年代以来在中国译介和流行的正是卡彭特所代表的生理学著述片段或与其相似的种群差别认知。知识界对斯宾塞的翻译,意味着中国在戊戌时期发生了类似的理论缀合过程。清末知识人以种分贵贱、黄白同为贵种调整了斯宾塞的种群进化位阶表述,抵制欧洲人歧视东亚黄种之心。同时,他们却强化了贵贱种之间的等级关系,营造"退化""灭种"的焦虑意识和压迫感,警告需积极参与生存竞争来提升种群的心智和自律性,从而为政治变革酝酿社会气氛。

Herbert Spencer’s evolutionary theories constituted the main external resources for the discourses on struggle for existence between races during late-Qing period.To refute Thomas Robert Malthus’s principle of population,Herbert Spencer combined his evolutionary philosophy with the knowledge of animal physiology and biological history represented by William Carpenter and Charles Lyell.Most of the physiological works and racial knowledge influenced by William Carpenter had already been translated and disseminated in China since 1850s.Translations of Herbert Spencer’s works on animal physiology and biological history had a similar impact on evolutionary philosophy in China at the turn of the century.Resisting racial discrimination toward the"Eastern Asian yellow race",Chinese intellectuals reconstructed the population’s evolutionary order from Herbert Spencer with a discourse of equal dignity for yellow and white races.Meanwhile,Chinese intellectuals actively created a social atmosphere conducive to political revolution by intensifying the hierarchy of race,building anxious consciousness of retrogradation or extinction,and warning of reforming national mentality and self-discipline in the process of struggle for existence.