Search For The Way Of Evolution

The idea of "evolution" is one of those ideals, which have profound and lasting impacts on the social changes of modem China, and it enlightened the transition of people's spiritual temperament, supported the principles of political revolution and promoted the changes in the real world. In this field, Yan Fu made the greatest contribution that enabled the idea of "evolution" to establish, take root and spread out in modem China. Hence, we select Yan Fu's "Tianyan Lun" and other thesis as the cut-in point, which may helps us to go further into his thought, exploring his difficulties, On the basis of these study, our understanding of "evolution" can evolve.Yan Fu's thought of evolution, expressing his efforts and attempts of mixing Chinese and Western Culture as well as performing his unique understanding of "evolution", has the duple-goal structure of both theory-constructing and reality-conducting. On one hand, Yan Fu hoped to build up the philosophy of "Tianyan", which could suit and serve Chinese society, with deriving essence of different Western evolutionism origins and melting them into Chinese traditional thoughts. On the other, he also had the expectation that "Tianyan" was able to impact on Chinese reality, guide people to understand the world, make them participate the process of "Tianyan" and change the world through their efforts. To this extent, "Tianyan" is not only the transcendental principle but the actual history process as well. In order to clarify the complexity of "Tianyan", besides borrowing the concept of "Struggle for Existence", "Natural Selection" and "Survival of the Fittest" from Western evolutionism to explain the universality and transcendence of the principle "Tianyan", Yan Fu created several concepts, such as "Tine" and "Hequn Jinhua", to point out the significance for people to adapt themselves to the environment in the evolution process of human society, which could meet the need of both theory-constructing and reality-conducting in his theory.It's no doubt that the theory of "Tianyan" came from Yan Fu's talented creation, expressing his outstanding understanding of "evolution", and meanwhile, it also exposed his difficulties. Considering the theory-constructing goal, Yan Fu's efforts brought him no success. Those borrowed concepts didn't melt into his theory; on the contrary, they tore up his intentions. In the theory of "Tianyan", theinconsistency between those concepts led to the inner contradiction and destroyed the logic of the theory. In addition, Yan Fu's talent in philosophy didn't match his theory-constructing goal, which caused the lack of integral thinking as well as simplification of the process from theory to the actual effect, while dealing with the detail branches of the theory. In spite of the warm social reflection, which tells that Yan Fu's theory of "Tianyan" wakened Chinese people and produced profound impact, when coming to the reception of this theory, only some parts worked to the goal. Hence, neither from the aspect of theory-constructing nor the reality-conducting, did Yan Fu achieve his goals. His intention had been forgotten gradually.Based on the annotation and analysis of Yan Fu's "Tianyan Lun" and other thesis, we can point out his goals and difficulties. In spite of the failure of his intentions, Yan Fu's thought of evolution didn't devaluate, which should stimulate more attentions and study. In order to classify and clarify Yan Fu's intentions and the complexity of his design, to expose the distinctiveness and transcendence of his thought, we must work more and go deeper inside.