Dissemination Of Western Learning,Book Translations And Political Thought

YanFu was a great political thinker that introduced several famous western books on social science and political thought into poor and weak China through translation directly in the late Qing dynasty and the early Republic of China. YanFu also got an important role in the process of dissemination of western learning in modern Chinese history. The studies on YanFu have experienced almost one hundred years and got abundant achievements, however, a lot of the research on YanFu’s political was not based on the dissemination of western learning so far. And there was little research on the relationship between YanFu’s early political thought and his translated books.The title of this paper is Dissemination of Western Learning,Book Translations and Political Thought:The Case of The Spirit of Laws Translated by YanFu. This paper tr i ed to make a sketch of the process of dissemination of western learning, and get an improved understanding of YanFu’s translation in the dissemination of western learning. Further more, this paper carried out an detailed analysis of political thought in political articles written as his political manifesto in 1895, and gained a better understanding of the relationship between YanFu’s early political thought and his translated books. The Spirit of Laws translated by YanFu was a case of this research. This book bears much of YanFu’s political thought.This paper argued that FaYi i.e. The Spirit of Laws translated by YanFu on the one hand was an development of political thought on freedom and democracy in 1895’s political articles, and The Spirit of Laws was a classic book in western social science. YanFu focused on the differences between Chinese political system and western political system in FaYi and claimed that China should pay much more attention on people’s power, people’s wisdom and people’s morality.