| Thomas Huxley was a famous biologist,educator,humanist,and one of the staunchest supporters of Darwin’s theory of evolution in British.With the continuous application of evolutionary theory to the fields of society,civilization,human and nature,the discussion of human ethics has also increased in the 19 th century.In his later years,Huxley developed his views on evolution and morality through the book Evolution and Ethics.It was translated into Chinese by Yan Fu as Tianyanlun in the late Qing Dynasty,but Yan Fu’s translation was not in completely accordance with the original text,but a selective free translation.Since the Qing government at that time was faced with the survival situation of the invasion of the imperialist powers,Yan Fu’s translation intentionally emphasized the part of "evolution" to encourage the Qing government to actively fight for survival in the international community and strive for victory,and deliberately ignored the part of "ethics",which Huxley emphasized.Influenced by the opposing concept of science and religion in history,Huxley’s image as a scientist often made people think that he opposed religious belief,but in fact,his attitude to religion was complicated,and "agnosticism" was his basic attitude to religion.Huxley distinguished theology from religion: on the one hand,he opposed the theology of church and dogmatism,and denied the authenticity of miracles in the Bible;On the other hand,he affirmed the positive significance of true religion for the development of science and the moral education.He even advocated using the Bible as a tool for moral education in schools.Huxley’s religious attitude affected his moral view.He emphasized the difference between nature and human society,and the theory of evolution applicable to nature is not completely applicable to human beings.He expressed his ethical thoughts with the contradiction between "cosmic process" and "ethical process".Although human beings were also the products of evolution,they did not fully conform to the laws of nature,because human beings had morality,which made human beings being different from other creatures in the whole word.Human civilization and social progress were realized through the practice of ethics process instead of the cosmic process by people.In Huxley’s moral thoughts,as the origin of morality,sympathy and conscience,as well as love,justice,honor and other moral feelings,as well as ethical laws and so on in human society,were all affected by Christian ethical thoughts.The purpose of this article is to explore the "ethics" ignored by Yan Fu.Through the analysis of Huxley’s real religious attitude,his religious and moral views will be revealed,which will be conducive to breaking the prejudice of him as a scientist,so as to make a more dialectical evaluation. |
