Chapter 20 Chapter 19: Yan Fu and "Tianyanlun"

At the same time as the Reform Movement of 1898 was on the rise, another important person influenced Kang Youwei and other reformers with his research results on Western learning. This person was Yan Fu.Yan Fu, with a few words, was born in Houguan County, Fujian Province.His father was an ordinary country doctor. When he was fourteen years old, his father fell ill from overwork and passed away prematurely. Yan Fu's father attached great importance to his education, so that he developed good habits since he was a child.Because of his talent and hard work, he was admitted to Fuzhou Shipping Academy in the winter of the year his father died.This is a naval academy attached to the Fuzhou Shipyard, which was founded by Zuo Zongtang when he was in charge of Fujian and Zhejiang.During Yan Fu's five years in this school, in addition to learning English and ship driving skills, he also studied mathematics, mechanics, physics, chemistry, astronomy and other courses.

In the autumn of 1872, Yan Fu graduated with honors from the Fuzhou Shipbuilding School, and was assigned to practice and work on a warship for five years.Because of his hard work, he was selected to study in England.During his study in Britain from 1877 to 1879, Yan Fu not only learned professional knowledge, but also conducted some investigations on British society.In his spare time, he used to study and study bourgeois sociology and political works.Two years later, Yan Fu returned to China and worked as a teacher at Fuzhou Shipping School.In the second year, he was hired by Li Hongzhang to serve as the dean of the Beiyang Naval Academy in Tianjin. Ten years later, he served as the principal of the school. Yan Fu worked in this school for 20 years. He did not resign until the Boxer Rebellion occurred in 1900. Moved to Shanghai.

Before the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, Yan Fu, as an intellectual in the feudal society, was as keen on fame and fame as others, and wished to be an official.He took the imperial examination several times, but due to various reasons, he has not been able to pass the exam.After the Sino-Japanese War, the invasion of the Japanese army plunged China into a serious national crisis. The severe situation made him vigilant. He gave up the road of taking the imperial examination to become an official, and became an agitator who advocated reform, reform, and saving the nation. . In 1895, Yan Fu published four consecutive articles in "Zhi Bao": "On the Urgency of World Changes", "Yuan Qiang", "National Salvation Judgment" and "Bi Han". In 1897, he co-founded the "Guowenbao", which reported major events at home and abroad, criticized the decadent politics and old culture at that time, and continued to advocate reforms.From 1894 onwards, he began to translate the English biologist Aldous Huxley's "Evolution of Heaven", which became a sensational masterpiece handed down from generation to generation. The first two parts of the seventh volume of "Huxley's Collected Works" are dedicated to the theory of evolution, entitled "Evolution and Ethics", which Yan Fu translated as "Tianyanlun".Every time he translated an article, he added notes, a total of 29 articles, which were comparable in length to the translation. At the beginning of 1895, Yan Fu successively published the second, fourth, fifth, and sixth issues of the supplementary "Guowen Compilation" of the "Guo Wen Bao" that he sponsored. In April 1898, it was published under the title of "Tian Yan Lun".

"Tianyanlun" emphasizes that organisms are evolved, not eternal.Following the law of "natural selection, survival of the fittest", "natural selection" is the competition for survival, and "natural selection" is natural elimination, one competition for one selection, which promotes the evolution of creatures in nature.Huxley believed that this kind of biological evolution is also applicable to the development of human society.When Yan Fu translated "Tianyanlun", he often combined the current situation, added notes, and wrote translation notes, so that people in the country could understand the principles of "natural selection", "survival of the fittest", and "survival of the fittest", and inspired people to "self-improvement and preservation of species". Save the nation. The first half of "Tianyanlun" expounds Darwinism, which uses the theory of biological evolution to explain social phenomena and promotes the Western concept of the law of the jungle.The second half expounds that "the rule of man will be renewed day by day" and "the sky will eventually be conquered", which greatly inspired the confidence of the Chinese people in revival and became the theoretical basis for the reformation of patriots. Played a major ideological enlightenment role.

Due to Huxley's novel ideas and Yan Fu's smooth writing, "Evolution of Heaven" had a huge influence at that time, and established Yan Fu's position as the most important bourgeois enlightenment thinker in modern Chinese history. The years from the Sino-Japanese War to the Reform Movement of 1898 were the most important period in Yan Fu's life. However, he did not approve of the political reform movement launched by Kang and Liang, but valued education. And regard this as the foundation of saving the country. After the "Hundred Days Reform", Yan Fu's political position became more conservative.

Yan Fu never stopped writing. In the ten years before the Revolution of 1911, he translated and published many important works, mainly including Adam Schaer's "Original Rich", Montesquieu's "Fa Yi" and Mill's "Mu Le Le Ming Xue" (upper part).These three translations, together with the previously translated and published "Tianyan Lun", are all called "Strictly Translated Four Great Masterpieces".In addition, Yan Fu also translated and published Spencer's "Jun Xue Si Yan" and Yelfons' "Famous Studies" and so on.

Yan Fu was an Enlightenment thinker who introduced a series of bourgeois philosophy, economics, and social and political theories from the West, broadened the horizons of the old Chinese who had been closed for many years, and sowed the seeds for the evolution of modern Chinese civilization.