Selected Works of Yan Fu

Author: Xu Zuohua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: Yan Fu (1854–1921) was originally named Tiqian and later changed his name to Zongguang, using the courtesy name Youling. He then renamed himself Fu and used the courtesy name Jidao, later taking the late title Yuye Laoren and the alias Zunyi, also known as Tianyan Philosophical Philosopher. He was from Fuzhou, Fujian. He was specially granted the status of a jinshi in the liberal arts and became a modern Chinese bourgeois enlightenment thinker, translator, and educator. In 1866, he was admitted to the Mawei Naval Academy with his name, and after five years of study, he graduated with the best performance and went on to serve as a naval intern. In 1877, he joined as one of the first naval students at the Royal Naval College in Britain. During his time in Britain, in addition to studying naval subjects, he diligently studied Western philosophy and social and political science works, and observed the trial process in British courts to compare the similarities and differences between the East and the West. After completing his studies, he served as a teacher at the Fujian Naval Academy, then moved to become the chief instructor at the Tianjin Beiyang Naval Academy, and later rose to become a co-director and director. After the defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War, Yan Fu, feeling the times were increasingly difficult, began to dedicate himself to translation and writing, publishing a series of political essays such as "On the Urgency of World Changes," "On the Strength of the Nation," "Against Han Yu," and "On the Theory of National Salvation" in Tianjin's "Zhi Bao," condemning the emperors of past dynasties as "great thieves who stole the state" and strongly advocating for reform and strengthening the nation by replacing the eight-legged essay with Western science. In the twenty-second year, he helped Zhang Yuanji establish Tongyi School in Beijing, and the following year, he co-founded "Guowen Newspaper" and "Guowen Collection" with Wang Xiuzhi and Xia Zengyou in Tianjin. In the ninth month of the twenty-fourth year, he wrote "A Memorial to Emperor Guangxu," vigorously advocating for the reform and enlightenment movement; the same year, his translation of the Western bourgeois academic classic "Evolution and Ethics" was officially published. By 1909, he had successively translated and published Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," Herbert Spencer's "Social Statics," John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty," "A System of Logic," and "Elements of Political Economy," John Stuart Mill's "A System of Logic," and "A Primer of Logic," as well as "Elements of Social Science" by John Fiske and "The Spirit of the Laws" by Montesquieu, totaling over 1.6 million words. He was the first person in modern China to systematically translate and introduce Western bourgeois academic thought. Through his translation of "Evolution and Ethics," he brought the theory of scientific evolution to China, expanding it beyond the scope of Darwin's biological evolution to give it the significance of a worldview. Through his translations of "A System of Logic" and "A Primer of Logic," he introduced the methods of inductive and deductive logic to China, particularly emphasizing Bacon's empirical inductive method and fiercely criticizing the subjective idealism of the Lu Wang school for its "theory of the mind creating reality." Therefore, Yan Fu was a pioneering figure who established Chinese philosophy on the foundation of modern science, truly liberating it from the ancient "classics" form in modern Chinese philosophy. In addition to translation and writing, he was deeply committed to education. In the twenty-eighth year of the Guangxu reign (1902), he was appointed as the director of the Translation Bureau of the Imperial University of Peking; in the thirty-first year, he participated in the founding of Fudan Public School and served as its principal for a time the following year; in the thirty-second year, he was appointed as the supervisor of the Anhui Normal School; and in 1912, he was appointed as the director of the Imperial University of Peking and concurrently served as the head of the liberal arts department. In his essay "On Education in a Letter to the Editor of the Foreign Affairs Gazette" (1902), he proposed a relatively detailed blueprint for the school education system and put forward his own views and requirements for the teaching content and methods of schools at all levels, contributing to the new-style education of the Chinese bourgeoisie. However, after the Xinhai Revolution, Yan Fu's thoughts became increasingly conservative. In 1912, when Yuan Shikai became the provisional president, he was appointed as an advisor on foreign affairs and law to the presidential palace the following year. The same year, he participated in the founding of the Confucian Association and strongly advocated for respecting Confucius and studying the classics. In May 1914, he was appointed as a member of the Political Council and a constitutional drafting committee member, and also served as a first-class staff officer in the Ministry of the Navy. In 1915, he was listed as a member of the Preparation Committee for the Restoration of the Monarchy, serving as a councilor of the committee. In 1918, he returned to Fuzhou to recuperate. During the May Fourth Movement, he opposed the student movement. In his later years, he mainly relied on translation for a living. He passed away on October 27, 1921, in his hometown. His works include "Collected Works of Yan Jidao," "Poetry Collection of Yuye Tang," and "Collected Translations of Yan Fu's Classics."