中国古代的“人臣专制”

汉语中的“专制”一词并不用于君主,而是广泛用于人臣,这是中国古代帝王臣民普遍认可的观念。鸦片战争以后,人们逐渐习惯于将“君主”与“专制”联系在一起,并将这一观念放大到古代,这是一种误读。一般说来,君主总是尽可能地把权力掌握在自己手中,由于军事指挥的特殊性和笼络重要人士的需要,才授予臣下“专制”之权。古代人臣专制有受命与不受命之别,是否奉承了君主之命,是判断人臣专制合法与否的唯一标准。历代君主对“背法专制”者无不施以重罚,以巩固自己的权位。人臣超越制度的规定行使权力,即使所做的事利国利民,也要受到责罚。专制制度培养的是循规蹈矩的官吏,专制帝王需要的是俯首贴耳的驯民。在君主专制制度下,君权的无限性与君主实际能力的有限性是非常突出的矛盾,撇开法律和制度的制约,绝大多数君主都难以防止皇权的异化——人臣专制的发生。君主专制制度的发展大势是君权不断强化,人臣专制是暂时的,他们想要建立的最高权威不外乎皇权,其实质是专制王权的变态与向专制王权的回归。古代“专制”的应用语境直接关系到专制政治的定义,是研究君主专制制度应当重视的问题。

On the Minister Autocracy in Ancient China

In the Chinese language the word "autocracy" is not applied to monarchy but widely to the ministers,which was the idea commonly accepted by the emperor and his subject in ancient China.After the Opium War,people gradually tended to connect the monarchy to the autocracy.Furthermore,people have imposed this idea to ancient China,which,in fact,is one kind of wrong interpretation.Generally,the monarchy tried the best to hold the power in his own hand,and he authorized his ministers to have the power of autocracy just because of the peculiarity of military command and the need of controlling the important persons.There were two means of minister autocracy in ancient China,i.e.acceptance and refusal of the command from the monarchy.The only standard to judge whether the minister autocracy was acceptable depended on whether the minister followed his monarchy's command.So,in the ancient times,all the monarchies punished severely those ministers who did not follow their command to strengthen their power.The ministers would be punished if he exercised the power out of the command from the emperor,even they did good for the country and the common people.The autocracy system brought up the well-mannered officials because the emperor wanted his subject to be obedient.There was one kind of extremely prominent contradiction between the monarchy's infinite power and his competence in the autocracy system,as a result of which most of the monarchies found it difficult to avoid the dissimilation of his power,i.e.the minister autocracy,if without the restriction of law and regulation.The tendency for the development of the system of monarchy autocracy was the continuous strength of the monarchy's power,because the minister autocracy was temporary and actually it was just the variant and return of the monarchy autocracy.Therefore,the context for the application of autocracy in ancient China was relevant directly to the definition of the autocratic politics,which should be emphasized in the study of the system of the monarchy autocracy.