维新运动时期严复政治思想再探讨

维新运动兴起之际,中国思想界洋务派的"中体西用论"仍占主导地位,即使是康有为的维新变法理论也未真正突破这一框架的束缚。严复则在对中西方文化比较的基础上,深刻地指出了中国传统君主专制制度和思想文化的弊端,强调自由与民主对社会发展、国家富强的重要作用,从而真正在理论上给"中体西用论"以致命一击。然而,严复在变革的实践上又未能突破"中体西用论"的框架。他思想中激进与保守、现实与空想的双重因素,矛盾地交织在一起,这实际上是由清末社会的复杂性所决定的。

Yan Fu's Political thoughts during the Reform Movement Revisited

In the early period of the Reform Movement, the idea of Chinese learning as base while the Western learning as application held by the Reformers was still prevalent. Even Kang Youwei's theory of reform could not break through this frame. Yan Fu, based on the comparison of Chinese and Western cultures, pointed out the sickness of traditional Chinese monarchical despotism and its thought and culture, emphasized the important function of liberty and democracy to social development and national wealth and strength, and hit home the theory of Chinese learning as base while the Western learning as application. But Yan Fu, in practice of reform, could not break through its frame. The radical and conservative, realistic and utopian elements in his thought mixed together for it was decided by the complexity of society in late Qing Dynasty.