Historicism,

The universal time viewpoint of cycle disseminated among the ancient China, India and Greece in Axial Period. The Chinese theory of historical circulation was originated from observation and self-reflection of natural phenomenon in cycle. The understanding of time and circulation of history is reflected prominently in ZhouYi, and the concept of time in ZhouYi is periodical and cyclical. Confucius, the founder of the theory of historical circulation, put forward the concepts of historical circulation 'Wen and Zhi' (elegance and plainness) in the Analects of Confucius and gave the point of view that change of history was the result of cycle of 'Wen and Zhi' . Mencius and XunZi inherited the theory of historical circulation of Confucius and gave full play from different perspectives. Another form of the theory of historical circulation is 'Wu Xing Xiang Sheng' (the restraint theory of five elements) which was put forward by ZouYan in the Warring States Period, and he used the theory which stated five elements exercise restraint mutually to explain the cyclical phenomenon of history. On the contrary, LiuXin in Han Dynasty took good advantage of the theory of five elements to explain the cyclical phenomenon of history which is called 'Wu Xing Xiang Sheng' (the generated theory of five elements). Dong, Zhongshu opened up the rugged foot-path alone and added a new one for theories of historical circulation and that is the theory of 'San Tong' and 'San Zheng' (three unification learning and three politics learning). Afterwards ShaoYong, ZhuXi and Wang, ChuanShan added something new for theories of historical circulation from different perspectives.Social evolution was a kind of social thought which was widely spread in western capitalism countries in 19th century. The thoughts of Herbert Spencer, Thomas Robert Malthus and Ernst Heinrich Haeckel were typical representatives of social evolution. YanFu introduced Evolution, the translated version of the "Evolution and Ethics" , to Chinese which lifted a great disturbance for the men full of suffering consciousness right now. Complied with the trend of the times, Kang, Youwei and Liang, Qichao as the remarkable representatives of intellectuals in China, creatively put forward the theories of 'San Shi Jin Hua' and 'San Shi Liu Bie' respectively (three phased evolutionary theory and the theory of six great differences during the reign of three emperors) to response the social evolution which came into China. The social evolution was widely spread all over the China, which supplied an appropriate survival environment for the incoming historical materialism.In general, according to the basic contents, the genetic principle of the history,and the dynamical mechanism of the historical development, the comparison between the soical evolution and Chinese historical circulation relied on the unique theoretical framework which came from the Liang's theory of social evolution. From a wider theoretical background, the theory of social folds of Deleuze can also be used to explain the social evolution, the historical circulation and the contrast between them.