Individual Freedom At The Time Of National Calamity

It is more than one hundred years that the idea of liberty is introduced into China,yet a precise understanding of liberalism is still far from us.As one of the most important thinkers in modern China,Yan Fu works hard on introduing the western learnings and transplanting the idea of liberty to China.Living as the transitive generation,Yan evaluates the weatern learnings by his sinological background,which makes him sensitive to the comparsion of two different culture.While Yan is trying hard to be a apostle of the new idea of liberty,Qing dynasty collapses and the destiny of China is at stake.The significance of Yan is not just limited to his times but he also plays a crucial part in the history of ideas in modern China, which would be proved by the immense number of books that maks study of his life and thought.Nowadays the idea of liberty is so familiar to us that we set ourselves up for experts on liberalism.Yet it is far from the truth.When we try to definate the idea of liberty yet find ourselves lost in a labyrinth of dark corridors,it is best that we get back to the starting point and ask history for help.Thus raise us one significant question:what on earth is liberalism as regard to China and what is the idea of liberty meant to our country? Focusing on Yan's translation of On Liberty written by John Mill,with Yan's other translations and articles as an addition to the whole research,this paper tries to clarify Yan's unique comprehension of liberalism.The first part is an introduction to this whole paper which briefly tells the reason why Yan becomes interested in liberalism when he is in touch with the western world.In the second part,we have a macroscopic view on the purpose of the transplantation of liberalism,which is actually a key to understand Yan's idea of liberty.In pursuit of being a rich and powerful sovereignty,modern China begin to follow the step of the western world. Modern China pays close attention to liberalism which brings the western world vitality and glory.As to the interpretation of Yan's idea of liberty,the academic world generally has two different opinions:one is that Yan views liberalism as a tool of being rich and powerfull and thus differs from the meaning of liberalism in western world greatly.This opinion is supported by scholar Benjamin Schwartz.The other one is that though Yan introduces the idea of liberty to China when there is a great political and cultural crisis,liberalism is not regarded as a slave to nationalism,which is to say liberalism has its own unique value.This opinion is argued by scholars such as Kewu Huang.Dispute between two sides brings this paper a point of penetration for research,thus we make a study of Yan's idea of liberalism.The third part deals with Yan's translation of John Mill's classic study On Liberty and then has a short review of Yan's primary standpoint on liberalism.This part focuses on three points:Firstly,through a introduction to Mill's idea of liberalism,we try to find out whether or not there is any partial difference between the western author and the Chinese translator. Secondly,we are to explain the reason why Yan translates On Liberty into On the Boundary of Individual and Community,which is acturally a key to Yan's unique comprehension of liberalism.Thirdly,we switch to discuss the relationship between collective freedom and individual freedom.To make a successful combination of group and individuality,Yan intents to transplant western liberalism into traditoin.From collective to individual,which is the most significant clue to understand the history of ideas,is also the core difference between the West and the East.The fourth part is core to the paper and we try to link Yan's idea of liberty to concrete institutional suggestions.In this part we are to discuss Yan's suggestions on education and constitutional government in detail.To have liberalsim realized,we need high-cultivated populace who really understand the pluses and minuses of liberalism.Yan hopes that through a new system of education people would gradually become self-governing and then enjoy freedom both politically and individually.As the new education makes people high-cultivated free men,a constitutional government applys law on individuals so that freedom be limited in a rational scope.In this sense Yan's idea of liberty is not just a tool to be rich and powerful but also has its own unique significance.The fifth part makes a further analysis on Yan's unique comprehension of individual freedom.throughout his life,Yan walks on middle of the road.He is on the one hand one of the most important proponent of reformation,but on the other hand is a famous oponent of revolution.He works hard not only for a rich and powerful sovereignty,but also in pursue of individual freedom.This part has a depiction of Yan's private living so as to show the limitation and distortion of individual freedom at that time.This is not just a personal tragedy but also tragedy of the whole nation,from which we could more or less foresee the course of liberalism struggling to survive in modern China.