Gong Zizhen Reform Thought

Since Opium War, China had undergone hundreds of years of social crisis, which directly affected the fate of the nation. People of the ideological and cultural circles all put forward their own propositions of social transformation. As an intellectual of the same time of Weiyuan, the first person to fix his eyes on the western world, Gong Zizhen was aware of the numerous crises the Great Qing Empire was encountering. He animadverted on traditional economic, political and cultural system, and actively sparkplugged legal reform, for which he also designed a series of measures. He took the first step in the legal reform of neoteric China. However, his legal reform measures and the theories on which he based them could never radically relieve the dying old great empire from the social crisis. This is of course decided by the social background of his time, but more important, by the theoretical source from which his thought originated. Anyhow, the significance of his thought cannot be ignored because the legal reform awareness started by him directly affected the political culture of China before the Revolution of 1911. For rather a long period, legal reform remained the theme of the time. This dissertation, combined with the historical conditions of Gong's time, probes into the specific content and theoretical origins of his legal thought so as to further people's understanding of the historic significance of his legal thought. This dissertation is made up of five parts described as follows: Part one is a prelude which first summarizes the historic significance of the legal reform thought of Gong Zizhen, then gives a brief introduction of his life and at last gives a view of the present research into Gong Zichen by the academic circle.Part two discusses the historical conditions of his time in order to find out the reason and process of the generation of his legal reform thought. In this part, the author first gives a view of the practical conditions of that time and then analyzes Gong's clear recognition of the historical conditions and his sense of crisis following this, which then resulted in his recognition of the necessity of legal reform.Part three, the dissertation comes to the analyzing of Gong's proposition of legal reform and his legal thought. The prescription given by him for curing China in crisis, when judged from its nature, consists of two sides, that is measures of old time and the ones suitable for neoteric time. The former refers to the part in his thought which originated from traditional agricultural civilization and Confucian political and legal culture, which can be included into old time. There is also another part in his legal reform thought which was considered in his time carrying completely new meaning, that is, the animadverting on the oppression and distortion of human nature by feudal autarchy and the idealist philosophy of the Song and Ming dynasties, the contestation on liberation of individuality, the awareness of separation of power and subjects joining in politics, and his view towards the reform of judicial system.The fourth part of the dissertation probes into the theoretical source and basis of Gong's legal reform thought. This dissertation holds the view that Gong's recognition of the necessity of legal reform lies in his historical development view, while his awareness of the liberation of individuality and separation of powers originated from his view of human nature. However, either his historical development view or his view of human nature lies in his study of Confucian classics. Besides, his other opinions with traditional color such as "division of fields by father" and "farming first" is also associated with his Confucian background.The last part of the dissertation is the evaluation of Gong's legal reform thought with its active influence on China's neoteric thought history and its significant position in Chinese history included. On the one hand, his insight of crisis and his sparkplugging of legal reform engendered massive impact; on the other hand, due to the social limitation of his time, it is impossible for him to give feasible prescription for curing China. The Westernization Movement and Reform Movement afterwards, which were both directly affected by his thought, triggered the tide of legal reform, and paved the way for China's traditional feudal politics and culture to modern bourgeoisie democratism.