Social Darwinism And Legal Thought In The Late Qing Study

As a trend of thought, social evolutionism swept the academic circle in late Qing period, and as a new world view and philosophy principle, evolutionism has an impact on all aspects of neoteric academic thought in modern China. This era mark is to a certainty to be reflected in the fields of legal reform and legal thought. It is generally considered that the New Deal in late Qing Period is the beginning of the modernization of law in China, which marked the disintegration of traditional Chinese legal family and the establishment of new legal order and legal conception. Professor Jinfan Zhang thought that great thinkers of Late Qing , Period, influenced by western theories, gradually formed the view of legal evolution and on this basis did research into the origin, development and reform of law, which laid the foundation for our further research. However, the relationship between law and evolution is rather complicated. Professor Jinquan Chen pointed out that social evolutionism furnish fresh thinking for legal reform of late Qing period.Therefore, law itself is ever changing, especially after the modernization of law became a necessity. It still remains to be studies as to to what degree evolutionism influences legal reform and the conversion of legal thought and where it is embodied. This dissertation researches into the process of modernization of legal reform in late Qing Period from the perspective of evolutionism, including both the reform of legal system and the conversion of legal thought.This dissertation is made up of four parts described as follows:Part one is the preface, which mainly introduces the basic standpoint, that is, it is still far away from enough to acknowledge the relationship between the social evolutionism and the reform of legal system in late Qing period. In what way and to what extent the reform was affected by social evolutionism are still questions for further research.Part two deals with general theories of evolutionism and legal reform. The dissertation first analyzes the content and traits of the western social evolutionism and the social evolution of late Qing Period, holding that the evolutionism of lateQing Period is not a complete theory but only a conclusive tool. It then makes a brief analysis of the history and content of legal evolution thought, pointing out that the legal evolution thought is still under development and has been adopted by scholars as a modern mode. At the end of this part, the author analyzes the modernization of law in late Qing Period on the basis of the theories above, considering that as influenced by evolutionism, the legal reform of late Qing Period gradually tended from non-logos towards logos, and from success towards failure.Part three probes into the legal thought of late Qing Period influenced by evolutionism. The legal thought of some representative people such as Youwei Kang, Zhidong Zhang, Jiaben Shen, Qichao Liang and Fu Yan was chosen to be described and analyzed. This part also briefly analyzes the legal evolution conflict in the dispute between courtesy and law. In the research into Fu Yan, it is pointed out that the basic concepts of his legal evolution thought included liberalism, individualism, empiricism and skepticism. He proposed that modem law should take freedom as the substance and democracy as the administration, the purpose of law is to promote people's wisdom, morality and the development of people's strength, and that law should do something and meanwhile leave something alone.Part four briefly analyzes the gains and loss of the evolution of law in late Qing Period. The author holds that social evolutionism did play an important role in the modernization of law in late Qing Period. Supported by evolutionism, brand-new legal system was established, and legal conception was also renewed. However, as limited by the social environment and the theory itself, it didn't reach the expected effect, leaving a long way for us to go.