Yan Fu Quotes

Writing in 1895, the writer and translator Yan Fu described the differences between China and the West as stark: China values the Three [family] Bonds most highly, while the Westerners give precedence to equality. China cherishes relatives, while Westerners esteem the wealthy. China governs the realm through filial piety, while Westerners govern the realm with impartiality. China values the sovereign, while Westerners esteem the people. China prizes the one Way, while Westerners prefer diversity… In learning, Chinese praise depth and breadth of wisdom, while Westerners rely on human strength.

In his translation, Yan Fu rendered the word ‘evolution’ as tian yan. Chinese characters can be read in several ways, and one way of reading these characters is as ‘heavens’ performance’—the heavens in this instance meaning all of creation.10 Yan Fu’s phrase is now obscure and defunct, but heavens’ performance strikes me as a beautiful and illuminating way of describing Darwin’s discovery, for evolution is indeed a sort of performance, one whose theme is the electrochemical process we call life and whose stage is the entire Earth. Funded by the Sun, heavens’ performance has been running for at least 3.5 billion years, and barring cosmic catastrophe will probably run for a billion more. It’s an odd sort of performance, though, for there are no seats but on the stage itself, and the audience are also the players. Darwin’s genius was to elucidate, with elegant simplicity, the rules by which the performance has unfolded.

Yan Fu was convinced that since ‘the wealth and power of modern Europe are attributed by experts to the science of economics’ and that ‘Economics began with Adam Smith, who developed the great principle … that in serving the greater interest, the interest of both sides must be served’, then China had to learn from Adam Smith.96 The West, explained Yan Fu, exalted dynamism, and assertiveness; its commitment to liberty released the potential of individuals. That’s why the West was rich and powerful. China should turn her back on ‘the way of the Sages’ and the traditionalism that kept her people weak and ignorant.97

Fu Shen rather impatiently said, ...His Honor the Imperial Investigator, coveting my beauty, has abducted me by force and is keeping me locked up in his manor, not permitting me to leave. So for now if anyone else wants to see me, say that I'm staying at Yan Manor to convalesce. "... Lord Yan had been struck so hard by the unjust accusation falling out of the sky that he was seeing stars.

Xiao Xun suddenly gained some insight into why Yan Xiaohan's reputation was so bad - it was said that every time he argued with Fu Shen, whether he won or lost, the word in the capital would be "The court's dog has been abusing a loyal and upright man again".

Yan Fu was the most prominent intellectual to believe that Western power came not only from its weapons and gunboats but also, and more importantly, from its ideas and values.