MUZIChinese Matrix
Scholars › Philosopher / Thinker
Naval officer trained in Britain who translated Huxley, Adam Smith, Mill and Montesquieu into classical Chinese and became the first president of Peking University
A thatched pavilion open on three sides stands among tall bamboo; one person sits with their back turned at the veranda rail beside a zither and a stack of bamboo slips, while a stone path runs to a calm pond reflecting clouds and distant hills.
Also known as Zi Youling · Zi Jidao
Yan Fu, first named Chuanchu, courtesy names Youling and Jidao, came from Houguan, present-day Fuzhou, and was born in January 1854. He trained in navigation at the Fuzhou Naval School and in 1877 was sent to the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, and on his return taught at the Beiyang Naval Academy in Tianjin, becoming its head. After the defeat by Japan he helped found the Tianjin newspaper Guowen bao and rendered Thomas Huxley's Evolution and Ethics as Tianyan lun, published in 1898; he went on to translate Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty and System of Logic, and Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws. When the Imperial University became Peking University in 1912 he was its first president. He died in Fuzhou in 1921, and the three criteria he set out in his preface to Tianyan lun, faithfulness, clarity and elegance, are still quoted as a standard for translation.
Qing
Republican EraThe Draft History of the Qing says Yan Fu left collected writings and translations including the Tianyan lun, Yuan fu, Qunxue yiyan, Mule mingxue, Fayi, Qun ji quanjie lun and Shehui tongquan. As scholars of the day leaned toward Western theories, he held that liberty, equality and rights were not without benefit, but without some balancing principle they would lead to license, with harm beyond counting.