Yan Fu and Modernization of Chinese Culture

The author points out that modern China is facing a challenge that has never been for thousands of years. It is in fact a serious crisis of traditional politics and conventional culture. Solution to this problem lies in moderniztion. The author holds that Yan Fu made great contribution in this respect. Yan Fu resorted to science, democracy and freethinking advocated in the west to explain how conventional culture and traditional politics had accunted for China's poverty. Based on this reasoning, he suggested that China should attempt to strengthen the peopli's power, enlighten the people's mind, and renew the people's morality in line with the theory of evolution, This preliminary measure he proposed initiated a wave of moderniztion of the Chinese culture that lasted for over a hundred years.