"The Last Great Scholar in China" and "the First Chinese Introducing Western Culture" ——Comparison between Thoughts of Zeng Guofan and Yan Fu

Zeng Guofan was representative of last group of literati and officialdoms known as the last great scholar in China as while Yan Fu was model of first generation of modern intellectuals thought as the first introducing western culture.Both of them were not satisfied with futility and emptiness of Han School of classical philology and Song learning.They were inheritors and promoters of traditional spirit of statecraft and seeing truth from facts.Both of them inherited Tong Cheng School,which expressed modern ideas in pre-Qin literary style by Yan Fu et al.and was improved greatly by Zeng Guofan.In some respects,Yan Fu developed his thoughts on basis of westernization ideology of Zeng Guofan et al.For example,Zeng Guofan advocated idea of change,while Yan Fu introduced theory of evaluation;Zeng Guofan added economics to traditional subjects,Yan Fu introduced modern economics from West;Zeng Guofan advocated Gezhi(an old name of physics),Yan Fu introduced western science completely.Both of them were promoters of military modernization and pioneers of education modernization.Yan Fu not only inherited Zeng Guofan's thoughts,but also developed it greatly.He advocated Freedom as substance with democracy as means,he denied Chinese learning as substance with western learning as means.He attacked against traditional ethical thoughts and Feudal autocracy strongly.Zeng Guofan did not break through traditional culture all his life,while Yan Fu criticized traditional culture,led to beginning of transformation of academic from traditional form to modern form and establishment of modern social science system as well.