Historical Spirit and Constitution:An Observation on Yan Fu's Lectures on Politics

Among Yan Fu's works and translations,Lectures on Politics(1906) is the only one related to political science,which makes it of unique significance in the intellectual history.In the Lectures on Politics,Yan Fu adopted historical and comparative analyzing methods to declare his political views and obviously advocated constitutional monarchy.From the point of view of constitutional history,this paper observes the background and characteristics of Yan Fu's constitutional monarchy thought,and especially studies the ways of thinking of the people living at Yan Fu's time on political and legal problems.Yan Fu's outlooks of quantitative freedom,responsible government,local self-government developed in the Lectures on Politics are also examined in this paper.