20세기 중국의 사회진화론 재정립을 위하여 ― 헉슬리의 <진화와 윤리(Evolution and Ethics )>를 중심으로

Abstract

This essay is written for reconstructing the social darwinism in twentieth century China through the concept of evolution and ethics of Huxley and Yan fu. Men in society are undoubtedly subject to the cosmic process. As among other animals,multiplication goes on without cessation, and involves severe competition for the means of support. The struggle for existence tends to eliminate those less fitted to adapt themselves to the circumstances of their existence. The strongest, the most self-assertive, tend to tread down the weaker. But the influence of the cosmic process on the evolution of society is the greater the more rudimentary its civilization. Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process; the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest, in respect of the whole of the conditions which obtain, but of those who are ethically the best.