The Revolution in Chinese Legal Thought

F OR SOME DECADES, while the revolution in Chinese life has been proclaimed, less attention has been paid to changes in the mentality of the Chinese which underlie visible changes in the mode of life. Yet the importance of these changes in thought and feeling is such that, if permanent, they will be regarded as one of the greatest revolutions in the history of Chinese thought. In discussing so drastic a change, it is imperative to state the position of the order from which the departure has been made, as well as the changes established under the new system. For this reason, changes in the philosophy and application of the law in China may well be taken to illustrate the general process of change-legal thought in China having always been closely interwoven with all other forms of thought. The Confucian system may be taken as a starting point; but while tradition has it that Chinese thought has always meant Confucian thought, modern historians, Chinese as well as foreign, have adequately proved that other forces have also molded the Chinese mind. The place of these other influences has, however, not yet been very clearly assigned, except for the School of Law, which is better known than other non-Confucian theories, and had a farreaching influence on the development of Chinese civilization. Because of its radical deviation from the general trend of Chinese thought, the School of Law has attracted much attention in our own time, when another reform of the Chinese social system is taking shape. The old Chinese conception of the world was essentially static and cosmic. It held that heaven and earth were the prime factors in the universe. By their co-operation life was sustained and all things created. To secure their proper action, the whole universe had to be in harmony. The heavenly, transcendental part of the universe was unknown; the other, the world, was perceptible to the senses. The two stood in a fixed relation to each other and 4: 66 2

Political science · Chinese history and philosophy · History

• Portrait of justice

  Open Access•Yu Zhang, Nicholas P Lovrich et al.•Global Media and China•2016

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