ABSTRACT
Y an Fu (1854-1921), one o f the m ost influential C hinese m odern th inkers and reform ers, in his C hinese translation o f M ontesquieu’s D e I’esprit des lois (The Spirit o f Law) published in 1913, w arned his readers about the d ifference between the C hinese fa (law ) and W estern ‘law ’ this w ay ,1
In the C hinese language, objects exist or do not exist, and this is called li [order in nature, things as they are, or the law o f nature]. T he prohibitions and decrees that a country has are called fa [hum an-m ade laws]. H ow ever, W estern people call both o f these ‘law ’. W esterners accordingly see order in nature and hum an m ade laws as if they w ere the same. But, by definition, hum an affairs are not a m atter o f natural order in term s o f existence or non existence, so the use o f the w ord ‘law ’ for w hat is perm itted and w hat is prohibited as a m atter o f law o f nature is a case in w hich several ideas are conveyed by one word. The C hinese language has the m ost instances in w hich several ideas are expressed by one word, but in this particu lar case the C hinese language has an advantage over W estern languages. T he word ‘law ’ in W estern languages has four different interpretations in C hinese as in li [order], li [rites, rules o f propriety], fa [hum an m ade laws] and zhi [control]. Scholars should take careful note.2
