A dialog between Sino-Western legal traditions: Yan Fu's translation of "natural law" in Montesquieu's *The Spirit of Laws*

The paper addresses how Western legal concepts—specifically Montesquieu’s notion of “natural law” in The Spirit of Laws—can be translated and localized for Chinese readers in early 20th-century China. It situates legal concepts as culturally embedded elements of legal culture and asks: How could Western legal concepts be rendered comprehensible in China, and what cultural dialogs, conflicts, and integrations occurred during localization? Focusing on “natural law” as a representative concept, the study analyzes Yan Fu’s terminological choices to uncover how he translated and rewrote Montesquieu’s ideas and how those choices relate to Chinese cultural traditions and the socio-historical context of the time. The study aims to illuminate patterns for future cross-cultural translation of legal concepts between Chinese and Western traditions.

Research on Yan Fu largely falls into two strands: (1) his translation theories (e.g., “faithfulness, expressiveness, elegance,” translator training, and copyright), and (2) studies of his specific translations through translation criticism and historical/ideological analysis. Prior work on Fayi (The Spirit of Laws) is relatively scarce and often one-dimensional: translation critics tend to assess quality without historical contextualization, while historians sometimes treat the translation as if it were Montesquieu’s original thought, overlooking the complexity of translation and the intellectual value within the translated text. Fayi was among the earliest direct Chinese translations from English introducing Western legal thought, significantly shaping Chinese understanding of Montesquieu before the 1960s and contrasting with Japanese-mediated translations. Scholars argue that Yan Fu’s translation formally introduced Western legal thought and systems into China and has unique value in terminology and ideology. This context underscores the importance of further study of Fayi in both translation studies and the transmission of Western legal knowledge and terminology into China.

The study constructs a parallel corpus of the English text of Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws (Nugent trans., 1896) and Yan Fu’s Chinese translation (Wang et al., 2014) using keyword searches for terms related to “natural law.” It identifies 42 explicit occurrences in the English source; Yan Fu’s translation contains 41 corresponding renderings and one pronominal reference, plus two additional mentions in Yan Fu’s added comments, totaling 43 instances. These are categorized into three groups based on terminological characteristics (Table 1): A (keywords xingqi 形气; ziran 自然), B (keywords tianli 天理; renlun 人伦), and C (keywords gongli 公例; gongli 公理). The analysis examines Yan Fu’s varied term choices (27 different translations overall, with inconsistency even within single chapters) and close-reads illustrative examples to interpret how his renderings relate to Chinese philosophical and ethical traditions and how they reframe Montesquieu’s concept.

• Yan Fu employs 27 different Chinese terms to translate “natural law/the law(s) of nature,” with notable inconsistency (e.g., in Chapter 1, 10 English occurrences are rendered with 7 different Chinese terms).
• Corpus counts: 42 occurrences in the English source; 41 corresponding translations plus one pronoun in Yan Fu’s main text; 2 additional mentions in his comments; total 43 instances. Categorization frequencies: Category A (xingqi/ziran) = 18; Category B (tianli/renlun) = 23; Category C (gongli/gongli) = 2.
• Rewriting 1 (concealed religiousness via xingqi/ziran): Yan Fu shifts the source of natural law away from a theistic foundation to material/natural principles (xingqi 形气; ziran 自然), downplaying Christian theological roots evident in Montesquieu and the Western natural law tradition. Examples include translating references to the Creator and divine law in ways aligned with Chinese notions such as tianren heyi (harmony between man and nature) and laws “rooted in nature,” emphasizing the material world and cosmological order rather than a transcendent deity.
• Rewriting 2 (from rights to obligations via tianli/renlun): Yan Fu foregrounds Confucian moral obligations and social ethics (tianli 天理, renlun 人伦, tiandao 天道, rendao 人道, etc.) rather than the Western natural law emphasis on individual rights. His renderings recast natural law as obligations within familial and social hierarchies (e.g., filial piety, parental duties, marital norms), reflecting Confucian ethical structures and, at times, prioritizing loyalty to rulers as “greater righteousness.”
• Overall, Yan Fu’s translation integrates Chinese philosophical materialism and Confucian ethics, creating a Sino-Western dialog that both localizes and transforms Montesquieu’s concept of natural law.

The findings show that Yan Fu’s translation choices directly address the research question of how Western legal concepts were localized in early 20th-century China. By replacing Christian theological underpinnings with Chinese notions of xingqi and ziran, he secularizes and materializes natural law in alignment with indigenous cosmology (e.g., harmony between man and nature). By translating with tianli and renlun, he reframes natural law from a rights-centered paradigm to one emphasizing social and moral obligations embedded in Confucian ethics. These adaptations fostered intelligibility and resonance for Chinese readers but also transformed the conceptual content of natural law, illustrating the cultural dialog, conflicts, and integrations in legal translation. The results underscore the importance of considering socio-historical contexts and cultural semantics when translating legal concepts and reveal how translation can become a site for negotiating legal-philosophical meanings across traditions.

The study demonstrates that Yan Fu’s translation of Montesquieu’s “natural law” constitutes a double rewriting: (1) it emphasizes the material/natural basis of law, obscuring Christian theological elements, and (2) it prioritizes Confucian moral obligations over individual rights. These choices reflect and uphold traditional Chinese values while engaging a Western legal classic, making the translation itself a quiet yet intense arena of Sino-Western intellectual exchange during China’s modern transformation. The case offers practical implications for contemporary legal translation: leverage indigenous legal-philosophical resources and vocabulary to ease reception, and carefully attend to the source culture’s connotations to avoid cross-cultural misreadings.