Translations of W. S. Jevons in China in the Late Qing Dynasty

Abstract

The paper examines the history of Chinese translations of the works of the British economist W. S. Jevons in the late nineteenth — early twentieth centuries as part of the process of introduction of Western scientific knowledge to China. The attention is focused on the translations of Jevons’s Primer of Political Economy and his book The State in Relation to Labor. The terminological features of Chinese translations of these works are analyzed, including the searches for equivalents of modern scientific vocabulary in the heritage of Chinese culture. Jevons’s textbook was translated by Joseph Edkins and Yan Fu, who proposed their methods of adapting the text to the perception of the Chinese reader. The paper demonstrates that Edkins’s translation faithfully followed the original and used Chinese terminology available at that time. The clarity of Jevons’s textbook contributed to the dissemination of elementary knowledge of Western economics in China. The Policy to Enrich the Nation and Support the People served in China as one of the earliest sources of information about Adam Smith, his concept of division of labor, the theory of exchange, the theory of wages, and the principles of taxation. Multiple versions of hieroglyphic transliteration of Jevons’s name obstructed the formation of comprehensive vision of his legacy in China, therefore one of the objectives of the paper was to collect all available information about Chinese translations of the economic works of the British scholar. Jevons’s theory of the impact of natural factors on economic cycles influenced Liang Qichao, who compared it with ancient Chinese ideas about the relationship of famine and natural disasters with location of celestial bodies. After the translation of the Primer of Political Economy the focus of attention shifted to Jevons’s works in industrial legislation and finances.