明清律學與士人社會

A Study of the Development and Collapse of Jurisprudence among Chinese Intellectuals during Ming and Qing Dynasties

在中國，法典編纂有著悠久的歷史，法律研究也有著優良的傳統。但在中國傳統社會中，大部分的士人與官僚並不重視法律，王朝國家也不重視通曉法律的人。只有在迫於職業需要時，人們才不得已地學習「律學」這一技術性的知識體系。但自15世紀後半期以來，律學超越了僅僅是實用的律條解釋的範圍，而是把律作為統治精神的體現，試圖揭示出律條中所含的立法者的崇高理想。由於這一趨勢提升了律學研究對象的價值，使得律學研究的世界也充滿了活力。雖然一般士人、官僚對於律學的認識仍不容易發生變化，但進入清朝以後，由於國家對準確運用律條的要求比以往更加嚴厲，導致更多的士人選擇以法律知識作為生計手段。而他們寫作的較為淺顯易懂的律學書籍，便將肯定法律的觀念廣泛地傳播至一般的知識階層之中。然而，到了18世紀後半期，由於清朝的法律體系變得極為錯綜複雜，導致連專家也難以掌握。此時，律學者喪失了對其研究對象的信心，律學這一學術領域也喪失了活力。最終，明清時代的律學雖然賦予了法律以積極的意義，但卻沒能將肯定法律的觀念牢固地銘刻在一般世人和官僚的認識中，同時沒能成為一門受人重視的學問。

China has a long history in compiling and studying the country's legal codes. Only a few civil servants, however, engaged in these activities, because the law was regarded as a necessary evil in order to punish the population in view of the Chinese tradition. Even if the study of law should be thought as one of necessary knowledge, it did not have a significant meaning among intellectuals and the government did not treat the legal professions with courtesy. But, after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, some bureaucrats and intellectuals tried to combine the law with Confucian works in order to improve the value of its study. Finding sublime intentions of legislators in the texts, they served not only a practical interpretation of the texts but also thought it as the embodiment of the spirit of government. In this way justice and benevolence were clearly highlighted, that is, the law should be a means not of punishing, but of protecting the population. The movement increased the value of the law as a research subject and ended in yielding a lot of meaningful relevant works. Moreover, after the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, the government demanded a stricter enforcement of the law. The number of the legal professionals increased. Through producing works that were easy to understand for a wide range of the intellectual class, they contributed to the spreading of a positive view of this study and to make it popular. After the middle of the Qing dynasty, however, it became difficult even for the legal professions to recognize its system of law, because of a process of extreme fragmentation in the field of legal studies. As the result, the value of studying law was crucially demoted among bureaucrats and intellectuals and the study of law became made no further progress. Hence the intellectuals’ class could not share with the positive recognition of this study and it was not regarded important as an academic subject in the premodern China.