作为支持洋务运动最早的一批人士之一,郭嵩焘一直思索着中国的根本出路。晚年的他看到洋务运动的开展,并没有使中国有多少起色,开始严厉指责洋务运动的弊端。他提出富强之本应是“人心风俗、纪纲法度”,企图从人心入手,挽救岌岌可危的清朝统治。郭嵩焘是程朱理学的坚定信仰者,他赞美西方,绝非想把中国变成西方,而是着眼于中国的内部弊端。在他看来,西方的制度所包含着的实质精神(如求实、便民等)与中国的圣人之教有相通之处。他通过对西方社会的赞美和对中国现状的抨击,力图重建秦汉以来失落几千年的真正的儒家圣人之治。 As one of the earliest group of people who supported the Westernization Movement, Guo Songtao always considered the fundamental way out for China. In his later years he saw the launching of the Westernization Movement, which did not bring much improvement to China and began to severely blame the malpractices of the Westernization Movement. He proposed that prosperity and prosperity should be “the custom of people’s heart and discipline,” and attempted to start from the heart of the people and save the precarious Qing rule. Guo Songtao, a firm believer in Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, praised the West by no means trying to turn China into a West, but instead focused on the internal shortcomings of China. In his view, the substance of the Western system (eg truth-seeking, convenience, etc.) has something in common with the teachings of saints in China. Through his praise of the Western society and its attack on the status quo in China, he sought to rebuild the real Confucian sage lost thousands of years since Qin and Han dynasties.