Background

During his term in Canton (now Guangzhou) as Special Imperial Commissioner, Lin Zexu observed the might of British naval power and the inadequacies of the Chinese coastal defence system at first hand. Along with other intellectuals of the time, Lin's objective was "to determine the source and nature of Western power in Asia and to discover Western objectives in East Asia." The commissioner hired four Chinese translators who had been trained by missionaries to assist with the task of obtaining and translating appropriate western texts. One of them, Liang Jinde, an assistant to missionary Elijah Coleman Bridgman, provided copies of The Chinese Repository and other works. Lin also purchased a copy of the 1834 Encyclopedia of Geography by Hugh Murray from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which Liang translated to become the draft for Lin's own Geography of the Four Continents. However, before the book could be published, the First Opium War broke out in 1839 and the project was shelved. When the war ended in 1842, Lin's exile to the remote northwestern city of Yili meant that he passed his draft manuscript to Wei Yuan with a request that he complete it. Lin's contributions to the treatise proved so important that Karl Gützlaff mistakenly attributed the work to him in his September 1847 review for the Chinese Repository.

Content

As well as mapping various countries, Wei's objective was to provide as complete a picture as possible of the advantages they possessed in shipbuilding techniques and weapons production so that these "might be turned to use for subduing them." Wei completed his investigations of western penetration into East Asia in 1841, and in the Treatise proposed the construction of a shipyard and arsenal at Canton and the employment of foreign engineers to teach marine navigation and weapons operation "pioneer ideas in the military history of modern China".

Structure and editions

The first edition of the Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms, comprising 50 juan or scrolls, was published on January3 1843. This was followed in 1847 with a reorganised and slightly longer version running to 60 juan, while the third and final edition of 100 juan appeared in 1852. As the editions progressed, each in turn featured new maps and geographical information regarding the West, using material that became available after the First Opium War.

Influence

Although on publication the Treatise received scant attention in China in the initial years, in the longer term, Wei and his contemporaries helped change the Chinese view of the outside world not only through the dissemination of new material but also by starting to change the view that China was the "center of civilization" or "center of the world" ("Middle Kingdom"). Notably, some core principles advocated in the Treatise became the main theories of the Self-Strengthening Movement that started in the 1860s. The relationship between Wei Yuan and the Self-Strengthening Movement made China begin to move towards modernization and had a far-reaching influence.

Wei's work was also to have a later impact on Japanese foreign policy. In 1862, samurai Takasugi Shinsaku, from the ruling Japanese Tokugawa shogunate, visited Shanghai on board the trade ship Senzaimaru. Japan had been forced open by US Commodore Matthew C. Perry less than a decade earlier and the purpose of the mission was to establish how China had fared following the country's defeat in the Second Opium War (18561860). Takasugi was aware of the forward thinking exhibited by those such as Wei on the new threats posed by Western "barbarians" and later recorded in his diary: "The philosophy of the Chinese people stands poles apart from the correct path for China's future development. They are infatuated with lofty words unrelated to reality." Sinologist Joshua Fogel concludes that when Takasugi found out "that the writings of Wei Yuan were out of print in China and that the Chinese were not forcefully preparing to drive the foreigners out of their country, rather than derive from this a long analysis of the failures of the Chinese people, he extracted lessons for the future of Japan". Similarly, after reading the Treatise, scholar and political reformer Yokoi Shōnan became convinced that Japan should embark on a "cautious, gradual and realistic opening of its borders to the Western world" and thereby avoid the mistake China had made in engaging in the First Opium War. Takasugi would later emerge as a leader of the 1868 Meiji Restoration which presaged the emergence of Japan as a modernised nation at the beginning of the 20th century. Yoshida Shōin, influential Japanese intellectual and Meiji reformer, said Wei's Treatise had "made a big impact in our country".

成书背景

林则徐做钦差大臣时，命人编译英国人休·慕瑞所著《地理百科全书》，集成《四洲志》，但未及出版。

1841年6月，林则徐因鸦片战争中英交涉事宜被罢官革职，将被流放伊犁。他在走访路上将书稿全部交给魏源。希望他编撰《海国图志》。魏源以这些书稿为基础，搜集更多世界地理资料，一年后成书，初版五十卷于1843年1月刻印于扬州。

1847年至1848年，魏源又将《海国图志》增补为60卷本；到1852年又扩充为百卷本。此书开始时在中国未受到广泛关注，「书成魏子殁，廿余载，事局如故」，但其主张在之后的洋务运动中逐步显现，开启了中国人向西方学习的新潮流。与此同时该书流传至日本后启发明治维新及成为天皇和大臣必读书籍。

《海国图志》曾多次修改，因此出现所谓的50卷本、60卷本、100卷本，地理学家邹汉勋和江宁名士汪士铎皆曾协助校勘。1852年增为100卷后内容并无太大更动，「百卷本全书约88万字，并有各种地图75幅，西洋船、炮、器艺等图式42页」。魏源在书中叙述了美国历史和政治制度和民主。其间魏源还与陈澧进行多次切磋，陈澧为此还写了《书〈海国图志〉后呈张南山先生》，信中陈氏表示「以为最可议者莫如《议攻》篇『以夷攻夷』之说」。

传入日本

1851年，载有《海国图志》三册的中国商船亥二号停靠长崎，检查员向井兼哲照例检查物品，他发现书中有违反禁令的基督教文字，于是当成违禁品没收。该书三册分别被「御文库御用」、「学问所御用」及幕府老中牧野忠雄拿走。隔年，中国商船子二号又装载一部，仍属于违禁品由长崎会所负责保管。这三部书因写有海外情报而被长崎官员视为禁书，直到江户幕府的大官阅读过后，认为有益于日本了解时局，下令全数上报。

此后几年该书不断被偷运入日本，有的被幕府官员和学者买去，因此进入日本市场。基于书中的世界知识和应对西方的策略，海国图志很快在日本获得官员和学者的高度重视，广大民众也迫切想阅读此书。日本文化界也先开启了刊印、翻译、补注与评论该书的风潮。等到三年过后，又一艘中国商船到达长崎港，被发现有20多部的海国图志。这一次幕府决定开价购买并推出官方译本。自1854年开始后3年，日本出版的海国图志读本就有23种。相较于日本民间的追随热潮，当时中国的知识份子并不关心此书，直到数年后的洋务运动时期成为中国近代化开端的思想指南。

海国图志在日本售价逐年走高，在1851年至1852年是130日圆。1854年售价已达180日圆，1859年价格更涨至436日圆。据《江户时代日中秘话》所载，海国图志到了江户身价百倍，成为急需的御用之书。

影响

该书对日本国产生了深远影响，1862年（文久二年）日本幕府派遣代表团到清朝考察，其成员之一高杉晋作在上海买书，询问书店是否有《海国图志》、陈化成、林则徐等开明知识分子的书，书店老板回答都没有；高杉晋作在日记里写下：「清人的思想和中华的正道相差太远，清朝知识分子陶醉空言，不尚实学。」的记录。但是《海国图志》中提出的「师夷之长技以制夷」的观点成为随后清朝洋务运动的主要理论，影响深远。魏源与洋务运动承上启下的关系，使得中国开始向近代化迈进。

评价

江户幕府时期精通汉学和兰学的学者塩谷宕阴将《海国图志》视为「武经大典」，并将书中的海防建言纳为日本对外国策的参考。对于清政府直到数年后的洋务运动才采用「师夷之长技以制夷」的主张，他感叹：「呜呼！忠智之士，忧国著书，不为其君之用，而反被琛于他邦，吾不独为默深悲焉，而并为清主悲之」。

日本思想家佐久间象山是海国图志的追捧者，他认为自己是魏源的隔海知音，还做了20万字的读书笔记。

现代日本作家井上靖对此书持正面肯定：「幕府末期日本学者文化人等的思想起了革命，倾向开国主义，其契机是读了中国的《海国图志》」。

弗龟手之策

梁啓超在《论中国学术思想变迁之大势》中指出，魏源《海国图志》对日本明治维新起了巨大影响，认为它是「不龟手之药」，助推日本社会革新。到了1851年，《海国图志》（壹百卷续版）又在日本出现，更为日本维新变革人士擦亮了眼睛。梁也认为它能扭转清末危局的「弗龟手之策」，擦亮广大民众眼睛认识自身的落后与社会危机，从而自省自强。

批评

19世纪长期旅居中国的普鲁士人郭实腊在看过此书后，虽然他称赞该书在中国编撰史上的创新地位，称其「在中国文学史上没有任何同类著作与此相当」，但也毫不客气地批评林则徐对世界地理的误解。诸如：

• 其中有6卷讲到印度的部份编排不当，充满错误，大部分来自外国人的记载。

• 关于亚洲土耳其的记载却非常贫乏，郭实腊嘲讽道：「我们第一次听说他们属于西印度。我们也不想被告知，印度是他们的重要组成部分。」

• 谈到阿富汗、喀什米尔和叶尔羌的地理则是疏于调查，以至于充满了想像的内容。

• 在欧洲、非洲的部份，林则徐将非洲称为利比亚，表示其知识不比一位西方学生多。还将德意志与其所属国完全搞混，将该国的公爵、王子和众多统治者当成与蒙古一样的部落。书中未提到奥地利、匈牙利和波兰。

• 第31、32卷的丹麦、瑞士和普鲁士，最后一个国家和它的公国与分散的各省混淆一块。

• 对英格兰、苏格兰、爱尔兰的资源、贸易及殖民地等有公正的介绍，郭实腊却认为书中评论「像中世纪的政治家一样对他们讲论」。

• 对俄罗斯帝国的介绍表明作者不了解其所在欧洲的庞大规模与影响。

英国汉学家威妥玛在1850年翻译成其他语言，并在翻译介绍中评论该书。他对海国图志的学术价值抱持否定看法。

章鸣九认为：「华夏文化的优越感、天朝上国的自负意识，仍然是魏源文化思想的基础，他并没有视西方为真正平等独立的国家」。

轶事

据旅美学人唐德刚回忆，他曾翻译过《海国图志》，当时他看到传曰：「孰荒于门，孰治于田，四海既均，越裳是臣。」不知系出何典？他拿去问胡适先生。胡适说是《易林》，结果仍找不著。后来遂成公案。此文可见于韩愈《琴操十首·越裳操》，越裳是古南海国名，白话文意思是「有谁会任自己的门庭荒芜，而去治理田园呢？只有把自己的国家治理好，外国才会臣服。」