Late Qing thought witnessed mounting concern with practical "statecraft" (jingshi), activist intent that underlies state innovation, pacification, and self-strengthening. This essay, a study of the origins of the nineteenth-century statecraft turn, focuses upon the jingshi pioneer Yan Ruyi's historical writings and the core "sagely" values they espouse: flexibility, meticulousness, determination, and moral consistency. Drawing on traditions of statecraft, classical, and historical scholarship — but clearly concerned with contemporary challenges — Yan Ruyi employed history to inculcate a new breed of men of action. His historiographical method, with the activist idealism at its heart, was dynamic in the manner it redefined and focused values. Equally, it was important for the qualities that connected it to contemporary literati writing. Concerned Song, Han, and New Text scholars, while disagreeing on texts and interpretation, increasingly concurred on the need for "world-ordering" and, to an extent, on the kind of man that should implement it. Their revitalized "ethic of social orientation", arguably reflected in Yan Ruyi's scholarship, offers evidence of a burgeoning late Qing statecraft ideology: a world of specific shared values and aspirations that shaped subsequent generations of imperial activists.

晚清時期， 主張維新自強、 安邦定國、 積極用世的經世實學， 日益為中國思想界所重視。 本文的研究對象， 是十九世紀中國經世致用思潮的源起； 討論的焦點， 則為經世實學先驅嚴如煜 （1759-1826) 的史學著作， 以及他的 "聖賢" 理念一立身不苟、 靈活通變、 堅定不移、 貫徹始終。 雖然立足於傳統經世實學、 經典學問和史學， 但嚴氏明顯是針對時局， 以史為訓， 以史育才， 志於用世。 他這種以實學為中心的治史方式， 以靈活的手法， 為政治倫理價值重新定位， 並且與當代的學術精神一脈相貫。 當時的宋學家、 漢學家和今文學家， 對於經典的訓釋雖然存有分歧， 但對 "經世" 為本， 以至 "經世” 人才等問題， 各家已經漸趨一致。 他們重新強調經世濟民， 以為立身處世的極則， 這在嚴氏之學是得到了充分的反映， 也成為了晚清治國理念的主流。