嚴復在甲午戰後，將他對西方文化的認知來檢討時局與中國文化，並且在報紙上登載文章，呼籲全盤西化。接著嚴復翻譯西方名著《天演論》、《原富》、《群學肄言》、《法意》、《社會通詮》等書，涵蓋政治制度、經濟、社會、文化各層面，作爲中國尋求富強的學習標竿。嚴復的翻譯，被譽爲當時譯書的高手，並且對於啟蒙中國的知識份子，具有重大的貢獻。在嚴復的譯著之中，以《天演論》對年輕人刺激尤深，影響甚遠。民國成立，嚴復曾經出任北京大學的校長，實際負責教育事務的執行，不同於以往偏重於宣揚思想。然而，從此他的思想也有所變化，以前他是以西方文化的標準來檢視中國文化，現在他以中國文化的立場來看待西方文化，因此主張尊孔、讀經；贊成強人政治，反對議會政治。嚴復晚年的思維與作爲，被一些學者批評爲退化、保守，但是也有學者以各種角度切入研究，爲他辯護。本文最後認爲嚴復也是兩種文化的“邊緣人”，他的思維與作爲，也常與時代潮流相扞格，因此，找出自己的定位也是他要思考的要務。

After Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), Yen Fu examined the society and Chinese culture based on his knowledge of western culture and publicized in press his appeal to overall westernizing. Afterwards He worked on translation of famous books such as 《Tian-Yen-Lun》 (On Evolution), 《Yuan-Fu》 (The Wealth of Nations), 《Qun-Xue-Si-Yan》 (The principle, of Socio1ogy), 《Fa-Yi》(De L' Esprit des Lois), 《She-Hui-Tong-Quan》 (A History of Politics) covering political system, economics, sociology, culture, etc. aiming at establishment of learning goals in the pursuit of a wealthy and rigorous country. Yen Fu's translation works were regarded the best ones in this field and they contributed significantly to the enlightenment of Chinese scholars Among the translation: works, (Tian-Yen-Lun) was recognized to exert great impact impact on the young generation. Upon the inauguration of the republic, Yen Fu was appointed as the Principal of Beijing University to take actual responsibility for education, which was a different task from idea propagation at the previous stage. Meanwhile, his thinking also underwent some transformation at that time. He used to evaluate Chinese culture with western standards but this time he looked at western culture in the footprint of Chinese. Therefore, he preached Confucianism and warp reading, advocated to strongman regime, and opposed to congress politics. Yen Fu's thoughts and behavior were criticized as retrograding and conservative by some scholars while others defended for him based on research of individual respective. In conclusion Yen Fu was described as a person at the fringe of two types of culture, so it was his inevitable responsibility to find out his own positioning. His thoughts and behavior thus were often considered inconsistent with the trend of his age.