本文以現代人習用的西方政治學所界定的「專制」為題，回到中國古代政治思想史的語境中，分析了數千種文獻中的「專制」用例，認為「專制」應有四個義項，即：獨斷專行、越權自作主張、控制掌管和君主獨掌政權。前三個義項用於鴉片戰爭前的中國社會，基本上不用於君主，而是廣泛用於人臣，人臣專制的實質是專制王權的變異和向專制王權的回歸。「專制」含義的穩定性，與封建專制制度的長期性、穩定性是相一致的。「專制」不用於君主，並不等於中國古代不存在君主專制制度，「獨斷」與「獨攬」是描述中國古代君主專制現象的詞語。權力獨攬、決事獨斷是專制帝王的權力特徵，也是中國古代社會的普遍觀念。第四個義項，即作為國家政體或社會制度的「專制」在西方列強打開中國大門以後才產生，「君主」與「專制」也越來越多地聯繫在一起。「專制」含義的豐富和應用語境的變化，反映了中國政治思想在近代的劇烈變動。因此，我們在使用近代從西方傳入的政治思想概念時，不能脫離中國古代政治思想史的語境，要注意詞義的古今差異，充分考慮辭彙變動中所蘊含的政治意義。

In this article, with the subject of 「autarchy」 defined in modem western political science, back to the language environment of Chinese ancient political & ideology history, we analyzed the example of autarchy in thousands of literatures, in which autarchy should have four meaning, namely, be a law onto oneself, exceed the authority & self-assertion, control & manage, and emperor control regime by himself. The first three meaning apply to the Chinese society before the Opium War, not to the emperor, but to the liegeman, the essential part of liegeman autarchy is the aberrance of autarchy kingship and the return to it. The stability of autarchy, is in accordance with the long-standing and stability of feudalism autarchy system. Autarchy not applying to the emperor, does not mean emperor autarchy system is not existent in ancient China, dogmatism and czar are the common words to describe the ancient China emperor autarchy phenomenon, power dogmatism and judgment of oneself are the power character of the autarchy emperor, and the common perception of ancient China society. The fourth meaning, which is the autarchy of government and regime, is formed after western aggressor breaking the door of China, and emperor and autarchy are more and more closely related. The definition extension and language environment changing of autarchy, reflect the huge change of Chinese political & ideology in latter-day. So, when using the political & ideology concepts bring from western in latter-day, we have to consider the language environment of Chinese ancient political & ideology, the difference of word meaning at all times, and the political meaning which contained in the changing of word.