民族構建與文明再造是清末以降許多中國知識份子的關懷所在，本文探討了1914至1918年間，它們如何現身於李大釗為謀「民族之復活」而發展的一套文化論述。具體而言，本文追溯李氏如何從「風俗保群」論出發，進而提出「造可愛之國」的課題及「青春中華」的理念，最終抵於「第三文明」的主張。本文指出，在他深受傳統影響的「青春」宇宙觀籠罩下，李氏發展出一種「普遍」與「特殊」相互交融的視域，進而將上述兩種關懷結合為一體兩面的追尋，最終並以超越西方主導的19世紀文明模式、創造具有社會主義內涵並調和了東西文明特質的「第三文明」，作為人類共同致力的目標，以茲解決現代世界的危機。本文強調，第三文明論雖有重大政治意涵，亦受到歐戰與俄國革命的影響，但它不能被化約為單純的政治性建構，反而突顯了「文明再造」的思考所涉從宇宙觀、個人觀、文化觀到歷史觀的複雜議題。「文明」固然可被本質化成為標示身份認同的符碼，亦可被援為民族國家的正當性基源，但在李氏那裡，它最突出的意義並不在此，而在於作為一種認識世界、改變世界的批判性範疇。對他而言，普遍未必與特殊衝突，而真正具普遍意義的20世紀新文明（亦即第三文明），必須經由東西各民族在自己的傳統基礎上，通過東西文明的匯通始可得見。李氏最初即是透過第三文明的視域，迎向革命的選項。可是，他將事物的普遍性建立在特定的宇宙論之上，以及他始終無法具體說明如何調和東西文明－這兩個事實，使得「靈肉一致」的文明理想，在理論與實踐上皆面臨了困境，最終只能如梁漱溟對他的批評那般，「俟諸未來」。他因而留下這樣的問題:在革命過程中，究竟有什麼資源，足以阻擋這個理想不異化為政治動員的工具？

Nation-building and reconstructing the Chinese civilization had captured the most vehement imagination of many Chinese intellectuals since the late Qing period. This article explores how these were unfolded in the cultural discourse that Li Dazhao developed with a view to rejuvenate China during his pre-Marxist years (1914-1918). Highlighting the cosmological underpinnings of Li's thoughts which he derived from the Chinese traditions, the article attempts to reveal the ways how the two concerns were integrated into one under a vista fusing the universal and the particular, and eventually led to the search for a ＂third civilization.＂ Taking shape under the influences of WWI and the Russian revolutions, Li's concept of the ＂third civilization＂ was politically significant, in that it was posited as an alternative to the 19th-century Eurocentric model of civilization in the global project to resolve crises faced by China and the world. However, it should not be reduced and purely taken as a political concept, for it is emanated from a whole complex of ideas about individual, culture, history and the universe. ＂Civilization＂ may be essentialized to identify one's identity, or posed as the legitimating principle of a nation-state. Yet in the case of Li Dazhao, the most prominent significance of civilization lies in the fact that it is a critical category to interpret and to change the world. For him, universality and particularity related to each other in a dialectical way, and the genuinely universal civilization in the 20th century could only arise from crossing the barriers of and fusing the various cultures/ civilizations from the East and the West. It was through the vision of the ＂third civilization＂ that he first discovered revolution as an alternative. Still, given that his conception of universality was grounded on a specific and culturally- bound cosmology and that he never confronted the substantial problem of how to assimilate Eastern and Western civilizations into a harmony whole, the civilizational ideal about the unity of soul and body that he proclaimed for the future is oftentimes hard to be reified. He thus left the question unanswered: in the process of a revolution, what resort would there be to prevent the ideal from being reduced into a tool of political mobilization?