鸦片战争失败,使一部分先进的中国人开始研究以英国为代表的西方资本主义世界,魏源和徐继是其中的杰出代表。他们的研究成果在今天看来或许粗浅,甚至有不少缺失疏漏和错误,但毕竟起到了荜路蓝缕的作用,为当时士人和日本知识界提供了认识“西洋”的材料,成为1900年前中国出现的最佳世界知识教材。 The failure of the Opium War led some advanced Chinese to start studying the Western capitalist world represented by Britain. Wei Yuan and Xu Ji were outstanding representatives. Their research may seem superficial today, and even some omissions and mistakes have been made, but after all, they have played a role of a bluff to provide the literati and Japanese intellectuals with an understanding of the “Western” material and become the 1900 Years ago China appeared in the best world knowledge materials.