史華茲（Benjamin Schwartz）先生於1964年所提出的「追求富強」一說，不僅長期主導有關嚴復的研究，同時也深刻影響了學界對於整個中國現代學術與思想史的詮釋。史華茲認為嚴復的畢生志業在於追求國家富強，因此他的學術與思想也以尋求「西方之所以富強的秘密」為中心。然而筆者則以為嚴復的中心追求紹非富強二字。他其實具有一種既深且厚的「儒學性格」，並深受傳統世界觀與思維方式的影響；其畢生學行所傾力追求的，是一個深具傳統意涵的「道」字，也就是一種貫通宇宙人生，致廣大而盡精的真實道理。在中西交會的大背景下，嚴復既尊重傳統，又欣賞西方。其畢生努力的方向，在於融通中西文化中最高的原理原則，以指點出中國乃至人類所應依循的大道。這項工作，主要透過了對於他認為足以代表這些原理原則的中西經典之再詮釋來進行。本文為一系列研究嚴復求道之旅的第一篇。文中首先分析了過去六十餘年有關嚴復的研究。發現「被研究者主體性的失落」是長期以來嚴復研究的最根本問題。「被研究者主體性的失落」不僅使得過去的研究難以掌握嚴復的學術性格、思維方式與中心思想，同時也使得學界長期忽視了中國現代學人在面對西方文化時所表現的一些根深蒂固的「中國特質」。本文繼而仔細分析了嚴復早期的學術性格、思維方式與中心思想，指出其中的求道特質，並析論這種傳統的學術性格與思維方式與西方學術思想的互動。從本文中，我們不僅可以瞭解早期的嚴復，並可藉此檢視中國現代學術與思想史的一些基本性格。

　In the past few decades, Dr. Benjamin Schwartz's theory of "in search of wealth and power" not only dominated the study of Yen Fu but also greatly influenced the interpretation of the entire modern Chinese intellectual history. Schwartz proposed that the main concerm of Yen Fu was the search for wealth and power for a battered China, and his scholarship and thought, including his translation, was, naturally, dominated by this theme. My essay, however, proposes that Yen Fu's central concern was not wealth and power. While greatly influenced by Confucianism and traditional world-view and mode of thinking, Yen Fu's life-long pursuit is Tao─ the universal, uniting, and highest "way" of the world. Witnessing the challenge that China confronted during the great encounter of China and modern West, Yen Fu spent his whole life in search of a way to unite the most valued underlying principles of Chinese and Western civilizations, so as to figure out what is the best for China and mankind. This great project is carried out mainly through the introduction and reinterpretation of selected masterpieces of both the West and China. The present essay is the first one of a series of studies on Yen Fu, showing that "the loss of the subjectivity of Yen Fu" is the major problem of the research in the last sixty years. As a result, the deep-rooted "Chineseness" of Yen Fu, as well as his contemporaries, was greatly neglected. The main body of this essay is a careful analysis of Yen Fu's mode of learning and thinking, together with his central beliefs and tenets in his early years. Through this study we can not only grasp Yen Fu's central concern but also a better understanding of modern Chinese intellectual history.