There is an intriguing puzzle to be found in the historiography of science in modern China: Yan Fu's 嚴復 (1854--1921) Tianyanlun 天演論 (On Heavenly Evolution), which was published in 1898 as the Chinese translation of Thomas Huxley's Evolution and Ethics (1893), is widely celebrated as the most influential book in modern Chinese intellectual history. And yet, this science-based book has received little,—if any,—credit in the history of science. Taking this puzzle as a clue, this article argues that On Heavenly Evolution constituted a historic breakthrough in a three-centuries-long struggle to win cultural authority for Western science in China, with the ultimate goal of persuading the Chinese to embrace Western civilization as a whole.
