Explain the origin and development of western culture with two theories of hope.

Greek and Hebrew cultural systems still have a far-reaching influence on western culture. Nature and rationality in Greek culture and religious consciousness in Hebrew culture have penetrated into all fields of western society for thousands of years, providing inexhaustible motive force for the continuous progress of western civilization.

China culture has a glorious history of thousands of years. However, in modern times, due to the decline caused by cultural isolation, China has fallen far behind. In the modern history of China, many people with lofty ideals made great efforts to explore the road to a rich country, Qiang Bing. Starting from Wei Yuan's "learning from foreigners to control foreigners", China began to learn from the West. However, the final result of "taking middle school as the body and western learning as the application" failed, so people of insight tried to fundamentally change the political and legal system and make China strong. After the Revolution of 1911, the Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China fully drew lessons from western legal thoughts and established a political framework of separation of powers, checks and balances and judicial independence, but it only lasted for a short year or two. The "democratic constitutionalism" advocated by People's Republic of China (PRC) after the new democratic revolution also embodies the spirit of the rule of law. However, for China, the legal system is imported after all, and we have not been able to operate this system well so far. The "grafted" western culture can not fully adapt to the local soil, and the disconnection between law and culture, law and society is becoming more and more obvious. In fact, it is not difficult to establish and change the system. The most difficult thing is how to gradually change the traditional cultural factors that have penetrated into the hearts of every member of society, so that the system has a deeper social and cultural foundation.

We have been studying the thought of rule of law in western society, especially when our party put forward "ruling the country according to law" and "building socialist political civilization". We are constantly discussing how to combine western democracy and rule of law with China's political and cultural traditions. Therefore, if we want to have an in-depth grasp of the western thought of rule of law, we need to study it from the perspective of the western tradition of rule of law. If we trace back to the source of western culture, it will eventually come down to Greek culture and Hebrew culture.

It is necessary to clarify the concept of "rule of law" before discussing how Greece and Greek culture affect the western tradition of rule of law. There is a difference between "rule of law" and "legal system". The "legal system" focuses on the system level and the law itself; "Rule of law" is a process that emphasizes the use of the legal system for governance and rule, and emphasizes "governance". "Rule of law" is essentially the opposite of "rule by man". Aristotle in ancient Greece believed that the rule of law should contain two meanings: "The established legal order is generally observed, and the law that everyone abides by should be a good law." [1] Aristotle's view of rule of law laid an endless tradition of rule of law in the west. Thus, the rule of law contains two meanings: one is that the implementation of the rule of law should reject the rule of man, and the other is that the value of the rule of law pursues perfection. Later, many western scholars explained the "rule of law" around these two aspects. "The established legal order is generally observed" emphasizes "abiding by the law" and "the law that everyone abides by should itself be a good law" emphasizes "good law". "abiding by the law" and "good law" constitute two important themes of the western tradition of rule of law. Studying the influence of Greece and Greek culture on the western tradition of rule of law can be considered from these two aspects.

Generally speaking, Greece and Greek culture have different influences on "abiding by the law" and "good law". As far as "abiding by the law" is concerned, Hebrew culture has made a greater contribution, because the Jewish nation founded Judaism and developed into Christianity later, and westerners' belief in and observance of the law largely came from their religious beliefs. As far as "good law" is concerned, the contribution of Greek culture is greater, because Greek culture advocates nature and rationality and its philosophical thinking is relatively developed.