民族国家形成时期英国殖民思想的发展

在从中世纪封建社会向近代资本主义过渡的历史转折时期,即民族国家形成时期,英国殖民思想经历了一个从盲目到自觉、从感性到理性的发展过程。殖民思想与民族国家思想合流,是英国民族意识觉醒的反映,对英国海外殖民扩张活动产生了积极影响,它们共同推动着海上活动的蓬勃发展。托马斯·莫尔从人文主义道德观出发,提出建立海外殖民地的最初设想。理查德·哈克卢伊特是英国早期最重要的发现史学家,他为英国的北美殖民活动进行辩护。在海外殖民扩张问题上,弗朗西斯·培根竭力赞成英国拓展海外殖民地,建立新英格兰帝国。

The Development of English Colonial Ideas in the Formation of the Nation-state

The period of forming the nation-state was that one when the Western Europe started a great historic transitionfrom the medieval times feudalism to the modern capitalism. The English nation-state ideas had an important feature thather colonial ideas came through a course from blindness to consciousness and from sensibility to rational in this period.The developing of the English colonial ideas mainly displayed awaking of the national consciousness and strengthening ofthe nation-state and the both of then formed powerful drive and forced the English overseas settlements. Sir ThomasMore,at first,brought up a colonial imagination and then,Richard Hakluyt proposed ideas about exploring westward. Onoverseas colonial expansion,Francis Bacon suggested some practical proposals to set up an oceanic empire of New Eng-land. The English colonial ideas reflected the English nation-state consciousness and had a very importand role in the pe-riod of forming the nation-state.