Abstract: Around Opium War I, determined scholars and men of virtue fairly systematically expounded moral world-saving thought. Focusing on the moral “mind”, they advocated bringing power, influence and fame under the control of morality. They attached importance to the “benevolent” virtue, laid stress on sense of honour, exalted paithfulness, righteousness, sincerity and honesty, and highly praised the personality of a noble-characted man. By exposing and criticizing such evils as moral corruption of scholars, inability of good to prevail over evil in social tendencies, ignorance and incompetence, weakness and uselessness, following the old nut and muddling along, arrogance, laziness and timidity, greed for private gains, being utterly devoid of sense of shame, deceiving those above and deluding those below, keeping no promise, and harming the country and injuring the people, and by attaching importance to the specific practices of moral education, unification of “office” and “virtue”, perfecting the mode of official selection, and the combination of morality and law, the tried to get rid of the old habits in order to retrieve degenerate practices and further to attain the aim of “when people are solemn-minded, the power of the country will be forceful.”

Key words: Opium War I, traditional Chinese ethical culture, benevolence, unification of “office” and “virtue”, benevolent and righteous person, world-saving morally, ideal personality