Abstract: The shift of Chinese traditional ideas began in Ming and Qing Dynasty.Wang Fuzhi's thought on law is obvious of elements of modern ideology breaking through the limitations of the traditional autocracy and authority-rule.He criticized Confucian’s idea of “couple leniency with cruelty” and the principle of “no courtesy to the humble and no penalty to the officials” and diametrically put forward his idea of “strict with the officials” and his proposition of the rule “courteous to the humble and penal to the officials” embodying the legislative idea of emphasizing the precaution of crime by officials in modern law-ruled countries.Wang Fuzhi opposed the view of renewing the corporal punishment in the ancient times in the name of “morality” advocated by Cheng Yi,Zhu Xi and Zhang Zai.He advocated prohibiting the autocratic severe punishment to the criminals by treating them inhumanly and opposed the action laying more importance to the personal will of Confucian moralists and unreasonable hatred mood of the public than to the law,which is the symbol of humanism spirit and absolute power of law in modern countries.Wang even maintained that when drawing up the fundamental law of a country the King was only an ordinary person with no authority,whose power should be restrained and illegal act should be punished with laws,in order to establish a law-ruled society.All these views and propositions reflect the new history trend of Chinese traditional society and ideology transforming to the modern era.

Key words: Wang Fuzhi, law ideas, modernization, element