“天下之法”是為保障百姓福祉所立之法，與君主為保護(hù)一己私欲所立“一家之法”有根本不同。該思想由明末清初思想家黃宗羲提出。該思想上承孟子民本學(xué)說(shuō)，下啟近代民主思想，對(duì)中國(guó)現(xiàn)代法治思想的形成與發(fā)展起到了促進(jìn)作用。

The “universal law”is legislated to safeguard the well-being of the people， and isfundamentally different from the “l(fā)aw of the ruling clan” that protects the ruler’s selfishdesires. Proposed by Huang Zongxi， a thinker of the late Ming Dynasty and the early QingDynasty， this concept carried forward Mencius， philosophy of “people first，” inspiredmodern democratic thoughts， and promoted the formation and development of modernChinese thought on the rule of law.

引例 Citation：

◎ 后之人主，既得天下，唯恐其祚命之不長(zhǎng)也，子孫之不能保有也，思患于未然以為之法。然則其所謂法者，一家之法，而非天下之法也。（黃宗羲《明夷待訪錄·原法》）

（后世的君王得天下之后，唯恐皇位維持不長(zhǎng)久、后代子孫不能繼續(xù)統(tǒng)治，制定法度以防患于未然?？墒撬麄兯^的法，只是君主一家的法，而不是天下的法。）

Subsequent monarchs made laws for fear that they would lose their throne soon and theirdescendants could not continue to rule. But the so-called laws were merely the laws of theirfamily， not the universal laws. （Huang Zongxi： Waiting for the Dawn： A Plan for thePrince）