Leibniz and Confucius: The Foundations of Cultural Exchange 

Richard N. Stichler

Alvernia University

Reading, PA  

I consider it a singular plan of the fates that human cultivation and refinement should today be concentrated, as it were, in the two extremes of our continent, in Europe and in Tshina (as they call it),  which adorns the Orient as Europe does the opposite edge of the earth. Perhaps Supreme Providence has ordained such an arrangement, so that as the most cultivated and distant peoples stretch out their arms to each other, those in between may gradually be brought to a better way of life. –G. W. Leibniz, Preface to Novissima Sinica. 

Introduction

By the end of the seventeenth century the discovery of the new world had generated a vigorous debate about the significance of civilizations outside of Europe. Philosophers and theologians were confronted with cultures that challenged their understanding of the world and raised questions about their own

intellectual heritage. The highly advanced civilization of the Chinese was of particular interest, for its achievements were viewed as a demonstration of the unaided power of natural reason. China was widely seen as a utopian society that had attained an advanced moral tradition without recourse to dogma or faith.

From the very beginning, however, the Western reception and interpretation of Confucianism was embroiled in theological controversy. In the early 17th century, the controversy centered on the so called “accomodationist policy” of the Jesuit mission in China. Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), the Jesuit founder of the first Catholic mission in China, viewed Confucianism as a theistic form of natural religion that was compatible with the basic principles of Christian monotheism; in order to win converts to Christianity Ricci thus advocated a policy of accommodating the Chinese ritual tradition of ancestor worship or allowing Chinese converts to continue their practice of Confucian rituals. Ricci’s Dominican and Franciscan opponents, however, strongly opposed such a mixture of what they deemed “pagan ritual” with Christianity. They maintained that the Chinese Confucians were actually atheistic materialists who lacked any understanding of the Christian conception of the Deity.

Initially, the dispute over the interpretation of Confucian natural theology was confined for the most part to the Catholic hierarchy, but by the end of the 17th century a wider knowledge of Confucian thought began to spread throughout Europe. In 1687, Philippe Couplet, a Jesuit missionary in China, published the first Latin translation of the Confucian classics. In the preface to his translation, Couplet wrote: "One might say that the moral system of this philosopher is infinitely sublime, but that it is at the same time simple, sensible and drawn from the purest sources of natural reason... Never has Reason, deprived of Divine Revelation, appeared so well developed nor with so much power"1 As Couplet’s interpretation of Confucian natural theology gained a wider European audience, the reception of Confucianism in the West became further entangled in an ongoing religious controversy over the foundations of natural law.

In The Law of War and Peace Hugo Grotius had argued that inasmuch as our knowledge of natural law could be acquired by human reason alone, it would still be binding on men even if there were no God.  He thus maintained that natural law could be regarded as literally and exclusively natural, or as having no divine origin at all. Although Grotius added that it would certainly be impious to suppose that God

does not exist, his shift toward a secular interpretation of natural law was particularly upsetting to European Pietists. According to the Pietists, natural law was based solely and entirely on the divine authority and decree of God, and without faith, human reason would be unable to attain knowledge of any truth whatsoever. In view of this controversy, Couplet’s interpretation of Confucian natural theology was warmly embraced by secularists who affirmed the independent validity of natural law, while fideists viewed Confucianism as a pagan religion that posed a grave threat to Christian orthodoxy. In their view, if human reason could attain knowledge of natural law without faith, then revealed knowledge of God’s will would be deemed unnecessary and irrelevant.

However, Pietists and fideists who claimed revealed knowledge of God’s will could not agree about exactly what God had decreed and how He wanted things done. Moreover, the sectarian violence and endless religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries intensified the search for a resolution of conflict based exclusively on natural or universal human reason. Explaining his motives for writing The Law of War and Peace, Grotius wrote: “Throughout the Christian world I observed a lack of restraint in relation to war,

such as even barbarous races should be ashamed of; I observed that men rush to arms for slight causes, or no cause at all, and that when arms have once been taken up there is no longer any respect for law, divine or human; it is as if, in accordance with a general decree, frenzy had openly been let loose for the committing of all crimes.”2 Thus, while Europeans fought wars of religion, the Chinese, though “deprived of divine revelation” (as Couplet put it), had achieved a peaceful and harmonious civilization solely on the basis of Confucian principles of natural reason. In the practical realm of law and politics, it appeared that Europeans had much to learn from the Chinese. Leibniz and other philosophers of the enlightenment thus turned to the teachings of Confucius in order to advance their cosmopolitan and humanistic ideals.   

Leibniz and the Pre-Established Harmony of China and Europe

In a world plagued with war and intolerance, Leibniz labored constantly to achieve peace and mutual understanding. Throughout his life he endeavored to bring about a universal synthesis, a grand scheme for reconciling everything and everyone—France and Germany, Catholics and Protestants, Cartesians and Aristotelians, science and theology—but

his greatest ambition of all was to achieve cooperative and harmonious relations between Europe and Asia. Leibniz’s goals were enormous. As a philosopher and statesman, he aspired to achieve the “grand design” of creating global harmony through cultural exchange and cooperation, and to this end, he devoted himself to the task of constructing a harmonious universe in both theory and practice.

On the theoretical side, Leibniz wanted to set human thought on a new path by transforming the substance of the prevailing world view. He developed a totally new concept of universal science, according to Ernest Cassirer, by substituting the concept of a pluralistic universe for Cartesian dualism and Spinozian monism.3 He accomplished this by combining Cartesian mechanism with Aristotelian teleology thus giving precise mathematical expression to a dynamic Aristotelian world of multiple processes and events. Leibniz’s pluralistic universe was not merely the mechanical sum of its parts but a dynamic and continually unfolding actualization of multiplicity in unity. He found the key to understanding the law that would render the world’s diversity intelligible in his celebrated discovery of the infinitesimal calculus.4 This Leibnizinan conception of a dynamic pluralistic

universe was to become the predominant worldview of the eighteenth century.

On a practical level, Leibniz sought to develop harmonious relations between Europe and Asia by facilitating a process of cultural exchange and by demonstrating the compatibility of Confucian and Christian ethics. He thought that the Chinese had much to contribute to Western civilization, but the main impediment to cultural exchange lay in the controversy over the “natural theology” of the Chinese. Between the two extremes of a secularism that rejected revealed theology and a fideism that rejected natural reason   Leibniz typically tried to find the middle ground. He attempted to defuse the tension between China and the West by drawing parallels between Confucianism and the natural philosophy of the ancient Greeks. He reasoned that just as Christian theology had previously retained its commitment to its principles of revealed theology while being enlarged and improved through its assimilation of Greek philosophy,5 so could it once again be further perfected by absorbing the wisdom of China.

Throughout his life Leibniz maintained a lively interest in China which he cultivated through his reading and correspondence with a number of Jesuit missionaries in China. For his time,

Leibniz was extremely well-informed about Chinese thought and culture; he read Philippe Couplet’s translations of the Confucian classics, the Yi Jing, and learned what he could about Zhu Xi and other neo-Confucian philosophers. Wishing to become better informed about Chinese culture, he even “expressed a desire to travel to China himself.”6 Leibniz strongly supported the work of the Jesuit missionaries in China who followed the ecumenical policies of Matteo Ricci and staunchly defended their accomodationist interpretation of Confucianism against Christian critics who claimed that the Chinese were atheists. In his Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese, Leibniz argued that the ancient Chinese concept of tian or heaven was the equivalent of the Christian idea of God, and he argued against the materialistic interpretations of Confucianism propounded by the Jesuit Nichola Longobardi and the Franciscan Antoine Sainte Marie.7

Although the Jesuit missionaries had provided the Chinese with much information about Western science and civilization, Leibniz regretted the fact that the West was still relatively uninformed about China. Believing that the West had much to learn about practical philosophy from the Chinese, he wanted to promote further cultural exchange

and even wanted to invite the Chinese to send its own missionaries to the West to teach Europeans the art of practical politics. For in comparing the civilizations of China and Europe, Leibniz found that although the West was more advanced in the theoretical sciences, China was far superior in moral philosophy. He wrote: “it is difficult to describe how beautifully all the laws of the Chinese, in contrast to those of other peoples, are directed to the achievement of public tranquility and the establishment of social order, so that men shall be disrupted in their relations as little as possible.” And though he found the West more advanced in military science, Leibniz attributed this fact to the superior wisdom rather than the ignorance of the Chinese. “For,” he wrote, “they despise everything which creates or nourishes ferocity in men, and almost in emulation of the higher teachings of Christ…. They would be wise indeed if they were alone in the world.”8

In developing his defense of Confucianism, Leibniz noted many similarities between the neo-Confucian metaphysics of Zhu Xi and his own conception of a pluralistic universe. According to the Leibnizian worldview, the universe consists of an infinite series of simple substances or monads each of which is “a perpetual living mirror of the universe.” “Every

substance,” Leibniz states, “is like an entire world and like a mirror of God, or indeed of the whole world …”9 In Zhu Xi’s account of the relationship between li and chi Leibniz found a striking resemblance to his own conception of substance. According to Zhu Xi, Li is the first principle and ground of all things, or the universal substance which is present in each individual being while chi is its coordinate material principle. Leibniz considered Zhu Xi’s conception of Li to be the equivalent of his own idea of God. In comparing the two concepts, Leibniz wrote: “We say as much when we teach that the ideas, the primitive reasons, the prototypes of all essences are in God. And joining supreme unity with the most perfect multiplicity, we say that God is one in all things, one containing all, all things in one; but formally, all things as their perfection.”1

In the Yi Jing (Book of Changes) Leibniz discovered yet another remarkable correspondence between Chinese thought and his own philosophical system. In his youth Leibniz had developed a system of binary arithmetic in order to facilitate the solution of mathematical problems. In a binary system only two numbers, 0 and 1 are needed to generate all numbers, and a zero added to any number will multiply it by two. Thus, the numerical sequence counting from zero to

eight could be expressed as: 0000, 0001, 0010, 0011, 0100, 0101, 0110, 0111, and 1000. When mathematical calculations “are reduced to the simplest principles, like 0 and 1,” Leibniz wrote, “a wonderful order appears everywhere.”11 Leibniz further maintained that the binary system not only simplified mathematical operations but also symbolically expressed the Christian doctrine of God’s creation of the universe out of nothing. He wrote: “All combinations arise from unity and nothing, which is like saying that God made everything from nothing, and that there were only two first principles, God and nothing.”12

Leibniz was thus astonished to find that the Yi Jing employed precisely the same set of binary symbols that he had independently discovered. Through his correspondence with the Jesuit Joachim Bouvet, Leibniz learned that the Yi Jing was composed of a series of sixty four hexagrams each of which consisted of a set of six broken and/or unbroken lines. Each line could be individually interpreted as a symbolic representation of the numbers one or zero. Thus, a broken line (--) represented 0 while an unbroken line (–) represented 1. Moreover, the sequence of hexagrams which he received from Bouvet actually corresponded point by point to the binary sequence which Leibniz himself had previously constructed. Beginning

with a hexagram composed of six solid lines, the number of broken lines gradually increase and end with a hexagram consisting of six broken lines. If the hexagram’s broken and solid lines are converted to zeros and ones, the numerical values of the sequence turn out to be identical to Leibniz’s binary numbers with the exception of the fact that their order is inverted, sixty three being the first number in the series and zero the last. Leibniz was delighted with his discovery, for he considered it further proof of his view that spiritual truths can be expressed mathematically.

Leibniz’s interpretation of the historical origin of the hexagrams was somewhat misguided, however, for he accepted the traditional Chinese view that they had been created by Fu Xi, the legendary sage-king who was alleged to be the founder of the first Chinese dynasty in 2975 BC. In fact, the particular sequence of hexagrams which Leibniz received from Father Bouvet actually came from Xiao Yung, a neo-Confucian philosopher of the eleventh century AD. Nevertheless, as Julia Ching points out, Xiao Yung’s arrangement may well have been derived from a more ancient source.13 Basing his interpretation of the Yi Jing on this erroneous assumption, however, Leibniz concluded that Fu Xi must have had “insights into the science of combinations” which had

been completely lost to the Chinese for thousands of years,14 and that he (Leibniz) had rediscovered the true meaning and significance of the hexagrams. Thus, he claimed that since “the Chinese have lost the signification . . . of the linear symbols of Fu-hsi . . . [and] have made commentaries on these, seeking I don’t know what distant meaning . . . it has now become necessary for them to get the true explanation from the Europeans.”15 From these somewhat dubious assumptions, Leibniz derived further support for his belief that the ancient Chinese surpassed the moderns, “not only in piety (which is the basis of the most perfect morality) but also in learning.”16

Although Leibniz may have been misguided about the historical origins of the Yi Jing, his main point was not necessarily unfounded. To understand his reasoning, one must bear in mind that for Leibniz mathematical truth is a source of divine revelation. Thus, he thought that when the Chinese recover the lost (theoretical) significance of their own spiritual tradition they will be more readily disposed to understand and accept such Christian teachings as the mystery of God’s creation of the universe out of nothing. Furthermore, Leibniz maintained that by acquiring the Confucian tradition of moral practice, the Christian West would also develop a deeper

experiential understanding of the practical applications of its own moral theory. That is, from the Chinese Europe would acquire habits of moral practice that would not only enable Europeans to understand Chinese civilization but also to resolve their own internal religious conflicts. The Chinese, on the other hand, would acquire a more perfect understanding of the theological foundations of their own tradition of moral practice. In this way Leibniz sought to initiate a process of cultural exchange that would enrich both cultures and produce a harmonious world of unity in diversity.

At this point, however, several questions might be raised about Leibniz’s proposals for cultural exchange. First, if the Christian West had the advantage of divine revelation and was also more advanced in the theoretical sciences, how can we explain the supposed superiority of Chinese morality and practical life? Given Leibniz’s views on the relationship between theory and practice, one might expect Western superiority in revealed religion to produce a more enlightened level of moral practice. Moreover, if the modern Chinese, as Leibniz claimed, had lost a true understanding of the theoretical basis of their own moral tradition, one also might expect Chinese standards of moral practice to undergo corruption and

decline. Thus, if we assume the Chinese to be laboring under these disadvantages on the side of theoretical knowledge, how could they be expected to sustain a tradition of moral practice superior to that of the West?

The explanation of Chinese superiority in the realm of morality and natural theology lies in the fact that practical knowledge of natural law is principally based, not on theory, but on the everyday practice of doing things and getting things done. Just as Aristotle described praxis as a kind of techne, Leibniz too viewed practical wisdom as a kind of skill or knowledge of what works, acquired inductively through the activity of doing things and thus learning how to do them well. In order to act well, the man of practical wisdom need not know the why or the wherefore but only the fact that human nature generally tends to function better one way rather than another. The Chinese, as Leibniz observed, had long cultivated and accumulated a deep experiential knowledge of human nature, a knowledge, that is, of how human beings can best live together, resolve their differences, and thus build a just and harmonious society. Such accumulated experiential knowledge of human nature is embodied in the ancient Chinese principles of ritual propriety, and works such as the Confucian Analects and Book

of Rites contain a compendium of such accumulated practical wisdom. These works do not contain theoretical discussions of the nature of the virtues but practical guidance on how to acquire them.

We find in the Book of Rites, for example, detailed advice on topics such as how to speak with reverence, how to avoid acquiring improper habits, how to stand or sit in relation to older and younger people, how to behave in the presence of one’s father’s friends, how to care for one’s parents in their old age, and how to conduct oneself in different stages of life.17

Generally speaking, the li or rules of propriety provide a comprehensive guide for determining the appropriate means for performing one’s duties and cultivating one’s character.18 But the Analects frequently emphasize that what is most important is not the external act but the spirit in which it is performed. When asked about filial piety, Confucius replied, “Today people are considered filial because they support their parents. But even dogs and horses are given that much care. Without reverence, what is the difference?”19 In another context Confucius observes that without the rules of propriety respect becomes laborious bustle and candor becomes rudeness.2 Actions that accord with the rules of propriety, however, are done with an effortless natural

ease that can be acquired only by means of attentive practice, self-examination, and habituation. Mastering the rules of propriety is thus the means to self-completion (zicheng), integrity (cheng), and the unity of internal motive and external act.21

In praising the accomplishments of the Chinese in his Preface to the Novissima Sinica, Leibniz drew a sharp contrast between the civility of the Chinese and the comparative incivility of the Europeans:

[In China] scarcely anyone offends another by the smallest word in common conversation. And they rarely show evidences of hatred, wrath, or excitement. With us respect and careful conversation last for hardly more than the first days of a new acquaintance—scarcely even that. Soon familiarity moves in and circumspection is gladly put away for a sort of freedom which is quickly followed by contempt, backbiting, anger, and afterwards enmity. It is just the contrary with the Chinese. Neighbors and even members of a family are so held back by a hedge of custom that they are able to maintain a kind of perpetual courtesy.22 

The Chinese had inherited a vast store of experiential knowledge accumulated over

thousands of years; but lacking an adequate theoretical structure, practical knowledge is disordered and incomplete. As Franklin Perkins observes, Leibniz thought that Confucian natural theology reflected this weakness.23 He thus maintained that Western science and philosophy could provide a better theoretical structure that would enable the Chinese to establish their experiential knowledge on a more solid footing. As an illustration of the benefits of cultural exchange Leibniz cited the specific example of the Kangxi Emperor’s study of Western mathematics and astronomy and his readiness to learn from his Jesuit tutors. Although the emperor himself was apparently more interested in Western science and technology than in its ethics and religion, both Leibniz and the Jesuit missionaries believed that Christianity could be transmitted through science and philosophy. All truth, they believed, reveals the wonder and order of the universe and thus leads to God. In any case, by teaching mathematics and the sciences the Jesuits gained influence within the imperial court, and in 1692 the Kangxi Emperor issued an Edict of Toleration that allowed the Chinese to practice Christianity. His edict was widely acclaimed throughout Europe where religious tolerance was far from being the prevailing custom of the times.

Although the Chinese were open to cultural exchange with the West, Leibniz was troubled by the fact that the exchange was too one sided, for Europeans were not equally willing to learn from the Chinese. Leibniz feared that China would eventually absorb all the knowledge the West had to offer and then close its doors. He recognized that experiential knowledge is much more difficult to acquire than theoretical knowledge. Theoretical knowledge can be grasped more easily because it is more public and based on reason while experiential knowledge is based on habit and is passed on by custom and tradition. Thus, the acquisition of experiential knowledge requires the tutelage of skillful practitioners. Given the inherent difficulty of acquiring practical knowledge, Leibniz thought it essential for the Chinese to send its own missionaries to teach Europeans, as he put it, “the natural religion, on which revelation itself is founded, and without which revelation would always be taken poorly.”24 If Europe did not open itself to learning from the Chinese, the exchange would not be reciprocal; European civilization would receive little benefit, and the Chinese would eventually surpass the West in both theory and practice.

As an illustration of Leibniz’s view of the relationship between theoretical and practical

knowledge, consider the ancient Chinese medical practice of acupuncture. Acupuncture is a healing technique developed through a long process of trial and error over several thousand years. The Chinese have learned by experience that acupuncture works but cannot give an adequate theoretical explanation of how it works. Thus, skill in using its therapeutic techniques cannot be acquired by theoretical demonstration but only by application and practice under the close supervision of an experienced teacher. But Western medical science, in the absence of adequate experiential knowledge of Chinese medicine, dismissed acupuncture as a pseudoscience merely because its practitioners could not provide a theoretical account of its principles. Leibniz saw an analogous error in European attitudes toward Chinese ethics and politics. Europe prized theory over practice but failed in its application of theoretical principles due to inexperience and improper habituation. But Leibniz maintained that in practical life what is of primary importance is not the knowledge of universals but the perception of particulars, and the ability to perceive particulars can be gained only by experience. Hence, if A is a particular, knowing the universal principle that all A is B will be of no use if you cannot recognize A when you see it.

Leibniz maintained that although Europe surpasses China in the theoretical sciences and revealed theology, its corrupt practices and failure to incorporate its moral theory in everyday habits and customs had left it with a deficient understanding of its own principles. In a letter to the Electress Sophie (written September 10, 1697) he claimed that “the essential truths of religion” have been “disfigured in a frightful manner by the sectarian spirit of condemners, even so far as to pervert the idea of God, . . .” He adds further that “for the sake religion they destroy the more fundamental religion, which is to honor and love God.”25 In speaking of “the more fundamental religion” Leibniz refers to the truths of natural theology which can be known through the power of natural reason alone.26

Leibniz held the truths of natural theology to be “more fundamental” in the sense that they provide a common standard for adjudicating the validly of the claims of revealed religion. Thus, he believed that the principles of natural theology would provide the key to resolving the sectarian conflicts between the various religions. Nevertheless, Leibniz did not conclude that revealed theology could be simply discarded and replaced by natural theology. On the contrary, he held that revealed truth perfects our understanding of

natural theology as well as the foundational principles of natural law. Also, insofar as human corruption has obscured the natural light of reason, revealed religion can lead men back to moral practice and restore their understanding of the nature of God and the soul. On the other hand, revealed theology is not absolutely essential for moral practice; natural theology alone is sufficient for attaining an adequate, though imperfect, understanding of natural law.

Leibniz’s enthusiasm for Confucian ethics was rooted in his idea of natural law as a manifestation of universal justice accessible to the natural reason of all humanity. He rejected the Pietistic doctrine that natural law derived solely from God’s will because it reduced to God an irrational tyrant who could, if he wished, condemn an innocent person.27 Justice, Leibniz maintained, is a necessary attribute of the divine essence, and God’s will is governed by reason and justice. For similar reasons, Leibniz opposed Hobbes’s absolutist theory of the state and his derivation of positive law from the command of the sovereign. Hobbes defined justice as the external observance of the terms of a social contract or the laying down of one’s natural rights on the condition that others did so as well. But Leibniz’s definition of justice as “charity or a habit of

loving conformed to wisdom” requires the unity of moral virtue and natural law. At the same time, it imposes duties on the sovereign that go well beyond Hobbes’s minimal requirement of keeping the peace by enforcing obedience to positive law. In his comments on Pufendorf, Leibniz wrote, “He who has control of the education or instructions of others is obligated, by natural law, to form minds with eminent precepts, and to take care that the practice of virtue, almost like second nature, guides the will toward the good.”28 In the legendary sage-kings of China, and particularly in the reigning Kangxi Emperor, Leibniz found the ideal embodiment of the virtuous ruler—an enlightened emperor who was obliged by the mandate of heaven to cultivate the moral character of the people and contribute to the well-being of the entire kingdom. In his Preface to the Novissima Sinica, Leibniz wrote that despite his divine status, the Chinese emperor 

is educated according to custom in wisdom and virtue and rules his subjects with an extraordinary respect for the laws and with a reverence for the advice of wise men. Nor is it easy to find anything worthier of note than the fact that this greatest of kings, who possesses such complete authority in his own day, anxiously fears posterity and is in greater dread of the

judgment of history, than other kings are of the representatives of estates and parliaments.29 

The Kangxi Emperor represented, for Leibniz, the polar opposite of the despotic French monarch, Louis XIV, whom he sarcastically described as “the most Christian war God.” The monarchy of Louis XIV epitomized a Hobbesian Empire in which the absolute sovereignty of the King went unchecked by any internal or external constraints. The French Crown, Leibniz declared, “by its greediness, has caused a horrible letting of Christian blood for nearly thirty years, by constantly attacking others; and almost all the evils that Europe has suffered during that time ought to be imputed to her.”3 Furthermore, by his insolent disregard for the nobility and his exaltation of flatterers, the King had corrupted French manners and morals and spread the “venom of the French spirit” throughout Europe. Describing the decay of French society, Leibniz wrote,

Everyone allows himself no repose, and leaves none to others; the grave and the serious pass for ridiculous, and measure or reason for pedantic; caprice, for something gallant, and inconstancy in one’s interactions with other people, for cleverness. . . . Youth above all glories in

its folly and in its disorders, which go quite far today, as if this were a sign of wit; it respects neither sex, nor age, nor merit.31 

The contrast between Europe and China could hardly be portrayed more vividly. The French monarchy, though nominally a constitutional government, was ruled by an insolent tyrant who violated every principle of universal justice and posed a great danger to the peace and security of Europe. The Chinese Empire, on the other hand, stood as an exemplary model of just society under the guidance of a wise and benevolent ruler. Though the Chinese lacked the more advanced theoretical sciences and the revealed theology of the Europeans, they had accumulated a rich store of practical wisdom which was conspicuously absent in the West. But while Europe had developed the theoretical sciences but didn’t know how to apply them, China had accumulated experiential knowledge but didn’t grasp its larger theoretical implications. In this opposition of East and West Leibniz found what recent scholars have called a pre-established harmony of cultures.32 Herein lay the basis of Leibniz’s plan for a program of cultural exchange. Each culture had its complementary strengthens and weaknesses; thus, through mutual cooperation and exchange each could help the other to overcome its weaknesses and

become whole. 

The End of the Enlightenment and the Rise of European Imperialism

One might question some of the underlying assumptions of Leibniz’s plan for cultural exchange. For example, Leibniz seems to assume that European theory and Chinese practice are related as form is to matter. But would the matter of Chinese practice conform to European theory? The reports of the Jesuits in China provided some evidence of compatibility, but many problems remained. For instance, China’s practice of polygamy and its treatment of women were quite obviously incompatible with Christian teachings. Leibniz and the Jesuit missionaries believed that the dissemination of Christianity would eventually lead the Chinese to abandon such undesirable practices. Unfortunately, Leibniz’s plan was never given a chance to succeed, for shortly before his death, cultural exchange with China began to suffer a series of setbacks. In 1715 Pope Clement XI issued the Papal Bull Ex illa die which officially condemned the practice of Chinese rites among Christian converts. Chinese Christians were henceforth prohibited from referring to God as Tian (Heaven) or Shangdi (Lord of Heaven) since God was the creator of both heaven and earth as well as the

entire universe. The Papal Bull further stipulated:

The tablet that bears the Chinese words "Reverence for Heaven" should not be allowed to hang inside a Catholic church and should be immediately taken down if already there. The spring and autumn worship of Confucius, together with the worship of ancestors, is not allowed among Catholic converts. It is not allowed even though the converts appear in the ritual as bystanders, because to be a bystander in this ritual is as pagan as to participate in it actively.33 

Upon reading the Pope’s prohibition, the Kangxi Emperor issued a decree in 1721 banning further missionary activity in China. In response to the Papal Bull, he stated:

Reading this proclamation, I have concluded that the Westerners are petty indeed. It is impossible to reason with them because they do not understand the larger issues as we understand them in China. There is not a single Westerner versed in Chinese works, and their remarks are often incredible and ridiculous. To judge from this proclamation, their religion is no different from other small, bigoted sects of

Buddhism or Taoism. I have never seen a document which contains so much nonsense. From now on, Westerners should not be allowed to preach in China, to avoid further trouble.34 

At about the same time, in Europe, the religious controversy over Confucianism became more heated, and during the late 18th

and early 19th centuries Leibniz’s positive assessment of Confucianism was completely reversed. China came to be viewed not as a land governed by a wise and virtuous emperor but rather as a country ruled by an oriental despot. Confucius was similarly perceived as the sanction for a despotic system that secured harmony at the expense of freedom. China was ruled by the spirit of slavery and had nothing to contribute to Western ethics and political science. This negative opinion of China became the dominant consensus of the West and contributed to the decline of the cosmopolitan ideals of the enlightenment while it strengthened the rising tide of Eurocentric hubris and imperialistic ambition which resulted in irreparable harm to civilizations all over the world. I will conclude with a brief summary of some of the intellectual sources of those unfortunate developments. 

Christian Wolff on Confucianism

Christian Wolff, who is generally regarded as a disciple of Leibniz, was the most important European philosopher during the first half of the 18th century. Wolff also sought to promote the teaching of Confucianism in the West, and like Leibniz he maintained the Confucian ethics was founded on principles of natural reason, but he differed sharply from Leibniz in one very important respect. Wolff held that the Chinese had no natural theology at all because they lacked a conception of God. Thus, he maintained that Confucian morality was based solely and exclusively on natural reason. In The Practical Philosophy of the Chinese, Wolff praised the moral purity of Confucius and argued that by his example he had proved that it was possible to achieve moral excellence by the power of human reason alone. He supported this view by distinguishing three degrees of moral excellence. The first and least perfect type of morality was based solely on precepts of natural reason; the second was morality based on precepts of natural theology; and the third and highest type of morality was based on revealed or supernatural truth. Wolff explained these distinctions as follows:

Those who regulate their actions according to events have no other guide than reason, and their virtues, purely human, are due only to the strength of nature. Those whose

actions are determined by the light of divine perfections and of Providence, seen only by the light of reason, derive their virtues from natural religion. And finally, those who act in conformity to revealed truths for which there is no natural evidence have, as principles of their virtues, the strength coming from grace.35 

Although Confucian morality was thus assigned to the lowest level of moral excellence, the important point was that the moral life was possible not only for those who lacked faith but even for agnostics (and possibly atheists) as well.

I claim that since the ancient Chinese did not know the Creator of the world, they therefore had no natural religion . . . Yet I do not say that the ancient Chinese (including Confucius) were atheists. An atheist, you see, is someone who denies that there is a God. But one cannot deny God if one does not understand clearly what God is. I do not doubt that the ancient Chinese and even Confucius admitted that there was some kind of Creator. But I am certain that they did not know his attributes. They had a confused notion of the Godhead, but no clear idea of it.36 

By assigning Confucianism to the lowest level of moral excellence, Wolff intended to promote its acceptance in the West, but while his interpretation appealed to certain French intellectuals, it aroused the fury of Pietists and thus intensified the conflict between secular and religious factions in Europe. Wolff was a professor at the University of Halle, a bastion of Pietism in Prussia, and his publication of The Practical Philosophy of the Chinese in 1721 resulted in one of the most celebrated academic dramas of the century. The faculty of theology at the University was enraged, and when King Frederick William I was informed of Wolff’s views, he was so furious that he not only dismissed Wolff from his teaching position but commanded him to leave Prussia within 48 hours or be hanged. Wolff left Prussia immediately and was offered a position at the University of Marburg where he went on to become one of the most popular teachers in Europe. Though Wolff’s interpretation of Confucianism as a Godless natural morality was endorsed by skeptics such as Pierre Bayle, the net effect of his teaching did little to advance Leibniz’s hope of achieving global harmony through cultural exchange.  

China as an Oriental Despotism: Montesquieu, Kant, and Hegel37

Montesquieu was the first to oppose the enlightenment view of China, and in the Spirit of the Laws (1748) he laid down the principles that would completely reverse the prevailing opinion. His claim that the spirit of China was the spirit of slavery was based on a rejection of the enlightenment theory of natural law which entailed the unity of moral virtue and the order of nature. Montesquieu redefined natural law as the physical laws of climate and geography that determine the temperament and character of a county’s inhabitants thus separating reason and virtue from the natural order of things. By virtue of their reason, Montesquieu maintained, human beings are not completely determined by the physical laws of nature but are free to create their own laws and social institutions. Positive law should thus be adapted to the natural temperament of particular people rather than deduced from the idea of universal human nature, and so far as possible, laws should be instituted to protect and sustain human freedom. Montesquieu thus drew the distinction between monarchy and despotism not on the basis of whether the king is virtuous or corrupt but on the basis of whether he governed according to “fixed and established laws” or “by his own will and caprice.”38

Montesquieu maintained that the geography

and climate of China explain why it is predisposed to despotism. Unlike Europe, the geography of China provides no buffer zone between the warlike people of the north and the timorous people of the south; and given their close proximity “one must, therefore, conquer, and the other be conquered.”39 More importantly, in the absence a constitution or legally mandated separation of powers, the emperor’s divine status allowed him to rule according to his own caprice. To secure absolute power, the emperors of China instituted laws designed to make the people submissive, industrious, and peaceful. According to Confucius the empire was to be considered a large family and the emperor its father. Laws thus were confounded with customs, manners, and religion, and no distinction was drawn between human law and the order of nature; hence, no conception of human freedom could be formed. Montesquieu thus maintained that the Jesuit missionaries were deceived by appearance of social order and tranquility. “China is therefore a despotic state,” he concluded, “whose principle is fear.”4 In principle, there was no significant difference between China and the despotic regimes of Persian princes. The Chinese Empire was an oriental seraglio writ large and its people slaves to the tyranny of manners.

Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason reinforced Montesquieu’s view of oriental despotism and dealt the death blow to the enlightenment ideal of the unity of reason and nature, the last philosophical bastion of European sinophilia. For Kant, as for Montesquieu, moral freedom required the separation of reason and nature and the ability to reflect critically on the customs and mores of one’s society. Unlike Leibniz and Wolff, Kant found the unity of man and nature in Chinese thought the source of its moral backwardness. Since Confucianism lacked a conception of the principles of practical reason, Kant concluded that the tradition had no genuine conception of morality at all. “Philosophy is not to be found in the whole Orient,” he wrote. “Their teacher Confucius teaches in his writings nothing outside a moral doctrine designed for princes…. But a concept of virtue and morality never entered the heads of the Chinese … In order to arrive at an idea … of the good [certain] studies would be required, of which [the Chinese] know nothing.”41

Similarly, in his Philosophy of History, Hegel placed China at the beginning of world history at the stage in which spirit has not yet attained freedom through reflective self-consciousness. Following Montesquieu and Kant, Hegel viewed natural law as a principle of external force.

Chinese moral laws, he states, “are just like natural laws, external, compulsive commands, claims established by force, compulsory duties or rules of courtesy toward each other. Freedom, through which alone the essential determinations of reason become moral sentiments, is wanting.”42 This lack of freedom in China was due to what Hegel called the unity of ‘substantiality’ and ‘subjective freedom’ or in plainer terms, the unity of nature and spirit. The failure of the Chinese spirit to differentiate itself from nature meant that its spirit was embedded in nature and thus could not freely determine itself. Thus, Hegel maintained that China not only had no history but had remained stagnant for thousands of years, like nature, producing only a fixed and endless cycle of processes and events. In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion Hegel further argued that in the religions of China there is “no morality in the strict sense, no immanent rationality by means of which man would have worth and dignity within himself. . . . The individual is wholly without power of personal decision and without subjective freedom.”43 In Hegel’s account, the march of historical progress leaves the Chinese spirit behind, wrapped in the bondage of oriental despotism; while the dynamic world-spirit of Europe moves on to attain absolute freedom in bring to

completion the culmination of the world historical process.

Henceforth, Leibniz’s admiration for China would be dismissed as sentimental and naïve; the foundations of his cosmopolitan worldview were thus effectively demolished. But the Western spirit’s liberation from nature and natural law opened up hitherto undreamed of possibilities for progress.  

       

References:

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Hippocrates G. Apostle. Grinell: The Peripatetic Press, 1984. 

Cassier, Ernst. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1951. 

Ching, Julia and Willard G. Oxtoby. Moral Enlightenment: Leibniz and Wolff on China, Nettetal, Steyler Verlag, 1992. 

Confucius. The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, translated by Roger Ames and Henry Rosemont, Jr. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998. 

Cook, Daniel and Henry Rosemont, Jr., “The Pre-established Harmony Between Leibniz and Chinese Thought.” Journal of the History of Ideas, 42, 1981, pp. 253-67. 

Davis, Walter W. “China, the Confucian Ideal, and the European Age of Enlightenment.” Journal of the History of Ideas, 44, 1983, pp. 523-548. 

Grotius, Hugo. The Law of War and Peace, translated by Francis Kelsey. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1962. 

Hegel, G. W. F. Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 1. Translated by E. B. Speirs and J. Burdon Sanderson. New York: The Humanities Press, 1974. 

____. The Philosophy of History. Translated by J. Sibree. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1978. 

Hobson, John M. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilization, Cambridge University Press, 2004. 

Lach, Donald. Preface to Leibniz’ Novissima Sinica: Commentary, Translation, Text. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1957. 

Legge, James, trans. The Li Ki, or Collection of Treatises on the Rules of Propriety or Ceremonial Usages. http://www.sacred-texts.com/cfu/liki/liki00.htm.  

Leibniz, G. W. Discourse on Metaphysics, in Basic Writings, trans. George Montgomery. LaSalle, Open Court Publishing, 1962. 

____. Discourse on The Natural Theology of the Chinese, in Ching and Oxtoby, 1992. 

____. An Explanation of Binary Arithmetic, in Moral Enlightenment, in Ching and Oxtoby, 1992. 

____. New Essays on Human Understanding, translated by Peter Remnant and Jonathon Bennet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. 

____. Political Writings, 2nd Ed., translated and edited by Patrick Riley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. 

____. Writings on China. Translated by Daniel Cook and Henry Rosemont, Jr. Open Court Publishing Company, 1994. 

Montesquieu, Charles de. The Spirit of the Laws. Translated by Thomas Nugent.

Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1978. 

Perkins, Franklin. Leibniz and China: A Commerce of Light. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 

____. “Virtue, Reason, and Cultural Exchange: Leibniz’s Praise of Chinese Morality,” Journal of the History of Ideas. Vol. 63, No. 3, 2002, pp. 448-464. 

Randall, John Herman. The Career of Philosophy, Vol. 2. New York: Columbia University Press, 1965. 

Roetz, Heiner. Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. 

Wolff, Christian. The Practical Philosophy of the Chinese, in Ching and Oxtoby, 1992.

1 Quoted in Hobson, p.194

2 The Law of War and Peace, Prol. sect. 28.

3 Ernst Cassier, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, pp. 42-45.

4 See J. H. Randall, The Career of Philosophy, Vol. 2, pp. 30-32.

5 See Leibniz’s lecture “On the Greeks as Founders of Rational Theology,” in Political Writings.

6 See Julia Ching, Moral Enlightenment: Leibniz and Wolff on China, pp. 14-15.

7 See Leibniz’s Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese, in Writings on China, pp. 75-97.

8 Preface to Leibniz’ Novissima Sinica: Commentary, Translation, Text, by Donald Lach, pp. 68-70.

9 Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, in Basic Writings, p. 15.

1 Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese, section 6.

11 G. W. Leibniz, An Explanation of Binary Arithmetic, in Moral Enlightenment: Leibniz and Wolff on China, p. 84.

12 Quoted in Ching and Oxtoby, p. 17.

13. See Ching and Oxtoby, p. 84n.

14 G. W. Leibniz, Discourse on The Natural Theology of the Chinese, in Ching and Oxtoby, p. 138.

15 G. W. Leibniz, An Explanation of Binary Arithmetic, in Ching and Oxtoby, p. 85.

16 G. W. Leibniz, Discourse on The Natural Theology of the Chinese, in Ching and Oxtoby, p. 138.

17 See James Legge, trans., The Li Ki, Ch. 1.

18 Analects, Bk. VIII, 8.

19 Analects, Bk. II, 7.

2 Analects, Bk. VIII, 2.

21 Doctrine of the Mean, XXV, 3.

22 Preface to the Novissima Sinica in Writings on China, pp. 47-48.

23 For a more extensive discussion of the topic see Perkins, Leibniz and Confucius, pp. 119-121.

24 Quoted in Perkins, “Virtue, Reason, and Cultural Exchange: Leibniz’s Praise of Chinese Morality,” p. 461.

25 Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, I, 14, 72.

26 For further explanation of this point see Perkins, “Virtue, Reason, and Cultural Exchange: Leibniz’s Praise of Chinese Morality,” p. 460.

27 Leibniz, Opinion on the Principles of Pufendorf, in Political Writings, p.72.

28 Ibid., p. 69.

29 Leibniz, Preface to the Novissima Sinica, p. 48.

3 Leibniz, Manifesto for the Defense of the Rights of Charles III (1703), in Political Writings, p. 158.

31 Ibid, p. 157.

32 See Cook and Rosemont, “The Pre-established Harmony Between Leibniz and Chinese Thought.” Journal of the History of Ideas 42, pp. 253-67.

33 China in Transition, 1517-1911, Dan. J. Li, trans. (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1969), pp. 22.

34 Ibid, p. 24.

35 Christian Wolff, The Practical Philosophy of the Chinese, section 15, in Ching and Oxtoby, p. 161.

36 Ibid, section 16, note, p. 163.

37 For an illuminating and more extensive discussion of this topic see Heiner Roetz, Confucian Ethics in the Axial Age, 1993.

38 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, p. 4.

39 Ibid, p. 123.

4 Ibid, p. 58.

41 Quoted in Ching and Oxtoby, p. 223

42 G. E. F. Hegel, Philosophy of History, p. 186.

43 Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of

Religion, Vol. 1, pp. 348-9.