Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-20T23:32:14.393Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Impact of Confucianism on Seventeenth Century Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Arnold H. Rowbotham
Arnold H. Rowbotham
Affiliation:
University of California
Get access

Extract

It was from the Jesuits that the intelligentsia of Europe learned of the philosophy of Confucius. Many years before their sinophile propaganda had begun to affect the thinking of European scholars the members of the Society of Jesus had determined their attitude towards Chinese thought. It was, in fact, the simplification, to suit their own needs, of an ancient, complex and effective system of religion, ethics, and social philosophy. Faced with the coalescence of religious and moral teachings represented by the son chiao or three cults (of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism) the Jesuit missionaries found it expedient to oppose the social philosophy of Confucianism to the esoteric teachings of Buddhism and the mystico-magical thought of Taoism—creating a purely imaginary dualism in which the two latter were labelled heathen cults and the former was exalted to the position of a noble philosophic system, rivalling, if not surpassing, that of Greece and Rome.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , May 1945 , pp. 224 - 242
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1945

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Nicolas Trigault, S.J.De Christiana expeditione susccpta ab societate Jesu. … Amsterdam, 1615, chap. V.Google Scholar

2 Alvarez Semedo, S.J.Imperio de la Chirm y Cultura Evangelica en el por les Religiosos de la Compania de Jésus. … Madrid, 1641. Eng. ed. London, 1755, chap, xviii.Google Scholar

3 Cited by Bernard, Henri. Sagesse chinoise et philosophic chrétietnne, Essai sur Uurs relations historiquts. Tientsin, 1935, p. 131.Google Scholar

4 Régis, Pere in the Journal des Savants, 5 Jan. 1868.Google Scholar

5 La Morale de Confucius, Philosophe de la Chine. Amsterdam, 1687, avertissement.

6 Lettre sur la Morale de Confucius, Philosophe de la Chine. Paris, 1688, reprinted in 1844 (Paris, Legrand).

7 Bibliothèque rationale, fonds français, MS. 2331.

8 Les Qeuvres de Platon traduites … Paris, 1699, tome I. Intro. “Discours sur Platon.”

9 Extraits de Divers pièces envoyées pour étrermes par Mr. Bernier à Madame de la Sablière: “Introduction à la lecture de Confucius.” Journal des Savants, 7 June, 1688, p. 17 et seq.

10 B.N. MS 2331, f. 9.

11 Journal des Savants, op. cit., p. 19.

12 De la Vertu des Paycns. Paris, François Targa, 1642, seconde partie: “De Confutius, le Socrate de la Chine.”

13 Op. cit., p. 284.

14 Ibid., p. 280.

15 Louis Le Comte, S.J.Nouveaux mémoires sur l'état présent de la Chine. Paris, 1696.Google Scholar

16 J. B. S.J., Duhalde, Description géographique, historique, chronologiquc, politique et physique de la Chine etde la Tartarie chinoise. Paris, 1735, 4 vol.Google Scholar

17 The sinophilism of Leibniz has been described in several works, notably: Merkel, F. R., G. W. van Leibnitz and die China-Mission. Leipzig, 1920Google Scholar and Baruzi, Jean, Leibnitz et l'organisation religieuse de la terre. Paris, 1907.Google Scholar

18 Merkel, op. cit., p. 191 et passim.

19 Ibid., p. 59.

20 Leibnitii Opera omnia nunc primum collecta studio Ludovici Dutens. Geneva, 1678, tome IV. “Lettre de M. G. G. de Leibniz sur la Philosophie Chinoise à M. Rémond” (pp. 169–210).

21 Waley, A., “Leibniz and Fu Hsi,” Bull, of (London) School of Oriental Studies, II (1921), pp. 165–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Anatomy of melancholy (ed. Philadelphia, 1847), p. 602.

23 History of His own times. Oxford, 1923. II. 61.

24 Upon the ancient and modem learning. Spingarn ed. Oxford, 1909, p. 13.

25 “Essay on heroic virtue,” The works of Sir Wm. Temple. London, 1814, vol. III, p. 342.

26 Christianity as old as creation or the Gospel, a Republication of the Religion of Nature. (2nd ed.), London, 1731, p. 314.

27 Ibid., p. 372.

28 Hughes, E. R., The Great Learning and the Mean-in-Action. London, 1942, pp. 22–31.Google Scholar