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The First Philosophic Contacts Between Europe and China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Paul Demiéville
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Until now the history of the first contacts between China and Europe in modern times has been studied principally from a Politica! Point of view or from an economic and commercial one, as well as from its religious aspects. The cultural aspects and more particularly the philosophical consequences of these contacts have hardly been touched upon except by Chinese scholars with little knowledge of European sources, or inversely by European historians who have not made sufficient use of Chinese sources. For about fifteen years I have devoted two or three of my courses at the Collège de France to studying the Chinese thinkers of the Ch'ing period, and this has led me to touch upon certain questions which the introduction of European ideas in China by Jesuit missionaries at this time poses. Occupied with other research in recent years, I have not followed at close hand the many studies which have been devoted to these questions by Chinese and Japanese scholars, notably by Professors Fang Ho of Taipei, Saeki Yoshiro of Hiroshima, and Goto Sueo of Tokyo, and I am not familiar with the recent Marxist interpretations, those of Hiu Wai-lu, of Kwan Fong, or the recent ideas of Fong Yiu-lan or the other collaborators of the Pekinese magazine “Philosophic Studies” (Tcho-hiu yen-kiou). I must apologize for using documentation which is not up-to-date or not according to the fashions of the day and which at any rate is very incomplete, for I am not a specialist in this subject. I would especially like to address myself to the Chinese reactions to the first Sino-European contacts rather than the European reactions, which—in Europe at least— are better known and which still more so are outside my field of competence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 15 , Issue 58 , June 1967 , pp. 75 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © 1967 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 Lecture given at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Tokyo on February 3, 1966, and at that of the University of Kyoto on February 22, 1966

2 Cf. Annuaire du Collège de France, 1950 and 1951.

3 Ajia-shi kenkyû ("Studies in the History of Asia"), Kyoto, 1959, II, pp. 336-387.

4 In his cosmological diagram of the Way of Heaven (t'ien-tao), Yen Yuan indicated that in the center it should have the Sovereign on high (Chang-ti), the supreme God of antiquity, but that He could not be depicted. Fong Yiu-lan (History of Chinese Philosophy, 1934 edition, pp. 978-979; trans. Bodde, II, 1953, pp. 636- 638) remarked that this personage is entirely superfluous in Yen Yuan's system. Do we have here some echo of the Jesuit theories on Chang-ti?

5 Authors as diverse as Father L. Wieger (Histoire des croyances religieuses et des opinions philosophiques en Chine, 1917, p. 681), A. Forke (Geschichte der neueren chinesischen Philosophie, 1938, p. 464), and Fong Yiu-lan (Hsin yuan-tao, 1945, pp. 112-113; trans. Hughes, The Spirit of Chinese Philosophy, 1947, p. 203) are in agreement in declaring that philosophy reached a low water-mark in this period. On the contrary, Liang J'i-ch'ao (Ch'ing-tai hui-chou chai-luan, 1921) and Hiu Wai-lu (Chin-tai Chong-kuo ssu-hsiang hui-chou che, 1947, preface) put it at the philosophic level of the Golden Age of the warring kingdoms.

6 J. Michelet, Histoire de France (ed. Le Vasseur), 1869, IX, p. 396. All citations from Tai Chen are taken from the Mong-tse tsu-yi chou-chen. On the relationship between the thought of Tai Chen and that of Yen Yuan, cf. Hou Che, "The Phi losophy of Tai Chen" (Tai Tong-yuan ti cho-hui, Shanghai, 1927, pp. 22-24). The Mong-tse tsu-yi chou-chen has been translated into Japanese by Yasuda Jiro (Shina gaku, 1948, X, pp. 747-780).

7 Cited by one of the disciples of Tai Chen, Hsiao Hsiun (1763-1820), like him a philologist and philosopher. Cf. Liang J'i-ch'ao, "Biography of Chen" (Tai Tong-yuan hsien-cheng chuan) in Yin-ping che wen-tsi, 1925, LXV, p. 11. What Tai Chen meant by this word has been discussed by Hsiao Hsiun, ibid., and also by Wang Wen-Kang (1733-1818) in a "Discussion of the li, against Tai Chen" (Li-chou po Tai Chen tso, in Fu ch'ou chai wen-tse, VII). Wang Wen-kang also differenti ated between the yi-li and the critical study of texts (k'ao-ching), that is to say, philology. Compare these words spoken shortly before his death by Saint Thomas Aquinas: "I have finished writing; God has revealed to me such splendors that everything I have written and taught seems to me to be nothing" (cited by J. Festugière, La révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste, Paris, 1958, IV, p. 90).

8 "Postscript to an Essay on Chou I and Lu Kiou-yuan" (Chou chou Lu p'ien hiu) in Chang che i'chou (ed. Wu-hing), 1922, II, p. 20 b.

9 "Autobiography at thirty years of age" (San-che tse-Siu), cited by Hsiang Wei k'iao in his "History of Chinese Philosophy in the last three Centuries" (Chung-kuo chin san-pai nien cho-hui che), Shanghai, 1932, pp. 154-155.

10 "Les trois derniers siècles de l'Empire Chinois d'après les biographes des personnages célèbres," Bulletin de l'Université L'Aurore, Shanghai, III, vii, 2, p. 325.

11 "Christian Humanism during the Late Ming Dynasty," T'ien Hsia Monthly, Shanghai, 1938, VIII, 3, p. 260 seq. See also, "Whence the Philosophic Move ment at the Close of the Ming," Bulletin of the Catholic University of Peking, 1931, VIII, pp. 67-73.

12 Le Père Ricci et la société chinoise de son temps, Tientsin, 1938, II, p. 301: "The promulgators of the literary Renaissance in modern China are connected, via the most original scholars of the Manchu dynasty and by those at the end of the Ming, with the group of literary figures strongly influenced by Father Ricci."

13 Chung-kuo cho-hui che, 1934, p. 1011; trans. Bodde, A History of Chinese Philosophy, 1953, II, pp. 673-674. The Marxist revision of this final part of Fong Yiu-lan's work has not yet appeared.

14 Ts'ing-tai hui-chu kai-luan, p. 168.

15 Hu Wai-lu, "Historical Studies" (Li-che yen-kiao), 1959, X, p. 55 seq.; "Gen eral History of Chinese Thought" (Chung-kuo ssu-hsiang t'ong che), 1960, IV B, p. 1189 seq.

16 The Chinese confusion of Europeans and Indians indeed precedes Ricci. The term "men of the Western ocean" (Si-yang jen), applied to the Portuguese, is in itself witness to this, for the "Western ocean" (Si-yang) expressly meant the seas that washed the shores of Southern India. The term "Franks", which was also applied, was also ambiguous, for the transcription Fu-lang could be taken to mean "People of Buddha." Beginning with the arrival of the Portuguese mission of Tho mé Pires at Canton, the Chinese took the Portuguese for Buddhists, received them in a Buddhist establishment, and treated as "Buddhist books" the Christian books that they read in prison. Ricci himself, in the projected letter in Chinese that he wrote for Pope Sixtus the Fifth, destined for the Ming emperor, presented Rome as the capital of India, T'ien chou. The Pope is designated there as the "great Bonze" (ta-seng) or as the "chief of the bonzes" (tu-seng). Cf. H. Bernard-Maitre, "Fo-lang-kis de Malacca," in Aux portes de la Chine, Tientsin, 1933; P. Pelliot, T'oung Pao, 1947, XXXVIII, pp. 113 and 205; M. d'Elia, Fonti Ricciane, Rome, 1942, I, p. 181, no. 5; reproduction of the letter in Saeki Yoshiro, "Inves tigations into Christianity in China" (Shina Kirisutokyo no kenkyu), Tokyo, 1944, III, p. 150.

17 N. Trigault, Histoire de l'expédition chrétienne au royaume de la Chine, French translation by D. F. de Riquebourg-Trigault, Lyon, 1616, pp. 419-420. This passage does not seem to be in the original Italian of Ricci, and so must be by Trigault.

18 Preface to a work on hydraulics by Father S. de Ursis (T'ai-si chui-fa, Peking, 1612).

19 M. Ricci, Storia dell'introduzione del cristianesimo in Cina (1608-1610), ed. d'Elia, Fonti Ricciane, Rome, 1949, II, p. 296. It is this which present-day mis sionaries call the process of "accommodation" of Ricci (J. Bettray, Die Akkom modationsmethode des P. Matteo Ricci S.I. in China, Rome, 1955).

20 Ibid, I, 1942, pp. 115-116. See also Ricci's letter (in Latin, 1604) on the Taikieo (t'ai-ki) in Fonti Ricciane, II, p. 297, note: "This doctrine of the Taikieo is new, being known only for five hundred years. And in certain respects, if one examines it closely, it is opposed to the ancient Chinese sages who had a direct sense of God…"

21 In the collection Tien-hui i-tu, Peking, 1609.

22 Or De Deo verax disputatio, etc. Published at Nanking, 1603; at Kuang tonh, towards 1605 (for exportation to Japan); at Hang-chou, 1607, etc.; French translation in the 18th century, with the title "Entretiens d'un Lettré chinois et d'un Docteur européen sur la vraie idée de Dieu," in Lettres édifiants et curieuses écrites des Missions étrangères (edition of Lyon, 1819, v. XIV, pp. 66-248); Japa nese paraphrase in Saeki Yoshiro, Shina Kirisutokyo no kenyu, III, pp. 217-320.

23 Ssu-k'u ts'uan-chu tsung-mu, CXXV, 33.

24 Cf. J.J.L. Duyvendak, T'oung Pao, 1950, XXXIX, p. 194; P.A. Cohen, Chi na and Christianity, Cambridge, Mass., 1963, p. 30.

25 Academia Sinica, Bulletin of the Institute of History and Sinology, VI, 2.

26 Rather than Longobardi (cf. Fonti Ricciane, I, p. 385, no. 5).

27 It is curious to find the same debate going on today among Chinese Marxists about the "materialist" or "idealist" nature of the li.

28 Longobardo's treatise, annotated by Leibnitz, is included in his works, along with the "Lettre à M. de Rémond" (ed. Kortholt, Leipzig, 1735, v. II; ed. Dutens, Geneva, 1763, v. IV, 1).

29 Cf. J. Baruzi, Leibniz et l'organisation religieuse de la terre, Paris, 1907.

30 Cf. Pang Ching-jen, L'idée de Dieu chez Malebranche et l'idée de Li chez Tchou Hi, Paris, 1942.

31 L.A. Maverick, "A possible Source of Spinoza's Doctrine," Revue de litté rature comparée, 1939, pp. 417-428.

32 3 fascicules, Paris, 1957-1959. See also by the same author, "Les concepts de li et de k'i dans la pensée européenne au XVIIIe siècle" (Mélanges A. Koyré, Paris, 1965), and Les Jésuites en Chine: la Querelle des Rites, Paris, 1966.

33 Ssu-yu Teng, "Chinese Influence on the Western Examination System," Har vard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 1943, VII.

34 See most recently M. d'Elia, "Recent Discoveries and New Studies (1938- 1960) on the World Map in Chinese of Father Matteo Ricci," Monumenta Serica, 1961, XX. We presently know of three copies of the oldest preserved edition of this world map (1602), one at the Vatican Library, and two in Japan, of which one is at Sendai (Municipal Library of Miyagi) and the other at the Library of the University of Kyoto. The latter was bought in 1903, four years after the foundation of this library by a certain Hagihara Zembei for the price of 20 yen! It is reproduced in the large collection of plates of Father d'Elia, Il Mappamondo cinese del P. Matteo Ricci, Vatican City, 1938.

35 Cf. M. d'Elia, Galileo in Cina, Rome, 1947, and the summary by J. J. L. Duyvendak, T'oung Pao, 1948, XXXVIII, pp. 321-329; J. Needham, Science and Civilization in China, 1959, III, pp. 444-447.

36 "How China acquired her Civilization," in Symposium on Chinese Culture, Shanghai, 1931.

37 Cf. J. Needham, Science and Civilization in China, II and IV (index).

38 Tuan Yu-ts'ai (1735-1815), who had known Tai Chen very well, wrote a biography of him arranged by years (nien-p'u), which is attached to his edition of the works of Tai Chen (Tai Tung-yuan tse). In this biography (ed. Kuo-hui ki-pen ts'ung-chu, p. 105), he began with the books of astronomy and mathematics which Tai Chen had revised (kiao) for the Ch'ien-lung collection, the Ssu-k'u ts'uan-chu. At the end of the biography Tuan Yu-ts'ai gave a number of quotations from Tai Chen (notably on the Chou-pei suan-ching, a mathematical classic) which are to be found, more or less modified but recognizable, both in the anonymous entries in the Ch'ien-lung bibliography (Ssu-k'u ts'uan-chu ts'ung-mu) and in the editions of texts in the collection Wu-ying tien tse-chen-p'an ts'ong-chou; the latter are by Tai Chen. The attribution to Tai Chen of the Ch'ien-lung bibliographical entry on Father Diaz's "Compendium of Astronomy" is all the more probable in that Tai Chen had himself written a "Sequel to the Compendium of Astronomy" (Siu T'ien-wen liu), of which only the preface, to be found in his collected works (Tai Tung-yuan tse, V, pp. 87-88), has remained.

39 Entitled Shichikei Moschi kobun. It is reproduced in the collection Ts'ung-chu tse-ch'eng, Shanghai, 1935, fasc. 115-124, from an edition published by the son of Chuan Yuan in 1842.

40 Ssu-k'u ts'uan-chu ts'ung-mu, XXXIII.

41 Cf. Kano Naoki, "Collection of Sinological Articles" (Shinagaku bunso, Kyoto, 1927), pp. 178-209; R. A. Miller, "Some Japanese Influences on Chinese Classical Scholarship of the Ch'ing Period," Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1952, LXXII, pp. 56-57; K. Yoshikawa, Japan Quarterly, 1961, VII, 2, pp. 164-165, and the introduction to his Japanese translation of the Luan-yu, Tokyo, 1965, pp. vii-x. It is true that what particularly seems to have interested Chinese scholars, more perhaps than the critical method, were the ancient variants of the texts of the Confucianist classics which had been preserved in Japan. A Japanese friend has reminded me how fitting it is to take into account Japan, where the Buddhists played such an important part in cultural history—Buddhists like the master of Dhyâna, Muchaku Dochu (1653-1745), who is later than Ito Jinsai (1627-1705), his co-citizen of Kyoto, but a contemporary of Ogiu Sorai (1666-1728); his works on the Chinese texts of the school of Dhyâna (Zen) show an extraordinary sureness of method and of critical acuity. Similarly, we know that initially in Europe textual criticism was practiced most rigorously by monks such as the Benedictines or the Bollandists. On this aspect of the work of Muchaku Dochu, see recently the study by Yanagida Seizan in "Studies in Zen Buddhism" (Zengaku kenkyu), Kyoto, February 1966, no. 55, pp. 14-36, where, nonetheless, no direct contact is shown between the Buddhist master and those of the Con fucianist school.

42 Except for scientific aspects of the Jesuit message which had an impact, before and up to Marxism, China knew little more of our thought than its more or less modern aspects (philosophy of the Enlightenment, evolution, pragmatism), which contributed to giving it a biased and incomplete idea of our philosophy. Cf. Aspects de la Chine, Paris, 1959, II, pp. 308-316.

43 Cf. P. Demiéville, "La pénétration du bouddhisme dans la tradition philoso phique chinoise," Cahiers d'histoire mondiale, Neuchâtel, Unesco, 1956, III, 1. In a lecture given in 1924, Liang J'i-ch'ao remarked that the introduction of the sciences into China by the Jesuits drew the attention of the scholars almost in the same way that the introduction of Buddhism had once done (Chinese Social and Political Science Review, 1924, VIII, 3, p. 38).

44 Lin Li-kuang, L'Aide-mémoire de la Vraie Loi (Saddharma-smrtyupatshâna sûtra, Paris, 1949), Introduction, p. xiii.