china triggered the renaissance

China and the Age of Enlightenment As time wore on, various Chinese inventions such as printing, gunpowder, and the mariner's compass gradually found their way to Europe, also via the Arabs , who for centuries were the leading travelers and traders between East and West. Prior to the seventeenth century, however, the purely intellectual influence of China remained slight, perhaps because it was on ly then that Europeans themselves began to travel to the Far East in significant numbers. The new era of Chinese-European contacts started in the year 1601, when the famous Italian Jesuit, Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), arrived in the Chinese capital, Pe king, and established there a Catholic mission. For the next two centuries the Jesuits, as well as members of ot her Catholic orders, remained in close touch with the Court of Peking. By 1700 they were said to ha ve converted approximately two hundred fifty thousand Chinese to Christianity. Because these Europeans were highly educated men, they gained the respect of the Chinese, who have always placed a premium on scholarship. Many, indeed , were given important positions in the Chinese government. The Board of Astronomy , for example, was placed under their charge and remained a Christian stronghold until 1838. Fascinated by the ancient and impressive civilization in which they found themselves, these Europeans wrote home detailed accounts of what they saw. Their letters provided material for a long series of books on China, written usually in French or Latin and published in Paris, the European center of Jesuit activities. Among them were such works as Confucius, the Philosopher of the Chinese (1687); the Description of China (1735), in four volumes; the long series of Edifying and Curious Letters , in 34 volumes (1702-76); the General History of China , in 13 volumes (1777-85); and the lengthy Memoirs on the History, Sciences, Arts, etc., of the Chinese , in 16 volumes (1776-1814). These writings gave Europeans a far more detailed and accurate picture of China than they had ever had before. They generated a tremendous enthusiasm for China and things Chinese — an enthusiasm that reached its peak in the early years of the second half of the eighteenth century. Materially, this enthusiasm powerfully influenced such fields as painting, architecture, landscape gardening, furniture, and the newly developed manufactures of porcelain and lacquerware — the well-known and charming chinoiseries of the eighteenth century. It also left a strong imprint on literature and on the thin king of some of the most famous intellectual figures of the period. The timing of this impact from China was of particular importance. It reached Europe during a period of tremendous political and intellectual ferment. The Renaissance had br ought to Europeans a renewed consciousness of their great classical heritage from the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome. This consciousness widened men's horizons. It helped to fr ee them from the mental limitations that had been imposed during the Middle Ages by the dogmas of th e church. Some began to question a spiritual authority that still taught that the sun and the rest of the universe revolve around the earth, well after Copernicus and Galileo had proved the reverse to be true. They were beginning to raise objections to the theory of the "divine right of kings" that permitted monarchs to rule as they pleased, without regard for the welfare of their people; to express doubts regarding the justice of a social system that allowed feudal aristocrats to lead lives of luxury while their peasant serfs starved; and to urge that men of education be given an increasing voice in public affairs. Such ideas, gaining strength in the seventeenth century, led in the eighteenth to what was known as the Age of Enlightenment. Leaders of this movement, such as the Frenchman, Voltaire (1694- 1778), believed that any human problem could be solved if men would only consent to live with one another on a basis of reason and common sense. Ideas of this sort culminated politically in the French Revolution of 1789. Socially, they gave a new dignity and freedom to the individual. Intellectually, they created a new, scientific method of thinking, based upon objective experimentation and observation, in place of the old, blind acceptance of unverified tradition. Thus were made possible the tremendous material advances that were to come later with the Industrial Revolution. To men infected with these new ideas, China provided a powerful stimulus. For in China they saw a great civilization that had evolved quite independently of, and earlier than, their own. Although not a Christian nation, it had nevertheless developed in Confucianism a high system of morals of its own. And, unlike Europe, it had done so without permitting a priesthood to become so powerful as to challenge the state's authority. The emperor of China, furthermore, though seemingly an absolute ruler, was in actual fact limited by the teachings of Confucianism, which declared that "the people are the most important element in the state; the sovereign is the least." Particularly was China admired as a land where government did not rest in the hands of a feudal aristocracy, as in Eu rope. Instead, it was managed by the mandarins — a group of highly educated scholars — who gained their official positions only after proving their worth by passing a series of state-administered examinations. We know today that this highly favorable picture of China was somewhat over-painted. Yet there is little doubt th at the China of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was, both politically and economically, in many ways ahead of Europe. The story of how European thinkers of this period reacted to Chinese thought is a fascinating one that can only briefly be told here. The most striking example in the seventeenth century was the German philosopher, Leibniz (1646-1716), one of the most internationally minded men wh o ever lived. He read extensively on China, corresponded with Jesuits who had lived there, and wrote on Confucian philosophy. In a letter written in 1697, he announced: "I shall have to post a notice on my door: Bureau of Information for Chinese Knowledge." Leibniz found in the mystic symbols contained in an ancient Chinese classic support for his own mathematical theories. There are striking parallels, too, between hi s philosophy and certain Confucian ideas. Above all, however, he had the dream of creating a new civilization that would be truly universal. This could be done, he believed, by consciously selecting and bringing together the best elements in Chinese and Western culture. This dream he expressed in a little book of 1697, Novissima Sinica or Latest News from China , in which he wrote: "I almost think it necessary that Chinese missionaries should be sent to us to teach the aims and practice of natural theology , as we send missionaries to them to instruct them in revealed religion." Leibniz's dream still remains, alas, only a dream! By many of his contemporaries, however, such theories were regarded as dangerous and revolutionary. A disciple of Leibniz, Christian Wolff (1679-1754), suffered persecution because of his admiration for China. In a lecture delivered at the University of Halle in 1721, he praised the Chinese system for successfully harmonizing individual happiness with the welfare of the state. He maintained that Confucianism was fully adequate as a way of life; that there was no real conflict between it and Christianity. For these bold words he was immediately accused of atheism, and, after a bitter attack, was force d to give up his position in the university. But the most famous leader of the Enlightenment to fall under the Chinese spell was Voltaire (1694-1778), to whom Confucius was the greatest of all sages. A portrait of Confucius adorned the wall of his library. He regarded China as the one country in the world where the ruler is at the same time a philosopher (Plato's "philosopher-king"). He praised it because it ha d no priesthood owning 20 percent of the land, and contrasted the religious tolerance of the Chinese, who had never tried to send missionaries to Europe, with the European habit of always forcing their own religious ideas upon other people. "One need not be obsessed with the merits of the Chinese," he wrote in 1764, "to recognize . . . that their empire is in truth the best that the world has ever seen."