Leibniz and Confucianism The Search for Accord Leibniz and Confucianism The Search for Accord DAVID E. MUNGELLO The University Press of Hawaii Honolulu Open Access edition funded by the National En- dowment for the Humanities / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. Licensed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Inter- national (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits readers to freely download and share the work in print or electronic format for non- commercial purposes, so long as credit is given to the author. Derivative works and commercial uses require permission from the publisher. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/li- censes/by-nc-nd/4.0/. The Creative Commons license described above does not apply to any material that is separately copy- righted. Open Access ISBNs: 9780824883843 (PDF) 9780824883850 (EPUB) This version created: 5 September, 2019 Please visit www.hawaiiopen.org for more Open Access works from University of Hawai‘i Press. Copyright © 1977 by The University Press of Hawaii All rights reserved. To Christine a childhood traveler on the QE 1 Contents Preface xi 1. LEIBNIZ’ CONTACT WITH CHINA 1 The China Mission 5 The Rites Controversy 9 The Question of Influence 13 2. LEIBNIZ’ CHINA INTERPRETERS 18 Matteo Ricci, S. J. 18 Nichola Longobardi, S. J. 26 Antoine de Sainte-Marie, O. F. M. 29 Claudio Filippo Grimaldi, S. J. 32 Joachim Bouvet, S. J. 36 3. LEIBNIZ AND BOUVET 39 The Relationship 39 The Letters 46 Bouvet, Leibniz, and the Book of Changes 62 Leibniz’ Last Words on the Book of Changes 65 4. THE DISCOURSE ON CHINESE PHILOSOPHY: PART I 69 The Work and Its Stimulus 69 The Chinese Sources 72 Li, the First Principle 75 x CONTENTS Li and the Monads 79 The One and the Many 84 The Primal Pair: Li and Ch’i 86 Space and the Great Void 90 5. THE DISCOURSE ON CHINESE PHILOSOPHY: PART II 99 Spiritual Substances 99 Spirits and Sacrifice 103 Confucius’ View of Spirits 106 The Chinese Concept of Soul 109 Metaphysics versus Spiritual Cultivation 111 Correspondences between Western and Chinese Philosophy 116 6. THE FAILURE OF LEIBNIZ’ PHILOSOPHY 118 Failure in Both China and Europe 118 The Tension in Leibniz’ Philosophy 120 Leibniz’ Spiritual Understanding 125 Sin as Intellectual Deprivation 129 Discursive versus Spiritual Languages 130 Leibniz’ Option for a God of Knowledge 131 7. SPIRITUAL AND MORAL CULTIVATION AS A BASIS FOR ACCORD 135 The Jesuit Approach in China 135 Common Ground between Christianity and Confucianism 137 Religion as Spiritual Cultivation 140 Spiritual Cultivation in Confucianism 142 Conclusion: Accord for the Present 144 Appendix: A Contemporary Western Interpretation of the Book of Changes 147 Notes 149 Glossary of Chinese Terms 173 Bibliography 179 Index 187 Preface Symbols can have a power over our thoughts, especially if we ex- perience them in person. I saw such a symbol on arriving in Hong Kong in the fall of 1973. There, in the harbor, was the wreck of the former luxury liner, the Queen Elizabeth 1. Half-submerged and lying on its side was a pride of twentieth-century Western technology, a carrier of fulfilled class dreams belonging to classes who viewed the struggling China of the 1950s with suspicion and misunderstanding. The Queen had flourished and fallen as a technological victim to the society that created her. After being shunted from owner to owner, she was eventually bought by a Chinese shipping magnate and brought to Hong Kong, there to be outfitted as a floating uni- versity. Just a few days before her rechristening in January 1972, fire struck and left a burned and sunken hull. A court of inquiry cited labor unrest and sabotage, though one still hears dark ru- mors about insurance money. Left for two years to rust, the Queen became an object of fascination to visitors. She was a castoff of Western technology, yet many Westerners wondered how the Chin- ese could have so mishandled this prize. Viewed as a symbol, that ravaged hulk was the fruit of years of mutual misunderstanding between the West and China. Eventually scrapping operations began, and, by the summer of 1974, the hull was barely discernible on the horizon. After the xii PREFACE hull disappears, I believe the metaphor will linger. It will linger on the general level because of the continued misunderstandings between China and the West. It will linger on the personal level be- cause of the depth of the struggle within individual minds over the Peoples Republic of China and the revolutionary, mystifying, and sometimes xenophoic things that are happening there. Good and moral things, by the most religious of definitions, have happened, and yet I sometimes find myself resisting accepting them as such. Is this the result of prejudice and resistance to change? Could there be any validity to this resistance? I believe it is something of both. In the following study of Leibniz and Confucianism, I have at- tempted to investigate the particular form of misunderstanding and failure between China and the West that destroyed G. W. Leibniz’ hopes of establishing an accord. Leibniz was deeply committed to an ecumenism that included not only the reunion of Catholic and Protestant Christendom but an ecumenism with which the religious and intellectual beliefs and practices of non-Westerners, such as the Chinese, could be reconciled. This is an investigation into how that commitment was pursued and some of the reasons why it failed. The failure of Leibniz’ search for accord is behind us. Will it remain the exclusive concern of historians, can it be used to fos- ter harmony among different religious and ideological beliefs of the modern world? I believe it can. Consequently, my approach has been both historical and contemporary. I hope that this study will be read from the point of view of this dual spirit. And I hope that it will contribute not only to our thoughts but also to our search for an accord no less important to our day than it was to the age of Leibniz. In my opinion, the section of the book that attempts to explain the reasons for Leibniz’ ecumenical failure is the weakest portion of the work. A less competent man should always be aware of his inadequacies when criticizing one of greater ability. The fact re- mains, however, that Leibniz failed in his attempt, and I believe that the reasons for his failure extend beyond philosophic exper- tise. Leibniz did not limit himself to his areas of expertise, and I believe that this refusal of limitation is a sign of his intellectual in- tegrity. I chose to pursue the reasons for Leibniz’ failure because these seemed to be the logical conclusion of this study. If this book PREFACE xiii opens up a road to further consideration of Leibniz’ work, then perhaps it will honor him in a way that transcends my more obvi- ous criticism. I would advise the reader against taking my judgments as ut- terly final. At times the geographical, chronological, and metaphys- ical distances that separated the material with which I was dealing were so great that I often felt only one step from falling into a chasm of confusion. No doubt scholarly progress will enable those who follow me to place that chasm further behind them, and this book must ultimately be judged by them as well as by the present readers. I only hope that this book sustains the trust and confi- dence in me that so many have shown in the path of its creation. To them, I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude. This book began as a doctoral dissertation at the University of California at Berkeley, and I am indebted to the committee members: Professors Tu Wei-ming (chairman), Benson Mates, and Frederic Wakeman, Jr. Professor Walter H. O’Briant read a draft of the dissertation. Dr. Joseph Smith and the Division of Overseas Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) assisted in my stay in Hong Kong and, indirectly, helped make possible the research visit to Rome and Hanover. Members of the Society of Je- sus and, in particular, Fr. Edmond Lamalle, archivist, and Fr. Josef Fejér, assistant archivist, of the Roman archives of the Society of Jesus, facilitated research in Rome. Dr. Albert Heinekamp, Frau Sigrid Pilawa, and the staff of the Niedersächsische Landesbiblio- thek were both efficient and cordial in assisting my research at the Leibniz archives in Hanover and in subsequent correspondence. The Orientalia Division of the Library of Congress promptly re- sponded to my queries. Expressions of indebtedness for specific forms of assistance are noted at appropriate points in the text. It was my good fortune to have had the stimulation of other Leibniz projects during the final stages of composing this work. Professors Henry Rosemont, Jr., and Daniel J. Cook shared their work in translating Leibniz’ Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese, and Thatcher Deane shared the current results of the Leibniz-Bouvet correspondence project. I am deeply indebted to Henry Rosemont, who gave a great deal of assistance in the final revisions of the manuscript. I have xiv PREFACE no doubt that without his assistance this work would be less than it is. Alfred Jensen’s paintings and conversation on the Book of Changes befuddled me valuably, and I am indebted to my friend Carol Karasik for introducing me to them. My teacher, Professor Carl H. Pfuntner, gave support and “philosophy” throughout the several years’ process. My friend Jay C. Bishop, Jr., contributed several painstaking drawings. For sustaining me in the trying mo- ments, I thank my family and, in particular, my wife, to whom this book is dedicated.