Monday, May 8, 2023

Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Leibniz’s Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese explores his attempt to understand and reconstruct the Chinese metaphysical ideas. He acknowledges the Chinese lack the Western art of demonstration but praises their superior civility. Leibniz examines the concept of Li, the supreme unity, finding contradictions in its attributes and suggesting it as a spiritual substance. He questions the relationships between Li, Taikie, and Xangti, highlighting the complexities within Chinese interpretations. Leibniz suspects the missionaries' reported beliefs might have mixed diverse sources and imposed external interpretations, distorting the texts. He concludes that his method of analyzing structural analogies and relations aligns with the Chinese way of thinking.

In the book’s fourth section, Leibniz admires the Chinese binary arithmetic found in the Yijing. Leibniz understood Chinese ideas better than the missionaries, despite not having direct access to their texts. Leibniz’s method of reconstructing coherent doctrines by emphasizing relations and context proved effective. He critiqued and rectified the missionaries’ interpretations, considering their beliefs on the immortal soul as potentially distorted. Overall, Leibniz’s work sheds light on Chinese metaphysics and the complexities of their religious concepts.

FIRST SECTION. The Chinese View on God

I. The views of ancient Chinese are much preferable to those of the modern Chinese. II. Thoughts of the Chinese on spiritual substances. III. We must interpret the dogmas of the ancient Chinese in a good sense. IV. On the first principle of the Chinese, which they call Li. V. The attributes of this first principle. VI. On the unity of this principle. VII. In what sense the Chinese refer to God as the great Void or Space, the immense capacity. VIII. Other names given by the Chinese to the first principle. IX. Father Longobardi judges that this Li is nothing other than prime matter. X. Mr. Leibniz refutes this opinion. XI. The divine properties attributed by the Chinese, according to the account of Father Sainte-Marie, to their first principle. XII. Why the Chinese Li is not prime matter? First reason. XIII. Another reason. XIV. The Chinese view on Spirit. XV. The first reason given by Father Longobardi why the Chinese Li is only prime matter. XVI. The second reason. XVII. The third reason from the same. XVIII. All expressions used by the Chinese regarding their Li have a good sense. XIX. The fourth objection of Father Longobardi. XX. The fifth objection. XXI. In what sense the Chinese say that things are one. XXII. On the Chinese term “one is all.” XXIII. How one can conceive the Chinese Li as the first form, that is, as the soul of the world.

I. I have taken pleasure in perusing the books you have sent me on the views of the Chinese. I am inclined to believe that their authors, especially the ancients, have a reasonable interpretation, and we should not hesitate to give it to them despite the views of some modern thinkers. This is similar to Christians who are not always obliged to follow the interpretations given by the Scholastics, commentators, or other later scholars to the Holy Scriptures, the ancient Church Fathers, and the ancient laws. Moreover, in China, the monarch, who is the leader of the Wise and the embodiment of the Law, seems to authorize reasonable explanations of the doctrine of the ancients. Thus, the main argument relied upon by Father Nicolas Longobardi, successor of Father Matteo Ricci, the founder of the mission in China, to combat the accommodating explanations of his predecessor, claiming that the mandarins ridicule them, which caused a significant controversy at his time, no longer holds today due to the authority of this prince and many knowledgeable people at his court. We must take advantage of such great authority. It is the true means to correct gradually, without pretending, those who have deviated from the truth, even from their own antiquity. This shows that one should not be discouraged by difficulties at first, and Father Martinius and those who share his opinion have wisely followed the advice of Father Ricci and other great men, maintaining these explanations despite the opposition of Fathers Emmanuel Diaz, Nicolas Longobardi, Jesuits, and Father Antoine de Sainte-Marie, a Franciscan, and despite the contempt of several mandarins. It is sufficient that these explanations of the Ancients are quite defensible, as the opinion of the modern Chinese appears to be uncertain. However, upon closer examination, these explanations are found to be the most well-founded in the texts. I am only referring to the doctrine here and not examining the ceremonies or worship, which require further discussion.

II. One might initially doubt whether the Chinese recognize or have recognized spiritual substances. However, after careful consideration, I believe they do, although perhaps not as separate entities entirely distinct from matter. There would be no harm in this regarding created spirits, as I myself lean towards the belief that angels have bodies, which was also the opinion of several ancient Church Fathers. I also believe that the rational soul is never entirely devoid of a body. But concerning God, it is possible that the belief of some Chinese was to also ascribe a body to Him, to consider God as the soul of the world, and to associate Him with matter, as the ancient philosophers of Greece and Asia did. However, by demonstrating that the oldest Chinese authors attribute to the “Li” or first principle the very production of “Ki” or matter, there is no need to criticize them; it is sufficient to provide an explanation. It will be easier to persuade their disciples that God is the “Intelligentia supramundana,” transcendent intelligence above matter. Thus, in order to determine whether the Chinese recognize spiritual substances, one must especially consider their “Li” or rule, which is the primary actor and the reason for other things, and which I believe corresponds to our Divinity. Now, it is impossible to understand this as something purely passive, inert, and indifferent to everything, and therefore without a rule, like matter. For example, the rule does not come from the wax itself but from the one who shapes it. Likewise, the spirits they attribute to the elements, rivers, and mountains are either the power of God that manifests itself in them, or perhaps, according to the belief of some, particular spiritual substances endowed with the ability to act and some knowledge, even though they attribute to them subtle and airy bodies, as the ancient philosophers and the Fathers did with regard to geniuses or angels. That is why the Chinese resemble those Christians who believed that certain angels govern the elements and other great bodies, which may be an apparent error but does not undermine Christianity. In the realm of the scholastics, those who believed, following Aristotle, that certain intelligences governed the celestial spheres were not condemned. And those among the Chinese who believe that their ancestors and great men are among these Spirits are quite close to the expression of Our Lord, who suggests that the blessed should be like the angels of God. Therefore, it is important to consider that those who ascribe bodies to geniuses or angels do not thereby deny the existence of created spiritual substances, for they attribute rational souls to these spirits endowed with bodies, just as humans have souls, but more perfect souls, as their bodies are also more perfect. Thus, Father Longobardi and Father Sabbatini, cited by the former, should not conclude that the Chinese do not recognize spiritual substances based on the fact that it appears they attribute bodies to their Spirits.

III. As China is a vast empire, not inferior to cultivated Europe in terms of size and surpassing it in population and good governance, and as there exists in China an admirable external morality in certain respects, coupled with a philosophical doctrine or natural theology venerable for its antiquity, established and authorized for about three thousand years, long before the philosophy of the Greeks, which is nevertheless the earliest of all the works known to the rest of the world, excluding our sacred books, it would be great imprudence and presumption on our part, newcomers who have barely emerged from barbarism, to condemn such an ancient doctrine simply because it does not seem to align with our ordinary scholastic notions. Furthermore, there is no likelihood that this doctrine can be destroyed without a great upheaval. Therefore, it is reasonable to see if we can give it a good interpretation. I wish we had more extensive records and numerous excerpts on this matter; it would even be desirable to have them all translated together. But since this has not yet been done, we can only make provisional judgments. Father Longobardi, a Jesuit and director of the missions in China after Father Ricci, who was the first to enter China and spent a great number of years there until his death at nearly ninety years old, has presented in a printed but incomplete work several passages from classical Chinese authors. However, his intention was to refute them, which makes him less suspect of favoring them. I believe that what I extract from his work to give a reasonable meaning to the authorized dogmas of China will be more reliable and less subject to suspicion of flattery. In addition, I will occasionally include what Father Antoine de Sainte-Marie, aligned with the opinion of Father Longobardi, has added.

IV. The first principle of the Chinese is called “Li” (Longobardi, section 2, § 1), which means “Reason” or the foundation of all nature (section 5, § 1), universal reason and substance (section 11, § 2). There is nothing greater or better than “Li” (section 11, concl. 3). This great and universal cause is pure, tranquil, subtle, without body or form, and can only be known through the understanding (section 5, § 1). From “Li” as “Li” emanate five virtues: Piety, Justice, Religion, Prudence, and Faith (section 11, § 2). Father Sainte-Marie, who also spent some time in China and wrote against the Chinese doctrines, states in his treatise on important points of the mission that their “Li” is the law that governs things and an intelligence that guides them (p. 62). It is the universal Law and Rule according to which Heaven and Earth were formed (p. 65), the origin, source, and principle of all that has been produced (p. 72). He notes that the Japanese told the missionaries that all things proceed from the power and virtue of “Li” as their principle, and that the world does not need any other God, as reported by Father Luzena, a Jesuit, cited by Father Sainte-Marie in his “History of the Entry of Father Francis Xavier into Japan,” Book 8, Chapter 2 (p. 68). Thus, according to the Chinese, “Li” is the sole cause that has kept the heavens in motion for countless centuries with a constant movement. It gives stability to the Earth and imparts to species the power to reproduce their own kind. This power is not in the disposition of things and does not depend on them; it resides in this “Li.” It prevails over everything, exists in everything, governs and produces everything as the absolute ruler of heaven and earth (p. 73). Father Sainte-Marie adds: “This is the Chinese text in their philosophy ‘Kingli’ (I believe it should be read as ‘Singli’), Book 26, p. 8.”

V. In his fourteenth section, Father Longobardi collects the attributes that the Chinese attribute to this first principle. They call it (by excellence) the “Being,” the Substance, the Entity. According to them, this Substance is infinite, eternal, uncreated, incorruptible, without beginning or end. It is not only the “physical principle” of the heavens, the earth, and other material things, but also the moral principle of virtues, habits, and other spiritual things. It is invisible and perfect in its being to the highest degree, encompassing all kinds of perfections.

VI. They also call it the “Summary Unity” (he says) or supreme unity because, just as unity is the principle in numbers and has no divisions, in the substances, in the essences of the Universe, there is one that is supremely one, not capable of division in terms of its entity, and is the principle of all essences that exist or can exist in the world. But it is also the “Aggregate” or “most perfect multitude” because within the entity of this principle, all the essences of things are contained, like in their germ. We say the same when we teach that the ideas, the primitive reasons, the prototypes of all essences are in God. By combining supreme unity with the most perfect multitude, we say that God is “one in all, one containing all, all comprehended in one, formally one, and all eminently.”

VII. The same Father Longobardi observes in the same section that the Chinese say that “Li” is the “great Void” or Space, the immense capacity because all particular essences are contained within this universal essence. But they also call it the “supreme fullness” because it fills everything and leaves nothing vacant; it extends within and outside the universe. These matters, he says, are thoroughly discussed in the “Chung-iung” (one of the books of Confucius) from chapter 20 to 25. This is how we explain the immensity of God; He is everywhere, and everything is in Him. And it is similar to how Father Lessius said that God is the place of things, and how Mr. Guericke, the inventor of the vacuum machine, believed that space belongs to God. To give a good sense to this, one must conceive of space not as a substance that has parts outside of parts but as the order of things insofar as they are considered to exist together, originating from the immensity of God, as all things depend on it in each moment. And this order of things among themselves arises from their relation to their common Principle.

VIII. The Chinese also refer to their “Li” as the Globe or Round. I believe this corresponds to our way of speaking when we say that God is a sphere or a circle, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. They call it the “Nature” of things; I believe it is similar to our saying that God is the “natura naturans” and that Nature is wise, that it does everything for a purpose, and that it does nothing in vain. The Chinese also attribute to it Truth and Goodness, just as we attribute them to Being in our metaphysics. But apparently, in Chinese thought, since “Li” is the Being par excellence, it also possesses Truth and Goodness par excellence. Father Longobardi adds that the author (I believe he refers to Confucius, the author of the “Chung-iung”) supports his statement with eighteen passages from other ancient authors. In conclusion, Father Longobardi notes that the Chinese attribute to “Li” all kinds of perfections, so that there can be nothing more perfect. It is the supreme mean, the supreme rectitude, the supreme purity. It is supremely spiritual, supremely imperceptible, ultimately perfect to the point that nothing can be added to it. That says it all.

IX. After considering this, would one not say that the “Li” of the Chinese is the supreme substance that we worship under the name of God? However, Father Longobardi opposes this (section 14, § 18 and following). Let us see if these reasons are sufficient: “I imagine,” he says, “that someone may believe that ‘Li’ is our God because qualities and perfections are attributed to it that only belong to God. Be careful not to be dazzled by these specious titles under which there is hidden poison. For if you penetrate to the core and to the root, you will see that this ‘Li’ is nothing other than our prime matter, which is proven by the fact that while on one hand, they attribute great perfections to it, on the other hand, they attribute great defects to it, just as our philosophers attribute to prime matter.” I am quoting Father Longobardi’s own words, and I will examine them carefully. It seems that he falls from a great height.

X. I will first respond in general to this remark of the father that if the Chinese speak in a manner that appears so contradictory, it should not be asserted that the “Li” of the Chinese is prime matter rather than saying that it is God. Instead, we should remain suspended in judgment and see which of the two positions is more apparent, and if there might even be a third one. We should also examine whether they attribute more attributes of God to “Li” than attributes of prime matter, and if the first of the two doctrines has a stronger connection to the rest of their doctrine. I fear that the good Father Longobardi, already biased against Chinese doctrine, may have been dazzled himself by the speeches of certain atheistic Mandarins who mocked those who sought to draw consequences from the doctrine of their ancestors to establish Divinity, Providence, and the rest of natural religion. We should not trust the interpretations of these individuals, which are clearly forced, any more than we would trust a European atheist who would try to prove, with misappropriated passages from Solomon and other sacred authors, that there is no reward or punishment after this life. And if, unfortunately, atheism were to prevail in Europe and become the common doctrine of the most learned scholars, as there was a time when Averroism almost prevailed among the philosophers of Italy, then the missionaries sent to Europe by the wise men of China, studying our ancient books, would be right to oppose the tide of opinions held by these scholars and to mock their mockery.

XI. However, Father Sainte-Marie (pp. 84-85), while recounting the great and beautiful things that the Chinese say about “Li,” “Tai-kie,” “Xangti,” which can only apply to God, and then stripping it of all knowledge, believes that they contradict themselves. But if that were the case, why not focus on what they say that is good, refuting and rejecting what they say that is bad and contradictory to the good? According to them, “Li” or “Tai-kie” is the supreme One, the very pure good without any mixture, a very simple and very good Being, the principle that formed Heaven and Earth, the supreme truth and solidity in itself, but not enclosed within itself, and in order to communicate, created all things: a foundation of piety, virtue, and charity. The creation of all things is its own knowledge; all perfections are of its essence and nature. This principle encompasses both outwardly and inwardly all the ways and laws of reason by which it arranges everything according to the times, never ceasing to act or produce. This assumes that “Li,” “Tai-kie,” or “Xangti” is an intelligent nature that foresees all, does all, and can do all. The Chinese cannot, without contradicting themselves, attribute such great things to a nature they would believe to be inept, lifeless, without feeling, without intelligence, and without wisdom. The father responds that pagan philosophers have also advanced things that imply contradiction. But I believe that when the contradictions are explicit, in terminis terminantibus, they can be attributed to different sects but not to the same one, and in the case of the same sect, we must seek conciliation in the most consistent manner.

XII. Going into detail, I do not see how it is possible for the Chinese to derive the origin of action, rule, and forms from prime matter as our philosophers teach in their schools, which is purely passive, without rule or form. I do not believe they are foolish and absurd enough for that. This scholastic prime matter has no perfection beyond existence other than the receptivity of passive power. It has nothing but the capacity to receive all kinds of figures, movements, and forms. But it cannot be the source of them, and it is clear as daylight that active power and the perception that regulates this active power to operate in a determined manner do not fit it. Therefore, I believe it is very inappropriate to equate the Chinese “Li,” which is Reason or Rule, with prime matter.

XIII. There was a certain David of Dinanto during the time of the Scholastics who argued that God was the prime matter of things. Something similar could be said of Spinoza, who seems to argue that creatures are only modifications of God. However, prime matter, in the sense of these authors, is not purely passive, as it contains the active principle. It is possible that some Chinese may have similar ideas, but we should not lightly accuse all their schools of this. Sometimes we also say here that the soul is a portion of God, “divinæ particula auræ.” But these expressions require a mitigating interpretation. God has no parts, and when we say that the soul is an emanation of God, we should not imagine that the soul is a detached portion that must return to God like a drop of water in the ocean, for that would make God divisible. Rather, it is that the soul is an immediate production of God. Some philosophers, like Jules Scaliger, have argued that forms are not an extraction from matter but an extraction from the efficient cause, and this was applauded and supported by translators of souls. However, we cannot say that the soul emanates from the substance of God in a way that attributes parts to God; therefore, it can only be produced from nothing. So if any Chinese philosopher were to say that things are emanations of “Li,” we should not immediately attribute to them the idea that “Li” is the material cause of things.

XIV. That is how I believe we could interpret the passage from the book entitled “Chu-zu,” Book 28 of Philosophy, page 13, which Father Longobardi quotes (section 12, § 8). This author wisely states that spirits are not the air itself but the force of the air. And if Confucius told one of his disciples that spirits were nothing more than air, he meant animated air and adapted his words to the limited capacity of that disciple to conceive spiritual substances. Similarly, among the Greeks and Latins, “πνεῦμα Spiritus” signifies air, that is, a subtle and penetrating matter in which created immaterial substances are indeed clothed. The same author, Book 28, page 13, adds a little later that “spirits are called Li.” From this, I judge that the word must be ambiguous and sometimes taken, in an exceptional sense, to refer to the supreme Spirit and other times to mean any spirit, for perhaps etymologically it signifies reason or rule. According to the translation provided by Father Longobardi, the Chinese author continues: “The spirits are all of the same kind as Li, so Li is the universal substance and entity of all things.” I imagine that he means that Li is, so to speak, the quintessence, vigor, strength, and principal entity of things, since he has expressly distinguished Li from air and the matter of air. It seems that Li here does not signify the first spiritual substance but generally the spiritual substance or entelechy, that is, that which is endowed with activity, perception, or rule of action like souls. And when the Chinese author adds that “the only difference between things is whether they are of more or less gross matter, more or less extended,” he apparently means that Li or spirits are not material but rather animate things through spirits, and those that are associated with less gross and more extended matter are more perfect. It is easy to believe that this Chinese author did not fully grasp the reason behind it and sought the source of the differences in spirits in the organs, as many of our philosophers also do for lack of knowledge of the pre-established harmony. But at least he does not say anything false. Thus, his intention is not to make Li or spirits (and even less so the absolute or principal Li) material. He is far from it, as he has just made a distinction between air and the spirits that animate it. Nor does he say that Li is the matter of things, but he seems to suggest that individual Li are emanations of the great Li, more or less perfect depending on the organs, and thus the differences are proportionate to the subtlety and extension of matter since their very Li is proportionate to it. In this, he says nothing that is untrue.

XV. However, Father Longobardi, having presented formal passages from classical Chinese authors that make Li the source of perfections, does not provide any that make it become the formless prime matter of the Scholastics. He attempts to prove it through reasoning, but it is difficult for this reasoning to be as clear as formal passages. Here are the reasons (section 14, § 19) that I find very weak: 1) he says that Li cannot subsist by itself and needs primordial air. I do not know if the Chinese explicitly state this; perhaps they will say that Li cannot act by itself when it naturally operates in things since it only produces things through the medium of prime matter, which they apparently understand as primordial air. Thus, this rather proves that Li is not prime matter.

XVI. The second argument is that Li, considered in itself according to the Chinese, is lifeless, without life, counsel, or intelligence. The father elsewhere cites things that confirm this. This universal cause, he says (section 5, § 1), according to Chinese scholars, has neither life, nor knowledge, nor any authority. They say the same about Heaven, where Li is most apparent. Father Longobardi (section 2, § 12) cites the Xu-King (a commonly read work among the Chinese), Book 1, page 33, where it is stated that Heaven, which is the most important thing in the world, neither sees nor hears, neither hates nor loves. He also cites Chinese Philosophy, Book 26, pages 16-17, where it is said that Heaven and Earth have no reason, no will, and no deliberation. And Father de Sainte-Marie (page 81), following Father Ricci, quotes Confucius in his Lung-ïu, chapter 15, where he explains Li as Tao (rule) and says that it is incapable of knowing man, but man is capable of knowing it. It would be necessary to have a very accurate translation of this passage to see if Confucius is speaking about the first principle or if he is not referring to the Law or rule in the abstract sense. Just as we also say that the Law does not know anyone, meaning that there is no partiality in it. Furthermore, I would respond that if the classical Chinese authors deny life, knowledge, and authority to Li or the first principle, they undoubtedly understand these things anthropomorphically, in a human manner, and as they exist in creatures. By life, they may mean the animation of organs; by knowledge, they may refer to experiential knowledge acquired through experience; and by authority, they may understand power as that of a prince or magistrate who governs their subjects through fear and hope. But by attributing to Li the greatest perfections, they ascribe something more sublime than all of that, surpassing the life, knowledge, and authority of creatures, which are mere shadows or feeble imitations. It is similar to how some mystics, including Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, denied that God was a Being, Ens, ὤν, but at the same time said that God was more than Being, super-Ens, ὑπερουσία. That is how I understand the Chinese saying, as mentioned by Father de Sainte-Marie (page 62), that Li is the Law that guides and the intelligence that leads things; although it is not intelligent itself, by its natural force, its operations are so well ordered and certain that one would say it is. It is more than intelligence, using the term in our way, where we must search and deliberate to do good, whereas the first principle is infallible by nature. As for Heaven and Earth, perhaps the author speaking of them truly believed that they lack knowledge, just as we also believe, even though they are governed by knowledge, reason, or rule.

XVII. The third argument is that Li operates only by chance and not by the will or deliberation of Li (section 5, § 2), that the primordial air naturally and randomly emerged, and (§ 3) that naturally and randomly agitated air produced heat, and (§ 6) that the production of the world, Heaven, and Earth occurred purely by chance, in a completely natural manner, like fire burning or a stone falling. And (section 14, § 12), Li is the natural rule of Heaven, and through its operation, all things are governed with weight and measure and in accordance with their nature, but without intelligence or reflection, only through natural inclination and order. And (section 17, § 5), the governance and order of things in this world naturally and necessarily arise from Li, following the interconnectedness of universal things and the disposition of particular subjects, what we call destiny. The same father says (section 17, § 11): “I asked a famous man who had a school with a large number of disciples and who understood perfectly the doctrines of the three sects (that is, the Scholars, the Bonzes or Idolaters, and the Tao-ists, whom Europeans call sorcerers); I asked him if the King above (Xangti, the Lord of Heaven) was living and intelligent, if he knew the good and evil deeds of men, and if he rewarded and punished them. The answer from this teacher is remarkable. He replied that the King above had none of that knowledge but acted as if he had it, in accordance with what is said in the Xu-King (Book 1, p. 35) that Heaven neither sees nor hears, neither loves nor hates, but carries out all its operations through the people whom Li binds.”

XVIII. All these expressions of the Chinese make sense. They say about Heaven what we say about animals, that they act according to intelligence and as if they had it, even though they do not possess it because they are directed by the supreme rule or reason, which the Chinese call Li. When they say that the primordial air or matter emerges from Li naturally and without will, it is possible that they believe God produced matter necessarily. However, it is also possible to give their words a better sense by interpreting them as referring to suitability, which led the supreme reason to what is most reasonable. And they may have called it necessary due to its determination and infallibility, just as many in Europe use this expression. They excluded voluntary action because they understood voluntary actions as acts of counsel and deliberation, where one is initially uncertain and then decides later, which has no place in God. Thus, I believe that without contradicting the ancient doctrine of the Chinese, one can say that Li, driven by the perfection of nature, chose the most suitable among several possibilities and, in doing so, brought forth Ki or matter but with such dispositions that everything else emerged through natural inclinations, much like how René Descartes claims the present world system arises from a sequence of a small number of initial suppositions. So, far from being blameworthy, the Chinese deserve praise for bringing forth things through their natural inclinations and a preestablished order. However, “chance” does not apply here and does not seem to be supported by the passages from the Chinese.

XIX. The fourth objection of Father Longobardi is merely a false assumption. He claims that Li is the subject of all generations and corruptions, acquiring and relinquishing various accidental qualities or forms. However, the passages he presents do not indicate that this is said about Li or the supreme Rule or Reason. Instead, it is more likely referring to the primordial air or matter, in which Li produces the primitive entelechies or substantial operative virtues that constitute the constitutive principle of spirits.

XX. The fifth objection by Father Longobardi is again a false or misguided assumption, namely that according to the Chinese, all things in the world are necessarily material and that there are no truly spiritual entities. He cites Books 26 and 34 of their Philosophy as evidence. It would have been good for him to provide specific passages. However, I believe (as I have already mentioned) that apart from Li, which produced matter, the Chinese do not recognize any separate immaterial substance. In this regard, I believe they are correct, and the order of things suggests that all individual spirits are always united with bodies, and even after death, the soul is never stripped of all organized form or shaped air.

XXI. Father Longobardi heavily relies on a Chinese axiom that states “all things are one.” He explicitly addresses this in the seventh section and returns to it frequently. Father de Sainte-Marie also mentions it (p. 72). He read a passage from the Philosophy Singli (Book 26, p. 8), which indicates that there is something beyond material qualities. It states that the guiding and productive virtue is not in the arrangement of things and does not depend on them, but it consists and resides in Li, which prevails, governs, and produces everything. Parmenides and Melissus spoke similarly, but the interpretation given by Aristotle appears to differ from that of Plato’s Parmenides. Spinoza reduces everything to a single substance, of which all things are only modifications. It is not easy to explain how the Chinese understand it, but I believe that nothing prevents us from giving it a reasonable interpretation. All things, in terms of their passive aspect, are made of the same primordial matter, which only differs due to the figures given to it by movements. Likewise, all things are active and possess their entelechies, souls, and spirits only through participation in the same Li, the same original Spirit, i.e., God, who bestows upon them all their perfections. Even matter itself is merely a production of this first cause. Thus, everything emanates from it as from a center. However, it does not follow at all that all things differ only by accidental qualities, as Epicureans and other materialists might assume, who only acknowledge matter, figure, and motion. That would truly negate immaterial substances or entelechies and spirits.

XXII. This saying that “all is one” must be reciprocal to the other saying that “one is all,” which we mentioned above when discussing the attributes of Li. It signifies that God is all eminently (eminenter), just as the perfections of effects exist in their cause, and not formally as if they were composed of it, or as if this “great one” were their matter. Rather, it is through emanation (emananter) because they are its immediate effects, so that it intimately pervades them and expresses itself in the perfections it communicates to them according to their receptivity. This is why we say “Jovis omnia plena,” that He fills everything, that He is in all things, and that likewise everything is in Him. He is simultaneously the center and the space because He is a circle whose center is everywhere, as we mentioned above. This sense of the axiom “all is one” is even more evident among the Chinese since they attribute perfect unity to Li, incapable of division according to Father Longobardi’s account mentioned earlier, which renders it incapable of having parts.

XXIII. One could perhaps argue that indeed, Li cannot be likened to the “prime matter” of our philosophers, but it can be conceived as the “prime form,” that is, the Soul of the World, from which individual souls would be mere modifications, as held by several ancient philosophers, Averroists, and to some extent, Spinoza, just as secondary matters are only modifications of prime matter. And thus, if the Soul of the World operates through certain organs, the individual soul that is posited in them would be just that. However, this doctrine is untenable since each individual is their own “I” or distinct entity. While particular matters may result from modifications of prime matter because prime matter has parts, the prime form or pure act does not have parts. Thus, secondary forms are not produced from the prime form but by the prime form. I do not deny that some Chinese may have fallen into this error, but it does not appear that it can be established through passages from their ancient authors. Father Longobardi, who spoke with so many mandarins to learn from them passages contradicting our theology, would have cited them if he had found any. Therefore, I believe that one can argue, without contradicting their classical authors, that there are spirits, such as the human soul or genies, which are distinct substances from Li, although they emanate from it.

SECOND SECTION. On the Chinese Beliefs Regarding the Productions of God or the First Principle of Matter, and the Spirits

XXIV. The Productions of Li. XXV. What do the Chinese mean by Taikie? XXVI. The Attributes of Taikie. XXVII. Examining the Opinion of Father de Sainte-Marie on the Word Li, Taikie. XXVIII. On the Xangti of the Chinese, that is, the Spirit that Governs Heaven. XXIX and XXX. What do the Chinese Attribute to the Spirit of Heaven? XXXI. The ancient sages of China did not intend to propose the worship of Li or Taikie to the public, but of Xangti, the Spirit of Heaven. XXXII. The Lord of Heaven is the Lord of the Universe. XXXIII, XXXIV, and XXXV. Rejecting the Opinion of Father Longobardi and Father de Sainte-Marie. XXXVI. The Chinese Beliefs Regarding Genies or Individual and Subordinate Spirits. XXXVII. It is valid to compare the spirits or genies of the Chinese to our angels. XXXVIII. Refuting the Objection of Father de Sainte-Marie. XXXIX. The authority given to modern Chinese by Fathers Longobardi and de Sainte-Marie is merely a prejudice of the School. XL. Objection of Father de Sainte-Marie. XLI. Confucius' Opinion on Spirits. XLII. The Chinese believed in subordinate spirits governing things in their respective domains. XLIII. Father de Sainte-Marie misunderstood the meaning of Confucius. XLIV. The Opinion of Modern Chinese on Spirits. XLV. The ancient Chinese worshipped spirits. XLVI. Their belief regarding spirits is tolerable and does not contradict Christianity. XLVIII. Confucius argues that the Supreme Spirit should be worshipped. XLIX. Did the Chinese have a secret doctrine reserved for only the masters? L. All that is said against the ancient Chinese is based on unfounded suspicions. LI. The Common and Authorized Doctrine of the Chinese Regarding Spirits. LII. Why do the Chinese offer sacrifices to the sky, the earth, the mountains, and the waters? LIII. The Spirit of Heaven, who is the King from above. LIV. The Proportion and Connection between the Spirit to whom one sacrifices and the one who sacrifices. LV. The Chinese do not believe in a material and corporeal God spread throughout the entire universe. LVI. It is likely that the intention of their sages was to honor Li, the Supreme Reason, when they worshipped lower spirits as its ministers.

XXIV. After having spoken enough about Li, let us turn to its productions, according to what Father Longobardi reports from Chinese authors. From Li, air emerged (sect. 5, § 7), the primitive air (sect. II, § 2), the protogenic or primordial air (sect. 14, § 19); he calls this primitive air “Ki” (sect. 10, § 3; sect. 11, § 15, etc.); it is the instrument of Li (sect. 11, § 3). The operations of the spirits belong fundamentally to Li, instrumentally to Ki, and formally to the spirits (§ 16). It appears that this Ki or primitive air truly corresponds to matter as the instrument of the first principle, which, by moving this matter as a craftsman moves his instrument, produces things. And this Ki is called air, and could be called “Ether” by us because matter, in its origin, is perfectly fluid, without any connection or hardness, without any interruption, and without any boundaries that distinguish its parts; in short, it is the most subtle body that can be imagined. Now, this Ki is a production of Li; Father Longobardi reports this in explicit terms. He says (sect. 5, § 2) that the primitive air naturally emerged from Li, and (sect. 11, § 16) although Li does not have any action of its own, it begins to have it after producing its Ki, that is, its primitive air. Now, we must marvel at the contradiction into which this good father has fallen inadvertently. How can one say that Li has no operation of its own and is without Ki, if it produces Ki? Can one produce without acting? And since Ki is only the instrument, should we not say that the main efficient cause or virtue is in Li? As a result of this production of the prime matter by the first principle, or by the primitive form, by pure act, by the operation of God, Chinese philosophy approaches closer to Christian theology than the philosophy of the ancient Greeks, who regarded matter as a principle parallel to God, which He does not produce but only forms. It is true that it seems the Chinese believed that Li has first and always produced its Ki, and thus, one is as eternal as the other. But there is no need to be surprised, as they apparently were unaware of that Revelation which alone can teach us about the beginning of the universe. St. Thomas and other great doctors have judged that this dogma cannot be demonstrated by reason alone. However, although the ancient Chinese explicitly state that Ki never perishes, they do not explicitly say that it never had a beginning. And there are those who believe that since the founding of their empire coincided with the time of the patriarchs, they may have learned about the creation of the world from them.

XXV. It seems that after Li and Ki comes Taikie. Father Longobardi does not provide enough information to give a distinct idea of it. It almost seems that Taikie is nothing but Li, working on Ki, the “Spiritus domini qui ferebatur super aquas” (the spirit of God moving upon the waters), taking the sovereign Spirit for Li and the waters for the first fluid, the protogenic air, the Ki, or the prime matter. Thus, Li and Taikie would not be different things but the same thing considered under different predicates. Father Longobardi says (sect. 5, § 2) that Li becomes an infinite globe (this globe is undoubtedly metaphorical) which they call Taikie, that is, reaching the ultimate degree of perfection and completion, because it effectively operates and exercises power in the production of things, giving them that fulfillment that contains the pre-established order, by virtue of which everything subsequently arises through natural tendencies. Thus, in natural things, God no longer needs anything beyond His ordinary concurrence. Therefore, it seems to me that this father confuses things a little (sect. 10, § 1) by equating Ki with Taikie and saying that Taikie is the primordial air. Perhaps certain Chinese conceive that from the primitive form, Li, and the primitive matter, Ki, there resulted a primitive compound, a substance in which Li was the soul and Ki the matter, and they could understand this substance under the name Taikie. Thus, it would be the entire world conceived as an animal, a universal living being, a supreme genius, a great personage, and the Stoics speak of the world in this manner. Among the parts of this grand and total animal, there would be particular animals, just as among us small animals enter into the composition of the bodies of larger animals. However, as long as this error is not expressly found in the ancient Chinese authors, it should not be attributed to them. This is especially true since they conceived matter as a production of God. Thus, God will not compose a substance with matter, the world will not be an animated person, but God will be the “intelligentia supramundana,” and matter, being His effect, is not His colleague. And when Father Longobardi says (sect. 11, § 2) that Taikie encompasses Li and the primordial air or Ki, it should not be understood as if it were composed of them, but only that it encompasses them, just as a consequent encompasses what it assumes because Taikie is Li operating on Ki and thus assumes Ki.

XXVI. The attributes of Li are also attributed to Taikie. It is said (sect. 11, § 9) that all spirits have emerged from Taikie, that Xangti was the son of Taikie, as a modern mandarin said, although one could perhaps argue, based on the ancients, that Xangti is nothing but Li or Taikie conceived as governing the principal part of the universe, that is, the sky, as I will show later. It is said (§ 11) that the spirits are the same Li or Taikie, applied to different subjects such as the sky, the earth, the mountains, which does not agree with what the mandarin said, for if Xangti, or the Spirit of the Sky, is the son of Taikie, then he is not the same as him. But here it is sufficient to equate Taikie and Li. We will see later what can be said about Xangti. Father Longobardi understands the title of the thirteenth section in these terms: that all the gods of the Chinese, or all the spirits to whom they attribute the government of things, can be reduced to a single one, which is Li or Taikie. I am not examining this sentiment presently, and that is just as well. However, I merely note that Li and Taikie are taken as the same thing. In this section, he says (§ 3) that Li is “mentis ratio, totiusque naturæ regula directrix” (the reason of the mind and the guiding rule of the entire nature), but Taikie is “sinus naturæ continens in se virtualiter omnia possibilia” (the bosom of nature containing virtually all possibilities). However, he also says this about Li (sect. 14, § 4), and that is why he asserts (§ 4) that the difference between Li and Taikie is merely a formality, in that Li denotes an absolute Being and Taikie denotes a Being related to things, of which it is the root and foundation. And he cites the twenty-sixth Book of Chinese Philosophy, page 8, where it is said that causes act incessantly because Li or Taikie is within, governing and directing them. And in the first Book of the same Philosophy, p. 31, it is said that Li (Reason) prevails in the things of the world, and that is why they lack nothing, and in Book 36, p. 9, that Taikie is the cause of the beginning and end of this world, that after one finite world, it produces another (Longobardi, sect. 5, § 4) after the revolution of the great year called “Tasvi” (sect. 5, § 1), but that it itself will never end. This proves that Taikie is not the world. Finally (Sainte-Marie, p. 69), the Chinese recognize nothing better or greater than Li and Taikie. They also say that all things are the same Taikie. I believe this should be understood not as if things were parts or modifications of Taikie, but because their absolute realities or perfections are emanations from it. But just as figuratively we often speak among ourselves as if souls were fragments of divinity, it should not be surprising if the Chinese sometimes speak in the same style. In this sense, Chinese philosophy states in Book 26, p. 1, that Li is one, but its parts are many. For strictly speaking, a thing composed of parts is never truly one. It is only so by external designation, like a heap of sand or an army. Therefore, the first principle cannot have parts, as other passages already mentioned clearly indicate.

XXVII. Father de Sainte-Marie quotes passages from the Chinese where they seem to form the word “Li-Tai-Kie” (p. 64), and its meaning, according to Confucius (in one of his Four Books, “Chung-iung”), is the solid truth, the law, the principle, and the end of all things. There is not one thing that does not receive from it its effective and true being, without there being an atom of imperfection in the essence of any of these particular things. It is similar (the father adds, p. 69) to what we read in Genesis: “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.” However, on a passage from Lactantius concerning the first principle, where this author, after quoting ancient poets and philosophers, says that all these opinions, though uncertain, establish Providence under the names of Nature, Heaven, Reason, Spirit, Fate, Divine Law, all of which come back to what we call God, Father de Sainte-Marie responds that the Chinese only knew a material principle divided into small parts. In this, it seems to me that this good father is mistaken due to a strange prejudice that came to him not from classical authors, but from the speeches of some impious moderns who claim to be strong-minded in China, as in other places, to mark a false elevation above the common people.

XXVIII. The thing that the Chinese speak most magnificently about after Li or Taikie is Xangti, that is, the king from above or the Spirit who governs Heaven. Father Ricci, upon entering China and staying there for some time, believed that by Xangti, one could understand the Lord of Heaven and Earth, in short, our God, whom he also called Tien-chu, the Lord of Heaven. And it is under this latter term that the God of the Christians is usually understood in China. Father Longobardi, Father Antoine de Sainte-Marie, and others who do not approve of God being called Xangti are content with Him being called Tien-chu, even though in fact, the two words mean nearly the same thing to the Chinese, given the force of the terms, King from above and Lord of Heaven. The big question is whether, according to the Chinese, Xangti is an eternal substance or a simple creature. Father Longobardi acknowledges (sect. 2, § 1) that the texts (from the original books) say, or at least seem to say, that there is a sovereign king named Xangti who is in the Palace of Heaven, from where he governs the world, rewards the good, and punishes the wicked. The same father opposes this (on the same page) by saying that ancient interpreters attribute all this to heaven or to the universal substance and nature called Li. But far from harming those who give the name Xangti to our God, this will serve them wonderfully. For Li is eternal and endowed with all possible perfections; in short, it can be taken as our God, as has been demonstrated above. Thus, if Xangti and Li are the same thing, there is every reason to give God the name Xangti. And Father Matteo Ricci was not wrong in asserting (sect. 16, § 1) that the ancient philosophers of China recognized and honored a Supreme Being called Xangti, the King from above, and lesser spirits as His ministers, and thus they had knowledge of the true God.

XXIX. The Chinese also speak grand and beautiful things about Heaven, the Spirit of Heaven, and the Rule of Heaven, which are most fitting for the true God. For example (sect. 16, § 33), the Rule of Heaven is the entity of supreme goodness, which is imperceptible, and (sect. 14, § 12), Li is called “the natural rule of Heaven” in the sense that it is through its operation that all things are governed with weight and measure, and in accordance with their nature. This Rule of Heaven is called “Tien-Fao,” and according to Father de Sainte-Marie (p. 69), Confucius, speaking in the “Chung-iung,” says that Tien-Fao is the same as Li, the certain rule of Heaven in its course and natural operations. Thus, according to Father Longobardi (sect. 15, § 4), the universal or primal substance, considered in the state it has in Heaven, is called Li, meaning rule or reason. And (sect. 14, § 10), Li is called something that is in Heaven because the first principle, although it is in all things in the world, is primarily in Heaven, which is the most excellent thing in the Universe, and in which its efficacy appears the most. And in Book 2, Chapter 5 of “Lun-ju,” it is said of Li that this principle is of an incomparable essence and has no equal. And these same praises are also given to Heaven, which is reasonable to understand not as pertaining to matter but to the Spirit of Heaven or the King from above, as Father de Sainte-Marie should be understood when he says (p. 13) that the absolute and supreme divinity of the literati of China is Heaven.

XXX. Here is how a Chinese doctor speaks of Xangti, as quoted by Father Antoine de Sainte-Marie (p. 74):

“Our ancient philosophers, examining with great care the nature of heaven, earth, and all things in the world, recognized that they were all very good, just as Li is capable of containing them all without exception. From the greatest to the smallest, they are of the same nature and substance, from which we conclude that the Lord of Heaven, or God Xangti, is in each thing, with which He is truly one. For this reason, we preach to people and exhort them to flee from vice, as it would tarnish and soil the virtues and perfections of Xangti; to follow justice, as it would offend the sovereign reason and supreme justice; not to harm beings, as it would outrage the Lord God Xangti, the soul of all created things.”

This passage shows that, according to its author, Xangti is the universally and supremely perfect substance, essentially the same as Li. That is the subject under consideration here. However, the expressions used by this doctor (likely a modern one) who wants to present Xangti as the soul of things, as if it were part of their essence, are not approved.

XXXI. Thus, the ancient sages of China, believing that the people need objects that captivate their imagination in their worship, did not intend to propose the adoration of Li or Tai-kie to the public, but rather the worship of Xangti, or the Spirit of Heaven. They understood that under this name, Li or Tai-kie themselves, would primarily manifest their power. The Hebrews also sometimes attributed to Heaven what belongs to God, as seen in the Maccabees, and they considered God as the Lord of Heaven, which is why they were called “Caelicolae” by the Romans.

“Who”

“Adore nothing but the clouds and the divinity of the sky.”

Aristophanes, in his comedy “The Clouds,” wanted to make Socrates odious and ridiculous to the Athenians by spreading the belief that he despised the local gods and instead worshiped the sky or the clouds, which the ignorant people confused. Therefore, Father Antoine de Sainte-Marie states (p. 72) that the ancient and modern Chinese philosophers, under the name of the Most High King Xangti, worship the visible sky and offer sacrifices to it in consideration of the dominant and invisible virtue of Li, which the ignorant masses could not comprehend. However, it would be more accurate to say that Xangti, or what the Chinese primarily worship, is the Li that governs Heaven, rather than stating that it is the physical sky itself. Father de Sainte-Marie appropriately adds a few words on this matter (pp. 77-78), stating that it can be deduced from all of this that the Chinese, like the Japanese (instructed by the Chinese, no doubt), have known no other God than a first principle (although he baselessly adds “material”) that they consider as preeminent in Heaven, whom they call the Supreme King, Xangti. They believe that Heaven is his palace, where he guides and governs everything and exerts influences. They sacrifice to this visible sky (or rather to its king) and silently adore the Li, which they do not name due to the ignorance and rudeness of the people who cannot comprehend what Li truly is. What we call the light of reason in humans, they refer to as the commands and laws of Heaven. What we describe as a natural satisfaction in obeying justice and a fear of acting against it, all of that, for them (and I will add, for us as well), is called inspirations sent by Xangti, meaning the true God. To offend Heaven is to act against reason; to ask forgiveness from Heaven is to correct oneself and sincerely return in words and actions to the submission owed to that same law of reason. For my part, I find all of this excellent and entirely consistent with natural theology. Far from seeing any malice in it, I believe that any objections can only arise from forced interpretations and interpolations. It is pure Christianity insofar as it renews the natural law engraved in our hearts, while allowing for what revelation and grace add to better rectify human nature.

XXXII. The ancient sages of China, in considering the Spirit that governs Heaven as the true God and identifying it with Li, meaning the Rule or Supreme Reason, had more reason than they knew. Through the discoveries of astronomers, it has been found that the sky encompasses the entire known universe, and our Earth is just one of its subordinate stars. It can be said that there are as many systems of the world as there are fixed or principal stars, with ours being only the solar system, in which the sun is just one of those stars. Therefore, the Governor or Lord of Heaven is the Lord of the universe. As they have coincided so well, without knowing the reason behind it, it is possible that they learned a portion of their wisdom through the tradition of the patriarchs.

XXXIII. Now let us examine the objections raised by Father Longobardi. He states (sect. 2, § 7) that according to learned Chinese individuals, Xangti is the sky itself or the virtue and power of the sky. However, to claim that Xangti is the physical sky is unlikely. As for the virtue or power of the sky, it cannot be anything other than the virtue or power of the entire universe, as the Sky encompasses everything known. The notion of imagining some particular soul of the sky as Xangti is equally implausible, given the immense expanse of the sky. It would be more reasonable to attribute such a notion to each system or even each star, as the Chinese do with the Earth. The praises given to the Spirit of Heaven or the Rule of Heaven cannot be applied to a specific soul; they only apply to Li. Thus, if the classical author Ching-Cheu stated that Xangti is the same as the sky, one can consider this expression to be somewhat imprecise or figurative, just as we often use the term “Heaven” to refer to the Lord of Heaven. It is also possible that the author regarded the sky as a person, with Li as its soul and the celestial matter as its body, similar to how the Stoics viewed the world. However, it is preferable to believe that the author spoke metaphorically, as is also customary in Europe when referring to the sky as God, until further examination can be conducted on the passage.

XXXIV. The Chinese recount (according to Father de Sainte-Marie, p. 57) that Emperor Wen-Wang persisted until the end in humbling himself, concealing the splendor of his majesty, confining it within his heart, and lowering himself before the lord and king, Xangti, the Most High. They say that Emperor Hiaxi, when he had committed a wicked act, trembled with fear and reverence before Xangti and would often say that this fear and respect held him back from daring to transgress against right reason. In ancient times, even the emperor himself cultivated the land where the fruits to be offered to the sovereign king and lord, Xangti, were sown. And (p. 59) a king of China asked Confucius whether it was preferable to pray to the tutelary god of fire or the lesser god of the house. Confucius replied that if one had offended Heaven, that is, Xangti, the Lord of Heaven, it was to him alone that forgiveness should be sought. This suggests that Confucius, like Plato, advocated for the unity of God but accommodated popular beliefs, similar to the latter. Father Longobardi also reports (sect. 17, § 9) a conversation he had with a Chinese scholar who stated that the king from above, or Xangti, was the same as the Sky, Li, Tai-kie, Iven-Ki (the author does not explain this), Tien-Xin (or genies), Tien-Ming (virtue sent from heaven), and Nan-Lin (virtue of the earth). The same scholar said that the Xangti of the scholar sect was the spirit or god worshipped by the monks under the name Foe, and by the Taoists under the name Jo-Hoang. Another person said (sect. 17, § 2) that our heart, that is, what operates within us, was the same as Xangti and Tien-Chu. The Chinese say that the heart is the Chuzay (or director) of a person, regulating all physical and moral actions (sect. 15, § 2). This demonstrates how these individuals sometimes speak vaguely and confusingly, under the pretext that everything is one, and often they should not be taken literally. To speak specifically about their doctrines, it is safest to consider the reason and harmony of their teachings rather than the superficiality of their words.

XXXV. The same father also reports the statements of Chinese mandarins who told him that Xangti and Tien-Chu, the King from above or the Lord of Heaven, were only creations of Taikie and would end like other creatures, while Taikie would remain (sect. 11, § 9). They said that the King from above or the Spirit of Heaven would end with the sky (sect. 17, § 6) and that if our God or Tien-chu (Lord of Heaven) were the same as Xangti, he would cease to exist (sect. 17, § 2, 6). However, the good father does not provide any passages from the ancients that say the same; on the contrary, it appears that the ancients intended to worship the Li within Xangti. Therefore, these are merely the ideas of modern individuals who attempt to substitute mere material qualities for all spiritual substances, much like how Cartesian philosophers replace the souls of animals with simple qualities, or how some ancient thinkers in Plato’s Phaedrus claimed that the soul was nothing more than the harmony or combination of material dispositions or the structure of the machine. This tendency only serves to undermine religion as if it were merely a political invention to keep people in line, as expressed explicitly by a Chinese scholar (the same one we have just mentioned, who confuses different things based on the misunderstood notion that everything is one) (sect. 17, § 16).

XXXVI. After the universal Spirit, which, taken absolutely, is called Li or Rule; taken as operating within creatures, is called Taikie, or that which brings about the consummation and establishment of things; and taken as governing the heavens, the principal of creatures, is called Xangti, the king from above, or Tien-Chu, Lord of Heaven; after all that, I say, we must turn to the particular and subordinate spirits or genies. They are generally called Tien-Xin (Longobardi, preface), or simply Xin (sect. 8, § 2), or Kvei-Xin (A. de Sainte-Marie, p. 89). Father Longobardi remarks (§ 2) that the Chinese understand by the term Xin the pure and ascending spirits, and by Kvei the impure or descending spirits. However, this does not appear to be strictly observed, as Father de Sainte-Marie (p. 89) reports these words of Confucius:

“Oh, the rare virtues and great perfections of these celestial spirits, Kvei-Xin! Is there any virtue superior to theirs? We do not see them, but what they do manifests them; we do not hear them, but the wonders they constantly perform speak enough.”

The same Confucius (quoted on p. 91) says:

“We cannot conceive in what manner the spirits are so intimately united to us; thus, we cannot be too eager to honor them, to serve them, and to offer sacrifices to them. For although their operations are secret and invisible, their benefits are nonetheless visible, effective, and real.”

XXXVII. Given the strong expressions of an author and a highly classical work, it seems to me that the missionaries mentioned by Father de Sainte-Marie (p. 90) were quite right in comparing the spirits or genies to our angels. Father de Sainte-Marie acknowledges that the Chinese consider them subordinate to Xangti, the universal and supreme Spirit of Heaven (p. 89), and he compares them (p. 96) to the lesser gods or ministers of the great god in Seneca and in Saint Augustine, who was still a Manichaean at the time, as he mentions in his Confessions. These missionaries believed that the most ancient Chinese philosophers, and Confucius after them, under the names Xangti and Kvei-Xin, had knowledge of the true God and the celestial spirits that serve Him. This is because they seemed to attribute to them a particular attention to defend and preserve humans, cities, provinces, and kingdoms—not as if they were the souls or substantial forms of these things, but rather like the pilot who is aboard the ship. This is what our philosophers call intelligences and assisting forms. It must be acknowledged that the words of Confucius and other ancient Chinese thinkers convey a very clear and natural meaning in this regard.

And there is a strong likelihood that these expressions, which are so close to the great truths of our religion, reached the Chinese through the tradition of the ancient patriarchs.

XXXVIII. Father de Sainte-Marie only opposes interpreters, known as classics, but who are much later. The grand commentary on the original books called Ta-Ziven and the philosophical compendium called Sing-Li (Longobardi sect. 1, § 2) or what Father de Sainte-Marie simply calls Taciven-Sing Li, were compiled, according to this father, by order of the king over three hundred years ago, so they can be considered modern. And their authority, when it comes to the true meaning of the ancient texts, cannot be greater than that of an Accursius or a Bartolus when it comes to explaining the meaning of the Edictum Perpetuum of ancient Roman law, which is often found today to be quite different from that of these glossators. The same applies to several interpretations attributed to Aristotle by the Arabs and the Scholastics, which are completely contrary to the sentiment of the author himself and the true meaning that the ancient Greek interpreters gave to him, as rediscovered by modern scholars. I myself believe I have shown what entelechy truly is, which the Scholastics hardly understood.

XXXIX. Thus, the authority given by Fathers Longobardi and de Sainte-Marie to modern Chinese thought is merely a prejudice of the school. They judged the later Chinese school as the later European school (which they were preoccupied with) would have it judged—that is, judging the text of divine and human laws, as well as ancient authors, according to their interpretation or gloss. This is a common flaw among philosophers, jurists, moralists, and theologians, not to mention physicians, who, with almost no fixed school or regulated language, have gone so far as to disregard the ancients and have become so liberated from restraint that they have fallen into license. They have almost nothing established beyond a few experiments or observations, which often are not very reliable. It seems, therefore, that medicine needs to be completely rebuilt through authorized communication among excellent individuals, who are not lacking, and who would restore a common language, distinguish the uncertain from the certain, establish degrees of probability, and discover a certain method for advancing the science. But that is a digression. The scant authority of the glossators makes me wonder why very learned theologians of our time, who prefer the doctrine of the ancient Fathers of the Church to the opinions of modern thinkers, both in speculative theology and morality, claim to judge the theology of the Chinese more by the moderns than by the ancients. It may not be surprising in the case of Father Longobardi or Father de Sainte-Marie, who seemingly adhere to the sentiments of the common theological and philosophical school. However, among learned theologians who oppose the Jesuits on the matter of Chinese doctrine, there are some who should judge differently.

XL. Father de Sainte-Marie mentions something in passing that could raise suspicion that the ancient philosophers did not have very good sentiments. But since he does not dwell on it, I doubt whether the matter has been sufficiently verified or thoroughly examined. However, I do not want to conceal it in order to act with utmost sincerity. After quoting (p. 89) the beautiful passage from Confucius mentioned above, he argues that this same author, in continuing his discourse, reveals the extent of his gross error on this matter. For he says (according to this father) “that the spirits unite and actually become incorporated with things, from which they cannot separate until they are completely destroyed.” This opinion, according to Father de Sainte-Marie, is very consistent with the philosophy of Confucius, where he teaches that:

“The nature and essence of things is Li, Taikie, their first principle and creator, who, as the king of Heaven, is called Xangti (that is, supreme king); and as the ruler over the particular and subordinate beings, in which generation and corruption occur, he is called Kvei-Xin. Now, just as matter and form cannot separate without the destruction of the whole they compose, these spirits are so united with things that they cannot leave them without corrupting themselves.”

XLI. I wanted to quote Father de Sainte-Marie’s words verbatim, which I will now examine. First, I am inclined to believe that these are not Confucius' explicit teachings but rather sentiments attributed to him by modern interpreters. The explicit words attributed to him do not support this interpretation, unless one wants to argue that he spoke only to deceive simple readers under the guise of religion, while his true sentiment was that of atheists. Such an accusation should only be made with strong evidence, and I have not seen any basis for it so far, other than the vague interpretations of the moderns, which they may not openly acknowledge in public works. If Confucius held this view of spirits, he would not judge them any more favorably than our common school judges the souls of animals, which it believes perish with the animal. But if that were the case, then what would these rare virtues, great perfections, marvelous operations, and great blessings deserving of our gratitude and worship, which he attributes to these celestial spirits and geniuses, be?

XLII. Furthermore, Confucius and the ancients ascribe assisting spirits or geniuses to many things that are not capable of such incorporation, such as humans, cities, and provinces. What sense does it make to imagine the spirit being incorporated with a mountain or a river, or even the spirit of the four seasons with the seasons themselves, or the spirit of heat and cold with these qualities? Therefore, we must conclude either that these ancient Chinese were making fun of people and only sought to deceive them, which should not be attributed to them without evidence, or that they believed in subordinate spirits as ministers of divinity, governing the affairs within their domain, or finally, that they honored under their name the divine virtue spread throughout everything, as some ancient Greeks and Romans claimed that under the names of many gods, only one divinity was being worshipped.

XLIII. I also suspect that Father de Sainte-Marie misunderstood Confucius' meaning, as if he were saying that spirits are not separated from the things they govern without being destroyed, whereas Confucius appears to have said that spirits do not separate from these things they are meant to govern without those things themselves being destroyed. For I find that this is how Father Longobardi understood it when quoting (sect. 11, § 17) chapter 16 of the Chung-Jung, where Confucius, after teaching that spirits are parts that compose the being of things, adds that spirits cannot be separated from them without the destruction of those things (he does not say the destruction of the spirits) following. And it is likely that when Confucius refers to spirits as parts of things, he does not mean all spirits, for the reasons I have mentioned. And perhaps the term “part” is used here in a broader sense, referring to what is within a thing and necessary for its existence or preservation.

XLIV. According to the moderns who claim to be followers of Confucius and the ancients but do not recognize spiritual substances, and even deny the existence of true substances except for matter, which they only consider as altered by movements, figures, and accidental qualities—according to these moderns, I say, these celestial or other spirits attributed to things by the ancient Chinese would be beings in name only, mere aggregations of the accidental qualities of matter. They would be akin to the forms in the school of thought that constitute beings accidentally, such as piles of stones, mountains of sand, etc., forms certainly inferior to the souls of animals, whether understood in the scholastic or Cartesian sense, both of which perceive them as mere collections of accidental qualities, albeit with different degrees of sophistication. Since the spirits of the sky, the spirits of natural causes, the spirits of mountains (for example), lacking organs, would be incapable of knowledge, or even the semblance of knowledge. Far from deserving worship, it would be pure deception to seek to have them honored.

XLV. The Xu-King, an original and ancient book according to Father Longobardi (sect. 1, § 2), recounts in Book 1, page 11, as reported by the same father (sect. 11, § 6), that from the time of Yao and Xun, who were the founders of the empire, the Chinese worshipped spirits, and four kinds of sacrifices were made to four kinds of spirits. The first sacrifice called Lui was made to the sky and simultaneously to its spirit called Xangti. The second called In was made to the spirit of the six principal causes, which are the four seasons of the year, heat, cold, the sun, the moon, the stars, rain, and drought. The third called Vuang was made to the spirits of mountains and great rivers. And the fourth called Pien was made to the spirits of less significant things in the universe and to illustrious individuals of the republic. Father Longobardi also notes (sect. 2, § 2) that the text states that there are different spirits called Kvei or Xin, or collectively Kvey-Xin, who preside over mountains, rivers, and other things in this world. However, interpreters explain this in terms of natural causes or the qualities that these causes possess to produce certain effects.

XLVI. These interpreters are correct if they do not approve of the ignorant beliefs of antiquity’s common people, who imagine that Jupiter or a certain air spirit hurls thunderbolts, or that there are old men seated in mountains and in the depths of the earth who pour forth rivers from their urns. If they believe that all of this occurs naturally through the qualities of matter, then they are right. However, they are mistaken if they believe that the ancients intended to worship these inanimate things. They are also mistaken if they reduce the first principle and governor of the sky, or rather the governor of the universe, to the condition of a mere aggregation of brute qualities. The wonders performed by particular things, which do not possess knowledge, can only come from the wisdom of the first principle. Therefore, one must believe that the ancient sages of China either believed that certain geniuses, as ministers of the supreme Lord of Heaven and Earth, presided over lesser things, or that they sought to worship the great God even in the virtues of particular things under the name of the spirits of those things, in order to accommodate the imagination of the people. They believed that everything was one, meaning that the virtue of a great and unique principle appeared everywhere in the wonders of particular things, and that the spirit of the seasons, the spirit of the mountains, and the spirit of the rivers were none other than Xangti, who governs the heavens.

XLVII. This understanding is the most true. However, the other view, which allows for geniuses presiding over natural things, celestial bodies, elements, etc., is not entirely intolerable and does not undermine Christianity, as I have already noted above. But if it is easy to teach and have the Chinese accept what is most true through a reasonable interpretation of the axiom that everything reduces to the virtue of the one—that is, the virtues of all inanimate creatures do not signify their own wisdom but that of the author of all things, and are merely a natural consequence of the forces placed within them by the first principle—then it should also be made clear, according to the true philosophy discovered in our times, that animate substances are dispersed throughout everything, although they only exist where there are organs that relate to perception. These animate substances have their own souls or spirits, just as humans do, and there are infinitely more below human souls as well as infinitely more above them. Those above are called angels and geniuses, and some serve the supreme Spirit more directly, being more inclined to understand His will and conform to it. The souls of virtuous individuals are associated with these higher beings, and honors can be granted to them without detracting from what is owed to the supreme substance.

XLVIII. Thus, it is still possible to satisfy the modern Chinese interpreters by applauding their efforts to reduce the governance of the sky and other things to natural causes, distancing themselves from the ignorance of the people who seek supernatural or rather supercorporeal miracles and spirits as deus ex machina. Further enlightenment can be provided by acquainting them with the new discoveries of Europe, which offer almost mathematical explanations for many great wonders of nature and reveal the true systems of the macrocosm and microcosm. However, at the same time, they must recognize, as reason demands, that these natural causes, which fulfill their functions so precisely and produce such marvels, could not do so if they were not machines prepared for that purpose and formed by the wisdom and power of the supreme substance, which can be called Li in their language. Perhaps that is why Confucius did not wish to elaborate on the spirits of natural things, as he believed that what should be worshiped in the Spirit of Heaven, the seasons, the mountains, and other inanimate things, was none other than the supreme Spirit, Xangti, Tai-kie, Li. However, he did not believe that the people were capable of detaching themselves from sensory objects, and he did not wish to delve into that topic. Therefore, according to the account of Father Longobardi (sect. 3, § 6) in the Lunxin, Book 3, Part 3, a disciple of Confucius named Zuku lamented, “I was never able to get him to speak to me about human nature and the natural state of the sky until the end of his life.” In the same book, Confucius said, “The proper way to govern the people is to ensure that they honor the spirits and keep their distance from them,” meaning that they should not dwell on trying to examine what the spirits are and what they do. In Book 4, p. 6, it is mentioned that among other things, there were four subjects on which Confucius maintained a great silence, including the topic of spirits. The commentaries provide the reason for this, stating that there are many things difficult to comprehend, and it was therefore not appropriate to discuss them with everyone. In the book called Kialu, it is said that Confucius, wanting to finally rid himself of the incessant questioning of his disciples regarding spirits, the rational soul, and what happens after death, decided to give them a general rule: they were free to reason and debate as much as they wanted about matters contained within the six positions (we need clarification on these six positions), that is, those that are visible or in the visible world. However, when it came to other matters, he wanted them to leave them be, without debating or delving into them.

XLIX. Father Longobardi (sect. 3, § 7) draws the conclusion that the sect of scholars has a secret doctrine reserved for the masters alone. However, this does not necessarily follow because Confucius himself may have been unaware of what he did not want to be explored further. There doesn’t appear to be such a hidden sect in China today unless one wants to argue that hypocrites constitute one. Even if such a sect exists, we should only consider what people dare to confess in public works. After all, there are always individuals who mock their own dogmas. Therefore, when this father states (sect. 11, § 18) that the common scholars believe in spirits of sacrifice, while reputable scholars only acknowledge spirits of generation and corruption (which are merely material qualities), I am surprised that he wants the missionaries to pay particular attention to these reputable scholars. In my opinion, they should consider them as heterodox and adhere to the common and public doctrine.

L. The father seems to conclude that even Confucius himself had negative sentiments, repeatedly suggesting that he believed the ancient Chinese were as atheistic as the modern ones, as he explicitly states (sect. 16, § 1). He judges that Confucius' approach corrupted the hearts and clouded the minds of educated Chinese, reducing them to only think about visible and tangible things, thereby falling into the greatest evil of all, atheism. I am inclined to believe that Confucius' silence and approach may have contributed to this, and he would have done better to provide further explanations. However, it appears that some modern thinkers have taken the matter further than Confucius' approach warranted. According to his method, one can argue that far from denying spirits and religion, he merely intended to discourage disputes, advising people to acknowledge the existence and effects of Xangti and spirits, honor them, and practice virtue to please them, without delving into their nature or the specifics of their operations. Throughout history, there have been Christian authors who have given similar advice within Christianity without any ill intent. Therefore, I find that all the criticism against ancient Chinese beliefs is based on groundless suspicions.

LI. The common and authorized doctrine of the Chinese regarding spirits appears to be fairly represented in a passage from their philosophy, which Father Longobardi himself reports (sect. 12, § 7). The Chu-Zu, Book 28 of the great philosophy, p. 2, asks, “Are spirits the air?” It responds that they seem to be more the force, vigor, and activity within the air rather than the air itself. It distinguishes, on p. 13, between good spirits that possess clarity and righteousness and produce good effects, such as in the sun, moon, day, night, etc., and also acknowledges the existence of twisted and obscure spirits. It adds a third type of spirits, which, it is said, respond to questions and grant requested favors. And on p. 38, it proves the existence of spirits through the following reasoning:

“If there were no spirits, the ancients would not have made requests to them after periods of fasting and other abstinences. Moreover, the emperor sacrifices to the sky and the earth; princes and dukes (or heroes) sacrifice to great mountains and rivers; lords offer the five sacrifices, etc.”

LII. The same author further asks:

“When we sacrifice to the sky, the earth, mountains, and waters, when we offer and slaughter victims, when we burn pieces of liver, when we pour libations of wine, is it done merely to show the good disposition of the heart, or is it because there is an air (a spirit) that comes to receive the offerings? If we say that nothing comes to receive what is offered, then to whom are we sacrificing? And what is up there that inspires reverence in us and leads people to offer sacrifices to it and fear it? If we also say that it descends in a grand chariot of clouds, that would be a great deception.”

It seems that this author wanted to strike a balance between the disbelief of the impious and the crude imaginations of the common people. He insists that spirits should be recognized and honored but not believed to be present in a manner that can be imagined.

LIII. The same Chinese philosopher, on p. 39, discussing the Spirit of Heaven, who is the king from above, states that it is called Xin because the air of the sky extends everywhere. Father Longobardi infers from this (sect. 11, § 11) that the Chinese do not believe in any living and intelligent spirit in the sky, but only in the substance of the air with its activity and influence. However, the good father sees nothing but prejudices there. The Chinese author attributes not only strength or activity to the spirits but also intelligence, as they are feared and respected. He regards the air, that is, the subtle body, as their vehicle.

LIV. The same author suggests that there should be a proportion or connection between the spirit to whom one sacrifices and the one who sacrifices. This is why the Emperor must sacrifice to the King from above or the Lord of Heaven, and he is called Tien-Zu, the son of Heaven. Princes and dukes sacrifice to the protective spirits of the five life categories. Confucius is worshipped in university schools. Each person must also sacrifice to their ancestors. By this, he intends to convey that spirits govern themselves according to reason and assist those who conform to it. On the other hand, Father Longobardi infers from this (sect. 12, § 12) that spirits are nothing more than air and matter. The author suggests the opposite. I also find in this Chinese philosophy a rather clever argument against idolaters, found in Book 28, p. 37, as reported by Father Longobardi himself (sect. 12, § 3): “It is great ignorance to seek rain from wooden and earthen idols in temples while neglecting the mountains and water, that is, the things from which vapors produce rain.” It implies that worship should be based on reason and observe the proportions and connections of things, and then it is pleasing to the spirits or, if you prefer, to Xangti, the universal spirit, or to Li, the supreme reason that governs everything. The good father fails to fully grasp the author’s meaning when he infers that the author does not recognize any other spirits in the waters and mountains beyond material air without knowledge. It is in the same spirit that Confucius says in his Su Lum Iu (as reported by Father de Sainte-Marie, p. 29): “To sacrifice to a spirit that is not of your own state and condition, in short, one that is not suitable for you, is a rash and fruitless flattery: Justice and Reason repudiate it.”

And according to Chum’s interpretation, kolao, it is the emperor alone who has the right to sacrifice to the sky and the earth; it is the heroes of the kingdom who sacrifice to the mountains and waters; it is the illustrious men who sacrifice to the spirits; the rest of the people have the right and freedom to sacrifice to the ancestors. And the philosophical summary states (in Father de Sainte-Marie, p. 31): “Souls seek spirits of similar quality with whom they have more connection. For example, if a peasant were to address the spirit of a person of higher rank, at that very moment he would be rejected, and that spirit would not accomplish anything. On the contrary, if someone invokes a spirit proportionate to their own state, they can be sure they will touch the spirit and move it to favor them.” Father de Sainte-Marie adds (p. 32) that for this reason, only scholars sacrifice to Confucius, and this is how we should understand what Father Martinez had explained in Rome in 1656, that the temple, or as he called it, the hall of Confucius, is closed to everyone except scholars. The same father notes (p. 50) that Chinese soldiers honor an ancient and illustrious captain, Tai-Kung; doctors worship a kind of Aesculapius; and goldsmiths venerate an ancient alchemist named Su-Hoang.

LV. This father goes into even greater detail (p. 95). According to him, the Chinese attribute to the highest Xangti and to all the other spirits, Kvei-Xin, the governance of the world. They see the first as the Sovereign Lord who resides in heaven as his palace, and the spirits as his ministers, each commanding in the post entrusted to them. Some are placed in the sun, moon, stars, clouds, thunder, hail, storms, and rains; others in the earth, on mountains, ponds, rivers, crops, fruits, forests, and herbs; others among humans and animals; many in houses, at doors, in wells, kitchens, furnaces, and even in the most filthy places. Some are associated with war, knowledge, medicine, agriculture, navigation, and all mechanical arts. Each Chinese person takes a spirit as their patron, whom they pray to, invoke, and try to appease through sacrifices. They pay the same respects to their ancestors as they do to familiar and domestic spirits, while treating other deceased individuals as foreign spirits. As for Confucius and his most renowned disciples, they are prayed to as spirits who preside over schools and sciences. The father’s gloss is that the Chinese are like the Stoics, who imagined a material and corporeal god permeating the entire universe to animate and govern it, along with other inferior and subordinate gods. However, I see nothing that prevents us from finding a spiritual god in their beliefs, the author of matter itself, demonstrating wisdom and power in inanimate things, and served by intelligent spirits resembling our angels and souls. One can say that the common people among them, like among the pagans, multiply these particular spirits excessively and unnecessarily, whereas the wise are content with the supreme Spirit and his ministers in general, without assigning them specific domains.

LVI. I stated at the beginning that I do not wish to examine to what extent the worship of the Chinese may be criticized or excused, and that I only want to investigate their doctrine. It appears to me (taking everything into account) that the intention of their sages was to honor the Li or supreme reason, which is evident and active everywhere, either directly in inanimate things or through subordinate spirits as its ministers, with which virtuous souls are associated. These same sages wanted attention to be given to the objects in which supreme wisdom is particularly manifested, and for each person to pay regard to the objects most suitable to their station, according to the regulations of the Laws: the emperor pays attention to heaven and earth; the nobles to the grand bodies that influence the production of sustenance, such as the elements, rivers, and mountains; the scholars to the spirits of great philosophers and legislators; and each individual to the virtuous souls of their family. The Père de Sainte-Marie (p. 25) himself brings an excellent passage from what Chinese interpreters say about two characters that are pronounced “Ty Chang,” meaning “honoring ancestors.” Here is their explanation:

“When the emperor sacrifices to his ancestors, he must elevate his spirit and think that he is sacrificing to the author from whom his first ancestor originated, and to both of them as if they were united (that’s how I believe it should be understood, not as equals) he directs his sacrifice.” Père de Sainte-Marie adds that the ancient explanation of their characters says the same thing, that the letter “Ti” signifies that by sacrificing to their ancestors, they trace their sacrifice back to the origin from which they came, and that death joins them there, always maintaining the order of precedence of one over the other. In other words, they consider the souls of ancestors as subordinate spirits to the supreme and universal spirit, the Lord of Heaven and Earth."

THIRD SECTION. On the belief of the Chinese regarding the human soul, its immortality, and rewards and punishments

LVII. On the opinion of the Chinese regarding human souls. LVIII. They believe that the human soul persists after the death of the body. LIX. On the Chinese belief regarding death. LX. Some Chinese consider excellent men as incarnated angels. LXI. Do the Chinese believe that the soul of Confucius is a modification of God? LXII. According to classical Chinese doctrine, human souls approach the nature of spirits. LXIII. The method of reasoning used by Father Longobardi is disapproved. LXIV. Father Longobardi and Father de Sainte-Marie abuse the Chinese axiom that everything is one. LXV. According to ancient Chinese doctrine, souls receive rewards and punishments after this life. LXVI. What is the purpose of the Chinese honoring their ancestors and great men? LXVII. Chinese literati do not speak of hell or purgatory.

LVII. After discussing the first principle according to the Chinese, the author now proceeds to complete their theology by discussing human souls. When separated from gross bodies, they are called “Hoen” (in Father Longobardi, section 8, § 2) and more frequently “Ling-Hoen” (foreword, section 2, § 8). There is “Sing-Hoen” in Father de Sainte-Marie (p. 58), but I suspect it is a printing error, although I cannot assert it positively because the same Father states later on (p. 93) that deceased humans are called “Sin-Kvei,” which he says means “withdrawn from this mortal life.” Although souls are in some way included among the Chinese spirits and in their worship, they still merit a particular discussion to understand what Chinese literati teach about their nature and state after this life.

LVIII. Father Longobardi (section 2, § 3) admits that the original Chinese texts referring to our soul as “Ling-Hoen” imply that it persists after the death of the body. That is why it is said in the “Xi-King,” book 6, p. 1, that Wen Wang, an ancient king of China, is in the highest Heaven next to “Xangti” or the king from above, Lord of the Sky, and that he is sometimes ascending and sometimes descending (section 2, § 3; section 15, § 6). The separated soul is also called “Jeu-Hoen,” wandering soul, which means free, I believe, “animula vagula blandula.” Doctor Paul, a literate man among Christians, though he doubted whether the Chinese knew the true God, still believed, according to Father Longobardi, that they had some knowledge of the soul, albeit very confused (section 17, § 34). This appears to provide enough room for skilled missionaries to clarify and disentangle this confusion. Let us begin unraveling this.

LIX. The Chinese say (Longobardi, section 15, § 4) that the death of a person is merely the separation of the parts that compose them, which, after this separation, return to their proper places. Thus, the “Hoen” or soul ascends to heaven, while the “Pe” or body returns to the earth. This is mentioned in the “Xu-King,” Book 1, p. 16, where the death of King Yao is described in these terms: “he ascended and descended.” The commentary explains it as follows:

“He ascended and descended, meaning he died, because when a person dies, the entity of fire or air (meaning the animated air, the soul) ascends to heaven, and the body returns to the earth.”

This author speaks almost as if he had read the Holy Scriptures. The author of Chinese Philosophy also speaks in a similar manner in Book 28, p. 41 and surrounding pages, where he quotes this sentence from “Chin-zu”:

“When the composition of a person is made and they come into the world, that is, when heaven and earth unite, the universal nature does not come (for it is already present). When a person dies, that is, when heaven and earth separate, the universal nature does not depart (for it is always everywhere). But the air, which is the entity of heaven, returns to heaven, and the bodily composition, which is the entity of earth, returns to the earth.”

LX. It also appears that some Chinese literati consider men, especially excellent men, as incarnated angels. A certain Doctor Michel, a Christian but attached to Chinese doctrines, stated in his preface on the explanation of the Ten Commandments that the ancient sages of China were spirits or incarnated angels who succeeded one another. Regarding the greatest men, he even went as far as to believe that the “Xangti” or supreme Spirit itself was incarnated in them, such as in the persons of Yao, Xun, Confucius, and others. This is undoubtedly an error; such incarnation is only fitting for Jesus Christ, and this discourse clearly indicates that this doctor was only partially Christian. However, he did not believe that he contradicted the consistent doctrine of the Chinese by denying that the soul is a fleeting and transitory thing, as an incarnated angel existed before birth and will continue to exist after death. A Chinese doctor, who was a friend to Christians, expressed to Father Longobardi (section 17, § 3) that his views on this matter were quite similar to those of Doctor Michel.

LXI. Father de Sainte-Marie reports (p. 76) that the Chinese maintain that Confucius, the kings, and the ancient philosophers of their country, by virtue of their excellence, were the same as the God of Heaven, “Xangti,” who was incarnated in them multiple times in the kingdom of China. The father explains this by referring to the opinion of some ancient philosophers, the Manicheans according to Saint Augustine, the Averroists, and Spinoza, who consider the soul as a part or modification of God that no longer exists individually after death. But according to this explanation, the great men would have nothing superior in this regard compared to others. And since the soul in those cases where it is an incarnated angel continues to exist after death, why wouldn’t the soul of someone who is incomparably greater exist even more so, if the supreme God has united Himself to that soul and its body in a particular manner?

LXII. Thus, I see nothing that prevents us and, on the contrary, everything that supports us in maintaining that human souls, according to the classical doctrine of the Chinese, approach the nature of ministering spirits of the supreme spirit, albeit at a lower level than theirs. I am not surprised that Father Longobardi and Father de Sainte-Marie oppose this view since atheistic and heterodox literati (although they are allowed to freely express their impieties, at least verbally, in China) have influenced them with these strange opinions supposedly established in China, which directly contradict the teachings of the ancients and the religious practices they instituted more than three thousand years ago in this empire. These opinions claim that the “Li” itself or the supreme Reason, or the supreme Spirit “Xangti,” the substance of this Rule or Reason, and all the intelligent spirits that serve it are mere fictions. They assert that the supreme Spirit or universal principle is nothing more than prime matter or material air, and nothing more, and that the spirits revered by the people or made public are portions of this air. They contend that all of this acts by chance or brute necessity, without any wisdom, providence, or justice guiding it. Consequently, the entire Chinese religion is nothing but a comedy. However, since this accusation is unfounded in every way, as we have already demonstrated quite extensively regarding God and the angels, it can be inferred that the same holds true for souls.

LXIII. I find that these fathers do not provide passages from classical authors, whether ancient or more recent, that sufficiently support their accusation concerning the human soul, nor do they provide such evidence regarding God and the angels. They rely on external interpretations that force or even destroy the text, rendering it ridiculous, contradictory, and deceitful. Father Longobardi, considering, as we have mentioned, that according to the Chinese, death separates the earthly, which is terrestrial and of the nature of fire, from the celestial, which is airy, and rejoins it in Heaven, infers that souls are purely material entities that dissolve into the air (or ether). But by the same reasoning, one could argue that angels are nothing but fire, since according to Holy Scripture, “He makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire” (Hebrews 1:7). It must be acknowledged that these spirits are spiritual substances, even though they are clothed in subtle bodies. This is how both pagan and Christian antiquity generally conceived of geniuses, angels, and demons. When the soul rejoins the heavens, it means that it becomes more closely united with the celestial matter dispersed everywhere and becomes more capable of conforming to God’s will, just like the angels to whom it draws near. This is apparently what the ancient Chinese understood when they spoke of the soul rejoining the heavens and the “Xangti.”

LXIV. These fathers, or rather those who provided them with the impressions, abuse the Chinese axiom that “everything is one,” meaning that the whole is a participation of the One. They want to make us believe that according to the Chinese, everything is nothing but matter arranged in different ways, and that the “Li,” Reason, and even the “Xangti” itself are nothing more than that, or the primitive substance, and that everything participates in its perfection to the extent of its own. Thus, they suggest that the soul’s return to the “Xangti” is nothing more than its dissolution into the airy matter, and that with the gross organs, it loses all consciousness. They could argue, with more plausibility, in accordance with the views of the Manicheans, Averroists, and Spinoza, that God or the “Li” or the “Xangti” is the soul of the world, which constitutes individual souls by acting upon the organs and makes them cease as soon as those organs are disrupted. However, apart from the fact that both of these views are contrary to reason and the nature of the individual, they are also contrary to the passage from the Chinese author cited by Father Longobardi, who clearly distinguishes the universal nature, the “Li,” the “Xangti,” from the particular nature of the soul. “The universal nature,” he says, “neither comes nor goes, but the soul comes and goes, ascends and descends.” This means that it is sometimes united with a gross body and sometimes with a nobler and more subtle body, implying that it continues to exist, for otherwise, it would return to the universal nature. Let us see how Father de Sainte-Marie discusses it (p. 40):

“The Chinese hold different beliefs regarding our souls. Some believe that they do not die but simply move and animate various human and animal bodies in which they are reborn. Others believe that they descend to the underworld from which, after a sojourn, they emerge. Yet others recognize them as immortal and claim that they wander in the most remote mountains, calling these souls ‘Xin Sien.’ Chapels are dedicated to them under this name. The literati and the most learned believe that our souls are a small portion of subtle air or a fiery and celestial vapor detached from the most subtle matter of the sky, from which they derive their origin, and that when they leave their bodies, they ascend to the sky as their center, from which they have emerged and where they merge.”

The Chinese philosophical treatise “Sim Li ta civen,” volume 28, “Treatise on the Soul and Body,” states:

“The true and proper origin of the airy soul is in the sky, where it soars to become one substance with it. The origin of the body is the earth, where it dissolves and changes into it.”

This author is from a later period, and his authority does not approach that of the ancients. However, there is no need to discard it. I believe that the translation of this passage may be influenced somewhat by the bias of the person providing it when they say that the soul becomes one substance with the sky. Perhaps they only mean that it becomes united with it. But even if the passage says what it is made to say, such general expressions can always be given a valid interpretation. For all celestial spirits are of the substance of the sky, and when the soul becomes a celestial spirit, it becomes of the same substance as the sky. However, by the sky, they understand the entire celestial hierarchy, the “exercitus cœlorum,” under the great ruler of the universe. And this sky is not only in the visible sky, for according to the sentiment of the Chinese cited above, the air of the sky (with celestial spirits) permeates everywhere. Thus, according to them, it is not necessary to conceive of souls as completely distant. Going here and there in the mountains, ascending and descending, being next to the “Xangti,” are merely figurative expressions.

LXV. The immortality of the soul will be further clarified when it is recognized that, in all likelihood, according to ancient Chinese doctrine, souls receive rewards and punishments after this life. It is true that the sect of the literati does not speak of paradise or hell, and Doctor Michel, a Chinese Christian, admitted it with a sigh (Longobardi, sect. 17, § 24), praising the sect of Foe that proposes both. It also appears that modern Chinese, who claim to be the most enlightened, mock when the afterlife is mentioned to them (sect. 17, § 8). But perhaps they will not always mock it when they consider that this supreme substance, which according to themselves is the source of wisdom and justice, must act no less perfectly upon the spirits and souls it produces than a wise king in his kingdom acts upon subjects whom he does not create according to his inclination and over whom he has less control. Thus, this monarchy of spirits under this great master must be no less regulated than an empire of humans, and consequently, virtues must be rewarded and vices punished under this government, which does not happen enough in this life. This is also what the ancient Chinese have implied. We have already noted that they place a wise and virtuous emperor alongside the “Xangti,” and they consider the souls of great men as incarnate angels. Father de Sainte-Marie (p. 27) cites the “Xi-King,” which is one of the five main books of the literati, where they mention some of their ancient kings who, after their death, ascended to the sky to enlighten and assist (I believe the translation should be “to assist and serve”) the highest king, “Xangti,” and to sit at his right and left. And it is said in the same book that the kings ascending from earth to sky and descending from sky to earth can favor and support the kingdom as patrons and protectors.

LXVI. The worship of ancestors and great men instituted by the ancient Chinese may well aim to express the gratitude of the living, a cherished virtue rewarded by Heaven, and to inspire people to perform actions that make them worthy of the recognition of future generations. However, the ancients speak of it as if the spirits of virtuous ancestors, surrounded by a ray of glory at the court of the universal monarch, were capable of bringing good or harm to their descendants. And at least this suggests that they conceived of them as existing. It is worth seeing how they explained this. According to Father de Sainte-Marie (p. 21), Confucius, in chapter 17 of his book “Chung-Iung,” credits Emperor Xum with the establishment of ancestor worship. This emperor, according to the royal chronology (one of the classic books) called “Tung-Kien,” meaning universal history, was the fifth ruler after the founding of the monarchy. Confucius highly praises him and attributes the prosperity of the empire to this worship, in that passage and also in chapter 78, and he presents the ancient kings as models to future generations in this regard. He also says towards the end of this chapter that whoever fully understands the essence of the worship of Heaven and Earth and the just reason for sacrificing to ancestors can expect peaceful prosperity and wise governance throughout the kingdom, with as much certainty as if they held it in their own hands.

LXVII. It is true that the literati of China do not speak of hell or purgatory, but it is possible that some of them believe or believed in the past that wandering souls, roaming here and there through mountains and forests, are in a kind of purgatory. We have already mentioned these wandering souls. And without drawing too many comparisons between the beliefs of Christians and pagans, it can be said that there is something similar in the life of St. Conrad, Bishop of Constance, published in the second volume of my collection, where it is reported that he and his friend St. Udalric found bird-shaped souls condemned to the cataracts of the Rhine, whom they liberated through their prayers. Perhaps, according to some of these literati, ancient or modern, souls deserving punishment become spirits destined for menial tasks, such as guarding gates, kitchens, and stoves, until they have atoned for their crimes. We are not sufficiently knowledgeable about the doctrine of these literati to delve into the details of their beliefs.

FOURTH SECTION. The characters used by Fohi, founder of the Chinese empire, in his writings, and binary arithmetic

LXVIII. Characters of Fohi, the empire’s founder. LXIX. Binary arithmetic. LXX. Quinary, denary, and other arithmetic. LXXI. Binary arithmetic. LXXII. Addition. LXXIII. Subtraction and multiplication. LXXIV. Division. LXXV. The usefulness of binary arithmetic.

LXVIII. There is a strong likelihood that if Europeans were well-informed about Chinese literature, the aid of Logic, Criticism, Mathematics, and our more precise mode of expression would enable us to discover many things in the ancient Chinese monuments that are unknown to modern Chinese, and even to their later interpreters, despite their classical reputation. This is how Father Bouvet and I discovered, apparently according to the literal meaning of Fohi’s characters, who was the founder of the empire. These characters consist only of the combination of solid and broken lines, and they are considered the oldest and simplest in China. There are sixty-four figures included in the book called “Ye Kim,” which means the Book of Changes. Several centuries after Fohi, Emperor Ven’Vam and his son Cheu Cum, and even more than five centuries after the famous Confucius, sought philosophical mysteries in these characters. Others have even attempted to derive a kind of geomancy and other similar vanities from them. However, it turns out that what Fohi truly possessed was binary arithmetic, which I rediscovered thousands of years later. In this arithmetic, there are only two symbols, 0 and 1, with which all numbers can be written. When I shared this arithmetic with Father Bouvet, he immediately recognized Fohi’s characters, as they correspond exactly. He used the broken line “–” for 0 or zero, and the solid line “-” for the digit 1. This arithmetic provides the simplest way to create variations since there are only two components. It seems that Fohi had insights into the science of combinations, on which I wrote a short dissertation in my youth, which was reprinted long after, against my will. However, this arithmetic was completely lost, so later Chinese had no way of realizing its existence. They turned Fohi’s characters into some kind of symbols and hieroglyphs, as is customary when one deviates from the true meaning. It is similar to what the good Father Kircher did with regard to the writing on the obelisks of the Egyptians, which he did not understand. This also demonstrates that the ancient Chinese far surpassed the modern ones, not only in piety (which constitutes the most perfect morality) but also in science.

LXIX. However, since this binary arithmetic, although explained in the “Mélanges de Berlin,” is still not well known, and its parallelism with Fohi’s characters is only found in the German journal of the late Mr. Tenzelius from 1705, I want to explain it here. It seems very fitting, as it concerns the justification of the doctrines of the ancient Chinese and their superiority over the moderns. I will only add, before delving into it, that the late Mr. André Muller, a native of Greiffenhagen and provost of Berlin, who was the European who studied Chinese characters the most without ever leaving the continent, published with notes what Abdalla Beidavœus wrote about China. In this Arabic work, it is noted that Fohi had discovered “peculiare scribendi genus, Arithmeticam, contractus et Rationaria,” a particular method of writing, arithmetic, contracts, and accounts. What is said about arithmetic confirms my explanation of the characters of this ancient philosopher-king, by which they are reduced to numbers.

LXX. The ancient Romans used an arithmetic that combined quinary and denary systems, and some remnants of it can still be seen in tally marks. In Archimedes' work on the number of sand, we can already see some knowledge of a denary arithmetic, which came to us from the Arabs and appears to have been brought from Spain or at least made more widely known by the famous Gerbert, later Pope Sylvester II. It seems to have originated from the fact that we have ten fingers. However, since this number is arbitrary, some have proposed using a base of twelve and its multiples. On the contrary, the late Mr. Erhard Weigelius opted for a smaller number, adhering to the quaternary system or the “tetractys” in the style of Pythagoras. Thus, in the decimal progression, we write all numbers in the quaternary progression as 0, 1, 2, 3. For example, 321 represents 48 + 8 + 1, which is equal to 57 in the common expression.

LXXI. This led me to think that in the binary or binary doubling progression, all numbers could be expressed using only 0 and 1. Thus:

10 will represent 2, 100 will represent 4, 1000 will represent 8, etc.

And the numbers will be expressed as follows:

These expressions are in accordance with the hypothesis, for example:

111 = 100 + 10 + 1 = 4 + 2 + 1 = 7

11001 = 10000 + 1000 + 1 = 16 + 8 + 1 = 25

They can also be found through continuous addition of unity, for example:

But to continue this table of the expression of consecutive or natural numbers as much as desired, there is no need for calculation, as it suffices to note that each column is periodic, with the same periods recurring infinitely. The first column contains 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, etc.; the second column contains 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, etc.; the third column contains 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, etc.; the fourth column contains 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, etc., and so on for the other columns, assuming that the empty spaces above the column are filled with zeros. Thus, these columns can be written in sequence, and consequently, the table of natural numbers can be constructed without any calculation. This is what can be called “Numeration.”

LXXII. As for “Addition,” it is simply done by counting and dotting when there are numbers to be added together. Add each column normally, as follows: Count the units in the column; if, for example, there are 29 units, see how this number is written in the table, which is 11101. Thus, you write 1 under the column and put dots under the second, third, and fourth columns. These dots indicate that an additional unit must be counted in the column afterward.

LXXIII. “Subtraction” can be very easy. “Multiplication” reduces to simple additions and does not require the Pythagorean table. It is sufficient to know that 0 times 0 is 0, 0 times 1 is 0, 1 times 0 is 0, and 1 times 1 is 1.

LXXIV. “Division” does not require tallying as in ordinary calculation. It is only necessary to determine if the divisor is greater or smaller than the previous remainder. In the former case, the quotient is 0; in the latter case, it is 1, and the divisor must be subtracted from the previous remainder to obtain a new one.

LXXV. These conveniences were proposed by a clever individual after the introduction of this arithmetic in certain calculations. But the main utility lies in its significant contribution to the advancement of the science of numbers, as everything proceeds in periods. It is remarkable that the powers of the same degree, obtained by elevating consecutive natural numbers successively, no matter how high the degree, do not have larger periods than the natural numbers themselves, which are their roots.

at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)