(Address of the Duke of Shao, 845 B.C.)
 

Denis Diderot (1713-1784). French philosopher & encyclopedist.

    Diderot says of the Chinese:

These peoples are superior to all other Asiatics in antiquity, art, intellect, wisdom, policy, and their taste for philosophy: nay, in the judgment of certain authors, they dispute the palm in these matters
with the most enlightened peoples of Europe (Durant 639).

       In the Art of Governing, this Nation (The Chinese) has ever surpassed
       all others without exception.
 
    He was ordered to leave the University of Halle within twenty-four hours "under pain of immediate death" (Creel 256).

Gottfried W. von Leibnitz (1646-1716). German philosopher & mathematician.

    "Leibnitz wrote of the Chinese:
 

Even if we are equal to them in the productive arts, and if we surpass them in the theoretical sciences, it is certainly true (I am almost ashamed to admit) that they surpass us in practical philosophy, by which I mean the rules of ethics and politics which have been devised for the conduct and benefit of human life" (Creel 256).

"Leibnitz, after studying Chinese philosophy, appealed for the mingling and cross-fertilization of East and West. 'The condition of affairs among ourselves,' he wrote, in terms which have been useful to every generation, 'is such that in view of the inordinate lengths to which the corruption of morals has advanced, I almost think it necessary that Chinese missionaries should be sent to us to teach us the aim and practice of natural theology....For I believe that if a wise man were to be appointed judge...of the goodness of peoples, he would award the golden apple to the Chinese.' He begged Peter the Great to build a land route to China, and he promoted the foundation of societies in Moscow and Berlin for the 'opening up of China and the interchange of civilizations between China and Europe" (Durant 693).

Voltaire (1694-1778):

"I have read his [Confucius'] books with attention; I have made extracts from them; I have never found in them anything but the purest morality, without the slightest tinge of charlatanism.

The body of this empire (China) has existed four thousand years,
without having undergone any sensible alteration in its laws, customs, language, or even in its fashions of apparel ....

The organization of this empire is in truth the best that the world
has ever seen.

The happiest period, and the one most worthy of respect which there has ever been on this earth, was the one which followed his (Confucius') laws."

    Voltaire declared that in morality Europeans  "ought to become the disciples" of the Chinese; for

"The constitution of their empire is in truth the best that there is in the    world...   the only one in which a governor of a province is punished if,  when he quits his post, he is not acclaimed by the people" (Creel 256).

"The great point in which all Authors, who have wrote of the Chinese,
do generally agree that they excell all other people in, is the Art of         Government. Even the French ... are obliged to own ingeniously that   the Chinese do excell all other nations in the Art of Government, and can never sufficiently admire those political maxims collected, methodized and commented upon by the great Confucius. " (Creel, 256)

    Macaulay criticized the "French academicians" of the eighteenth century for borrowing Chinese ideas of a humane government. These Chinese ideas,  "which ought not to have been imposed on an old nurse," Macaulay wrote, "were gravely laid down as foundations of political theories by eminent [French] philosophers" (Creel 255).

Ferdinand Brunetiere (1849). French critic & social philosopher.

    Ferdinand Brunetiere severely criticized the French for accepting democratic ideas of  the Chinese:

"There is nothing more Chinese! The Revolution organized the system, but its principles were laid down by `philosophy,' [Chinese philosophy]  and by those philosophers who admired and panegyrized China. Everything to competitive examinations and nothing to favor, but above all nothing to heredity! their envious spirit has been seduced by that conception of the mandarinate [Confucius]." (Creel 255)

    Fenelon, in his Dialogues of the Dead (published in 1700) attacks Confucius' ideas of "liberty,            equality, and fraternity" through an imaginary dialogue between Socrates and Confucius. (Creel 264)
 

Montesquieu (1689-1755). French jurist and philosophical writer on history and government.

    In praising the Chinese system of government, Montesquieu says,

                   "This empire is formed on the plan of a government of a family" (Creel 268).

Francois Quesnay (1694-1774). French physician and economist.

   "When Francois Quesnay first set forth his principles of his very influential Physiocratic doctrine; he did so in an exposition of the government of China, as he understood it. In the introduction to his final section, concerned with 'the natural principles in accord with which prosperous governments are constituted,' he stated that it was merely 'a systematic account of the Chinese doctrine, which deserves to be taken as a model for all states'" (Creel  257).

SOURCES:

Creel, H. G. Confucius and the Chinese Way. New York: Harper, 1949.
Durant, William. The Story of Civilization: I. Our Oriental Heritage. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1942.