《Asia in the Making of Europe》"The philosophes turned to China not merely out of curiosity about an exotic civilization, but because they sought a weapon to attack the Church and the arbitrary authority of the European monarchies."
(启蒙哲人转向中国,不仅是出于对异域文明的好奇,更是因为他们需要一种武器来攻击教会和欧洲君主制的专制权威。)
"Confucianism, as presented by the Jesuits, appeared to be a system of ethics independent of divine revelation. To the deists, this was proof that morality could exist without religion – a central tenet of Enlightenment thought."
(耶稣会士呈现的儒家思想,似乎是一种独立于神启的伦理体系。对自然神论者而言,这证明了道德可以脱离宗教而存在——这正是启蒙思想的核心信条。)
"Voltaire’s admiration for China’s examination system and its promotion of talent over birth was a direct challenge to the European aristocracy. Quesnay’s ‘legal despotism’ drew heavily on the Chinese ideal of a ruler guided by natural law."
(伏尔泰对中国科举制度及其“任人唯贤”的推崇,是对欧洲贵族世袭制的直接挑战;魁奈的“合法专制”理论深受中国“君主遵循自然法”理想的启发。)
"Leibniz’s fascination with the *I Ching* hexagrams as a ‘universal binary system’ was less about understanding Chinese thought than about finding confirmation for his own mathematical and theological speculations."
(莱布尼茨对《易经》卦象作为“通用二进制系统”的痴迷,与其说是为了理解中国思想,不如说是为他自己的数学与神学猜想寻找佐证。)
"The Enlightenment’s China was a mirror that reflected Europe’s own aspirations and anxieties. It was less the real China than a China invented to serve European debates.""The Chinese studies of the Enlightenment were not a chapter in the history of sinology, but a chapter in the history of Europe’s intellectual rebellion. China’s role was that of an ideological ally in the battle against tradition."
(启蒙运动时期的中国研究并非汉学史的一章,而是欧洲思想反叛史的一章。中国的角色是反传统斗争中的意识形态盟友。)(Donald F. Lach & Edwin J. Van Kley, 1993)