German Fascination with Chinese Culture
in the 18th century:

The "Causa Wolffiana".

Christian Wolff	Oration 1721

It concerns Christian Wolff, a German mathematician and philosopher. He was an extraordinary polymath who lost in 1723 his university position at Halle and was expelled from Prussia for 17 years, due to a lecture he gave in 1721 with the title The practical religion of the Chinese, in which he outlined and praised the teaching of Confucius.

Everything what we write is of course well-known to the experts, however this knowledge is not at all widespread, neither in Germany or say in Europe, nor in China (often Chinese intellectuals are better informed about European affairs than the European themselves!). All details are easily available (one may look at Google or any other data base), even a written version of Wolff's lecture is available in print as a volume in the Philosophische Bibliothek published by Meiner (in Latin as well as translated into German), but one has to be aware of the case and to know the relevant keywords. Our aim is to draw the attention to the historic setting and to discuss its relevance. We can touch only the basic facts; for a deeper understanding of the controversy, the reader is refered to the literature.

1. Europe and China.

Sanssouci: Tee House	Sanssouci: Dragon Pavillon	Berlin-Charlottenburg	Chinese porcelain

Since we deal with the European reception of Chinese ideas, we definitely have to refer to Leibniz. His volume Novissima Sinica (Latest news from China), published in 1697 and again in 1699, provided information about Chinese culture, society, and politics to a European audience. It was not only a collection of facts; it also was an attempt to foster cultural exchange and understanding between Europe and China. He believed that studying China could benefit Europe, particularly in areas like mathematics, philosophy, and governance. The book has a preface written by Leibniz, followed by a collection of reports and letters from Jesuit missionaries in China about Chinese history, philosophy, religion, and social customs.

The introduction of binary numbers is usually attributed to Leibniz. For example, the University at Hannover (named now after Leibniz), uses as its Logo his writing of the numbers 1, 2, 4 as the binary numbers 1, 10, 100 ... . One should be aware that apparently Leibniz was inspired by the Chinese trigrams used in the Yijing (易经). In this way, the binary number system which is the basis of all computer calculations, has obvious traces also to China.

Novissima Sinica		Binary numbers: Leibniz's writing	The eight trigrams

2. Leibniz, Wolff, Kant, Hegel.

Leibniz (1646 - 1716)	Wolff (1679 - 1754)	Kant (1724 - 1804)	Hegel (1770 - 1831)

The names of Leibniz, Kant and Hegel are well-known to anyone. But Christian Wolff? Actually, his work was appreciated very much by his contemporaries. He was considered as a kind of student or follower of Leibniz and the socalled Leibniz-Wolff system dominated all the philosophical discussions in the mid of the 18th century in Germany and in many neighboring countries (we will say a little more about it, below).

Leibniz himself did not publish much. There is his Theodizee, published in 1710, all other works were published only after his death. For example, the Nouveaux Essays sur l'entendement humain was written 1703–05, but published in 1765. The Monadology, conceived at the end of the 17th century, was written 1714 for the Frech philosopher Nicolas François Rémond, and published in 1720. On the other hand, there were numerous letters which Leibniz wrote and where he outlined his ideas. Also Wolff got his information about Leibniz's thinking only via letters.

When Kant referred to the philosophical knowledge of his time, this was the Leibniz-Wolff philosophy. The aim of Kant was, to clarify the notions, to outline the underlying assumptions, and to arrange in this way a coherent doctrine. Note that the Newtonion physics starts with space and time as rigid data, being given independently of matter. Whereas Leibniz rated space and time as relation between material bodies, Kant gave them the status of an priori intuition, independent of empirical observations. In retrospect, one sees that Kant's vision is completely outdated - it was not at all an improvement, but a dead end!

The main target of our presentation is the time between Leibniz and Kant. Still, we have added above a (partly fading) picture of Hegel in order to draw the attention also to the further development. And again, in-between Kant and Hegel further names may be added, for example Johann Gotlieb Fichte (1762 - 1814). Whereas Leibniz, Wolff and Kant were mathematicians who were eager to use mathematical thinking as a fundamental tool to describe the world, this changed after Kant completely.

3. Christian Wolff: 1679 - 1754

1679	born at Wroclaw (now Poland)
1699	student of mathematics, physics, and philosophy at Jena.
1703	lecturer at the university of Leipzig
1706	professor for mathematics (later also philosophy) at Halle (Saale), near to Leipzig.
	Subjects: logic, mathematics, philosophy, jurisprudence ("natural law") He created a systematic approach to philosophy, which later was called the "Leibniz-Wolff system"; some details will be mentioned below. There were many followers, they were called the "Wolffianer".

	Wolff was famous ry as a young man. He became a member of all the relevant scientific academies:
1710	Member of the London Royal Society
1711	Member of Berliner Academie der Wissenschaften
1725	Honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy
1733	Member of Academie de Sciences, Paris.

Wolff was, on the first hand, a mathematician:
        as a student, then as a teacher,
        (and I was informed by Jochen Ziegenbalg that the now standard calculation of π using the ideas of Archimedes, is due to Wolff).
But he soon extended his interest to various other subjects,
        both as a student, then as a teacher,
first, to physics, then to philosophy and psychology, and, very important, also to jurisprudence.

Here is a statement which he mentioned quite often;
it is also the first sentence of the Oration 1721 which is at the center of interest in my lecture:

Already as a child, I was eager to percieve the truth using only clear arguments, so I started soon to analyse the methods of proofs used by mathematicians and to transfer them to the philosophical disciplines.

4. The Leibniz-Wolff system

• Rene Descartes: Discours de la méthode, 1637.
• Blaise Pascal: l'Esprit géométrique, 1658.
• Baruch Spinoza: Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata, 1677.

This was also Wolff's intention, but he did not consider just an individual topic, his aim was to cover all subjects.

This then was labelled the Leibniz-Wolff system of knowledge

These were the topics which were discussed (the ordering followed partly the scholastic, or even Aristotelian tradition).

• Logic.
• Ontology.
• Cosmology.
• Rational psychology.
• Theology.
• Ethics.
• Natural law.
• Economic theory.
• Society and politics.
• Physics.
• Mathematics.

5. Christian Wolff: his interest in China and the oration 1721

Wolff praised the purity of the moral precepts of Confucius,
pointing to them as an evidence of the power of human reason
to reach moral truth by its own efforts.

There was a lot of opposition at Halle, but Wolff continued to lecture about Chinese culture.

On 12 July 1723, Wolff held again a public lecture, this time at the end of his term as rector:
now comparing Moses, Christ, and Mohammed with Confucius.

Directly after his 1721 lecture, several professors of Halle had contacted the king of Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm I,
Wolff was accused of atheism.
Immediately after his 1723 lecture, Wolff was expelled from Prussia by Friedrich Wilhelm I
and his books were prohibited.

1723	Expulsion from Prussia: to leave Prussian territory within 48 hours (or to be hanged). His books were prohibited.

As I have mentioned, Wolff was famous in Germany, even throughout Europe.
So immediately he got several offers and he decided to go to Marburg.

1723	Professor at Marburg

Wolff published the text of his oration in 1726.
A year before, there was an unauthorized publication of his lecture (in two editions), apparently by one of his enemies,
with hints insinuating that the Jesuits were supporting Wolff.
And shortly after his own publication, there was a further edition of the text, by Lange, one of his opponents at Halle,
with an outline of many objections.

Remark. I should add that Wolff's expulsion may have had also other reasons!
There were ongoing controversies between Wolff and a group of pietists at the University of Halle, the main opponents of Wolff were August Hermann Francke (1663 - 1727), the founder of the Francke Foundation (which still exists), as well as his former student Joachim Lange. These were the persons who informed the Prussian king about Wolff's lectures. They had complained also before about Wolff, starting in 1709, when Wolff enlarged the topics of his lectures and in this way attracted a lot of students. According to Voltaire, Francke had been teaching in an empty classroom, but Wolff attracted with his lectures around 1,000 students from all over.
And there were the usual university intrigues, say fights concerning the filling of positions.

Let me return to the scientific dispute!

6. The Chinese sources used by Wolff.

The published version of the 1721 oration contains a lot of annotations, some of them provide further information about China and its culture. There is a long discussion whether the Confucian thinking is atheistic or not: for being an atheist you should have knowledge about a god, but deny his power. And there are also references to Chinese buddhism, which is considered as really pagan, but also not relevant for Chinese thinking.

Wolff's conclusion, from his reading of Confucius: The concept of "god" is not needed, neither for an explanation of the world, nor for establishing moral principles. This may be considered as a decisive breakthrough in European philosophy.

Some hints about the development may be appropriate.

In Europe, theology was always a firm part of philosophy, it often is considered as one of the oldest academic disciplines. Plato opposed atheism, Aristotle discussed theology in his book Metaphysics. In the Middle Ages, philosophy was rated as just the handmaid of theology!

We have mentioned that the only treatise published by Leibniz is the Theodicy (1710), dealing with the acting of God, trying to resolve the problem of the existence of evil in the world. Here, we still have the dominance of theology.

On the other hand, in the second half of the 18th century, all religious beliefs were strongly criticized, for example in France by the Encyclopaedists, in England by Hume (1711 - 1776).

The assertion No god is needed should not be interpreted as a rejection of the idea of an existing god, neither for Wolff himself, nor for later philosophers and scientists. God may be seen either as a nice decoration of the world, or as a kind of target in the historical development (Hegel, Whitehead).

Nietzsche, in his work Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (1882) formulated the dictum God is dead. This was meant as a label not only for the loss of the belief in God, but for the decline of morality - in sharp contrast to Wolff!

7. The revocation of the expulsion in 1740

1740	Revocation of Wolff's expulsion, Wolff became again professor at Halle
	1740: Wolff's triumphant return to Halle
1743	Wolff became chancellor at the university of Halle.
1754	Wolff died at Halle (Saale)

A side remark. In the plot we have presented, king Friedrich Wilhelm I is seen as the rogue, his son king Friedrich II as the savior, and this corresponds well to a quite standard assessment of both. FW I got the (pejorative) nickname "Soldatenkönig" (Soldier King), whereas Friedrich II is usually called "The Great".

8. Jesuits and Pietists

There is the old fight between catholics and protestants, here: between Jesuits and Pietists.
The China mission was organized by Jesuits, the Pietists were active in India.
(Leibniz and Wolff both were protestant, but they strongly relied on the Jesuit reports from China).

The missionaries wanted to spread Christianity all over the world.
On the other hand, they informed about the local cultures,
sometimes definitely on eye level.

The pietists are now considered as old-fashioned, as outmoded
(for example, in America, they deny the achievements of modern natural sciences).
However, the pietists in the 17th and 18th century were strongly engaged
in spreading the modern knowledge!

And I want to stress: Both pietists and Jesuits focussed their attention to education! (and, in this way, they are comparable to Confucius).

In particular, the modern secondary school movement in the West strongly relies on pietistic ideas: in contrast to the classical secondary schools which were based on the teaching of Greek and Latin, there now was the a focus on training in basic subjects, in particular also mechanical skills such as woodworking and domestic skills.

The most important contribution by Francke was his Orphant School at Halle:
to educate orphants not just to survive, but to be able to understand the world.
One still can admire Francke's Chamber of Wonders, a collection of artifacts from all over the world, which were used for the teaching. It ressembles the collections in the Renaissance and Baroque castles used by dukes in order to impress and surprise their visitors. But the Francke collection was not meant for noblemen, but for the orphants he took care of.

Chamber of Wonders at Halle

4.   Two years ago, in May 2023, Huang Liaoyu published a rather depressing account about the present relationship between Germany and China (mainly based on the scientific contacts in the humanities), ending with a plea to recover the former fruitful exchange of ideas.

Let me dedicate this text to Professor Liu ShaoXue who visited 40 years ago Germany and other European countries in order to start our cooperation. As all of you know, this endeavor has been and still is really successful.