昨天蜉蝣博登出了萊布尼茲對中國科學的讚譽之詞。我在留言中問蜉蝣博西方對中國科學和哲學的態度從十七世紀的推崇到十八十九世紀的貶低的原因是什麼。我以後有時間會提一下自己的想法。再此先把黑格爾的一些論點放在這裡

A free, ideal, spiritual kingdom has here no place. What may be called scientific is of a merely empirical nature, and is made absolutely subservient to the Useful on behalf of the State – its requirements and those of individuals.

The nature of their Written Language is at the outset a great hindrance to the development of the sciences. Rather, conversely, because a true scientific interest does not exist, the Chinese have acquired no better instrument for representing and imparting thought.

As to the sciences themselves, History among the Chinese comprehends the bare and definite facts, without any opinion or reasoning upon them. In the same way their Jurisprudence gives only fixed laws, and their Ethics only determinate duties, without raising the question of a subjective foundation for them. The Chinese have, however, in addition to other sciences, a Philosophy, whose elementary principles are of great antiquity,

As to the other sciences, they are not regarded as such, but rather as branches of knowledge for the behoof of practical ends. The Chinese are far behind in Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy, notwithstanding their quondam reputation in regard to them. 

They knew many things at a time when Europeans had not discovered them, but they have not understood how to apply their knowledge:

The Chinese have as a general characteristic, a remarkable skill in imitation, which is exercised not merely in daily life, but also in art. They have not yet succeeded in representing the beautiful, as beautiful; for in their painting, perspective and shadow are wanting. And although a Chinese painter copies European pictures (as the Chinese do everything else) correctly; although he observes accurately how many scales a carp has; how many indentations there are in the leaves of a tree; what is the form of various trees, and how the branches bend; – the Exalted, the Ideal and Beautiful is not the domain of his art and skill.

The Chinese are, on the other hand, too proud to learn anything from Europeans, although they must often recognize their superiority

關於孔子

Cicero gives us De Officiis, a book of moral teaching more comprehensive and better than all the books of Confucius. He is hence only a man who has a certain amount of practical and worldly wisdom — one with whom there is no speculative philosophy. We may conclude from his original works that for their reputation it would have been better had they never been translated. The treatise which the Jesuits produced is, however, more a paraphrase than a translation.

關於老子

Another passage in the same place has this sense, “He whom ye look at and do not see, is named I; thou hearkenest to him and hearest him not, and he is called Hi; thou seekest for him with thy hand and touchest him not, and his name is Wei. Thou meetest him and seest not his head; thou goest behind him and seest not his back.” These contradictory expressions are called the” chain of reason.” One naturally thinks in quoting these passages of יהוה and of the African kingly name of Juba and also of Jovis. This I-hi-weï or I-H-W is further made to signify an absolute vacuity and that which is Nothing; to the Chinese what is highest and the origin of things is nothing, emptiness, the altogether undetermined, the abstract universal, and this is also called Tao or reason. When the Greeks say that the absolute is one, or when men in modern times say that it is the highest existence, all determinations are abolished, and by the merely abstract Being nothing has been expressed excepting this same negation, only in an affirmative form. But if Philosophy has got no further than to such expression, it still stands on its most elementary stage. What is there to be found in all this learning?