Writings on China / Gottefried Wilhelm Leibniz; translated, with an introduction, notes, and commentaries by Daniel J. Cook and Henry Rosemont, Jr.

A collection of four pieces originally written in Latin and French.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [141]-148) and indexes.

I. The Background of Leibniz's China Writings -- II. Sources of Leibniz's Knowledge of China -- III. The Chinese Intellectual Tradition -- IV. The Manuscripts and Their Translations -- Preface to the Novissima Sinica (1697/99) -- On the Civil Cult of Confucius (1700) -- Remarks on Chinese Rites and Religion (1708) -- Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese (1716) -- Appendix: Transcription Conversion Table.

Although Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is best known as a metaphysician, mathematician, and logician, he arguably used the word "China" in his voluminous writings and correspondence more often than those terms usually associated with him: "entelechies," "monads," "pre-established harmony," and so forth. If so, then his sustained writings on things Chinese -- especially on Chinese philosophy and religion -- should take their place alongside his other major works such as the Theodicy, Discourse on Metaphysics, Monadology, and the New Essays Concerning Human Understanding. His more detailed writings on China (as opposed to brief references to it, which he regularly made in his correspondence) can be roughly divided into two categories. The first is the letters he wrote to European -- usually Jesuit -- missionaries in China, or their peers in Europe. Especially is this true of his correspondence with Joachim Bouvet, one of the first French Jesuits to live in China, and whose letters to Leibniz clearly influenced the philosopher. -- Preface (p. [xi]).