The theories of these people provided Guo Kang with sufficient reasons and inspired him a lot - for example, there is no need to be too detailed in publicity and explanation.
As long as these "theories" can be justified. The point is not whether its evidence is sufficient or whether its logical argument is reasonable, but whether it can improve social efficiency and promote national development.
After all, these facts prove that whether it is Europe in the Enlightenment era or China in the 20th century, the "guiding theories" adopted are full of a lot of violent theories. But this did not prevent them from developing rapidly and finally achieving overtake.
An example can be said to be a special case of a certain civilization. But this is the case for two civilizations that once had completely opposite positions and encouraged each other, which should be enough to prove many problems.
These philosophers of the Enlightenment era did have some concepts and understanding of the East. At least they really know the advantages of the imperial examination system and the bureaucracy, and they also understand that China has a long history. Even the detailed judgment of "Yongzheng was more diligent than other monarchs" cannot be wrong... But the China they understand is still It is very one-sided, and the judgments and conclusions drawn often deviate greatly from the facts.
Ultimately, China is just an argument. When European thinkers criticized Aristotle, they still used Platonic thinking and praised China as the ideal country. Even when they advocated Confucius, they still could not get rid of the way of thinking they learned from the Greeks. The China they praise is, in the final analysis, just a perfect country that is imaginary and conforms to European ideals based on traditional European philosophy and values.
In the same way, when Chinese thinkers criticized Confucius, they also followed the thinking of Confucian scholars and praised Europe as a moral and efficient civilized world. Even when they advocate ancient Greek philosophers, they have never been able to get rid of China's own way of thinking. The Europe they praise is, in the final analysis, just a fictitious and perfect country that conforms to Chinese ideals based on traditional Chinese philosophy and values.
Are Chinese characters really as simple as Guo Kang said? of course not. It is quite difficult to make good use of this set of tools. But his goal was not to prove that Chinese characters are simple, but to inform the other party that he was pursuing a policy of promoting Chinese characters and was confident enough to succeed. In this way, on the one hand, we can prove that we are close to the civilization of the Central Plains, and on the other hand, we can use the experience of the Central Plains to prove that Rome will become more and more stable.
Anyway, now Europeans are also in the era of touting China, and the craze caused by Marco Polo has not disappeared yet. According to experience, this enthusiasm can even last until the 19th century. In this case, it is useless if it is not used.
He is even ready to prove to other European countries that the introduction of Chinese is reasonable. This is also not something he came up with alone, but directly copied the thinking of the British back then.
Before the 19th century, English was in a very awkward situation. There is an example that everyone should be familiar with: when Macartney visited the Qing Dynasty, he left without reaching any effective results with Qianlong. The biggest problem with this diplomatic failure was not that the Qing Dynasty was too arrogant or the British were too stubborn, but the simplest thing - not understanding.
The reason for not being able to understand is not that the Qing Dynasty closed its eyes and did not understand the language of Europeans. In fact, even after falling out with the Roman Church, there were still a large number of foreign missionaries operating in the imperial court, as well as specialized translation agencies with relatively professional translations of French, Latin, Portuguese, Italian, Russian and even Prussian.
——But there is no English.
During the Qianlong period, the Fourth Translation Institute was commissioned to compile "Huayi Translation" as the official standard foreign language dictionary. It includes "Fla'anshiya", "Radino", "Egmaniya", "Idariya" and "Bodugariya". In addition, there is also a "(Spoken English) Chinese Translation of the Chinese", but the content contains many errors, and the title, format, and signature are also different from the other books. It is suspected that it was added temporarily later and is not the same batch of official translations.
In fact, you don’t even need to look at the content. When the ancient court transliterated names, they were very particular about the words used to praise and criticize. Comparing the names "Idaliya" and "(口英)咭厎国", as well as the string of "elegant words" and this exception, you can know the attitude of people at that time.
Not only the Qing people, but also the European missionaries serving the Qing court did not understand English. There was nothing we could do about it, because no serious cultural person in Europe at that time could learn this thing... There was a Frenchman who claimed that he could help and looked for a translator, but Macartney and others did not dare to believe him, causing the matter to fall through.
Among the entire mission, the leader, Macartney, was an old nobleman who knew Latin and could communicate with Qianlong. But others are basically talking like chickens and ducks. Not only that, Catholic missionaries also formed groups in the Qing Dynasty, forming cliques and deliberately ostracizing them.
Bishop BJ Tang Shixuan, Father Soderchao and others appointed by the Roman Church would cause trouble for the British whenever they had the opportunity. According to the Dutch envoy Van Branden, when inspecting the astronomical instruments brought by the British, Tang Shixuan and others found that many devices were worn, and the inscriptions on some parts were still in German. Obviously, this "national gift" was just a second-hand thing put together, which made the Qing government quite angry, and became the main evidence for their final identification of the mission.
This is evident from the situation of this language at that time.
Perhaps because they are not confident in their own language, English scholars are more radical than the French. In 1668, the Royal Society held a special seminar, chaired by Wilkins, one of the founders, to discuss whether Chinese characters could be directly used as the scientific language and philosophical language of Europe, or at least, design a language like Chinese characters, but more Simple "ideographic symbols" are used to transform existing English and make it have Chinese-style "ideographic connotation".
——Guo Kang explained before that the introduction of Chinese characters into Greek as vocabulary codes was a direct approach. The Royal Society has done a lot of in-depth research on this, and has really made arguments and attempts. It is much more serious than those who later asked for the Latinization of Chinese characters, and even carried out Latinization research with foreign sponsorship. Therefore, their results can be directly used for reference.
Similarly, he can also come up with enough theories and call on other Europeans to follow suit, because this was originally the research craze of Europeans in the 17th century. Newton and others were engaged in the research of "universal language" because they believed that Latin was no longer sufficient, so a more precise and concise language, preferably with higher universality and abstraction, was needed to facilitate natural philosophy. Research.
Newton, who was very obsessed with religion, called this ideal "prophetic language" and invested a lot of energy in it. Obviously, Europeans just accept this rhetoric.
(End of chapter)
