Donald F. Lach

China and the Era of the Enlightenment

mo THE fabled cities of China and India came during the sixteenth | century the merchallts and adventurers of Europe. In the markets of s (Soa, Macao, and Nagasaki they traded the products of Europe for the .spiees of India. the .silks of China, and the lacquer ware of Japan. In the beginning the Spanish and Portuglle.se monopolized the trade. By the middle of the seventeenth centur,y tlle merchants of the Iberian Peninsula were succeefl(d in the Far East l)y the Dutch. The Dutch thereafter were almost force>l to relinquish their hold hy the eastward surge of traders and voyagers from England and France. lXliKsslonaries, espeeially the Jesuits, followed the mer( hants in an en(leasor to xvin for Christianity the pagan souls of eastern and central .\sia. tTnlilie those who preceded them, the Jesuits were men of cruzlition who reported with a fair elegree of accuracy, if not always without hias. the peculiarities. customs, and tra(litions of the contemporary Chinese scene>. AIthollgh accounts of China hy merchants and a(lventurers constitllte important historical material of all sorts, Sino-European commercial relations are pertinent to the subject under consideration only in so far as they affected the (levelopment of lX,uropean art and industry.1 Of more importance were the Jesllit mi.ssions in China, India, and the East Indies. Influenced hy these Jesll it w riting.s, lillropean scholars }3eca:ne .seriously interested in China. Ro})eXrt C. Jenliin.s, an Linglishman, pululishe(l what w-as prohal)ly one of the first llnhiasetl esaluations of TAle Jes7lits in Ckina (T,ondon, 189ak). He begins