CHINESE INFLUENCES UPON THE PHYSIOCRATS

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IT is known to students of the history of economic thought
that China and the Chinese were eulogised by the group of
economists of eighteenth-century France who are commonly
called the physiocrats. The influence of the Chinese upon the
physiocrats was probably more extensive and more significant
than has generally been appreciated. If one will but look into
the matter, he can readily discern similarities in thought on the
part of Chinese sages and French economistes. For example,
the delightful writings of Mencius, or Mang tzu, of the third
century B.C., contain passages strongly reminiscent of the physio-
crats. These deal with such matters as the duty of the prince
to provide for the physical needs of his people and, consequently,
to foster agriculture, the superiority of the natural ord«;)r to all
the statutes that can be devised by man, and the place and
function of the class of Chinese scholars who were selected
because of their erudition to occupy important governmental
positions. This similarity is more than mere coincidence ;
it is due to an actual borrowing on the part of the physiocrats.
Lines through which the contact was established will be discussed
below.
To be sure, the physiocrats also had Western models, including
Plato among the ancients,,Sully and Vauban among the French,
and Locke and Hume among the English. But in this paper
only the Chinese influences will be examined.
First may be mentioned those channels by which Chinese
thought reached the physiocrats directly. One of the larger
works of Quesnay was Le Despotisme de 7,a Chine. It is likely
that the four authors from whom quotations are given below
were among his principal sources of information about China.
- Turgot's chief economic treatise was prepared for the guidance
/ of two young Chinese who were about to return to their homeland
after a religious education in France. These two young men,
moreover, had for a time attended the weekly meetings of the
physiocrats.1 Pierre le Poivre had set out as a missionary to the
1 Henri Cordier, Melanges d'Histoire et de Geographie orientales, 3 vols. (Paris,

1914) ; Louis Pfister, Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les J esuites de

l'ancienne Mission de Chine, 1552-1773, Shanghai, 1932-34. Articles on Ko and
Yang.
FEB. 1938] CHINESE INFLUENCES UPON THE PHYSIOCRATS 55

Far East, and had subsequently entered the employ of the Com-
pany of the Indies, in which capacity he had travelled widely in
Pacific waters and had lived for some years in China. Le Poivre
delivered several addresses in Lyons in which he extolled the
Chinese. He was invited to repeat these addresses before the
Academy at Paris, and was hailed by the physiocrats as a con-
tributor to the solution of the troubling economic problems of

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France. Quotations from his book, Travels of a Phiwsopher,
are given below. On the death of le Poivre, du Pont wrote his
biography. In this work it is clearly shown that du Pont
himself had an extensive knowledge of the Orient.
In addition to the influences from China which acted upon
the physiocrats directly, there were a number of significant
currents of general intellectual influence from China to Europe.
The great geographical discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries made many lands accessible to the Europeans. Chinese,
Indian, Aztec, and Inca civilisations were studied for the
first time, and the Mohammedan culture, formerly regarded as
inimical since it was anti-Christian, now received sympathetic
study. Even primitive and savage societies aroused the interest
of the Europeans. Trade with the new lands had far-reaching
effects upon the European economy and economic thinking.
The economists who dominated . European thought in the period
before the physiocrats-namely, the mercantilists-found their
chief interest in the new trade. Artists were charmed with the
beautiful Chinese and Japanese painting on silk, porcelain and lac-
quer; designers of gardens turned from formal geometrical patterns
to a free imitation of nature on the Chinese model; architects
imitated Chinese roofs and other features ; Chippendale and
others imitated · Chinese furniture; porcelain manufactories were
set up at Sevres, Delfft and Meissen, and by Wedgewood in England.
The manufacture of silk was · introduced, influenced not only
by China, but also by the Near East, which had earlier imported
this industry from China. The building of canals, roads and
dikes had alreitdy begun in Europe, but was greatly stimulated
by the, Chinese example. The common people used chinaware,
dranlr tea, ~nd enjoyed fireworks; they decorated their mantels
with Oriental objects of art. The Courts adopted Eastern
luxuries, silks, perfumes, sedan-chairs, and new fashions of dress
and ceremony. Statesmen interested in taxation, public educa-
tion, civil service, and prison reform, found that China was worth
studying.
The intellectual movement in Europe, which arose partly,
 56 ECONOMIC HISTORY [FEB.

of course, from European causes, but which was influenced

certainly by the stream of exotic goods and thought, is known
as the European Enlightenment. This movement reached its
height in France in the eighteenth century. Not only economics
but many other fields of thought and action felt the new influence.

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In philosophy Roger Bacon had been greatly impressed with
the accounts of journeys to the Mongol Court, and Leibniz
and Voltaire were enthusiastic about China. Though the
precise . influences may never be discovered, it is not un-
likely that Descartes, Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke and Berkeley were
affected by the Oriental currents. The new intellectual
ferment also had influence upon the great religious movements
in Europe, both within and without the Roman Catholic Church.
A series of events of particular interest to this study occurred
within the Roman Catholic Church. China and Europe were
theatres in which a struggle was waged among the missionary
orders and societies for a century from about 1650. Books
were published and memorials and deputations sent to the Pope
by the partisans. One of the parties was composed chiefly of
the Society of Jesus, which dominated the China mission until
1773. The Jesuit missionaries employed the current Chinese
_::;,,J· word for God, a word too impersonal in its significance to please
their opponents ; they dressed and comported themselves as
Chinese scholars, a procedure which offended the mendicant
orders ; they permitted their converts to continue to participate
· in services honouring their ancestors and Confucius (Kung Fu
tzu), and their opponents branded these _services as idolatrous
and superstitious. On the other hand, the Jesuits advanced
in their defence that their opponents had done great harm to
the China mission. Their opposition to the ceremonies for the
ancestors and for Confucius (which the Jesuits said were merely
civil and respectful, not religious) was regarded by the Emperor
as seditious. This attitude of the non-Jesuit missionaries
alienated those Chinese who might have become Christians. The
Jesuits also showed a record of significant accomplishment.
Before the year 1600 they had converted Paul Hsi, one of the
important scholars of China, a member of the distinguished
Han Lin Academy. About the year 1640 they converted several
members of the Ming imperial family, which at that time was
being overthrown and replaced by the Manchu dynasty. Under
the emperors of both these dynasties the Jesuits were trusted
advisers at Court, employed in the bureaus which dealt with
astronomy, map-making and mathematics, and used as inter-
1938] CHINESE INFLUENCES UPON THE PHYSIOCRATS 57

preters and advisers when European embassies called at Peking.

Examples of European embassies which found Jesuit fathers
advising the Emperor are the seventeenth-century Dutch embassy
and the eighteenth-century Russian embassy.
Spain and Portugal were the first nations involved in the
troubles between the two groups of missionaries, but in the last
decade of the seventeenth century the stage was shifted from

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Spain and Portugal to France. In 1685 the French had begun
officially to participate in the China mission. In that year they
sent a group of Jesuits and a group of their opponents, members
of the ·Foreign Mission Society, to the Far East. Louis XIV had
then entered the second phase of his reign. He had lost his
great Minister, Colbert. Spurred by his new Queen, the former
Mme Maintenon, he had turned from his former splendour and
profligacy to an almost fanatical preoccupation with religion.
He had r<:lvoked the Edict of Nantes and had inaugurated a
new persecution of the Huguenots; religious orthodoxy was
prominent in the minds of the Court and of the nation. In the
year 1700 the Sorbonne condemned several books which dealt
with China and the differences among the missionaries. The
quarrel continued, until in 1710 the Pope forbade publications
upon the Chinese rites without direct permission. Less con-
tentious works continued to appear, among which those by the
Jesuits were the more extensive and systematic. In these, the
Jesuits exaggerated the moral excellences and the utopian con-
ditions of government and society in China. The quarrel between
the religious groups came to another crisis in the reigns of Louis XV
and XVI, although at this time the China mission claimed a very
minor interest in the struggle. Shortly after the Seven Years'
War, which ended in 1763, the Jesuits were expelled from France,
and in 1773 the Order was dissolved by the Pope and was not
restored until the nineteenth century.
The Roman Catholic missionaries began as early as 1585 to
publish books on China. Individual missionaries also conducted
significap.t correspondence with European Church officials,
scientist~ and philosophers (for example, Leibniz and Freret).
The Jesuits have been everywhere marked as students of the
languages and customs of the peoples among whom they have
laboured. To China, where the civilisation was of a particularly
high order, the Society sent missionaries of great intellectual
attainments, and, as a result, their scholarly accomplishment
was signally great. Moreover, their scientific and linguistic
labours in China, and those of their eminent opponents as well,
 58 ECONOMIC HISTORY [FEB.

were probably multiplied as a result of the long quarrel which

hung over the China mission. The reports about China from
the two groups of missionaries, and the translations from Chinese
authors, were seized upon by a wide and eager circle of readers
in both the Catholic and Protestant countries of Europe. There

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a
came to be widely disseminated knowledge (faulty, of course,
since adequate criticism was not yet available) of Chinese govern-
ment, economy, philosophy, morals, religion, and ancient
chronology.
There were, of course, other travellers than the missionaries
whose reports upon China exerted .an influence upon Europe.
Explorers, conquerors, traders and ambassadors wrote about
China; they seldom accomplished, however, an understanding
portrayal of Chinese religion, philosophy, ethics or government.
Besides the books of genuine travels there appeared also books
of pretended or imaginary travels, a remarkable literature. 1
These writings began as soon as Columbus had returned from
his voyage to America. St. Thomas More's Utopia is among
the first of these works. Marco Polo's report was long thought
to belong to this class. The names of Psalmanazaar, Mendez
Pinto, Daniel De Foe and Oliver Goldsmith are associated with
this type of literature. These fanciful works are mentioned
here because they definitely shaped the impression of the
remote lands that was being formed · in the minds of
Europeans.
Among the important European thinkers who were interested
in China, Leibniz occupies a position of particular interest for
this study. 2 Leibniz w'as in Paris for several years about 1675,
ten years before the departure of the French mission to China.
He praised Colbert for having promoted voyages of discovery,
and Pinot writes that from this year Leibniz was informed in
detail about the plan for sending a French mission to China, if
he was not actually the one who suggested it. Leibniz hoped
\ devoutly for the reunion of the great religions, for the dissemina-
1. tion of the Christian religion in the East, and of Eastern learning,
morality and governmental techniques in the West. A letter
1 Geoffroy Atkinson, The extraordinary voyage in French literature before 1700

(New York, 1920) ; The extraordinary voyage in French literature, 1700-1720 (Paris,
1922).
2
G. W. Leibniz, Novissvma Sinica (Munich, 1697); G . W . Merkel, Leibniz
und die China Mission (Leipzig, 1920); Henri Bernard, S.J., Sagesse Chinoise et
Philosophie Chretienne, essai su1· leurs Relati ons Historiques (Tientsin, 1935);
Virgile Pinot, La Chine et la Formation de l'Esprit Phi losophique en France 1640-
1740 (Paris, 1932).
 1938] CHINESE INFLUENCES UPON THE PHYSIOCRATS 59

from Father Fontaney 1 . tells of the formation in F~ance of the

Jesuit mission and of the scientific instructions given to the
missionaries. The group left France in 1685 bearing certificates
as "Royal Mathematicians." Another great scholar interested
in China was Voltaire. Pinot has promised a study of Voltaire's
interest in China.

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To show that the soil was prepared for an actual borrowing
of ideas from the Orient by French thinkers, and in particular
. by the physiocrats, attention may be called to the series of
disasters which had overwhelmed the French nation, and the
consequent receptive attitude toward economic, political and
moral ideas from abroad. As has been suggested, during the
long reign of Louis XIV there were two distinct periods. In
the first he had the assistance of the great mercantilist Minister,
Colbert, who built up French industry and commerce and who
attempted, though not with great success, to reduce Court
extravagance and lavish military expenditure. In the second
period, after the death of Colbert, Louis became a religious bigot.
During this period, moreover, France met with military and
financial misfortune. Following the death of Louis XIV and
during the minority of his grandson and successor Louis XV,
a regency ruled France. The Regent found the Court practically
bankrupt and was glad to learn of a scheme for the restoration
of the finances of the State. He established John Law of Scotland
as fiscal agent for the Government. Law led France into a whirl-
wind of manipulation of money, of banks, of chartered trading
companies and of the public debt, and introduced several
monop0lies. Upon the collapse of the speculative orgy thus
generated, the money of France was repudiated and bankruptcy
was general. Undoubtedly, however, France and John Law
were not the sole factors responsible for this speculative debdcle ;
there were deeper and more general causes, for England at the
same time went through the disastrous experience which has
taken its name, the South Sea Bubble, from one of the companies
which was promoted in that .c ountry. However, whether the
blame lies with France or with the broader economic innovations
of the age, France was again bankrupted. Louis XV, who
soon ascended the throne, proved to be an extravagant monarch.
It was in his reign, in the years 1756-63, that France engaged in
the Seven Years' War with England and at the same time in
1 Jean de Fontaney, S.J., Letter from China to Father de la Chaise, S.J.,

Confessor to Louis XIV, 1703. In Lettres edifiantes et curieuses, ecrites des ·

missions etrangeres, edition of 1810, Toulouse, Vol. XVII, pp. 167-170 (a series
of volumes published in Paris from 1703 to 1778).
60 ECONOMIC HISTORY [FEB.

campaigns on the European continent. Her defeat in these

struggles deprived her of Canada and of nearly all her stations
in the Orient, and reduced her European status to that of a second-
rate power. Taxes became even more complicated and ex-
orbitant; the ground was being prepared for the great revolution.
Disheartened by these disasters, French thinkers turned for

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guidance in several directions. Some looked to earlier French
writers such as Sully, and others searched abroad for ideas
regarding the proper organisation of a stable nation. One line
of inquiry led to England. In the seventeenth century France
and England had jointly defeated the naval and commercial
power of Holland. Under Louis XIV France had been the greatest
nation in Europe. Why had England prospered more than
France 1 In searching for the answer, Voltaire visited England,
Gournay, Turgot and others translated the works of English
writers, the French intellectuals read Hobbes, Locke and Hume.
It was in this time of despair that the accumulated fund of
information about China had its greatest effect on French thought.
Quesnay and his associates concluded from the reports that
in China agriculture was held in great esteem and was given
governmental assistance; that the natural order prevailed in
simple perfection with a minimum of interference by man-made
statutes; and that the intellectual mandarins were given such
power that it might be said that China exemplified the dream
of Plato as the country where philosophers were kings. ~eich-
wein, 1 in discussing Quesnay, says that he was influenced by
Chinese models from an early period, but that he kept his models
secret and pretended that he was inventing the schemes he
proposed. Subsequently, though, when Quesnay prepared to
publish his hundred-page work, Le Despotisme de la Chine, his
interest in the Orient became evident, and Baudeau, his editor,
wrote of him as the great law-giver, the Confucius of Europe. 2
It need not concern us that Goldsmith had previously referred
to himself as the Confucius of Europe, in a letter written in 1758,
when he was preparing for the publication of his Chinese Letters.
In 1767, the same year that saw the publication of Quesnay's
Le Despotisme de la Chine, there appeared another physiocratic
work by Mercier de la Riviere.3 Quesnay actively participated
1 Adolf Reichwein, Ohina und Europa (Berlin, 1923); translated, Ohina and

Europe (New York, 1925) .

2 Abbe Nicolas Baudeau, Avertissement, Ephemerides, January 1767; Pinot,

"Les Physiocrates et la Chine au 18e Siecle," Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Oon-

temporaine, VIII (1906), 200-14. -
3 Pierre F. J . H. Mercier de la Riviere, L'Or<l;re naturel et essentiel des societes

politiques (Paris, 1767).

. 1938] CHINESE INFLUENCES UPON TH,.E PHYSIOCRATS 61

in the preparation of this work of his friend and disciple. In

it the concept of the natural order was given a more thorough
exposition than in Quesnay's own work.
To illustrate the significant economic and political content of
the works on China which were available to Quesnay and his
associates, and which may have been used by them in preparing

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their proposals regarding the proper economic and political
organisation of Europe, selections will be presented below from
the English translations of Fernandez Navarrete, a Dominican
missionary from Spain to the Philippines and to China, and
later Archbishop of Santo Domingo, of Le Comte, a Jesuit mis-
sionary and "Royal Mathematician" from France to China, of
Du Halde, a Jesuit editor in Paris, and ofle Poivre, who had been
a missionary under the Foreign Mission Society and an officer
of the Company of the Indies, and who was subsequently made
a colonial official in Mauritius. 1, 2 The selections relate to the
esteem in which agriculture and agriculturists are held in China,
the support given by the Government to agriculture, the Chinese
attitude toward domestic and foreign trade, the· system of taxes,
and the natural order.
In reference to the esteem for agriculture and agriculturists,
Fernandez Navarrete says of the Chinese (page 52) "They
divide all their people into four States or Degrees, which are
these . . . Scholars, Husband-men, Handicrafts, and Merchants."
(page 56) "The Husband-men of China are mighty numerous,
and as to rank are prefer'd before Merchants and Mechanicks."
DuHaldesays (Vol. I, p. 276), "The People . . . are distinguished
into three sorts of Professions : that of the Husbandmen, which
is in great esteem; that of Merchants . . . and that of Mechanics,
who being constantly employed in the manual Arts, help these
to · supply Necessities and Conveniences of Life." In another
place (Vol. I, p. 272) he says, "Agriculture is in great Esteem;
and 'the Husbandmen, whose Profession is look'd upon as the
most necessary one in a State, are of a considerable Rank; for
1 Domingo Fernandez Navarrete, An Account of the Empire of China, Historical,
PoiJJ1cal, Moral and Religious (place and date of this English translation probably
London, 1684; .translated from the Spanish of 1676; in the English translation,
the name is misspelled Navarette). Louis Le Comte, S.J., Memoirs and Observa-
tions made in a Late Journey through the Empi1·e of China (London, 1697, translated
from the French of 1696). Jean-Baptiste Du Halde, S.J., A Description of the
Empire of China and Chinese-Tartary (London, 1738, translated from the French
of 1735). Pierre le Poivre, Travels of a Philosopher (Baltimore, 1818, translated
from the French of 1768, a date later than that of Quesnay's publication. The
addresses, however, had been delivered earlier) .
2 Excerpts from books which were consulted in the Hem-y E. Huntington
Library have been printed with the kind consent of the Director of that library.
 62 ECONOMIC HISTORY [FEB

they are prefer'd to Merchants and Mechanics, besides having

large Privileges." Again (Vol. I, p . 274) Du Halde says, "That
which makes these People undergo such incredible Fatigues in
cultivating the Earth, is not barely their private Interest; but
rather the Veneration paid to Agriculture, and the Esteem which

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the Emperors themselves have always had for it from the Com-
mencement of the Monarchy."
When he reports the support given by the Government to
agriculture, le Poivre makes an implied reference to China and
to France, (page 5) " Agriculture in every climate is the universal
art of mankind . .. yet not everywhere equally flourishing."
(page 6) Agriculture pro1,pers among wise nations whose people
know how to honour and encourage it, " but feebly amongst a
people half polished, who either prefer to it frivolous arts, or
who, being sufficiently enlightened perhaps to perceive its utility,
are still too much slaves to the prejudices of their ancient barbarity
to a:ffranchise and confer honors on those who exercise it." To
a traveller (page 6) "the criterion which best marks the internal
state of a nation is to observe the public markets and the face
of the country. If the markets abound in provisions, if the fields
are well cultivate\i, and covered with rich crops, then in general
you may conclude that the country is well peopled, that the
· inhabitants are civilized and happy, that their . manners are
polished, and their government agreeable to the principles of
reason." (page 7) " . . . in every country agriculture depends
absolutely on the laws, the manners, and even on the established
prejudices of the respective inhabitants." He explains that the
reason for the flourishing condition or agriculture in China is
to be found in the splendid foundation oflaw and custom. (page 96)
" The whole attention, in general, of the Chinese government is
directed towards agriculture ... " (page 90) " ... agriculture flour-
ishes in China more than in any other country in the world; yet it is
not to any process peculiar to their labour, it is not to the form
of their plough, or their method of sowing, that this happy state,
and the plenty consequent on it, is to be attributed; it must
chiefly be derived from their mode of government, the immoveable
foundations of which have been laid deep, by the hand of reason
alone, coeval almost with the beginning of t ime, and from their
laws, dictated by nature to the first of the human race, and
sacredly preserved from generation to generation, engraved in the
united hearts of a great people, not 1n obscure codes·, devised by·
chicanery and deceit." ·
Du Halde, in translating from Mencius (Vol. I, p. 424), says,
1938] CHINESE IN:FLUENCES UPON THE PHYSIOCRATS 63

" It is an essential Part of good Government, to take Care

that the Kingdom may abound with the Necessaries of Life;
to see that the Lands are cultivated, that there be Plenty of
Fish, and that Trees may be planted and pruned at proper
Seasons; to be attentive in settling the Divisions of Grounds,
and in bringing up domestic Animals, and Silk-Worms, to be

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moderate in afflicting Punishments, or imposing Taxes, and to
take Care that the Morals of Youth be rightly formed." In
another quotation from Mencius (Du Halde, Vol. I, p. 429) is
included the following passage : " Ven Kung intending himself
to govern his Kingdom, desired Mencius to give him some Rules
which might direct him to govern wisely. The first Object, says
the Philosopher, a King ought to regard, is his People; what
principally touches the People, is their Subsistence : The Means
of their Subsistence are the Lands, when diligently cultivated,
arid abundantly producing the Necessaries of Life. Agriculture
then ought to be looked into, and the greatest Care taken that
the Lands do not lie idle: The People will then have where-
upon to live, and being under no Apprehensions of Want, they will
endeavour to reform their Manners, and to acquire Virtue . . . ."
Fernandez Navarrete draws general conclusions, much as
does le Poivre, and suggests that the European nations should
imitate the Chinese in their care for agriculture. In Book II,
Chapter I, page 56, he says, "The Chineses say, that the Emperor's-
principal Care ought to be for the Husbandmen, and to allow
them as large Privileges as may be, because all the Empire
subsists by their Labour and Industry. The same and for the
same reason ought to be done in all Parts ; and if this were
practis'd in Manila, the Land would be more plentiful, with no
small increase to the King's Revenue. Many in those Islands
will not work, because· all they reap goes away -in Duties; if
they do not sow, they don't reap, and so are free from them .
.So says the Indian, and so have I heard it said. F. de Angelis
says the Turks do the same. We need not admire them, nor
is it reasonable we should follow their example, but rather that
of the Chineses."-
With respect to domestic commerce, Le Comte reports
(page 290) that it is a maxim among the Chinese "to encourage
trade as much as possible thro' the whole Empire. All the other
Policy is condµcive to the plenty or convenience of their Country;
but this is concerned for the very lives of the People, who would
be soon reduced to the last extremity if Trade should once fail."
On the other hand, Fernandez Navarrete tells us that the Chinese
64 ECONOMIC HISTORY [FEB.

Government opposes foreign trade (page 61), "The Chineses

say they want nothing that Foreign Countries afford, and they
are in the right. This is a good piece of Policy. The same
might be done in other Kingdoms, but they do it not, because
they will not."
In discussing taxes, Le Comte implies a criticism of the-French

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system of" farming "the taxes (selling the tax-collecting privilege)
and imposing unpredictable duties upon the peasants, when he
says of the Chinese (page 307), "But of all their wholesome
institutions there is nothing which contributes so much to the
keeping up Peace and Order, as does their method of Levying
the Emperor's Revenue. . . . All the Estates there are measured
and all the Families Registered; and whatsoever the Emperor
is to have by Excise on Goods, or Tax upon Persons, is publickly
known, every body brings in what is due from him . . . . "
Fernandez Navarrete contributes to the physiocrats the informa-
tion that the landlord in China pays the taxes (page 58), "The
Husbandmen are generally poor People and have but a small
parcel of Land they farm (i.e. rent) from others: the general
Rule is that the Landlord pays Taxes and has half the Crop,
the Husbandman tills the Ground and has the other half for his
pains." Fernandez Navarrete quotes an ancient emperor, Tai
Zung, with respect to the poll tax (page 103), "It is but reasonable
to lay a Burden upon him that has strength to bear it; but it is
a madness to place the Weight upon him that is not able to carry
himself. . . . The Chineses oblige all Persons, from two and
twenty to sixty years of age, to pay -Taxes, supposing they are
not able to bear that Burden either before or after . . . . To take
a morsel of Bread from 'him that has but two to feed four Mouths,
is not sheering but devouring the Sheep." Le Comte carries
forward the picture of kindliness exhibited in the last quotation
with respect to the young and the aged, when he reports the
custom in China of remitting taxes in districts that have suffered
from famine, flood or plague (page 248), "They have a Custom
of exempting e-Jery year one or two Provinces from bearing their
proportion in the Tax, especially if any of them have suffered
thro' the sickness of the People or if the Lands thro' unseasonable
weather have not yielded so good an encrease as usual."
With respect to the great underlying principle of the natural
order and its power even over the despot, Le Comte reports
(page 243), that the Chinese are set against tyranny and oppres-
sion, "which they say proceeds not -from the a'bsoluteness of the
Princes' power, for they cannot be too much their subjects'
1938] CHINESE INFLUENCES UPON THE PHYSIOCRATS 65

Masters; but from the Princes' own wildness, which neither the
Voice of Nature nor the Laws of God can ever countenance . . . .
An unbounded Authority which the Laws give the Emperor, and
a necessity which_ the same Laws lay upon him to use that
Authority with moderation and discretion, are the two Props
which have for so many Ages supported this great Fabrick of

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the Chinese Monarchy." (page 256), "Interest, which has a far
greater command over some tempers than the love of Reputation,
is as great a motive to the Emperor to be guided by the antient
Customs and to adhere to the Laws. They are so wholly made
for his advantage, that he cannot violate them without doing
some prejudice to his own Authority . . . . "
To the reader familiar with Quesnay, the above quotations
will have a clear reference. It is likely that Quesnay relied upon
them or upon similar reports for his own statements about
China. The significance of his treatj.se is that he went beyond
a mere description of China and recommended similar institutions
for his own nation, France. In particular, he urged provision
for agriculture and the organising of the whqle economy of the
nation about agriculture as a · centre. This would result in
making domestic commerce a subsidiary to the central economic
concern, agriculture; foreign commerce would decline in im-
. portance, because with proper management of the agricultural
resources, the country would produce practically all it needed
for its own consumption. In order properly to facilitate agricul-
ture and to keep agricultural prices high, the many tolls and
0ther barriers to the free domestic passage of goods, and to
the export of produce, should be removed and roads and canals
should be built throughout the nation.
0~ the subject of the natural order, Quesnay employed
hyperbole that probably went even beyond his models. The
agricultural and moral principles of government were derived
from natural laws. These laws had been established and per-
petuated by the author of nature. They were unalterable and
the best possible. They excelled all the powers of the human
intellect, and there was a geometrical and arithmetical precision
in their detail. So soon as men should learn about the natural
laws, disagreements about legislation, about social status and
about taxation would vanish, for each would see that his own
best interests would be served by permitting society to conform
to the natural laws. Unfortunately, however, men could not
learn about the natural laws from history, because in history
thev would find but an abvss of disorder. These laws must be
"EcoN. HIST.-No. 13 • F
 66 ECONOMIC IDSTORY [FEB.

· sought in the writings of the sages and in the simple institutions

of primitive societies. One of the primary functions of princes
was to make the natural laws known and observed. It was
essential that the State make provision for the study of natural
law; in fact, this was the first of the fundamental principles
of government.

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The physiocrats occupy a basic position in the history of
economic thought. It seems clear that they were definitely
influenced by the Chinese. Very likely, furthermore, our
twentieth-century heritage from them has retained ' deposits
from the Orient. Western economists who study the economic
and social thought of the Chinese may well regard it not as
something alien and irrelevant to Western civilisation, but as
having contributed directly to the development of Western
thought.
L. A. MAVERICK
University of California.

·NOTE ON THE LITERATURE DEALING WITH CHINA'S CONTRIBUTION

TO THE EUROPEAN ENLIGHTENMENT.

. Before the time of the physiocrats, Western scientists and scholars

had begun, the study of China. These included Leibniz, Newton and
Freret. In recent times, scholars have re-examined the cultural in-
fluences of China upon Europe and, reciprocally, of Europe upon China.
This paper does not deal with the influence of Europe upon China.
An introduction to that subject may be found in Henri Bernard,
S.J., Matteo Ricci's Scientific Contribution to China (Peiping, 1935),
~nd in his other works. Nor is this paper directly concerned with the
influence of China upon the West at times earlier than the sixteenth
or later than the eighteenth century. For an introduction to the study
of Chinese influences in those periods, see Pinot, Hudson and Latourette,
ll,,nd also A. C. Moule, Christians in China before 1453 (London, 1930), and
the extensive geographic publications of the Hakluyt Society. Reich-
wein (reference given below) and Richard Wilhelm, Der Mensch und das
Sein (Jena, 1931), refer to the contemporitry influences of the religion
of China upon the West.
I;n the broad field which includes the subject of this paper-namely,
the influence of China upon the European Enlightenment-a number
of scholars have written, among whom may be mentioned, in addition to
those cited in the progress of the article :
Mlle H. Belevitch-Stankevitch, Le Gout Chinoise en France au
temps de Louis XIV (Paris, 1910).
Henri Bernard, S.J., Aux Portes de la Chine, les Missionaires du
16e Siecle, 1514-1588 (Tientsin, 1933).
Robert Chambrie, Michael Boyme, Jesuite Polonaise et le Fin des
Ming, 1646-1662 (Paris, 1933).
Ch'en Shou-yi; "Sino-European Cultural Contacts since the Dis-
1938] CHINESE INFLUENCES UPON THE PHYSIOCRATS 67

covery of the Sea Route," Nanlcai Social and Economic

Quarterly, Vol. VIII, no. 1, April 1935, and other articles.
Henri Cordier, La Chine en Europe au 18e Siecle (Paris, 1908);
La Chine en France au 18e Siecle (Paris, 1910); Les Etudes
Chinoises (Leyden, 1902); Bibliotheca Sinica (Paris, 1881-
1885, revised 1904-8).
Ralph Tyler Flewelling, Reflections on the Basic Ideas of East

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and West (Peiping, 1935). See also his editorial contributions
in The Personalist (Los Angeles) Vol. XVII, no. 1, January
1936, and Vol. XVIII, no. 1, January 1937.
Pierre Martino, L'Orient dans la Litterature Franr;aise au 17e et
18e Siecles (Paris, 1906).
Paul Pelliot, sundry articles in the periodical T'oung Pao, Leyden.
Arnold H. Rowbotham, "Voltaire, Sinophile," Publications of
the Modern Language Association of America, Vol. XLVII, pp.
1050-65, December 1932.
George Soulie de Morant, L'Epopee des Jesiiites Frani;,aises en
Chine (Paris, 1928).
Alfons Vath, S.J., Johann Adam Scooll von Bell, S.J., Missionar
in China, Kaiserlicher Astronom und Ratgeber am Hofe von
Peking, 1592-1666 (Koln, 1933).
This list omits references that are given in footnotes; it omits
histories and monographs in the field of either area alone; and it omits
translations of the Chinese classics and other Chinese works in European
languages.

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