Evaluating Voltaire's Attitude Toward Chinese Confucianism

He was a critic who looked down on all traditional authorities, but he did not dare to underestimate the traditional authority of Confucius in China, instead, he highly respected him. He hung the portrait of Confucius in the chapel of his house and worshipped him night and day, and used Confucianism as a weapon to attack the authoritarianism of Christianity. In his mind, China, which practiced Confucianism, was a model of enlightened authoritarian monarchy, where there was true freedom of belief, and Buddhism, Taoism and Lamaism were all free to preach, and everyone was at peace with each other, and the government only cared about the social customs and culture and never regulated the religious beliefs of the people. He also said that the Chinese were "the most rational of all people". Obviously, he admired the Chinese Confucian culture, mainly to see that there is a kind of "freedom" spirit (its specific expression is religious tolerance), which he was rare in the reality of Europe at that time. Voltaire also saw that Confucius and the ancient Western philosophers have the same "do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you" or "I want to stand up for myself and others, I want to reach out and reach out to others," the creed, and "advocate do not remember the old evil, do not forget the good deeds, love, humility "His disciples were like brothers and sisters to each other". Obviously, this is the original meaning of "fraternity", and therefore also closely related to the creed of "freedom" and "equality".