China and the West

Helvétius, [Claude-Adrien]. De l'esprit [ID D20025].
Helvétius schreibt : Or le despotisme ferme la bouche aux historiens si la puissance n'est à cet égard enchaînée par quelque préjugé, quelque superstition, ou quelque établissement particulier. Tel est à la Chine l'établissement d'un tribunal d'histoire ; tribunal également sourd, jusqu'aujourd'hui, aux prières comme aux menaces des rois."

Basil Guy : Helvétius brings up the problem of slavery leading to despotism in Oriental realms, his examples naturally include China, whose government he then examines not only on historic, but also on 'climatic' and on moral grounds. But if, according to the author, despotism is the ultimate form of any establishment, in China that form has long since lost its validity - assuming the defenders of Chinese antiquity can be trusted - and is to be condemned because only the drawbacks of a closely-controlled and quasi-tyrannical government were to be observed there in the eighteenth century. The reason for this interpretation is not hard to discover when a few pages later, Helvétius broaches a discussion of history and the writing of history, utilizing the misunderstood Chinese example to the full when he must perforce return to his theme and excuse the digression with facile moralizing.