The West was not always the world’s most politically advanced region. When Jesuit missionaries came to China in the seventeenth century, they enthused about how much Europeans could learn from the country’s enlightened political philosophy, Confucianism.
西方并非一直是世界上政治最发达的地区。当十七世纪耶稣会传教士来到中国时，他们十分热心地关注欧洲可以从中国的开明政治哲学——儒家思想中学到什么。启蒙运动哲学家伏尔泰和康德的成就便在于这方面。