The faces of China gradually became more blurred as the Chinese style was increasingly colored by European fantasy. The links with the learning brought back by the Jesuits, or the Taoism, Confucianism, enlightened despotism and physiocrat economics that were of such concern to the philosophers, could not be maintained.
而這些中國面貌逐漸模糊，歐洲奇想愈見增色的所謂「中國情調」，也就與耶穌會士引進的中國知識，或哲學家們所關心的老子孔學、開明專制、重農經濟，無甚關連了。