Scholastic Metaphysics in Late Ming China

This book provides the first complete English translation of Giulio Aleni’s Wanwu Zhenyuan 萬物真原 (‘The True Source of the Myriad Things’). Aleni is one of the most important Jesuit missionaries to China, as is evidenced by the fact that he was reverentially called already during his lifetime ‘Confucius from the West’. Aleni’s work, first published in 1628, offers precious insight into the ways in which he tried to communicate Western philosophical notions to Confucian literati, arguing that only