China and the Ideal of Order in John Webb's An Historical Essay....

Abstract

Scholars of seventeenth-century intellectual history have generally relegated John Webb to the footnotes of their work on universal language schemes, architectural history, and Sino-European relations.' In this essay I suggest that Webb's An Historical Essay Endeavoring a Probability that the Language of the Empire of China is the Primitive Language (1669), which argues that for 5000 years China preserved the language spoken by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, makes significant contributions to seventeenth-century intellectual history and to our understanding of early modem European perceptions of China. When Webb's Essay is placed within the context of the seventeenth-century debates about the primitive language of Eden, China's ancient history, and the idealization of that empire's harmonious and prosperous culture, its deeply political nature becomes apparent. The Jesuit accounts and those of other travelers to China were especially appealing to English readers living in the aftermath of the civil wars and the turmoil of the early years of the Restoration because they offered glimpses of a seemingly ideal state ruled by a stable monarchy and blessed with seemingly infinite resources and unimaginable wealth; however, these accounts included evidence that China had maintained an unbroken historical record that antedated