Leibniz was perhaps the first major European intellectual to take a close interest in Chinese civilization, which he knew by corresponding with, and reading other works by, European Christian missionaries posted in China. He apparently read Confucius Sinarum Philosophus in the first year of its publication.[189] He came to the conclusion that Europeans could learn much from the Confucian ethical tradition. He mulled over the possibility that the Chinese characters were an unwitting form of his universal characteristic. He noted how the I Ching hexagrams correspond to the binary numbers from 000000 to 111111, and concluded that this mapping was evidence of major Chinese accomplishments in the sort of philosophical mathematics he admired.[190] Leibniz communicated his ideas of the binary system representing Christianity to the Emperor of China, hoping it would convert him.[187] Leibniz was one of the western philosophers of the time who attempted to accommodate Confucian ideas to prevailing European beliefs.[191]
Leibniz's attraction to Chinese philosophy originates from his perception that Chinese philosophy was similar to his own.[189] The historian E.R. Hughes suggests that Leibniz's ideas of "simple substance" and "pre-established harmony" were directly influenced by Confucianism, pointing to the fact that they were conceived during the period when he was reading Confucius Sinarum Philosophus.[189]
