ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to compare and contrast the conceptions of world held by two civilizations which were entirely foreign to each other. China constitutes without doubt a unique case in the history of mankind. It is the only example of a highly developed civilization which produced great quantities of documents throughout a history in which it had almost no contacts with the West. If this very wealth and originality—as well as the system of writing—did not make access so difficult, Chinese studies would surely occupy a much larger place in comparative social and intellectual history. It is not only the geometric representation of the universe which is involved in the Christian vision of the world; but a more general conception which fixes the limits of space, time, species, and the number of souls. The universe was never conceived in China as an object fabricated once and for all by an artisan, as the image of the Christian texts puts it.
