Speaking in Washington, D.C., on May 20, the eminent Yale historian Jonathan Spence, who might rightly be considered a national treasure, kept the close attention of an audience of several hundred in the historic Warner Theatre, sharing the latest findings in his lifelong exploration of the interaction between China and the West. The occasion was the 2010 Jefferson Lecture, continuing a series begun in 1972 as "the highest honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual and public achievement in the humanities." Introducing Spence, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Chairman James Leach described him as "a story teller and a fact finder," qualities that have given him a large and loyal fan base among generations of students, China scholars, and a broader readership that is rare for a historian. Spence's skillful use of words and facts, so compelling in written form, was not embellished in the lecture by visual aids, joking, or even frequent eye contact. With a simple thank you and a brief reference to this year as the "50th birthday" of his first Chinese language class, which "hooked" him on China, the professor launched into a reading of his text.

Spence's title, "When Minds Met: China and the West in the Seventeenth Century," seemed to promise a summary of "lessons to be learned" from the past, but instead the lecture offered a demonstration of a brilliant intellect and painstaking detective work. Magnifying glass in hand, Spence followed the track of his latest all-absorbing pursuit: how did the first Chinese scholars to visit the West engage with their counterparts?

The audience was swiftly caught up in Spence's masterly use of tiny puzzle-pieces of information to fit together a picture of one of the first such exchanges—perhaps even the very first. His focal point was a letter dated July 26, 1687, in which Thomas Hyde, an Oxford scholar of Oriental languages, wrote to Robert Boyle in London to request a meeting for Fuzong Shen. A member of a prominent Chinese Roman Catholic family, Shen (whose Christian name was Michael) had obtained advanced education in both Confucian and Latin learning. He was helping Hyde understand and organize Oxford's Bodleian collection of Chinese texts on a brief foray from Paris. There he and his Jesuit mentor were cataloguing Louis the XIV's Chinese collection while working with a French publisher on the final manuscript of the first European (Latin) introduction of the Confucian classics.

Spence then detailed the special intellectual interests of both Hyde and Boyle as revealed in correspondence about conversations among the three, which ranged widely over comparative linguistics, climates, governance and foreign relations, the game of chess, units of measure, medicine, and alchemy. Other listeners like myself may have been surprised to learn more about late 17th-century Britain, and about these two Britons, than about China and Shen, likely the result of limited information. I was left wondering what questions and observations Shen had in his mind as he answered the queries of his interlocutors.

For me, the most interesting topic of the lecture was the portrait of Shen by Godfrey Kneller, shown on the program's cover, the first full-body portrait of a Chinese painted in Britain, perhaps in the West. The great expense of such a portrait as well as the artist's frequent Royal patronage suggest to Spence that it may have been commissioned by King James II himself, or another highly placed backer of the revival of Catholicism underway in Britain during his brief reign. The king in fact told Hyde that he kept the portrait near his bed. Spence ventures a guess that the portrait's depiction—Shen holding a crucifix in one hand and gesturing toward it with the other, as he looks out of an open window to the distant Eastern horizon, his face and hands shining in the day's early light—was seen as "the symbol of a new dawn for the Catholic faith, of which the mission to China was a manifestation." Whatever the aims of British Catholics, the portrait seems to capture Shen's own heartfelt longing to prepare for return to China as a priest serving in the Jesuit mission. This primary pursuit—as reported by Spence—was never accomplished, as Shen died in 1691 after intensive study in Portugal when shipboard fever prevented him from reaching home.

Spence did not acknowledge, however, the very real possibility that Hyde and Boyle were as interested as Shen in religion, not just in what we think of as secular topics. Boyle expended much energy, time, and wealth (sometimes at the request of Hyde) in promoting the accurate translation of the Bible into many tongues—including Malay, Turkish, Irish, Welsh, and American Indian languages—for the sake of conversion. Hyde recalled at Boyle's funeral how the latter had always carried with him to church copies of the Scriptures in Greek and Hebrew. Yet Spence seems to view these commitments as evidence of interest in linguistics rather than in faith and missions. Boyle in fact was known as much for his theological writings as his scientific experiments, but, more important, he viewed these as parts of a seamless whole. He abhorred the divisions within Christianity as an obstacle to its advancement around the world. His admiration for and respectful treatment of his Chinese visitor may have reflected a meeting of their hearts as well as minds.

There was also a sense of something missing in the conclusion to this year's Jefferson Lecture, insofar as the series is intended to "present matters of broad concern in the humanities in a public forum." Spence noted early on how Westerners and Chinese in the late 17th century "were able to share certain beliefs and priorities that show how the idea of a 'Meeting of the Minds' could be a genuine force for exploration and possible change, but also for harmony and adaptation." At the end, he commented that the three men shared certain basic ideas about human knowledge, including "the importance of linguistic precision, the need for broad-based comparative studies, the role of clarity in argument, the need for thorough scrutiny of philosophical and theological principles, boldness of explication, and clarity …. And the values they shared remain, well over three hundred years later, the kind that we can seek to practice even in our own hurried lives." For me, this narrow interpretation of the values underlying scholarship in the humanities was deeply dissatisfying. It seems unconsciously to reflect the continued tyranny of the Enlightenment paradigm that honors science and downplays religion.

My companion at the Jefferson lecture commented that there were likely more references to religion on this occasion than in most NEH-sponsored lectures. And certainly, Jonathan Spence in his many published works gives more attention than do most China scholars to the thought-life of religious figures such as Jesuit and Protestant missionaries and the Chinese ruler of the pseudo-Christian Taiping Kingdom. And yet, his cultural studies, like others in the field, seem strangely indifferent to the power of community life in prayer and worship and transcultural religious fellowship. His early book To Change China, written at the height of the Mao era of Chinese "self-reliance," depicted the failure of many Western diplomatic, business, and mission efforts in China. We may need to redefine failure as seed planting in light of China's current global economy and unprecedented mass revival of the Christian faith. Nonetheless, the book is one of my favorites and should be required reading for every American who sets off for China with a grand project in mind.

Understanding the complexities of China's long history and rapidly changing 21st-century society is a work in progress, of course, and Jonathan Spence's depth of historical insight and balanced contemporary appraisals have contributed greatly to the positive evolution of China studies. Most scholars like myself have never sat in his classes, but still sit at his feet as each new volume emerges from his fertile mind.

Carol Lee Hamrin is Research Professor at George Mason University, a Chinese affairs consultant, and senior associate with the Global China Center in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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