HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY
HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY Editor Ian Inkster INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH Senate House, University of London, London WC1E 7HU EDITORIAL BOARD Professor Hans-Joachim Braun Universitat der Bundeswehr Hamburg Holstenhofweg 85 22039 Hamburg Germany Professor R. A. Buchanan School of Social Sciences University of Bath Claverton Down Bath BA 7AY England Professor H. Floris Cohen Raiffeisenlaan 10 3571 TD Utrecht The Netherlands Professor Mark Elvin Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies Australian National University Canberra, ACT 0200 Australia Dr Anna Guagnini Dipartimento di Filosofia Universita di Bologna Via Zamboni 38 40126 Bologna Italy Dr Irfan Habib Department of History Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh (U.P.) 202001 India
Dr Richard Hills Standford Cottage 47 Old Road Mottram-in-Longendale Cheshire SKI4 6LW England Dr Graham Hollister-Short Imperial College Sherfield Building London SW7 2AZ England Dr A. G. Keller Department of History University of Leicester University Road Leicester LEI 7RH England Dr Jerry C.-Y. Liu Department of International Affairs Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages 900 Mintsu 1st Road Kaohsiung 807 Taiwan Professor Simon Schaffer Department of History and Philosophy of Science University of Cambridge Free School Lane Cambridge CB2 3RH England
History of Technology Volume Twenty-nine, 2009 Edited by Ian Inkster
continuum
Published by the Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane 11 York Road Suite 704 London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com © Ian Inkster 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. First published 2009 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1441-13611-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Typeset by BookEns, Royston, Herts. Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire
Contents
Editorial The Contributors Notes for Contributors Special Issue: Chinese Technological History: The Great Divergence Edited by Jerry Liu and Kent Deng
vii xi xv
1
JERRY LIU AND KENT DENG Introduction
3
PATRICK K. O'BRIEN The Needham Question Updated: A Historiographical Survey and Elaboration
7
JERRY C.-Y. LIU Cultural Logics for the Regime of Useful Knowledge during the Ming and Early-Qing China c. 1400-1700
29
KENT DENG Movers and Shakers of Knowledge in China during the Ming-Qing Period
57
HARRIET T. ZURNDORFER China and Science on the Eve of the 'Great Divergence' 1600—1800: A Review of Recent Revisionist Scholarship in Western Languages
81
Special Issue: The Mindful Hand Edited by Lissa Roberts and Ian Inkster
103
LISSA ROBERTS Introduction: Transcending Boundaries: Mindful Hands in the History of Technology
105
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Contents
ALETTE FLEISCHER
Into the Light: Crystals and the Recreation of Nature in Seventeenth-Century Garden Caves and Cabinets
113
CHANDRA MUKERJI
The Mindful Hands of Peasants: Construction of an Eight-Lock Staircase at Fonseranes, 1678-79
141
SIMON WERRETT
Enlightenment in Russian Hands: The Inventions and Identity of Ivan Petrovich Kulibin in Eighteenth-Century St Petersburg
161
LISSA ROBERTS
The Mindful Hand Goes to Japan: Dutch-Japanese Trade in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century
181
IAN INKSTER
The West Had Science and the Rest Had Not? The Queries of the Mindful Hand
205
Contents of Former Volumes
213
Editorial
This volume consists of two special issues. The first collection addresses problems relating to technological development in Imperial China. The common question from the Western point of view is of the sort: Why did China lose its early leadership of productive technologies to Europe during the early modern period? Answers to this seemingly clear enquiry vary from general cultural inwardness to the interferences of imperial governance. This collection surveys such theories but alters the issue by raising the notion that Chinese technologies did not so much fail as move along a path different from that of Europe. It is Europe that represents the anomaly. Our second collection on the Mindful Hand, also shifts common ground by querying and modifying accepted views of the links between knowledge and technique in early modern European development. Scientific or related knowledge was not brought to technique as a sociocultural gift from an educated elite to the working man. Rather, educated gents, practitioners, instrument makers, craftsfolk and technicians of all kinds intermingled both socially and in terms of their recognition of technical problems as well as in the assemblage of the mental, commercial and cognitive resources required to pursue innovative production projects. The technical hand was mindful of its knowledge context. It might well be that, in most cases, two Special Issues in one academic volume spells some confusion. For the reader, the question might be, Why these subjects? For the editor, which collection should go first? In the present case, however, there was no real quandary for the editor, and hopefully little real mystery for readers. The order of the two issues fell into place quite naturally. A great swathe of the literature on the so-called 'failure' of China to advance further its earlier lead over the rest of the world centres upon links between governance, knowledge and technique. The famous Needham Paradox, posing the query as to why China should fall behind in technologies when it had possessed such a lead for such a time, is often required to yield to arguments about the inability of the Chinese system of governance to foster a culture that could support or induce a progressive relationship between the great Empire's knowledge-mongers and its hydraulic-agrarian systems of production. This argument from governance first emerged clearly in the European Enlightenment and petrified into an orthodoxy on China and the East; one which was visibly designed to define the advantages of the West. Thus, in 1880, Mons Dabry de Thiersant wrote: 'The central government, without money, and we might say, without the
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power of repression, is at infinite pains to retain the obedience of its four hundred millions of subjects, who lay on its shoulders the blame of the disasters they have brought upon themselves. Moreover, it has to reckon with their superstitions and their time-honoured prejudices. In the provinces the governors exhaust every contrivance in order to procure the funds which are required of them every instant from Peking for the general needs of the State: whence come the traffic of offices, the sale of justice, the arbitrary raising of the customs (of which the collectors absorb the profits), and consequently general discontent, which is fostered by the ceaseless intrigues of secret societies, as well as by the words ands writings of the literary men - that frivolous, ignorant and vain class which takes egotism to be patriotism, and only thinks of upsetting everything, instead of using its intelligence and influence for the good of the country. As to the common folk in general, given over to its instincts . . . It trembles as it thinks of the calamities which are in store for it in the future.' 1
A form of governance that could support courts, hydraulics and fireworks, inefficient and corrupt and, essentially, poor, could not possibly mount any sort of an industrial revolution. Of course, as the collection edited by Liu and Deng shows clearly, this perspective has been much elaborated, altered by finer measurements and definitions, softened by theories of hydraulic society or Western imperialism. Yet this strain of thinking persists. A strong element that remains fairly untarnished is that in China, for whatever precise reasons, the distance between hand-workers and mind-workers was at all times considerable, and possibly even increasing from the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. Thus merchant culture seems not to have functioned in the manner depicted by the Annales school for Europe - rich, challenging, querulous, but trading off dollops of tax in exchange for equally measurable quantities of power. In China there may well have existed many rich merchants promoting novel commercial institutions and pushing more aggressive attitudes. But they did not generate a culture of street query, of shoptalk, of artizanry in which the learned could speak a language similar to that of technicians, in which social distinctions could be submerged inside micro-environs of both discussion and purchase. Herein may lie something salient within the enlightenment tradition as challenged by the contributors to the Liu and Deng collection. On this level the contrast with the West seems clear. Following Habermas, in their study of the cultural history of technological progress, Mikael Hard and Andrew Jamison refine an implicit position of the role of the Euro-state, where the foremost industrializing nations emerged amongst relatively liberal states that nurtured the growth of civil places of competitive intellectual endeavour that were by no means confined to a particular stratum of society. Later Western or Eastern followers did not attain such civil luxuries and depended on political hybridity, cultural protectionism in the case of Japan, Indian traditionalism combined with economic planning, centralized Marxism in the case of China, as means of technological advancement. 2 Certainly, in late developers there is good evidence that large, civil engineering projects, such as the arsenals at History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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Jiangnan or Yokosuka, were designed to deliberately foster close relations between existing handicrafts and artisanal skills and introduced machinery and formalized knowledge, and Meng Yue has referred to 'hybrid science' in just this regard.3 Thus the arguments and style of our Mindful Hand collection are by no means inevitably confined to Europe; apart from the Japanese comparative instance suggested by Lissa Roberts, we might here at least suggest that if a key to European industrial capitalism lies in sites of mindfulhandedness, then either a large scale comparative exercise or a global analysis might focus on the socio-cultural ingredients of such 'liberal' hybridity. Did the efficacious workings of the mindful hand in Europe depend on a prior commercialization of urban living that had forced its way into the many interstices of proximate living? Did the strong artisan traditions in metal-working sit at the heart of technological change just because they were not so far distant (in every sense) from the intellectual puzzles of much wealthier and leisured folk? Of course, for historians the problem (and the orientalist danger) lies in transferring questions such as these from a broadly euro-context into one that might address, for instance, interpretations of Chinese economy and society. Juxtaposing two excellent essay collections cannot in itself satisfy or resolve such problems. But it is hoped that historians of technology will now further appreciate the nature of the task. Notes 1. Claude Philibert Dabry de Thiersant, author and traveller, has several books to his name on the indigenous peoples of South America, but also on China and the Far East, including from 1850s-1880s, Islam and Catholicism in China, its military capabilities and alliances, medicine and so on. See Thiersant, Le Mahometisme en Chine et dans le Turkestan Oriental, (2 vols. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1878). The passage above is quoted in the weekly newspaper Japan Weekly Mail, 21 August 1880, p.1075. 2. Hard, Mikael and Andrew Jamison, Hubris and Hybrids: A Cultural History of Technology and Science (London and New York, 2005); See also Hard and Jamison, The Intellectual Appropriation of Technology: discourses on Modernity, 1900-1939, (Cambridge Mass.: 1998). 3. Hashimoto T., 'Introducing a French Technological System: The Origins and Early History of the Yokosuka Dockyard,' East Asian Science, Technology and Medicine, 1999, 16: 5372; Yue Meng, 'Hybrid Science versus Modernity: The Practice of the Jiangnan Arsenal 1864-1897', EASTM, 1999, 16: 13-52.
History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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The Contributors
Kent G. Deng Reader LSE Houghton Street London WG2A 2AE United Kingdom Email:
[email protected] Alette Fleischer, GPhil Centre for Science, Technology and Policy Studies University of Twente Post Box 217 7500 AE Enschede The Netherlands Email:
[email protected] Jerry C.-Y. Liu Associate Professor Department of International Affairs Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages 900 Mintsu 1st Road Kaohsiung 807 Taiwan Email:
[email protected] Chandra Mukerji Distinguished Professor of Communication and Science Studies Department of Communication 0503 University of California, San Diego 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA United States of America Email:
[email protected] Patrick K. O'Brien Professor of Global Economic History LSE Houghton Street London WC2A 2AE United Kingdom Email:
[email protected]. ac.uk Lissa Roberts Professor of Long Term Development of Science and Technology Centre for Science, Technology and Policy Studies University of Twente Post Box 217 7500 AE Enschede The Netherlands Email:
[email protected] Simon Werrett Assistant Professor History Department, University of Washington 315 Smith Hall Box 353560 Seattle, WA 98195-3560 United States of America Email:
[email protected] Dr Harriet Zurndorfer Senior Research Scholar Department of Chinese PB 9515 Faculty of Humanities Leiden University 2300 RA Leiden The Netherlands Email:
[email protected] History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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Notes for Contributors
Contributions are welcome and should be sent to the editor. They are considered on the understanding that they are previously unpublished in English and are not on offer to another journal. Papers in French and German will be considered for publication but an English summary will be required. The editor will also consider publishing English translations of papers already published in languages other than English. Include an abstract of 150-200 words. Authors who have passages originally in Cyrillic or oriental scripts should indicate the system of transliteration they have used. Be clear and consistent. All papers should be rigorously documented, with references to primary and secondary sources typed separately from the text, double-line spaced and numbered consecutively. Cite as follows for:
BOOKS 1. David Gooding, Experiment and the Making of Meaning: Human Agency in Scientific Observation and Experiment (Dordrecht, 1990), 54-5.
Only name the publisher for a good reason. Reference to a previous note: 3. Gooding, op. cit. (1), 43. Titles of standard works may be cited by abbreviation: DNB, DBB, etc.
THESES Cite University Microfilm order number or at least Dissertation Abstract number.
ARTICLES 13. Andrew Nahum, 'The Rotary Aero Engine', Hist. Tech., 1986, 11: 125-66, esp. 139. Please note the following guidelines for the submission and presentation of all contributions: 1. Type your manuscript on good-quality paper, on one side only and double-line spaced throughout. The text, including all endnotes,
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2.
3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
9.
10. 11.
Notes for Contributors
references and indented block quotes, should be in one typesize (if possible, 12 pt). In the first instance, submit two copies only. Once the text has been agreed, then you need to submit three copies of the final version, one for the editor and two for the publishers. You should, of course, retain a copy for yourself. Number the pages consecutively throughout (including endnotes and any figures/tables). Spelling should conform to the latest edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Quoted material of more than three lines should be indented, without quotation marks, and double-line spaced. Use single quotes for shorter, non-indented quotations. For quotes within quotes, use double quotation marks. The source of all extracts, illustrations, etc. should be cited and/or acknowledged. Italic type should be indicated by underlining. Italics (i.e. underlining) should be used for foreign words and titles of books and journals. Articles in journals are not italicized but placed within single quotation marks. Figures. Line drawings should be drawn boldly in black ink on stout white paper, feint-ruled paper or tracing paper. Photographs should be glossy prints of good contrast and well matched for tonal range. Each illustration must have a number and a caption. Xerox copies may be sent when the article is first submitted for consideration. Please do not send originals of photographs or transparencies but, if possible, have a good-quality copy made. While every care will be taken, the publishers cannot be held responsible for any loss or damage. Photographs or other illustrative material should be kept separate from the text. They should be keyed to your typescript with a note in the margin to indicate where they should appear. Provide a separate list of captions for the figures. Notes should come at the end of the text as endnotes, double-line spaced. It is the responsibility of the author to obtain copyright clearance for the use of previously published material and photographs.
History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
Special Issue: Chinese Technological History: The Great Divergence EDITED BY J E R R Y LIU AND KENT DENG
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Introduction J E R R Y LIU AND KENT DENG
PATTERNS OF USEFUL AND RELIABLE KNOWLEDGE IN PREMODERN CHINA
In this special issue, we offer four articles on patterns of useful and reliable knowledge in premodern China. They are the fruits of the conference organized by the Global Economic History Network (GEHN) in Taiwan 2006, which concentrated on historical relations between regimes of useful and reliable knowledge (URK for short), technological change and material/industrial progress in world history. Theories and evidences on the connectivities of URK across great systems, and different methods in analysing, contrasting and comparing the material advancement among civilizations are newly introduced to explain patterns of divergence.4 The reason why we pay special attention to China is that, with the ongoing debate on the Great Divergence since 2000, there has been a surge of new discussion on the once seemingly settled topic of the 'Needham Puzzle' in an effort to reconcile China's impressive early achievements in science and technology with China's lack of later scientific, military and industrial revolutions of the European type. Needham's own view in the conclusion of his Science and Civilization in China is that China's civil service examinations misled its literati, which made those revolutions impossible.5 This is by no means his only interpretation. However, Needham's verdict does not explain why and how China's achievements in science and technology were made in the first place during the period when China's civil service examination institutions were already socially well entrenched together with the Confucian literati. This problem invites further investigation into the paradox of China's limited development in science and technology. Patrick O'Brien's article represents the renewed energy in probing Needham's Puzzle from a Weberian viewpoint. It looks at the negative impact of the Confucian fundamentals, especially the perpetual attention of Confucianism to human behaviour in order to regulate it, instead of a study of nature in order to improve productivity unless it became absolutely necessary. What the article has argued is that the Chinese system did it so efficiently that Confucianism successfully removed the tension between China's political stability and intellectual creativity while such tension and its intensification induced human creativity to triumph in Western Europe. Such a triumph over-compensated for the social cost of periodical decline in social stability a la Schumpeter's 'creative destruction'. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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Jerry Liu's article (unintentionally) provides rich empirical evidence for the O'Brien Thesis. Liu shows that moral guidance and social control were always given priority by both the imperial state and the literati. This led to the unique propensity towards specific useful and reliable knowledge in China. As a result, the Chinese elite, who were in the best position to accumulate and diffuse knowledge, always tended to improve social conditions and provision of public goods rather than improve their understanding of the natural world. This behavioural pattern can be seen as a 'cultural trap'. The trouble is how to explain the occasional ingression of crude sciences and technology in China. Liu's article indicates that sciences and technology of the Chinese type were not sustainable because of the obvious lack of collective efforts and continued financial support. In this context, Chinese natural curiosity was cancelled out by Chinese social and moral pursuits. Liu, however, puts forward a cultural question, pointing out that while Europeans have been asking why China did not develop modern science and technology independently, the Ming and Qing Chinese were questioning why the advanced European practical knowledge was coupled with European violence and aggression, which were morally indefensible. For China, the European inability to develop an adequate moral protocol simply marred the utility of European scientific and technological knowledge. Kent Deng's article endorses Zurndorfer's view (below) that the Jesuit top-down model of knowledge diffusion before 1840 was confined to a very small number of imperial court elites inhabiting an ivory tower. The Jesuit-transmitted science and technology failed to impress the Chinese academy, which, not surprisingly, was submerged in Confucianism. Deng's survey for the dissemination and adoption of European useful and reliable knowledge in China from 1600 to 1910 indicates that foreign invasion was the key to push forward changes in China's old system. With a series of military defeats, Social Darwinism and pragmatism replaced Confucian culturalism and ushered in new movers and shakers of European knowledge for the reform of Chinese statecraft. Once the floodgate was opened up, the scale, scope and speed of changes turned out to be unprecedented. Western intrusion, thus argued, becomes a necessary condition for change in China, including capitalist industrialization. Harriet Zurndorfer takes the 'Great Divergence' debate further by elucidating the Jesuits' 'deliberately incomplete transmission' of European science to China before the nineteenth century. Chinese scholars never lacked curiosity. It was the out-dated knowledge introduced by the Jesuits, the primary brokers for European useful and reliable knowledge at that time, that was partly responsible for Chinese half-heartedness in accepting European mathematical and astronomical practices. On the Chinese side, the incompatible worldviews of Chinese intellectual tradition had effectively inhibited the Jesuit mathematical and astronomical knowledge from penetrating the Confucian unitary vision of man, ethics, politics and the universe. Zurndorfer suggests that it took considerable time for the Jesuit-conveyed knowledge to be incorporated into the corpus of Chinese History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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metaphysics. And the European mathematical input was limited to calendrical calculation. It is our view that this volume will contribute to the ongoing debate surrounding the creation, diffusion and exchange of useful and reliable knowledge across cultural boundaries. Notes and References 1. Taking on the formulation of URK and material progress in Europe between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, Inkster's article provides a valuable source of comparisons with the Chinese case of this edited volume. See I. Inkster, 'Potentially Global: "Useful and Reliable Knowledge" and Material Progress in Europe, 1474-1914', The International History Review, 2006, 28(2): 237-86. 2. J. Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 7, Part II (Cambridge, 1954).
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The Needham Question Updated: A Historiographical Survey and Elaboration PATRICK K. O'BRIEN*
I meditated upon this lack of certitude in traditional mathematics concerning the movements of the spheres and began to be annoyed that philosophers had discovered no sure scheme from . . . the movement of the marching of the world which had been built for us by the Best and Mostly Orderly Workman of All. (Copernicus, 1543) NEEDHAM'S PUZZLE AND THE GREAT DIVERGENCE: CHINA AND THE WEST
Recent syntheses in comparative global history proclaim that classical views (Smithian, Marxist and Weberian) that narrated the history of China as a history of cumulative economic retardation compared with the economic dynamics of Western Europe from, say, the accession of the Ming (1368) to the Opium War (1839) are no longer tenable. Two generations of post-colonial historical research on West, South and South-East and, above all, on East Asia have confirmed Marshall Hodgson's percipient observation of 1974 that historical explanations that 'invoke pre-modern seminal traits for the long run economic success of the Occident can be shown to fail under close historical analysis'. Modern revisionists have also published a substantial volume of evidence to support Braudel's insights of 1982 that for, most, if not all, that period, the advanced economic regions of Eurasia are more appositely represented in the words of Ken Pomeranz as 'a world of surprising resemblances'. Revisionism has, moreover, degraded the virtually unsupported assertions from a best-selling polemic from David Landes that 'for the last thousand years Europe (the West) has been the prime mover of development and modernity'. Montesquieu, Hume, Smith, Malthus, Marx, Weber and their nineteenth and twentieth 'Eurocentric' acolytes - purveying histories of long-term Asian backwardness are now engaged in a scholarly and potentially heuristic debate in global economic history. Furthermore (and unless their Asiacentric counterparts happen to be ideologically convinced that histories of anything that might potentially lend support to new
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The Needham Question Updated
anachronistic narratives of 'Western triumphalism' are politically incorrect), the major discourse in global economic history that remains wide open for both discussion and research is the famous Needham's Puzzle. According to Needham and his school, for more than a millennium down to and some time after the Accession of the Ming (1338), the locus for most technical, organizational and institutional innovations promoting entirely gradual and, of course, cyclical economic progress (with 'efflorescences' under the Tang and Song dynasties) can be located in the East and not in the West of the Eurasian Oikumene. At some conjuncture (still under debate) in early modern history, the locus for the generation and application of knowledge behind both process and product innovation shifted from the Orient to the Occident and has remained there down to the present time. Disagreements over the chronology for what can be represented as a climacteric in the discovery, development and diffusion of useful and reliable knowledge in China followed by the clear emergence of capacities for an accelerated rate of accumulation of such knowledge in Western Europe is probably not resolvable within any degree of precision. Nathan Sivin suggests that 'Chinese civilization was much more efficient in applying natural knowledge to practical human needs' down to the fifteenth century. Needham himself traced the crossover to the centuries of Europe's classic scientific revolution but finds the antecedents for that revolution (as do modern historians of science) in the writings of natural philosophers, writing as early as the twelfth century. Since Needham launched his great project to integrate the contributions of China into global histories of science and technology, few historians have displayed the temerity to deny Chinese pre-eminence and precedence in the discovery, development and application of useful and reliable knowledge to problems of production and wealth that may have lasted for some 1500 years after the birth of Christ. Thus, Needham's famous question (once again under revived investigation and debate) is when, how and why did the Chinese empire lose its position of scientific and technological superiority to the West? FLOWS OF USEFUL AND RELIABLE KNOWLEDGE
To clarify and historicize that question, it is necessary by way of a preface to say something about how economists and modern economic historians analyse knowledge as on 'input' into processes of production. Following classic texts from Schumpeter and Kuznets, they see economic growth ('sustained' rises in standards of living) as emanating from two basic mechanisms: (1) rising productivity of labour employed in agriculture, industry and services and (2) the reallocation of labour from sectors of production (usually agriculture), in which productivity per hour worked is lower, to sectors of production, in which productivity is higher (industry and urban services). Given this standard framework for the analysis of changes in rates of
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growth and structures of output, historians proceed to ask: where does useful and reliable knowledge that allows for higher and sustained rises in labour productivity emanate from? Why did some civilizations (China) accumulate and diffuse such knowledge at more impressive rates than others (e.g. Western Europe)? When and why does the locus for the discovery and diffusion of knowledge change? Two classes of economic theory address these questions and are labelled as endogenous and exogenous. Endogenous growth theory certainly provides historians with a plausible way of explaining the diffusion of knowledge across any industry or economy once such knowledge has been perceived to be reliable and commercially profitable. Alas, serious difficulties remain in trying to account historically for the relative achievements of different countries, cultures or civilizations in the discovery and development of useful knowledge. Even economic historians (who are educated to explain its accumulation with reference to a tradition of thought drawn from classical, Marxist and neo-classical models in economic theory) remain dissatisfied with narratives that square circles by accounting for Europe's convergence to Chinese levels of scientific and technological efficiency, basically in terms of the outcome of shifts in demand for innovations emanating from higher rates of economic growth in the West. Interestingly, and as a 'Christian Marxist', Needham himself equivocated between endogenous or demand-induced theories of knowledge accumulation and some rather ad hoc speculations that linked the shift in the locus of innovation to clear and profound cultural and theological contrasts between the East and the West in the appreciation, comprehension and manipulation of nature. In short, Needham suggests that variations across space and time in the accumulation of knowledge could 'in some degree' be exogenous or autonomous - not as fortuitous gifts from Athena, but rather as emanating in significant ways from the social, political and, above all, cultural realms of distinctive civilizations that can be represented as partially but loosely connected in diverse and complex ways to their economic foundations. Rejecting the insistence by mainstream economists on reifying distinctions between endogenous and exogenous forces, historians continue to recognize 'loops of inter-connections' that are analogous to the components and circuits of the internal combustion engine that play their own particular and indispensible roles in moving economies at various speeds from one to another and superior level of efficiency. Whether the process is endogenous or exogenous or best represented by diagrams displaying arrows of inter-connections, it is not clear how historians might proceed systematically to compare something as amorphous and intangible as the discovery and diffusion of knowledge in China and Western Europe over long spans of time - an evolution that, as they nevertheless recognize, led ultimately to significant differences in the standards of welfare afforded to the populations of these two civilizations. For a start (and unlike real income, output or other indicators of economic progress), they will never find a way of measuring the
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The Needham Question Updated
accumulation of knowledge available for production in the East compared with the West. Historians must make do with impressions from scholars who know something about the quality of material life for populations residing at both ends of the Eurasian landmass, who have some understanding of the cultures and institutions that (along with favourable natural endowments) provided generations of Chinese with higher levels of welfare for more than a millennia of time. Even for those centuries from the accession of the Ming dynasty down to the Opium War (1368-1839), when extensions to the base of knowledge available to the Europeans and Chinese economies supposedly diverged, the knowledge in Needham's prism can neither be added up nor connected in systematic ways to economic progress. Furthermore, it emanated from a plethora of sites, sources, institutions, households and individuals ('proto' technologists and scientists) of great variety. Knowledge emerged in numerous forms: explicit and tacit, recorded and unrecorded, written and oral. In the future, historians may be able to impose some kind of taxonomical, even scalar, order upon the great mass of Chinese and European written and printed material that could be represented as potentially useful and reliable for purposes of production. At present, they can only investigate the contexts or regimes for the discovery, development and diffusion of such knowledge in order to make comparisons across civilizations that might help us to suggest when, why and to what degree the regime evolving in Europe became more promotional for production than the regime operating in China. In short and over these centuries when technological progress proceeded gradually, reciprocal comparisons (pace Marc Bloch) are the only method available to ascertain when and why Western economies moved (as many historians assert) up to and along a trajectory that eventually left the Chinese empire economically behind and vulnerable to geopolitical takeover. Such an exercise in history (involving the comparison of several connected but separable components of regimes for the discovery, development and diffusions of the knowledge upon which the relative economic performances of Europe and China depended) could never be conclusive. The widely shared assumption behind my argument (which is located in a larger narrative on divergence) is that technological innovation mattered for Europe's precocious transition to modern economic growth and that sources for its extension and deepening were contrasting systems or regimes for the production, development and diffusion of useful knowledge. With a specified comparison in place, I will now proceed to elaborate on connected but separable components of two regimes, but propose to allocate more space to Chinese and European cultures and cosmologies because modern historians assume that observed contrasts between Eastern and Western regimes reside, in some reductionist sense, in their cultural and cosmological foundations. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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SITES AND INSTITUTIONS FOR THE GENERATION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE
Urban Sites
Historically, most productive knowledge emerged from urban settings. Maritime towns and cities as nodes or poles de croissance have long been emplotted into histories of slow economic growth in early modern Europe. These narratives and proto-theories from historical sociology represent coastal and riverine sites as promotional: (1) for the establishment and maintenance of gilds, professional schools, universities and other institutions for the generation of knowledge, (2) for the exercise of mercantile aristocratic, courtly and ecclesiastical patronage for its formation; (3) for the employment of skilled artisans producing instruments used for the investigation of the natural world; (4) as locations for the embarkation and storage of knowledge imported on sailing ships and embodied in plants, primary products, machines, devices and information from ports along the Mediterranean and Baltic and North Seas surrounding Europe and, increasingly (after 1415), from Africa, Asia and the Americas; and (5) as political spaces offering some protection and toleration and autonomy visa-vis the powers of conservative monarchs, seigneurs and bishops to control, tax and even repress potentially dangerous knowledge. Thus, historians of Europe have been educated to look for sites of comparable scale, scope and potential along the rivers, canals and coasts of the Ming and Qing empires. They do find hierarchies and networks of towns and cities all over China. Yet, for reasons that may well be basically political and geopolitical, the extent and depth of urbanization in China, as well as the character of Chinese towns, look relatively less conducive to the accumulation of knowledge than appears to have been the case in Western Europe. Higher Education
A high proportion of innovative knowledge produced over these centuries has been 'attributed' to lists of European and Chinese men who received some form of'higher education'. This component of the two regimes under comparison turns out to be one in which secondary sources allow historians to make some supportable comparisons constructed around several relevant questions, including: (1) ratios of the higher educated to total and to literate populations in Europe and China; (2) the relative openness of political elites to recruitment based upon merit; (3) degrees of centralized political and/or ecclesiastical control exercised over the institutions and the personnel involved with the delivery of all forms of higher education; (4) the scope of the curricula on offer to students at an impressionable stage in their lifecycles; (5) the status accorded to the study of nature; and (6) the encouragement of disputation and debate, both at university and across the cultures at large. For long stretches of its history and largely for political reasons, the Chinese empire probably offered higher education to a comparable, if not higher, proportion of its male population than Europe and, what is more, History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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The Needham Question Updated
recruited entrants to positions of power and patronage upon a meritocratic basis. From a Euro-centred perspective, the empires and educational institutions emerge, however, as less plural, subject to tighter degrees of central control and offered, for reasons elaborated on below, a more circumscribed curricula for young men interested in the study of the natural world. Circulation of Knowledge
Knowledge was, however, circulated in cheaper printed form in China several centuries before Europe. It is simply not possible to demonstrate either that the volume of printed natural and technical knowledge available for consultation in China fell below the total volume available in Europe or that the range of potentially useful branches of knowledge covered was more confined in scope or scale in the East. The Needham project's 18-volume compendia of Chinese investigations and analysis of (ski) things celestial, terrestrial, botanical, biological, zoological, geographical, optical, mineral, mechanical, chemical, agricultural, industrial, etc. degrades any Eurocentric suggestions of that kind. Furthermore, there seem to be no areas of knowledge in which Chinese publications failed to appear in printed form for year after year during either the Ming or Qing dynasties. Historians who have the credentials to engage seriously with the history of Chinese science deny the charge that the language is not precise enough for the communication of abstract science and technology. Another negative aspersion that the flow of words printed in China and devoted to yet another round of learned commentaries on Confucian classics in moral philosophy, to lessons in statecraft to exemplary forms of history, to literature, calligraphy and poetry exceeded the flow of useful knowledge by a larger margin than was the case in Europe has not been tested. Although the corollary that the authors of books on 'things' (gewu) were not widely regarded within their own culture to be engaged in the promotion of morally and intellectually superior forms of scholarship, it may be the case. Large volumes of knowledge were, moreover, published in the form of state-sponsored encyclopaedias and manuals that made rather limited inroads into the curricula for higher education. Furthermore, historians of China have not exposed anything approximating to the scope and scale of an 'associational culture' for any sustained discussion of natural philosophy of the kind that emerged across urban Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Indeed, there are suggestions that associations of intellectuals were less tolerated under the Qing (post-1644) than during the closing stages of the Ming dynasty. To sum up: at present, there is no evidence to show that the share of pages printed and circulated that could be classified as potentially useful and reliable knowledge (compared, say, to the volume of didactic books on religion and moral philosophy) was any higher in the West. Scholars who have surveyed China's fact-based literature leave an impression that it
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displays a greater concern with agronomy, hydrology and medicine than with commerce or industry. These 'unquantified' observations are just what one would expect from a physiocratic empire in which leading patrons for books included the state and its mandarinate concerned with jingshi or how to manage the age and the empire. Economic Incentives (Patents, Prizes, Rewards)
How far innovatory knowledge in Europe and China was rewarded and/or protected its progenitors against plagiarism and exploitation by imitators, in order that the search and development for useful knowledge might become profitable for individuals, families or institutions making discoveries, remains another key question to pursue. Beginning in Venice (1415), European innovators received some (rather inadequate) measures of protection and/or rewards for novel and potentially productive ideas. Europe's state-run systems of protection were, however, neither universal, generous nor effectively enforced, and it could be the case that the maintenance of traditions of secrecy among kinship groups in China might just have provided incentives that were as efficacious as patents and rewards. CULTURES AND COSMOLOGIES FOR INNOVATION IN EUROPE AND CHINA
Families, Schools and Careers
Mary Douglas defined culture 'as a widely shared cluster of beliefs and values deployed implicitly and explicitly to promote, justify or restrain the collective actions of institutions and the behaviour of individuals'. Cultural historians (now in the ascendant in departments of history) 'reconstruct!' cultures in order to 'make sense' of the actions taken by organizations, institutions and people in the past. The goal of cultural history is to recover 'outlooks and dispositions' of peoples as they were experienced, recorded and reflected upon at the time. They are aware that people, then and now, inhabited multiple cultures and that culture should not replace economies as another 'reductionist' category for historical analysis. 'Although' (as Marshal Sahlins observes), 'actions and events are reordered by culture. Culture is also reordered by actions and events'. Cultures as 'durable dispositions' were far more stable and resistant to change in early modern China and Europe than they are today. Historians looking for comparisons and contrasts in the dispositions of cultures towards the accumulation of knowledge and innovations should find the cosmologies and clusters of beliefs playing upon the relative propensities of Chinese and Europeans alive between 1368 and 1839 to develop useful and reliable knowledge heuristic to contemplate. Historical evidence will be hard to find and inferences difficult to draw. But, already, the relevant areas for future investigation and research in comparative history have been clearly mapped out by historians and social scientists. For example, innovators are born, raised and socialized within families and networks of kin who inculcate curiosity, desires for the acquisition of History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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knowledge and attitudes towards risk into children. Secondly, primary schools not only provided the basis of literacy and numeracy required for higher forms of formal education, but reinforced or modified attitudes and aspirations acquired at home. Ambitions formed with families and at school led men towards careers that were selected among privileged minorities, placed to make choices in this matter, basically upon economic grounds, but were also chosen partly in response to cultures of approbation and disapprobation. For example, was it the case, as some historians have suggested, that a disproportionate (sub-optimal share) of young educated men in China, with potential for innovative thought, were attracted into the imperial civil service, in which their prospects for advancement rarely depended on the allocation of time and talent to the study of'things', let alone the taking of risks or the promotion of novelties? But did this ostensibly unproductive avenue for upward mobility represent really significant contrasts with the courtly, clerical and military careers open to men of ambition and talent in early modern Europe? All three institutions - families, schools and careers - demand much more rigorous and textured historical research than appears to be available on current bibliographies of comparative histories for the East and West. At present, the extant historiography allows historians to deal in far greater depth with potentially significant contrasts between Eastern and Western cultures at less micro tangible and more general levels, by reconstructing the cosmologies or basic beliefs about the natural world, as comprehended by Chinese and European elites, for, say, four centuries down to the Opium War. Such cosmologies were neither homogeneous nor stable through time, but they are represented by intellectual historians as cultures that prompted relevant political and wealthy elites to formulate policies, construct institutions and offer patronage that either promoted or restrained the accumulation of useful and reliable knowledge. My reading into the complex and contested histories of early modern European and Chinese developments in science and technology leads me to suggest that the modern bibliography supports Weber's position, namely that, over this period, Western Europeans reordered a traditional Christian cosmology in ways that became discernibly more conducive for the accumulation of knowledge. The maintenance and restoration of an altogether more neutral Confucian cosmology that prevailed under the Ming and Qing dynasties did little or nothing to promote any significant reconfiguration of elite cultures in China until much later in the nineteenth century. Reconfiguration of European Cosmology 1543-1727 This Weberian hypothesis is framed by dates that refer to the decades between the lives of Copernicus (1473-1543) and Newton (1642-1727) - a period of scientific revolution when increasing shares of Europe's political, ecclesiastical and business elites began to comprehend the natural world in new ways that can be represented as analogous to a gestalt switch. Cultural and intellectual historians (including modern historians of
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science) tend to narrate and analyse that switch by way of critical surveys of the protracted, acrimonious and often violent debates between ancients and moderns. The former, as stakeholders in charge of established institutions based upon biblical scriptural and Aristotlean bodies of knowledge, sanctified by religious authority, resisted claims from moderns for the validity of their own more reliable and useful forms of knowledge based upon: (1) systematic observation; (2) Baconian interrogations of nature deploying a variety of reliable and transparent experiments; and (3) above all, the formulation of mathematically rigorous and logically consistent models of how nature depicted as a single coherent system actually worked. In retrospect and after protracted and unsettled debates among specialists in the history of science, the scientific revolution may still be regarded as a progressive shift in the understanding of how and why phenomena in the celestial, terrestrial and biological spheres of the natural world operated as they did. That evolving comprehension of nature permeated gradually into the mentalities (not of the illiterate masses at large but) of Western Europe's educated political and economic elites (including craftsmen) with the powers, means and skills required to favour, sponsor and produce innovations in thought and practice. Of course, the proclivities of elites to embrace cosmologies favourable to sustained interrogations designed to extend possibilities for the comprehension and manipulation of nature did not change simply as the outcome of an intellectual debate between ancients and moderns. Furthermore, the antecedents and possibly the foundations for that change are to be found in Medieval Christendom. Indeed, evidence has now piled up to undermine ideologically biased histories that left chronologies and impressions of early modern Europe's history as one of pronounced discontinuities with its medieval past. Nevertheless, the four 'Rs' of the period under review for purposes of this narrative in global history, namely the Reconnaissance, the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Revolution in Science, all operated in diverse and interconnected ways to extend and accelerate a pronounced shift in the conceptions held by Europe's elites about the natural world that surrounded and framed their privileged lives on Earth. For example, and although this conjecture cannot be quantified, the Renaissance of the Quartocentro, which continued during the lifetime of Copernicus, was marked (and more clearly marked after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453) by a faster rate of recovery of classical (particularly Greek) knowledge about the natural world. Recovered, restored and translated texts by Plato, Archimedes, Heron, Democritus and others undermined extant canonical and beatified authorities for higher education derived from Aristotle, Ptolemy and Galen. Secondly, and what seems to have been seriously quantified by a generation of modern scholarship on the nature of the Reformation, are liberal, Weberian and Mertonian hypotheses that the Vatican resolutely opposed the recovery and assimilation of classical and Islamic knowledge.
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The long-established ideological view that the Roman Church (even in Spain) consistently and effectively stamped out investigations into natural phenomena repressed all speculations about the world that might somehow contradict or qualify the rather limited range of references to that natural world as embodied in Christendom's canonical texts, including new and old testaments, scripture, even the writings of Saint Paul and other saints, is no longer held as tenable by ecclesiastical history, let alone histories of science. All organized religions, Catholic and Protestant alike, remained hostile to the diffusion of 'heretical' cosmological ideas that ecclesiastical authorities deemed to be potentially dangerous to established hierarchies of churches, clerics and their 'sacred books'. For the advance of economies (our key interest), the Reformation left Europe with several institutionalized and competing religions and a multiplication of texts, printed in vernacular languages (mainly moral and theological), but containing a plurality of facts and hypothesis about the natural world. As the violence associated with the theological disputes gave way to co-existence, the notion that there could be any single and singular source of authority on the operations of the natural world became less and less credible to educated Christians of all persuasions. Provided their findings and inferences did not explicitly undermine the 'words' of God, as interpreted by several of his chosen churches, natural philosophers as well as theologians became freer to investigate the basis upon which 'their Gods' might have constructed the natural world that shaped the material lives of populations all over Europe. Finally, and as an outcome of the reconnaissances of the fifteenth century, Europeans established regular contacts and commerce with Africa, Asia and the recently rediscovered Americas. Voyages of discovery followed up by profitable commerce and colonization provided an enormous boost to European confidence. Europeans had acquired the scientific knowledge and technologies required to achieve a dramatic and ultimately profitable conquest over the most awesome parts of nature, namely the winds, tides and seas covering most of the world and surrounding their promontory on the edge of Eurasia. Western Europe's command of the oceans then generated accumulating flows of information about the geographies, peoples, institutions, flora, fauna, artefacts and commodities from all parts of an expanding world that gradually degraded received biblical, clerical and fantastical accounts and conceptions of nature, as it had supposedly operated outside the known, but narrow, geographical and intellectual compass of Western Europe. In numerous ways, these famous historical conjunctures - the Reconnaissance, Renaissance and Reformation - reordered the culture surrounding urban elites in the West and intensified their ambitions to promote, patronize and participate in systematic investigations of the celestial, terrestrial and biological spheres of the natural world. Despite all the scholarly debate and nuanced interpretations that now surround it, European historians may as well continue to label the programme of
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investigation and development in natural philosophy as it proceeded between the times of Copernicus and Newton as a scientific revolution. The flow, validity and variety of new knowledge about the universe generated by natural philosophers researching with indispensible help from artisans and funded by princely aristocratic, mercantile and even ecclesiastical patrons will be too vast to summarize here. Furthermore, the purpose of the debate is not to reconstruct and evaluate the histories of modern specialized sciences in retrospect. Nor will I be concerned to trace either tangible or indirect connections between the knowledge diffused over this period to particular innovations. Instead, the rather general argument (pursued this far for whatever credence becomes available from an exercise in comparisons with China) makes two points: first, that a loosely connected programme of investigations into the celestial, terrestrial and biological spheres of the natural world was conducted within an otherwise conservative and often hostile social environment of Western Europe, and, secondly, and at propitious times in its early modern history, the knowledge generated by that programme penetrated into, and ultimately undermined, the traditional cosmological predispositions of that continent's political, economic and ecclesiastical elites. The foundations of elite culture had been based on Europe's conversion to Christianity, a religion that co-existed in tension with the sanctified pagan texts (Aristotle, Ptolemy and Galen), with 'common sense' and with all kinds of heretic fantasies that the clerical establishment did its best to stamp out in favour of a unified view of nature as God's creation. In cultures permeated by monotheistic beliefs, in an afterlife and by heretical fantasies, it is, moreover, not surprising to observe that astronomy played the key historical role in a cosmological reordering of perceptions about the natural world. That 'gestalt switch' could simply be illustrated by detailed investigations into the beliefs held by increasing numbers of educated men about the natural world after, say, the times of Copernicus compared with the comprehension of and attitudes towards nature held by preceding generations for, say, two centuries following the Black Death. Up for debate is the historical background to and representation of a scientific revolution as a 'cosmological reordering' that led European elites (including skilled artisans) and eventually majorities among populations in the West to believe and expect that everything in the world can be explained rationally, demonstrated empirically and manipulated technologically. Cultures and Cosmologies for Innovation in the East
Research to establish plausibility for a historical narrative about the possible significance of changes to the cosmological basis for the discovery and diffusion of useful knowledge around Western Europe can only be taken further by following Marc Bloch's advice to engage in reciprocal comparisons with China - the West's leading contender for technological leadership - then and, again, today. This strategy for the construction of global economic history upon a comparative basis bypasses 'orientalist' History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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objections that Chinese culture is sui generis and the empire's regime for the accumulation of such knowledge had successfully proceeded along a trajectory, all of its own, for at least 1,000 years. Historians must also perforce ignore assertions that comparisons of this kind can be dismissed as 'Eurocentric'. Several tentative and under-researched suggestions as to why the regime evolving in Western Europe may, in retrospect, be perceived as being on a relatively more efficient trajectory have appeared in print. Furthermore, an extensive historical literature on the rise and decline of national economies in the West has already documented the penalties (institutional and cultural constraints) attached to the early starts and temporary positions of technological leadership held by the Italian, Dutch, British and, latterly, the American economies, which could well apply to China before 1800. Until well into the eighteenth century, many features of the economies and societies of the Ming and Qing empires continued to be widely admired by enlightened European intellectuals of the day. At that time, the scale and scope of information about China that filtered into European perceptions through reports from Catholic missionaries (mainly Jesuits), travellers' tales and accounts from merchants were neither voluminous, representative nor accurate. Today, these valuable accounts are but a part of a much wider and deeper historiography written in Chinese, Japanese and European languages, concerned to ascertain with reference to primary sources what institutional or cultural capacities the empire possessed (or lacked) to sustain technological leadership when confronted by dimly perceived, but retrospectively clear, challenges from the West. Historians, with help from a far greater volume of evidence than contemporaries had at their disposal, have revisited seventeenth and eighteenth-century European debates that deal with representations of China as a model culture, polity and economy. Several have reaffirmed the objections raised by Montesquieu, Hume and Adam Smith, who disputed more favourable interpretations of the oriental empire by Montaigne, Barros, Bayle, Voltaire, Leibniz, Quesnay and others. This famous enlightenment discourse resonates into modern investigations into knowledge formation and innovation across different civilizations, including institutionalized incentives and scope for the operation of multiple sources and centres for state and private patronage for investigations into the natural world and the circulation of knowledge. In short and taking a lead from anthropology, modern historians have taken up Needham's suggestions to expose and analyse contrasts in cultures and cosmologies, playing upon the missions of Chinese institutions (including the imperial state) as well as the dispositions of China's educated and wealthy elites to support and patronize the development of potentially productive forms of knowledge. As wily Jesuits missionaries to China discovered, the differences between (Confucian) and Western (Christian) cultures as moral philosophies were neither profound nor (in their ultimately mistaken view) unbridgeable.
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Both cultures supported hierarchy, patriarchy, filial piety and proclaimed in favour of righteous, just, frugal and patient behaviour, although Christian practice had probably come further along the way towards an accommodation with the avaricious tendencies of those with sufficient wealth and power to lead more autonomous lives and display individualistic patterns of conduct. That contrast came about because Christianity had risen to a position of ideological hegemony in Europe as a functional component of the Roman Empire and as a quasi autonomous hierarchical organization with pretensions to a universal mission after the fall of Rome. Christian churches and their congregations existed under the benign protection of diverse and competitive secular authorities, kings, aristocracies and oligarchies to whom they offered the promise of compliant subjects. That promise was not idle. As parishioners, most Europeans believed that obedience to moral codes propagated by priests and participation in the rituals performed by the Church accorded to the will of a divine creator would secure their places in Heaven. In China, the political institutions of an empire that survived as a political unit and claimed sovereignty over populations and territory greater in scale, extent and complexity than Western Europe also rested on principles designed to maintain hierarchy, internal stability, external security and obedience, coupled with more commendable concerns for social welfare. These Confucian principles never evolved in a Western sense into religions that were expressions of a divine order interpreted by a universal church that, for centuries, sustained claims for a sphere of authority sanctified by God and separated from the secular power exercised by hereditary rulers of realms, republics and cities. In China, the principles underpinning the institutions of the empire (including families, farms, firms, merchant networks, gilds, schools, higher forms of education, the organizations of local, urban, regional and imperial governance) were all derived from a set of canonical texts as revised, interpreted and implemented by an elite of officials, recruited along meritocratic lines, operating in the name of successive dynasties of emperors, with mandates from Heaven. The Chinese recognized no god and provided no space for the authority of a church separated from the state. Power in the Chinese empire depended more heavily for the implementation of rules, policies and decrees emanating from emperors and their officials upon ideological persuasion than upon coercive, more costly forms of power deployed by rulers of Europe's smaller but more manageable set of warring polities. Under the Ming and Qing dynasties, Confucianism and the institutions and personnel most actively involved in the refinement, revision and diffusion of that all pervasive and effective moral code evolved into an extraordinarily powerful and relatively cheap way of obtaining compliance for the governance of a vast, heterogeneous complex and expanding empire. Confucianism's status as a primary source of power utilized by emperors, mandarinates, local officials and patriarchs to exercise authority emerged clearly during crises of internal order and interludes of dynastic
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change when China's ruling elites turned again and again to purification of Confucian values to restore peace, harmony and stability to an empire that had, by the time of the Qing dynasty, survived for more than two millennia. As an ideology, designed and refined to maintain a common identity, cohesion, obedience and effective rule, Confucianism became of greater concern for the political authorities of China than religions (either Catholic or Protestant) ever became for the dynasties, aristocracies and oligarchies, governing polities of smaller scale and lower complexity in Europe. Apart from rituals of ancestor worship, deference towards age and greater veneration for ancient texts (all of which could be functionally conservative in their operation), the major contrast between Eastern and Western cosmologies resides in the more stable and coherent cluster of beliefs and perceptions that the majority of a well educated Chinese elite held about the natural world and the study of nature over the centuries between the accession of the Ming dynasty (1368) and the Opium War (1839). Both Christian and Confucian cosmologies can be depicted as anthropocentric in the sense that they reaffirmed and continually refined a foundational belief, namely that all institutions and personnel exercising power over the subjects of hereditary rulers should act in accordance with immutable moral-cum-spiritual precepts. Prescriptions for all forms of human behaviour in the spheres of familial, interpersonal, social, economic and political relations were pretty clear for both Chinese and European rulers and their subjects. One salient difference was that rulers of China, unlike their counterparts of the West, had refrained from embodying these principles (as expressed on their policies and decrees) into codes of law reinforced by precedents that applied across the empire. Law usually operates to constrain custom and the discretion of local officials to take personal and particular contexts into account. In their adjudications over all spheres of private and social behaviour, including the economic spheres, the Chinese managed without applicable reference to any universally applied system of imperial law. Both cosmologies also recognized that men not only interacted with others, but were also intensely preoccupied with the natural world that surrounded, sustained and afflicted their daily lives. Yet, the attention devoted and resources allocated to the systematic study of nature were neither a top priority nor accorded high status, either in China or Europe. Nevertheless, the historical record suggests that the Chinese accumulated a more impressive stock of useful and reliable knowledge down to some indeterminate period, marked by a climacteric that probably occurred under Ming emperors, when Confucian priorities for the conceptions and comprehension of nature and the methods used by Savants to investigate all natural phenomena (including the human body) seem (in retrospect) to have continued along a trajectory that accumulated useful and reliable knowledge at a low, rather traditional rate of advance compared to Western Europe. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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In this, our Europe mirror, Chinese savants neither envisaged nor institutionalized a separated quasi autonomous sphere for the study of nature, whereas Christian cosmology (with its felicitous origins in the Roman Empire) accommodated its theology, teaching and institutions to take in knowledge inherited from classical times. In forging that particular fusion, the 'Roman' Catholic hierarchy left no space at all beyond its parameters and perimeters for alternative moral philosophies or interpretations of the words and commands of God. But the Church certainly encouraged the circumscribed study of an (albeit inferior) branch of pagan knowledge and learning, namely natural philosophy, concerned with systemic investigations into nature as a whole, but always as a reflection of the creation and works of God. For centuries in the West, natural philosophy as represented in the 'expurgated' works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Galen and a limited range of other pagan and Islamic texts existed within a tolerated but uneasy position of subordination with Christian theology, concerned with its own sanctified set of Latin texts and scriptures dealing with God and principles of moral behaviour. Unlike Christianity (or Islam), Chinese cosmology displayed no comparable divisions or tensions. Confucians never separated moral from natural philosophy. They formulated their overall view of the world as an integrated whole, embodying human behaviour, all socially and politically constructed institutions (especially the state) conceived to be organically related to the celestial, terrestrial and biological spheres of the natural world. For centuries, Chinese savants contemplated, studied and added impressively to the world's stock of knowledge about natural things (shixue), including stars, water, plants, animals, minerals, colours, medicines, topography, magnetism, optics, etc., etc. Their epistemological tradition accorded no credence, however, to speculations, let alone theories, about the operations of nature (li) as a cosmic realm detached from man, society or from emperors with their mandates from the heavens to rule over a large and successful empire. Nature, as a whole, seemed too multifaceted and alien an idea to grasp, let alone produce general theories about. It was perceived to display nothing more challenging and useful than harmonies and balances (jing andyang). As part of nature, men were advised by sages to go with and not against its grain. Furthermore, it would have been inept and dangerous for savants, employed by the state, to publicize speculations that questioned or undermined the harmonious cosmological foundations of the empire. Not only was it politically prudent and profitable to stay with mainstream moral philosophy, but the curious minority of educated Chinese who strayed into speculations about nature concentrated upon the classification of natural phenomena, detecting patterns and correlations and/or investigating problems of clear and immediate practical import. After all, their successful civilization flourished on this basis for more than a 1,000 years. As systems of belief that weave diverse perceptions of the universe into
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some kind of coherent whole, there were similarities but also discernible contrasts between European and Chinese cosmologies and it is arguably the case that the wedge into Western cosmology that widened between the times of Copernicus and Newton placed investigations into the comprehension and manipulation of the natural world upon a more systemic and efficient basis for technological innovation. This 'hypothesis', currently under debate among historians of science, cannot be construed to suggest that the accumulation of useful knowledge in China had been restrained from the beginnings of the Empire. Clearly (as Needham and his school have demonstrated), that had not been the case. And, as Mark Elvin observed, the Chinese were nothing other than almost entirely cognizant of (if not familiar with) the several methods and styles of investigation adopted for the study of natural phenomena in the West. Furthermore, only historians of particular problems or proto-sciences could detect and somehow sum up changes at frontiers of knowledge where Chinese levels of comprehension and potential for advance really lagged behind the West. The list of extant examples (which includes geometry, cartography, anatomy, astronomy and the use of scientific instruments) was never that long. On the basis of an established cosmology and indigenous institutions and traditions for enquiry, the Chinese continued to add to their own and the world's stock of useful and reliable knowledge. Neither intellectual stasis nor any deep-seated cultural antipathy to learn from and adapt advanced Western knowledge (offered to the Chinese state as part of a culturally unacceptable package of religious moral and natural philosophy by Jesuit missionaries) can be represented as an incontrovertible or highly significant part of scholarly answers to Needham's important question of why. China failed to keep up with the pace set by the West for the accumulation of knowledge from the times of Copernicus onwards. Tim Brooke, Dennis Twitchett, Jonathan Spence and Jean Genet, Ben Elman, John Henderson and other historians of Chinese intellectual traditions are currently constructing a narrative to suggest that 'promising' developments in Confucian thought in both moral and natural philosophy occurred in the late Ming period, and may well have been cut short by the prolonged and protracted takeover of the empire by Manchu armies after 1644. They and other global historians are suggesting that decline of the East allowed for the rise of the West. Certainly, there seems to have been widespread destruction during this dynastic takeover by the Qing regime and sufficient and cultural repression for some time thereafter to provide support for the thesis of a lost cosmological moment in the long history of the empire. Needham's Unanswered Question
Eurocentric and other historians from backgrounds in comparative history may remain more impressed with Needham's view that 'China was overtaken by the exponential growth of modern science' and by Mary
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Wright's classical study and its conclusion that 'obstacles to the adaption to the modern world was not imperialist aggression or the accidents of history, but nothing less than the constituent elements of the Confucian system itself. From several perspectives (which are shared by many Chinese scholars) is the view that what counted against China in its always difficult endeavours at unpropitious times to move onto a learning curve for the accumulation of knowledge comparable to the West was China's long tradition of success as an empire, reinforced by a set of cosmological-cumpolitical constraints that can be ranked for discussion and future research under the heading of Needham's Puzzle. At the top of that agenda for historical research must be the Chinese stance of incredulity towards the paradigm that had gripped the imagination of European natural philosophy, namely that all natural phenomena, including the human body, could be investigated, comprehended and interrogated as cases or instances of universal laws of nature. Furthermore, these laws (which explained how and why things operated as they did) were the manifestations of the intelligent designs of a divine creator. They could be exposed by transparent experimental methods and explicated rigorously in mathematical language. Natural laws that could be represented as divine in origin provided the West with a cosmology and a culture for elites of aristocrats, merchants, industrialists and craftsmen that rested on an acceptable, unproveable, but ultimately progressive supposition that God created a natural world that was rational and explicable, that its tendencies to afflict the lines of people's everywhere could be fixed or ameliorated and that matter could be manipulated to provide technologies to raise the productivities of labour. Confucian cosmology neither restrained nor promoted the interrogation of nature or the search for technological solutions to problems of production. What it did not provide for, even during the continued economic advance of the Qing empire, was that powerful promotional confidence that entered into the cultures of Western elites of a natural world that was the rational and explicable work of their God. As Needham observed, 'there was no confidence that the codes of nature could be read because there was no assurance that a divine being had formulated a code capable of being read'. His point is intact and remains open for research and discussion. Bibliography of Books and Articles Consulted M. Adas, Machines and the Measure of Men: Science, Technology and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, 1989). S. Adshead, China in World History, 2nd edn (Basingstoke, 1995). S. Adshead, Tang China, the Rise of the East in World History (Basingstoke, 2004). D. Aldcroft and A. Sutcliffe (eds), Europe in the International Economy 15002000 (Cheltenham, 1999). S. Amin, Eurocentrism (New York, 1989).
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M. Bagioli, Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism (Chicago, 1993). M. Bagioli (ed.), The Science Studies Reader (New York, 1999). E. Balazs, Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy (London, 1964). J. D. Barrow, The Universe that Discovered Itself (Oxford, 2000). C. Bayly, The British of the Modern World 1780-1914 (Oxford, 2004). S. A. Bedini (ed.), Patrons, Artisans and Instruments of Science (Aldershot, 1999). R. Bin Wong, The Chinese State and Useful Knowledge: Criteria, Intentions and Consequences', unpublished paper, UCLA. J. M. Blaut, Eight Eurocentric Historians (New York, 2000). D. Bodde, Chinese Thought, Society and Science (Honolulu, 1991). F. Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Centuries, three vols (London, 1982). T. Brook, 'Communications and Commerce', in D. Twitchett and F. Mote (eds), Cambridge History of China, Vol. 8 (Cambridge, 1998). T. Brook, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge, 1991). T. Brook and G. Blue (eds), China and Historical Capitalism, Genealogies and Sinological Knowledge (Cambridge, 1999). T. Brotton, The Renaissance Bazaar, from the Silk Road to the Sistine Chapel (Oxford, 2005). V. Bulloush (ed.), Universities, Medicine and Science in the Medieval West (Aldershot, 2004). D. Cardwell, The Fontana History of Technology (London, 1994). J. Chaffer, The Thorny Gates of Learning in Sung China: A Social History of Examinations (New York, 1995). S. Y. Cheng, 'On Chinese Science: A Review Essay', Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 1997, 4: 395-407. A. Crombie, 'Commitment and Styles of European Scientific Thinking', in History of Science, 1995, 33: 226-38. H. de Ridder Symoens (ed.), A History of the University in Early Modern Europe 1500-1800 (Cambridge, 1996). P. Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences (Basingstoke, 2001). G. Deng, Chinese Maritime Activities and Socioeconomic Developments c. 2000BC— 1900AD (Westport, 1997). G. Deng, Maritime Sector, Institutions and Sea Power of Pre-Modern China (Westport, 1999). H. Dorn, The Geography of Science (Baltimore, 1991). M. Douglas, Cultural Bias (London, 1978). W. Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton, 1994). B. Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China (Berkeley, 2000). B. Elman, From Philosophy to Philology (Cambridge, 1984). B. Elman, On Their Own Terms: Science in China 1550-1900 (Cambridge, MA, 2005). B. Elman and A. Woodside (eds), Education and Society in Late Imperial China 1600-1900 (Berkeley, 1994).
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M. Elvin, 'Chinese Cities since the Sung Dynasty', in M. Abrams and A. E. Wrigley (eds), Towns and Societies (Cambridge, 1978). M. Elvin, 'Vale Atque Ave', in K. Robinson (ed.), Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 7.2 (Cambridge, 2004), 1-18. D. Faure and T. T. Liu (eds), Town and Country in China (Basingstoke, 2002). A. Feuerwerker, State and Society in 18th Century China (Ann Arbor, 1976). J. V. Field and F. A. James (eds), Renaissance and Revolution: Humanists, Scholars and Craftsmen in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1993). H. Floris Cohen, 'Science', in D. R. Woolf (ed.), A Global Encyclopaedia of Historical Writing (New York, 1998), 816-19. H. Floris Cohen, The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry (Chicago, 1994). J. Gascoigne, Science, Politics and Universities in Europe (Aldershot, 1998). S. Gaukroger, The Emergence of a Scientific Culture (Oxford, 2006). J. Genet, A History of Chinese Civilization, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1996). Global Economic History Network, unpublished papers presented by F. Cohen, K. Davids, S. R. Epstein, J. Goldstone, R. Iliffe, J. Liu, B. Wong and H. Zurdorfer to conferences 4 and 9 on the GEHN website: www.lse.ac.uk/collections/economichistory/GEHN. D. Goodman and C. Russell (eds), The Rise of Scientific Europe 1500-1800 (London, 1991). J. Goody, The Oriental, the Ancient and the Primitive Systems of Marriage and Family in Pre Industrial Societies of Eurasia (Cambridge, 1990). E. Grant, Science and Religion from Aristotle to Copernicus 400BC—AD 1550 (Baltimore, 2004). J. S. Gregory, The West and China since 1500 (Basingstoke, 2003). L. Guohao et al. (eds), Explorations in the History of Science in China (Shanghai, 1982). A. R. Hall, Historical Essays on the Relations of Science, Technology and Medicine (Aldershot, 1994). J. B. Henderson, Scripture, Cannon and Commentary (Princeton, 1991). J. B. Henderson, The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology (New York, 1984). J. Henry, The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science, 2nd edn (Basingstoke, 2001). M. Hodgson (ed.), Rethinking World History: Edmund Burke, III (Cambridge, 1993). C. O. Hucker (ed.), Chinese Government in Ming Times (New York, 1969). T. Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West (Cambridge, 1993). I. Inkster, Science and Technology in History: An Approach to Industrial Development (Basingstoke, 1991). M.Jacob, Scientific Culture and the Making of the Modern West (Oxford, 1997). A. Janison, 'Technologies Theorists: Conceptions of Innovation in Relation to Science and Technology Policy', in Technology and Culture, 1989, 30: 505-33.
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A. Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print Knowledge in the Making (Chicago, 1998). J. Kaye, Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 1998). M. Kranzberg (ed.), 'Science and Engineering', in a special issue of Technology and Culture, 1961, 2(4): 305-91. V. Lai, The History of History, Politics and Scholarship in Modern China (New Delhi, 2003). D. Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (New York, 1998). D. C. Lindberg (ed.), Science in the Middle Ages (Chicago, 1978). D. C. Lindberg (ed.), The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical Religious and Institutional Context 600 BC AD 1450 (Chicago, 1992). D. C. Lindberg and R. L. Numbers (eds), God and Nature (Berkeley, 1986). D. C. Lindberg and R. S. Westman (eds), Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, 1990). J. Liu, 'Cultural Logics for the Regime of Useful Knowledge, during Ming and Early Qing China c. 1400-1700', History of Technology, 2009: 29-56. G. Lloyd and N. Sivin, Adversaries and Authorities, Investigations into Ancient Greek and Chinese Science (Cambridge, 1996). G. Lloyd and N. Sivin, The Way and the Word: Science and Medicine in Early China and Greece (New Haven, 2002). G. Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges, Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West (Edinburgh, 1981). J. McClellan and H. Dorn, Science and Technology in World History (Baltimore, 1999). J. Mokyr, The Gifts of Athena (Princeton, 2002). J. Mokyr, The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress (Oxford, 1990). S. L. Montgomery, Science in Translation, Movements of Knowledge through Cultures and Time (Chicago, 2000). B. Moran (ed.), Patronage and Institutions, Science, Technology and Medicine at the European Court (Woodridge, 1991). D. Mungello, The Great Encounter, China and the West 1500-1900 (Oxford, 1999). S. Nakayama and N. Sivin (eds), Chinese Science: An Exploration of an Ancient Tradition (Cambridge, MA, 1973). S. Naqvin and E. S. Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century (New Haven, 1988). B. Nelson, On the Roads to Modernity, Conscience, Science and Civilizations (Towota, 1981). B. Nelson, 'Sciences and Civilizations, East and West', in R. Seeger and R. Cohen (eds), Philosophical Foundations of Science (Dordrecht, 1974). D. F. Noble, The Religion of Technology: the Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention (London, 1999). J. North, The Fontana History of Astronomy (London, 1994). P. K. O'Brien (ed.), Urban Achievement in Early Modern Europe (Europe, 2001).
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R. Olson, Science Deified and Science Defied, the Historical Significance of Science in Western Culture, Vol. 2 (Berkeley, 1990). W. O'Malley (ed.), The Jesuits, Cultures, Sciences and the Arts 1540-1773 (London, 1999). M. Ostler (ed.), Science in Europe 1500-1800: A Secondary Sources Reader (Basingstoke, 2001). A. Pacey, Technology in World Civilization (Oxford, 1990). A. Peyrefitte, The Immobile Empire (New York, 1992). K. Pomeranz, The Great Divergence, Europe and the Making of the Modern World (Princeton, 2000). W.-Y. Qian, The Great Inertia (Becketon, 1985). E. S. Rawski, Education and Popular Literacy in Ching China (Ann Arbor, 1979). T. G. Rawski and L. M. Li (eds), Chinese History in Economic Perspective (Berkeley, 1992). D. Reynolds, 'Redrawing China's Intellectual Map: Images of Science in Nineteenth Century China', Late Imperial China, 1991, 12(1): 27-61. P. S. Ropp (ed.), The Heritage of China (Berkeley, 1990). P. Rossi, The Birth of Modern Science (Oxford, 2000). G. Rozman, Urban Networks in Ching China and Tokugawa Japan (Princeton, 1973). G. Rozman (ed.), The East Asian Region, Confucian Heritage and its Modern Adaptations (Princeton, 1991). U. Rublack, Reformation Europe (Cambridge, 2005). V. Ruttan, Technology, Growth and Development: An Induced Innovation Perspective (New York, 2001). M. Sahlins, Culture in Practice, Selected Essays (New York, 2000). H. Selin (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Science, Technology and History of Medicine in Non-Western Cultures (Dordrecht, 1997). S. Shapin, The Scientific Revolution (Chicago, 1994). N. Sivin, Science in Ancient China: Researches and Reflections (London, 1995). G. W. Skinner, The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford, 1977). J. M. H. Smith, Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History (Oxford, 2005). R. J. Smith, China's Cultural Heritage, the Ch'ing Dynasty 1644-1912 (London, 1983). J. Spence, The Chan's Great Continent, China in Western Thought (New York, 1998). J. Spence, To Change China: Western Advisers in China 1620-1960 (New York, 1964). R. Temple, The Genius of China: 3000 Tears of Science, Discovery and Invention (London, 1999). S. Toulmin, Cosmopolis, the Hidden Agenda of Modernity (Chicago, 1990). D. Twitchett and F. Mote (eds), The Cambridge History of China, Vols 7 and 8 (Cambridge, 1998). P. Wood (ed.), Science and Dissent in England 1688-1945 (Aldershot, 2004). M. Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism (Stanford, 1957). D. Yang, 'China's Traditional Mode of Thought and Science', Studies in Chinese Philosophy, 1990-91, 22(2): 43-62.
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J. Young, Confucianism and Christianity, the First Encounter (London, 1983). M. Zelin et aL, Contracts and Property in Early Modern China (Stanford, 2004). H. Zurndorfer, 'La Sinologie Immobile', Etudes Chinoises, 1989, 7(2): 99120. H. Zurndorfer, 'Learning, Lineages and Locality in Late Imperial China', Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 2005, 35: 209-37. Note * I am honoured that the editors have invited me to contribute a historiographical introduction to this special issue of the History of Technology devoted to the publication of exemplary research, concerned with the comparative histories of science and technology in China, India, Islam and Japan. I am indebted to all my colleagues who participated in GEHN (Global Economic History Network, 2003-06) for the education they supplied that enabled me to construct this essay.
History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
Cultural Logics for the Regime of Useful Knowledge during the Ming and Early-Qing China c. 1400-1700 J E R R Y C.-Y. LIU
ABSTRACT
Few would dispute that Europe had triumphed over China materially, scientifically and technologically in modern world history, although historians are still debating about the precise date, causes and courses. Global economic historians today ascribe China's 'failure' of achieving an equal level of scientific and technological progress to its inability in creating, innovating, accumulating, transferring and diffusing sufficient useful and reliable knowledge, and to convert such knowledge into substantial material growth. A cultural historian who chooses to engage with the problem seriously, however, tries to avoid and neutralize the European triumphalism by contextualizing the outer cultural ambiances and identifying the inner cultural logics for the Ming and early-Qing China's 'non-doings' in systematically institutionalizing 'useful and reliable' knowledge. Taking a cultural approach, the paper provides first a broad sketch of the regime of knowledge as a whole, and draws from it the regime of 'useful knowledge' during the Ming and early-Qing China. Through the historical mapping of the well developed network of sites of knowledge production and reproduction (interconnected official, independent schools and libraries and intellectual circles), as well as the storage, diffusion and categorization of knowledge in £.1400-1700, it suggests that factors of imperial polity, sites of knowledge production and reproduction, scientific and technological institutions alone cannot explain the Ming and early-Qing China's 'failure' in adopting effectively useful knowledge. Rather, by deriving the cultural logics of the regime of useful knowledge, the paper illustrates how cultural motives, collective mentality, cosmological assumptions and style of thought
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may play a significant role in defining the 'usefulness' and 'uselessness' of a certain genre of knowledge. The paper identifies the cultural logics through studies of the Ming and Qing Chinese scholars' prefaces and postscripts to works of useful knowledge on medicine, agriculture, astronomy, calendar, commerce, mathematics, geometry, art of war, statecraft, weather forecast, botany, zoology, ethnology, topography and craft skill. Our analyses suggest the potent influence of China's pro-humanistic way of thinking upon internal and external encounters of useful knowledge during the Ming and early-Qing era. INTRODUCTION
China had once led Europe in science, technology and material growth after the fall of the Romans to as late as the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Yet, most also agree that Europe had triumphed over China, at least after the nineteenth century, based on the direct testimony of the encounters of the two great civilizations. In the 1840s, China could hardly stand on its feet defending against the European invasions, whether the cause was Western opium or cannons. Global economic historians today ascribe China's 'failure' of achieving an equal level of scientific and technological progress to its inability in creating, innovating, accumulating, transferring and diffusing sufficient useful and reliable knowledge, and to convert such knowledge into substantial material growth. Only the precise period, causes and courses for the EuroChinese divergence in material progress are still under debate. Many (Sinocentric) historians, however, 'regard such a program for research in comparative history as contaminated by a potential (and possibly by an agenda) for the construction of yet another metanarrative of Western triumphalism'.1 Some consider the question malposed, since 'China's economy, policy and culture had developed along its own path dependant trajectories', which had been very different from or even contradictory to the scientific or material centred (Eurocentric) one.2 A cultural historian who chooses to engage with the problem seriously, however, tries to avoid and neutralize the European triumphalism by providing the Chinese regime of knowledge a specific cultural-historical context. Such an engagement is significant in two senses. First, it is important to look into the established regime of knowledge in the Ming and early-Qing China, to depict the well developed intellectual networks of knowledge production, reproduction, storage and diffusion. There is the un-negligible fact that the Chinese regime of knowledge had been vivid and energetic before the great encounters. The sites of knowledge production include an interconnected official and independent school and library system at the capital, prefecture and sub-prefecture levels during the Ming and Qing China. The diffusion of ideas was achieved through the communication of central and local official apparatus and publishing houses. As intellectuals travelled for the itinerant public lectures and civil exams, History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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and the state mobilized local artisans for public constructions, useful knowledge also flowed. In other words, there existed an established order of knowledge control and a vast amount of knowledge that was considered as 'useful' and important was produced, innovated, accumulated and diffused through the regime of knowledge. Secondly, given the well established intellectual networks and abundant knowledge production in the Ming and early-Qing China, but not so well achieved scientific and technological progress, it suggests that, besides the educational institutions, libraries and intellectual networks, some links are missing in explicating China's relative underdevelopment. Here, the economic and cultural historians may ask the same questions: What is the mechanism of selection and perception of 'useful' knowledge? Why was a certain category of knowledge considered more useful and important than others, hence worth generating and diffusing? Why was scientific and technological knowledge not recognized as systematically useful and not adopted even for the ultimate socio-political aims of the leaders in China? And why was it not innovated to reach its high/wide level of usefulness? To us, there are certain logics underlying such regimes of knowledge production, accumulation and diffusion. The central task of a cultural historian thus is to contextualize the outer cultural ambiances and identify the inner cultural logics for China's 'non-doings' in systematically institutionalizing the 'useful and reliable' knowledge during the Ming and early-Qing era (c. 1400-1700). Through studies of the Ming and Qing Chinese scholars' prefaces and postscripts to works of useful knowledge on statecraft, art of war, medicine, agriculture, astronomy, calendar, mathematics, geometry, weather forecast, botany, zoology, ethnology, topography and craft skill, etc., the paper aims to identify how, in reality, Chinese scholars and intellectuals visualized their knowledge environment. Our analyses suggest the potent influence of China's pro-humanistic way of thinking upon internal and external encounters of useful knowledge during the Ming and early-Qing era. REGIME OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE MING AND EARLY-QING CHINA
The Official and Independent Educational System China had developed a mature education system by the time of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming state divided its administrative system into 13 provinces and two municipal capitals (not including the ethnic minorities at the Chinese peripheries), which were subdivided into 393 prefectures (called Ju (Jf?) or zhou (M)) and 1,171 counties by 1382. A county could have as many as 20 cantons (xiang (£|$)), although the average was about eight.3 In order to train those young talents into loyal civil officers, the founding emperor of the Ming, Zhu YuanZhang, made a great effort in promoting the official schools and the civil examination system. At the central level, the Ming founded the
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state universities, or guozijian (H^is), in the two capitals, while local official schools were also set up at the prefecture, county and even canton levels. In 1423, the guozijian in Nanjing alone had 9,900 students. Students and teachers in the official schools received monthly stipends from the state, and were provided with staple food, fish, meat and highquality clothes. Apart from classic learning and history, the official schools also taught subjects like imperial laws and judicial procedures, statecraft, mathematics and archery.4 The official schools were strictly supervised by the central and local governments both in the content of teaching and in administration. The other important school system in China was the independent teaching institutes that were called shuyuan (Hl?^), whose origin may be traced back to the Tang and Song dynasties. The Chinese shuyuans were either founded by private owners, local officials and retired scholar-gentries, or they were jointly invested by local governments and private owners. Although, during the Ming times, more than 60% of shuyuans were established, owned or renovated by local officials and their disciples,5 they were independent from the official school system in respect of teaching and administration. In most cases, the Ming shuyuans were managed by private owners or school principals who were employed by, but not subjected to, the instructions of local officials. They received both private and official donations of money, books and sometimes even tenure lands. During the Jiajin (^$R) period (152266), there were up to 1,239 shuyuans in China. In Jiangsu province alone, there were more than 18 of these independent teaching institutes and, in Anhui province, 39 shuyuans were renovated in the Jiajin era. During the Qing China, the number of shuyuan rose to more than 1,900. One of the key differences between official schools and shuyuans was the spirit of free lectures. Only a few of the Chinese shuyuans taught subjects that were directly related to the state civil examination system. Many of them criticized the current affairs, educational policy of official schools or even lectured against the doings of state officers.6 Such is the reason why the Ming state, though unsuccessfully, had made many attempts to destroy or even eliminate all the shuyuans. Thus, the first picture we have for the Ming regime of knowledge is that there was an interconnected network of more than 2,700 official and independent schools (not counting the canton schools) within the Ming territory in the early fifteenth century. Knowledge Production, Classification and Storage As O'Brien rightly notes, the sheer volume of publications of Ming China looks impressive, although it was dominated by editions, commentaries and elaborations on classical texts in moral philosophy (the analogue of theology and scripture in European publishing), followed by literature (plays, poetry, stories), as well as numerous gazettes, almanacs and manuals concerned with statecraft (administrative and judicial procedures) .7
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Between 1403 and 1408, the Ming court compiled the largest and the earliest encyclopaedia of the world. The Encyclopaedia of Yong Le collected some 8,000 pieces of work of different kinds from around the empire, and they were subdivided into 22,937 juans (^).8 The bibliography of the encyclopaedia contained 'useful' knowledge on: geography, agronomy, hydrology, botany, zoology, natural history, medicines, optics, acoustics, pharmacology, silk, sugar, paper, printing, minerals, metals, chemicals, paints, glass, borax, dyes, alum, navigation, tides and winds, etc. The Ming and Qing works on statecraft, which include a vast amount of useful knowledge, should not be overlooked. A brief survey of the headings in the works of statecraft summarize the key genres of 'practical' knowledge of the Ming and Qing scholars: (1) Sacred (or Confucian) teachings, rites and ancestral instruction: The ruling principles of an emperor, on masters and colleagues, sacred teachings, the ancestral instructions, self-cultivation, ritual ceremonies, courtesies to the subjects; (2) Reclining luxuries, pleasures and tributes: Heresy and religious preferences, inspection tours, pleasures, tributary gifts, extra labours and exploitations; (3) Judiciary, honouring decency and impeaching misconducts: Correcting infringement, assisting integrity, jail and criminal, discipline, honouring loyalty and merits, treacherous officials and powers, impeachment; (4) Civil service and current affairs: Orders, state affairs, current policies, responding strategy, employment, accepting advises, selecting the able, assessment, civil service system; (5) Finance and taxation: Financial expense, taxation, labours, horse trading policy, land cultivation, taxation on salt, currency; (6) Infrastructure, welfare and social orders: Rivers and canals, water transportations, topography, famine and relief, good storage, astronomy and calendar, schools, customs, pacifying bandits, constructions and buildings; (7) Military and security: Military preparation, frontier defence, art of war, punitive expedition, river defence, coastal guards, pacifying and administering the foreigners; (8) Feudal awards and palace affairs: Crown prince, queens and concubines, suzerain and vassals, awarding noble titles, collateral relatives of the emperor, eunuch.9 As Fu rightly argues, unlike the classification of knowledge in the modern era, which systematically organizes knowledge according to the devalued utilitarian logics of different academic disciplines, the ancient Chinese categorization of knowledge paid little attention to such academic utilitarianism. In contrast, the principles of knowledge categorization in traditional China had been that of meaning and function of certain knowledge, and that of conformity of knowledge to people's recognition of reality. In other words, the traditional categorization of knowledge in China focused, first, on the profoundness of values or implications that a given genre of knowledge might bring about to politics and the day-to-day life practices. Secondly, the arrangement for the order of knowledge had to conform to people's recognition of reality. The importance of historic figures and events needed to be History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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reflected in their orders of appearance in an edited book. Thus, ancestral instructions and sacred teachings always precede statecrafts; thoughts of saints and sages go before knowledge of astronomy and topography; and accounts for lives of emperors headed those of civil officers and local merchants.10 Knowledge and even the classification of knowledge cannot be lifted above the existing structure of cultural values in ancient China. As for publishers, according to the calculation of Tu Xin-Fu's (tfcff £^) General Records of the Ming Wood Block Carvings (^ftfiS^!l^^), there were at least 4,993 wood block printing publishing houses in the Ming China. Counting five wood block carvers in each of the book publishers, it then amounted to 25,000 carvers during the Ming period, who were mainly scattered over the Suzhou, Xinan, Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Jianyang areas.11 The Ming regime of knowledge certainly looks prosperous in knowledge production. Book depositary infrastructure in China was composed of four main systems, namely the official (central and local) school library collection, privately owned library (cangshulo (HcH®)) collection, monastic library collection and shuyuan library collection. Yung-Lo emperor seemed to value books far more than jewelleries. In 1404, the emperor ordered the Minister of Rites Zheng Si (H|$I§) to send those who know books well to search and purchase scattered books from the folk. He commanded: Do not bargain with the civilian about the price of the book, just offer whatever they want and bring back those rare books .... The folk people accumulate gold and jade for their sons and grandsons, I on the other hand collect these books for my offspring. The value of gold and jade is limited, yet is there a price for these books?12 Brook has rightly pointed out that '[i]mperial distribution initiated the collections of books that most schools had, but commercial circulation enabled them to grow beyond the canonical core'. When Chen FengWu (1475-1541), the Huguang Education Intendant, looked over the catalogue of books in the Wuchang prefectural school in 1505, 'he was dismayed to find "only the editions of the classics issued by the court, but neither the writings of the philosophers nor the histories'". So, Chen sent someone to Nanjing to buy commercial presses of classics, histories, the writings of the philosophers and literary collections to supplement the collections.13 Book collections and storages in the independent shuyuans and private cangshulos libraries had almost become a vogue and riches to be chased for the retired officials and local gentries. Monasteries, too, collected numerous numbers of sutras and contributed to the important site of knowledge storage. However, one should note that the book depositary system during Ming and earlyQing China had emphasized the storage, in a passive sense of accumulation, of books far more than the real utilization and circulation of
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books (knowledge). In most cases, only civil officers, students in the official school or shuyuan and monks in the monastery were allowed to access to the books stored in these libraries. The Intellectual Networks and Knowledge Diffusion Apart from the civil examination that connected all the official schools, the independent teaching institutes, shuyuans, had developed among them a well established 'system of public lecture meeting (1SW0JS)' in the middle of the Ming. With the promotion and participation of some famous Ming scholars, like Zhan Ruo-Shui (^^/R), Wang ShuoRen (HrvfO and Zou Shuo-Yi (I|5^^), such a system of public lecture meetings flourished and was widely applied in the county and provincial levels during the Ming period. As the name of the public lecture meeting indicates, these meetings were systematically organized academic activities among the Ming intellectuals. They were held regularly in public, and the participants were not limited only to students of those shuyuans. Many scholars, local gentry and even common people would travel for hundreds of miles to attend the public lecture meetings. The lecture meetings might be held inside or outside the shuyuans; on many occasions, they had attracted up to thousands of participants.14 The Regulations of Lecture Meeting of Dong-Lin Shuyuan, of 1604, provide more detailed information about how the public lecture meetings were organized. Key points of the regulations were extracted and translated as follows:15 The grand meeting is to be held once a year, either in the spring or autumn. The exact date should be decided when the time comes nearer. Only the announcement and invitations should be sent half a month in advance. The minor meeting is to be held every month except for January, June, July and December .... Each meeting will last for three days. People may come voluntarily, and no individual invitations are needed .... The grand meeting should elect one Chairperson every year to preside over it. And the minor meeting should elect one Chairperson every month to preside over it .... In every meeting, one speaker is elected to lecture over one chapter taken from the Four Books. Apart from that, the lecture meeting takes questions when there are questions being raised, and discussions would be welcome when the participants feel need to .... During the meeting day, in order to wash away the inertia and to give more inspiration to the participants, it is proper to recite a poem or two after the long sitting .... The registry should be set up in every meeting. It registers the frequency of attendance of the students and scholars on the one hand, so as to check their diligence and laziness; and it registers the personal information of the outside participants on the other hand, so as to trace the careers and whereabouts of the attendants, and take them as models or lessons in the future .... Participants coming from different History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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provinces and counties should be arranged into a table of four people for lunch. The meal includes two vegetable dishes and two meat dishes. For dinner, six dishes of vegetable and meat dishes with some wine should be served. Apart from Dong-Lin Shuyuan, many other big shuyuans, including Zi-Yang (HHf), Huan-Gu (M^) and Yao-Jiang ($fc£Q, all held their regular lecture meetings monthly, seasonally and yearly at the county, provincial and inter-provincial levels. Famous speakers were invited for itinerant lectures, which had no doubt weaved among them an interconnected network of intellectual communication.16 Chinese shuyuans had actively sponsored the travels of the Ming and Qing intellectuals. Taking Bai Lu Dong Shuyuan (SH^tf^) as an example, between 1644 and 1662, 100 out of its 800 taels budget was used to provide for the travelling costs of the renown scholars annually. Distinguished intellectuals from distant locations would be paid 12 taels more per year than the locals, if they were to study or research in Bai Lu Dong Shuyuan.17 In his A Study on the Schools of Ming Scholars (^flf^) of 1676, Huang Zong-Xi (Hr^H) documented 17 different schools of Ming academics in the order of timeline. He listed more than 210 representative figures of the 17 academic schools of thinking and summarized the stream of thoughts and their major works. The scholastic origins, founding masters and localities of the schools were evidently traced, and Huang even commented on individual schools of thinking to account for the intellectual trends and their interrelations. Huang's study again provides a clear mapping of close intellectual networks among scholars in the provinces of Jiangxi, Zhejing, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Huguang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Henan and Huguang at the Ming times.18 Although there was not an open diffusion of scientific knowledge and academies in China as such, a centralized bureaucracy, together with local gentries, did serve a comparable function to the European scientific communities of that time. A frequent change of serving localities for civil officers was the common feature for Chinese governments of all dynasties. The statistical data for the movements of 53,270 civil bureaucrats at the county level in the Qing period provide strong evidence for such high-degree mobility. Accordingly, 74.1% of provincial magistrates (£DJ??f) and 78.8% of county magistrates (£P§!) in Qing local governments served a term of less than three years, and nearly half of them stayed less than one. Within such position changes, 50% were simply swaps of serving locales.19 As Wong pointed out, when officials moved to new posts, information about crops and agricultural techniques that was successful in the former jurisdictions was taken to their new ones, with the hopes of persuading peasants to adopt them. Irrigation projects specifically and water control works more generally were intimately enmeshed within particular ecologies. Handicraft technologies were also promoted. Chen Hongmou, for instance, promoted History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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sericulture in mid-eighteenth-century Shangxi by establishing 'silkworm bureaus' in the provincial capital and a number of prefectures to demonstrate silk-weaving techniques.20 However, it should be noted that, unlike the European scientists and technologists, who gathered around in scientific societies from time to time and engaged in serious testing, debating, arguing and refining of useful knowledge, there seemed to be very limited scholastic interactions among Chinese academics of useful knowledge. During the Ming period, the state registered around 300,000 hereditary artisans. Among them, 20% were stationed artisans, who mainly served in the Capital city area for the production of weaponry and military necessities, and the other 80% were artisans in shifts who were called up from their residential areas to serve in the Beijing and Nanjing capitals for a term of 3 months every 3 years. In 1393, 62 different professions of artisans were categorized into five different shifting terms in order to meet the demands of various official departments. For instance, carpenters and tailors were called up every 5 years to serve for a period of 3 months; tilers, bricklayers, painters, blacksmiths and carvers were called up every 4 years; house builders, coppersmiths, weavers, dyers and brush pen makers were called up every 3 years; stonemasons, shipbuilders, oar makers, saddle makers, fan makers, wooden bucket makers, silversmiths, goldsmiths, pearl stringers and locksmiths were called up every 2 years; and mounters, foundry workers, embroider makers, arrow makers, bow makers, lazurite makers, printers, earthenware kiln workers were called up every year. During the Jiajin period (1522-66), the Ming state re-categorized the artisans into 188 different professions. For those who were called up from a far distance, it usually took them 3 or 4 months to travel.21 It logically follows that useful knowledge of manufacturing would flow with migrations of skilled artisans, though this was diffused in a radiating web format, which flowed among the two capitals and cantons. Based on such a powerful bureaucratic organization, China was able to overcome many difficulties with the process of knowledge diffusion and sustain a remarkable advanced level of science and technology in many areas (such as agriculture, manufacture and astronomy) before the seventeenth or even the eighteenth century. CULTURAL AMBIANCES OF THE MING AND EARLY-QING KNOWLEDGE REGIME
Cultural Logics of Chinese Intellectual Tradition
Social, economic and political changes have to be understood through values that were embedded in or planted into everyday life. There are certain 'deeper logics' beneath cultural practices. By 'cultural logic' (or logics), here, we mean a stable pattern of value presentation,22 which, at an individual level, resembles what Confucius described as an attitude, manner or stance towards one's life that he could hold on
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persistently to face the world.23 At a collective level, the logic of culture is the way of thinking and behaving of a people, which, when it is accumulated over time, may constitute the mean-system of a culture. We agree with Brook and Luong that culture or 'meaning systems are of great importance in relation to the material and political circumstances of daily economic life, both in the microscopic analysis of human action and in the macroscopic examination of system transformation'.24 Hence, they must be brought back into the theorizing of the interactive relations of culture and economy. With the cultural logics, people then formulate among them a collective mentality or worldview, which, when they were applied to the regime of knowledge, play a significant role in defining the 'usefulness' and 'uselessness' of the specific genre of knowledge. There exist disparate cultural logics in both Chinese and European regimes of knowledge. In China, a 'pro-humanistic' cultural logic was deeply embedded in the intellectual tradition by the Ming times. Such a moral, ethical and commonsensical-oriented way of thinking and behaving founded itself on the Confucian tradition, whilst it absorbed the Buddhist way of self-cultivation, Taoist mystic philosophy and a nomadic or peasant spirit of common sense at the same time. The Song scholars associated the Confucian concept of 'benevolence' with the Taoist metaphysical concept of Tao' and 'universe', which connected the nature of human reason with the law of natural phenomena, and injected moral and ethical meanings into the natural law. The 'rationalistic school' advocated the principle of 'unity of the natural and humanity', which affirmed the union of natural order and life philosophy in the Chinese worldview, and provided the basis for all interpersonal relations. Neo-Confucian scholars in the middle and late Ming period extended this moralized natural law even further. Wang Yang-Ming (1472-1528) asserted that human emotions, consciousness and common feelings of people should be taken as the basis of an ethical system, for 'goodness' and 'sincerity' in fact came from the inner heart of every human being. In this sense, virtuous sages or holy man rather than God, spiritual ideology or supernatural powers became the model for people to follow. The Song and Ming intellectual traditions provided solid philosophical ground for three analytical levels of the so-called 'commonsense', which, in turn, became the basic sources of Chinese cultural logics. Such a repository includes (1) the common or intuitive knowledge and obvious natural laws within the universe; (2) the common feelings of people or human emotions; and (3) the inner consciousness or sense of morality within a moralized world.25 Thus, it is important to note that 'natural laws' or 'natural science' in China differed hugely from that of the European tradition, for morality, ethic and human feelings or 'nature' under the principle of 'unity of the natural world and humanity' was indivisible from the 'ethic-freed or neutralized natural world' at the very first instance. Chinese intellectual
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traditions up to the late-Ming period had been highly 'rationalized'.26 Such a pro-humanistic way of reasoning operated in a very different 'natural context', which saw the wholeness of the natural world, ethics and humanity not as a burden of knowledge, but as an inborn and requisite integrity. As a benchmark of human reason, the prohumanistic cultural logic stresses less the objective goal, profit orientations or the scientific logic of a human behaviour. Rather, the case of the Neo-Confucianism in China during the Sui and Tang eras and later the Song and Ming periods deliberately emphasized the spirit of commonness, the self-generating moral senses and the spontaneous flow of human emotions. Differing from the dominant instrumental view in Europe,27 such a process prioritizes not the calculative, scientific or logical articulation of interest for an individual or a specific group, but a general and sympathetic understanding of human desires, minds and feelings as a whole. This humanistic course of rationalization consciously denied the 'intellectual escape' of pure reason from its integral moral-ethical traits. It emphasized the fusion of the nature, inborn human morality and pragmatic profit calculation. Cultural Ambiances of Regime of Useful Knowledge
The existing inner cultural logics of Chinese intellectual traditions had potent influences upon the regime of useful knowledge during the Ming and early-Qing China. Such logics permeate the outer cultural ambiances of the regime, and generate certain conditions to the production and diffusion of useful knowledge. To have a more detailed portrait of the cultural ambiances of the knowledge regime, it is conducive that we conduct a broad survey of the prefaces and postscripts of works on useful knowledge of statecraft, art of war, medicine, astronomy, agriculture and gardening, calendar, mathematics, geometry, climate, botany, zoology, ethnology, topography and craft skill. Since the preface and postscript of a book usually extract the essence of its content, explain the author's motives of writing, elaborate on the main arguments and narratives of the book and provide the background information of such narratives and the author's personal history, the investigation may contribute to a better understanding of the specific cultural context in which the Ming and early-Qing scholars were situated.28 The textual analyses may provide a critical mapping on the motives and mindset of the authors or readers of these works, and reveal the underlying cultural logics of the regime of useful knowledge. The cultural ambiances of the Ming and early-Qing regime of useful knowledge can be contextualized in the following five analytical logics. To Be Useful and Pragmatic in Knowledge Production
Perhaps, the best terms to convey the character of the knowledge project in which the Ming and early-Qing Chinese intellectuals were engaged are 'jingshi zhiyong (IMtSlfcffl), which means to manage the world or the age through classic learning so as to elaborate on its History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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pragmatic efficacy. The standard term for a school library in the Ming is Zunjing Ge (Pavilion for Revering the Classics), which, together with Cangjing Ge (Pavilion for Storing Classics), showed the attitude of the Ming scholars towards Confucian classics and Buddhist sutras. During the late Ming, there was a great shift in the study of Confucianism from the conventional exploration of the human mind and human nature to that of the pragmatic utility of the classics. Prefacing his Collected Royal Ming Documents on Statecraft (M^IMffi^t^), Chen Zi-Long lamented that the intellectuals during his time learned no pragmatic knowledge, but produced an immense number of works on the verifications and explanations of ancient texts. The scholars cared little about state policies concerning current affairs and the daily needs of people, but spent most of their time refining the glossary and polishing the sentences of literary works to make them look elegant and beautiful'. To Chen, these works carried no practical efficacy, but hollow literary grace. Thus, he compiled the book of statecraft by referring to the models of ancient sages and investigating the present experiences.29 The emphases on the notion of jingshi zhiyong are reflected in the emergence of a vast number of works concerning statecraft during that period. The influential ones include Huang Xun's (Jlflfll) Collected Royal Ming Memorials of Famous Officials on Statecraft (M^^EIMiPflS) of 1551, Wan Biao's (plj^t) Royal Ming Collections of Works on Statecraft of 1554, Feng Ymg-Jing's (MMsQRoyd Ming Compilation of Documents on Statecraft and Pragmatics (M^IStftJf ffllli) of 1603, Wan Ting-Van's (B$iW) A Brief Outline on Statecraft (£f tftliB§) of 1610, Chen Qi-Su's (|gC^fS) Royal Ming Selected Writings on Statecraft of 1627, Chen Ren-Xi's (ffit^M) Royal Ming Exemplary Records on State Affairs (M^tSffi^) of 1630, and Chen Zi-Long et al edited Collected Royal Ming Documents on Statecraft of 1639. The purpose for these enormous collections was to enhance the understanding of civil officers and Confucian scholars about the operation of real politics, in a sense that the classics can be very 'useful' in their practical application to state affairs. Explaining the relationship between classic learning, statecraft and the pragmatics of knowledge, Wang Guo-Nan's (SHfii) wrote:30 One should manage the world with Tao and protect Tao with classics. Classics are like the laws of natural phenomena and the warp of a loom in human society. Both are essential to the real world and they reflect its pragmatic functions. Such basic laws of the real world can be summarized as qian (fg) [the first divined tokenJn the Book of Changes], which includes the four virtues of yuen (70) [beginning or sprouting in spring], heng (^f) [vigor and growth in summer], li (^fj) [collection or harvest in autumn] and [storage or consolidating the foundation in winter]. The pragmatic functions help to nurture, to grow, to harvest, and to preserve the natural world. This is the so-called management. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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Chen Ren-Xi's (|5|{_Ji;) made it explicit that his Exemplary Records on State Affairs was meant to erect models for the later generations. By compiling scholastic works from self-cultivation to the coastal guard system, military preparation, judicial regulation and pacifying barbarians, Chen aimed to extend the practical functions of the classical text to its very extreme. As he stated:31 It [the book] promotes rites and music so as to reconcile the ties between the natural world and men; it rectifies the calendar and differentiate the seasons so as to provide references and guidance for self-cultivation; it shows the state's sympathy to people so as to consolidate its foundation; it accumulates the resources so as to enrich the country; it emphasizes the punishments and judicial regulations so as to correct the custom; it keeps details of the canal and coastal guard system so as to enhance water communication; it takes records of the behaving of prime ministers and famous officials so as to set examples; it investigates into warfare so as to strengthen military preparation; and it surveys the four barbarians so as to show the state's efforts of making conciliation. Evidently, the Ming scholars had perceived the need to associate classic learning with practical knowledge. As Feng Ying-Jing ($f]jKjJrO declared, 'all in all, talking is empty, and behaving is substantial. Ideals are hollow, and doings are practical. Without substance and practice, what would the emptiness attach to?'32 Such powerful cultural logics of academic pragmatism and efforts in the production of useful knowledge during Ming and early-Qing China cannot be overlooked. Accumulative Innovation, Sharing and Diffusion of Useful Knowledge The second characteristic feature that can be extracted from the Ming scholars' writing of useful knowledge is that there had been definite individual creativity, serious attempts of accumulative innovation and a strong intention concerning the sharing of useful knowledge. The Ming intellectuals had been working in diligence and made their efforts to borrow the teaching from their predecessors and apply it to the current situation. In the preface to the Records of the Unified Great Ming , the Ming Emperor Ymg-Zong (51^) expressed his will of widely diffusing the knowledge of topography so that the work 'not only would impart my offspring and later generations the great accomplishment of their ancestors and knowing to preserve it with caution, but it would also help the country's scholars with their investigation in verifying the facts of the past and present'.33 Qi Ji-Guang (EfflJS&fc), on the other hand, recorded his efforts on accumulative innovation of useful knowledge. As he wrote in A Renovating Book of Effective Practice (fS^/fll), 'it selects only those useful and effective strategies [from previous works] to train the soldiers in respects of personnel selection, placement of orders, military strategies, mobility and camping, martial arts, post guarding and water battling'. The
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book is 'effective', as it records no empty words, but only real practices. And it is 'renovating' because it bases itself on the previous military codes but is not constrained by them.34 Feng Shi-Ke ($|Bvf nj) documented in the Records of the Extensive Territory (Hf JHI5) that, on seeing the over-complexity or incompleteness of earlier works on topography, his friend, Lu Ying-Yang (HJKRl), spent more than ten years travelling around the country, collecting all possible information from other books and his own experiences. Lu 'took up every detail of the Records of the Unified Great Ming, he researched and refined the work and eliminated all confusing information. Lu discarded the old records and brought in the new intelligence'.35 Apart from those cases, Ku Yen-Wu (Hyfe3£) went through more than 1,000 provincial and county gazetteers and completed his Records on the Exploitation of Territories in 20 years.36 In the preface of Dan Qian General Collection (which assembled refined studies and works of natural knowledge, such as astronomy, geography, climates, plants, animals, mineral and jewel mining, etc.), Yang Shen (tJIft) recorded that he had transcribed more than 1,000 juans of works of others since he started writing. 'I only selected the essential one hundredth of earlier works, which I feel inspiring and innovative, and compiled them into four dan qian collections [dan qian here is taken in its metaphoric meaning for refined works],' stated Yang.37 Li Tai (^S^f), in his Collective Explications of Climates in the Four Seasons (HB^^f^^^), claimed: I scrutinized a vast amount of books in my spare time ... and compiled this collection accumulatively. Although it does not reveal all the profundity, it is certainly much more comprehensive than the previous versions. I dare not to hide it in private; and I wish to share it with friends and colleagues. If there is anything that I had missed, or had not explained clear enough, it is hoped that other learned scholars would contribute to improve it later on.38 All these clearly show the efforts at accumulative innovation and a strong will towards sharing useful knowledge during the Ming and early-Qing China. The Permeation of Moral-Ethical Teachings with Useful Knowledge The third analytical logic for the cultural ambiances of the Ming and early-Qing China's regime of useful knowledge is the permeation of moral-ethical guidance with practical knowledge. Extending from the pro-humanistic cultural logics in the intellectual tradition, ethic and morality served as the ultimate benchmark of the Chinese knowledge regime. It left the pure pursuit of useful knowledge and its application to material progress not much ground for ethical justification, let alone breaking away from all moral burdens. In other words, all knowledge and professions were subordinated to the ethical order and should find their own position. The terms jishi zhiyong express the Confucian
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commitment to applying practical solutions for improving the world, while carrying 'simultaneously a moral orientation, a repertoire of practical activity, and a category of knowledge'.39 Cultural logic, in the sense of reasoning from ethics, benevolence, hard working, social justice, loyalty to the emperor and responsibility to the state and public, performed as underlying motives of Chinese scholars' acquisition of useful knowledge. Knowledge production, to be 'useful', had to carry certain moral functions. Explaining the concepts of statecraft and the pragmatics of knowledge, Feng Ying-Jing argued that there could be a direct analogy between self-cultivation with virtue and state managing:40 To employ the talents beneath the heaven and maintain the order of the world, that is what we mean by managing the age [or the world]. People usually consider that only a seven foot tall human body is the physical body, but they did not know that the entire world can be taken as a human body too. If they understand that the entire world can be taken as a body, then managing the world is just like cultivating one's own body. A person needs to train the body to become healthy; to behave in the principle of benevolence so as to fulfill oneself and become a good governor. He needs to refine the inter-personal relations so as to meet the principles of rites; to make good use of the material world so as to conform to the principle of righteousness; and to foster capable people so that they would gain enough wisdom to undertake state affairs. And by achieving all these, the world would then function subtly. Even the art of war had to conform to the moral principles. In Li JinXhin's (^jHfj) preface to the General Principle to the Art of War he wrote that 'the art of war is often full of villainous strategies, constant changes and deceptions, which are certainly denounced by the Sages. Only this work tends to constrain itself with benevolence and righteousness that are just like the rules and yardsticks of a great artisan'.41 Similarly, Wang Cheng (zEll) prefaced to his own An Essential Outline of the Art of War (||S|g^£) in 1500 that:42 While writing this book I would extract the main principle by the end of each section, or summarize the key points after several sections by my own judgments, sometimes to comment on the ancestors' merits and demerits, and sometimes to express my own views on it. All these are nothing but to help grow the enduring moral principles and to embed the established ethical rules; to value the Chinese and devalue the barbarians; and to respect the virtuous people and despise the villains. Ethnological works could not have escaped from the moral-ethical spectacles of Ming intellectuals either. After Yan Cong-Jian had completed his famous book of Comprehensive Records on Foreign Territories (^cJHt?$|) in 1574, he asked his Uncle Yan Qing (H?ff) to preface it. Yan Qing described that the book collected the diaries of
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travellers and gathered extensive information from envoys that were sent to other countries. However, what were valued most were not the detailed descriptions about the great expeditions of Zheng He, the exotic experiences, foreign customs and ethnographical knowledge. As Yan Qing put it: I read it in my spare time .... Since it sets the model for conciliating the peoples and vassals in peripheral areas with generosity and tenderness, would this not be classified as one of the nine classics beneath the Heaven? I am pleased with that this book conforms to my principle [of virtue] thus I wrote the preface to it.43 It seems evident that Chinese scholars had to work within a cultural framework, which preferred to praise moral reciprocity over pure pursuit of useful knowledge. For most Chinese intellectuals, there was something far more important than practical knowledge and material progress. Even if it meant adjusting oneself to the world rather than mastering the world, it was certainly necessary under such prohumanistic logics. Knowledge of Low Esteem: Irrelevant to Great Career in Civil Service The fourth analytical point to be made about the outer cultural ambiances of the Ming's knowledge regime is the low esteem of the useful knowledge producers. Describing the progress of knowledge during the late-Ming China, Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) stated that Chinese 'have not only made considerable progress in moral philosophy but in astronomy and in many branches of mathematics as well. At one time they were quite proficient in arithmetic and geometry, but in the study and teaching of these branches of learning they labored with more or less confusion'. However, Ricci concluded in his report: 'The study of mathematics and that of medicine are held in low esteem, because they are not fostered by honors as is the study of philosophy, to which students are attracted by the hope of the glory and the rewards attached to it.'44 Ricci is probably right. Even the great Ming general, Qi JiGuang, had to justify his efforts on producing a military work. Qi wrote:45 The world often considers archery and horse riding as trivial skills, and the military arrays as a means to fool people. Do these people know the fundamentals of the world? The Yellow Emperor's code was rooted in the pettiness; the warfare of the Emperor Tang and Wu was based on benevolence and righteousness. However, the rise of the pettiness and the emergence of benevolence and righteousness are originated from my mind. When Zhao Shi-Zhen (i|±/M) presented his The Manual of Celestial Weaponry (pfjfglf) with all the military weapons he produced for the Ming court, he was 'mocked by some officials for being chasing after secular names', as the work contained no elaborations of classical text
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and moral philosophy.46 And, after transcribing more than 1,000 juans of earlier works, Yang Shen expressed his anxiety in the General Collection. 'Maybe it will be laughed at by great scholars, and be considered as a petty route to learning. But am I not aware of that?'47 Spending 30 years to work on his The Travels ofXu Xia-Ke (f^M^iltlB), Xu Hong-Zu received his commentary from Yang Ming-Shi (fJHSffij) that:48 Those ancient scholars, who were famous of their dedications to astronomy and geography, had collected abundant secrecies and contemplated their profound subtlety. They visited the spacious landmass and probed into distant hidden places .... If not that one had the extraordinary inquisitive disposition, who would be willing to step into the extreme dangers and go to areas in distant barren only to exhaust his vigor. Given this said, if their findings are somehow verified by scholars and become helpful in broadening the eyesight of people, they would still serve some auxiliary functions. To the Ming intellectuals, a brilliant scholar's 'extraordinary inquisitive disposition' and decades of hard working on 'useful' knowledge could only become valuable when it served some supplementary functions to classical learning. It is not difficult to perceive the traditional Chinese literati frustration towards the unaccommodating mainstream intellectual atmosphere for the pursuit of a pure (value-free) technological knowledge. As the Ming technologist, Song Ying-Xing (5tc]J§M)j remarked sarcastically, 'I would advise those brilliant literati, who are longing for their great careers, to throw this book away from their desks, because this book is not going to have any tiny little relevance to the achieving of their scholarly honour, or the pursuit of their official ranks'.49 Knowledge that was not helpful to pass the official civil exam was held as trivial and of low esteem. Many academics only took on research after they were relieved from official posts. Retiring from his position, Wang Xiang (:E^) wrote in his Records on Fragrant Flowers of Er Ru Pavilion (H^D^S^I^) that: Confucius said he was a lesser person than an old farmer and an old gardener. The secular people were astonished and stated that farming and gardening were but petty things for trivial people, a great man should reconcile the spirit of Ying and Yang and put all the beings of the world in order. What is the use of such a trivial thing? Wang argued enthusiastically that he wrote the botanical book not only to contribute to the living of people and as a reminder of the importance of the forgotten gardeners. And he had to defend himself by asking those so-called great men whether they consider the farming and gardening trivial things to do, and whether the ancient sages had ever sentimentally attached to official positions and fame.50
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Likewise, Li Shih-Ying ($0^^) prefaced to the Studies on the Rare Flowers, Plants, Birds and Animals in China and Barbarian Countries that the learned people usually contributed their knowledge to the world when they were in high positions, and they tried to release their depression and angers through their articles when they were poor or unsuccessful: I recall that when I travelled to my official post that was ten thousand miles away from the capital, there were so many rare flowers, plants, and unusual birds and animals that I cannot even name them. I realized the profoundness of the world's wild species and felt it a great pity that I did not know them before. Now that I have read this book and would applaud for it.51 Obviously, many officials had produced works on useful knowledge to preoccupy themselves in order to get away from the depression and experiences of an unsuccessful career. They then tried to justify their own efforts on the studies of those 'petty' things or trivial knowledge. 'Unusual' Knowledge: Lack of Private Resources and Scholastic Interactions The fifth point is that the Ming and early-Qing scholars who worked on useful knowledge such as weaponry, mathematics, astronomy, technological instrument, craft skill, etc. were considered 'rare', 'extraordinary', 'unusual' or even 'abnormal'. For many, this rare knowledge should not bother the minds of brilliant scholars at all; some even argued that it would be sufficient for the unusual people or foreigners to research it. Prefacing to the Compendium of Astronomic Inquiries Ko Zhen-Shi (?LJ|B?F) wrote that, when seeing something rare, the ancient Chinese scholars used to exclaim in praise. But they argue that 'for knowledge that fell outside the field of classical learning, there will be foreigners rather than Chinese officials or scholars to study them'. It is not necessary for the Chinese scholars or classics to record all those. Ko went on to explain that:52 Indeed I have met some unusual people who gave me books from the great West, and I was surprised by the remarkable articles and subtle principles that were beyond our knowledge. I first learned these unusual things with curiosity. But when I pursued further, I realized that there are natural laws that exist between the heaven and the earth. The western scholars discovered them, and the eastern scholars read about them. However, it is not because the western scholars were more capable of mastering the rare knowledge, but that the eastern scholars had never made real efforts in researching it. This book is one of the particular cases. Wu Wei-Zhong (S^fu^) was not at all happy about the Ming scholars' reluctance to engage in the study of Western scientific and technological instruments. Timidity and shallowness of the Ming mandarins was
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his verdict. In the postscript of the Selected Illustrations of Rare Instruments from the Far West (^HW^HI^It), Wu stated that:53 The very unusual things of the world are achieved by very unusual persons. The unusual persons wonder about them, but the petty mandarin scholars are timid and shallow and they try to cover up their ignorance with the Doctrine of the Golden Mean. By stating that if even the Doctrine of the Golden Mean cannot explicate them, wouldn't they be abnormal? However, if one can accept marvelous articles in the literary circle; ingenious military moves on the battlefield, unusual methods in geomancy, exceptional persons in human society, rare animals in the mountain and the ocean, and inexplicable phenomena of ghosts and gods, why can he not accept rare things in instruments? Apart from being classified as rare and abnormal people, the Ming researchers of useful knowledge, though creative and diligent, had been working very much alone; and they had few private resources and patronage for research. After completing his famous piece, Song YingXing wrote: Recently I have written a book named The Exploitation of the Work of Nature. It is a pity that I am so poor that I do not have money to buy some rare books and rare crafts to validate my writings. I would love to invite people who share the same interest with me to discuss and verify the correct ones from the mistaken ones, but I do not even have a place to think about all these.54 Contrasting with the European case, it seems that private sites for the production of useful knowledge had been rare and relatively distant from one another, while private patronages for intellectuals who were engaged in technological innovation had been limited and scarce during the Ming times. The scarcity of site and patronage for the innovation of useful knowledge is a fact, yet the root for such a shortage was not the institution's inability to mobilize sufficient resources and assets, but the society's underlying logic of the 'uselessness' of such knowledge. The writings of the Ming technologists revealed that the ambiance for the research of useful knowledge was certainly not warm at all. Unlike the case of vigorous debates of classical teachings that occurred during the public lecture meetings of the Ming shuyuans, there lacked intimate interactions among scholars of useful technical knowledge. And there is no real evidence for the existence of any regular 'scientific societies' in the Ming China. Liu Shi-Xue (§[JtfcP) lamented the efforts of Zhao Shi-Zhen for his The Manual of Celestial Weaponry that:55 He has been pondering about the usages of linen and handling the works of military instruments in the capital for decades, and no one seems to show any interest about them. Chang-Ji^j^f [Zhao] has been contemplating so seriously and working so diligently, yet History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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for decades he has got no one to share his expertise. When he met some learnt persons by accident, he would try to test the essence of his findings by all means. Similarly, Liang Zuo (^fe), although he admired the profound work of his teacher, Yang Shen (on Dan Qian Collections), grieved that 'the book was published, and was treasured in the artistic and literary circle. The pity is that it is difficult for people to find it'.56 Chen Jin-Mo also wrote in his Angle Measurement (J^S!|) that the diagrams and explanations in the Western works are very clear and detailed. However, the minds of Chinese readers are perplexed because their eyes are blinded. They simply cover the books up and put them away in the cabinets; therefore, only very few scholars have thorough understandings about them.57 After 30 years of hard working, Li Shi-Zhen (^f£fj^) completed his Systematic Pharmacopoeia (7^^||S|@) in 1578, which was published later in 1593. In 1596, Systematic Pharmacopoeia was presented to the Ming court by Li's son, who, however, received only a seven-word remark from the emperor that the court should '[k]eep the book for reference, and notice the Ministry of Rites'.58 Useful knowledge, although creatively produced, after all, was not systematically researched and collaboratively innovated during the Ming and early-Qing China as it was in Europe. CONCLUSION: <WHOSE' AND 'WHAT' USEFUL KNOWLEDGE?
So, why was scientific and technological knowledge not recognized as systematically useful for and by Chinese elites? And why didn't Chinese leaders adopt the 'useful knowledge' from Europe? Here, answers to these questions can be addressed in four different respects. First, most will agree that the successful story of European material progress via the production, innovation, accumulation and diffusion of useful knowledge and its later application in scientific and industrial revolution was by no means a pure teleological process. In other words, it is not some brilliant intellectuals or one small group of social, political elites in the fifteenth or sixteenth century who had actually designed for the entire progressive project, which brought about the dynamic consequence of the mid-nineteenth century (despite that some, like Francis Bacon and later Joseph Priestly, did predict what would happen in the nineteenth century in terms of immense material progress that we find no equivalent in the Ming China59). The European story was accidental in the sense that it was an unexpected, if not unintended, consequence that was achieved in collaborations of hundreds and thousands of mutually unknown or even unrelated socio-political elites, scientists, merchants, artisans and experts of different professions. What they shared together was never a clear portrait of a future scenario in the nineteenth century, but the diffused scientific institutions and a consequent routinization of European scientific culture. As Inkster History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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argues, the build-up of mental capital, or effective transfer and diffusion of knowledge and information through scientific communities and academies, had generated within Europe a particular cultural milieu that was conducive to the scientific and technological inventions and innovations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.60 That scientific cultural milieu was not found in contemporary China (although other forms of academic institutions were). Secondly, it should be remembered that there had been a well established ethic-centric regime of knowledge (with a network of sites of knowledge production, reproduction, storage, diffusion and classification) in China by the Ming times. The implication of the well established regime of knowledge is that, in strictly institutional terms, China was more than ready to adopt and diffuse the (European) useful and reliable knowledge (science and technology) quickly, systematically and creatively through the existing intellectual networks. What was lacking, however, was the collective cognition or motive to do so. Why should things be changed if all seems to function well? The diffusion institutions and sites need more than assets; they need motivation. The pro-humanist-based Confucian cultural logic in China, unlike a religious-derived moral system in Europe, had never been challenged: not any artistic renaissance, not any sort of religious reforms, not the scientific disproval of the Earth as the centre of the Universe, and not even the doubt of God's existence. Indeed, there had been innovative works of useful knowledge in the Ming and early-Qing China. Yet, under such an ethic-centric cultural milieu, it is difficult to alter or surpass the ultimate principle of value and moral judgment in the hierarchical Chinese regime of knowledge. Science and technology in China was not an end of its own, but a means to contribute to the ethic moralbased social order. Despite sporadic intellectual creativities of useful knowledge, China simply didn't accumulate enough internal momentum to transform its knowledge regime fundamentally. It can be argued that culture had been influencing the practice of socio-political elites by saturating into their way of thinking and by containing them within certain value systems, within which a decision-making process is set into cultural debates. To ask China to change would require an extensive conversion of the collective psychology - what Reinert and Daast01 labelled as the 'gestalt-switch', or a fundamental change in Man's worldview or mindset, as a necessary condition.61 This only came later, in the nineteenth century. Thirdly, major external encounters of China with Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries did not seem to have posed enough threat for China to consider a fundamental reform of its prohumanistic cultural logics, either. The Portuguese did not have the chance to meet Zheng He's fleets, yet they did meet his successors in the sixteenth century. The Portuguese first arrived at a small islet outside Guangdong in 1514, and then 1516 and 1517 under Fernao Perez d'Andrade and Tome Pires in the name of tribute, while applying, at History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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the same time, for trading permission. The first European embassy to China was not a success. The Ming government demanded the evacuation of Malacca, which was then a tribute state to China. On Fires' refusal to discuss the question, he was imprisoned later in Guangdong (until he died in 1524), and the Portuguese were expelled by Ming navies in 1522. It was by informal agreement, paying bribery and full customs dues (20,000 taels per year) to local government that Portuguese ships were allowed to dry their cargoes in Macao.62 On similar grounds, the Dutch were refused to trade with China in 1601. However, they soon came with navies in 1607, and were quickly driven back. In 1622-24, the Ming imperial navy twice defeated the invading Dutch fleets (with the help of Portuguese, Spanish and the Jesuits) off China's south coast at Macao and Amoy, and off the Pescadore Islands near Taiwan.63 The Hollanders reluctantly turned to Taiwan and were nonetheless ousted again by Zheng Cheng-Gong in 1662 after naval battles. It was not until 1729 that they were finally allowed to trade inside Guangzou by paying tribute every five years, which was deemed as a reward for helping the Qing government to 'recover' Taiwan. In other words, before the eighteenth century, in military or technological terms, the Europeans could hardly cast any serious doubts to Chinese bureaucracy that there was a need to change its existing regime of useful knowledge. Despite the Renaissance, Reformation and Scientific Revolution, the Europeans were not powerful enough yet, or at least were unable to prove themselves as superior enough for the Chinese to instigate a fundamental change in the persisting cultural form. China before 1800 was influenced very little by European political economy, by science and technology, and by Christianity. It held itself pretty well until the early nineteenth century.64 Lastly, it is probably an understatement that there was never a pure transfer of useful knowledge from Europe to China during the Ming and early-Qing times. The Jesuit activities in China may serve as an important indicator here. Chinese intellectuals, though they did not consider science and technology as a major component in the cultural system, were, after all, not indifferent to it. Michael Ruggiero arrived at Macao in 1579 with clocks, and Matteo Ricci arrived in China in 1582, introducing astronomy, mathematics, physics and geography to the Ming court. The Ming officials Xu Guang-Qi and Li Zhi-Zao, who worked intensively with the Jesuits, not only improved the Chinese calendars, but also translated many of the European scientific works (such as Euclides's geometry and Archimedes's physics) into China. The Qing emperor Kang-Xi learnt mathematics from the Jesuits, and even asked T. Pereyra and J. Bouvet to give him lectures in person.65 Nonetheless, nothing was ever simply a matter of diffusion of knowledge. The Catholic priests who brought them these machines and knowledge were salesmen of a special kind. They sought to convert the Chinese to the one true Trinitarian God of the Roman Church, and the clocks served a twofold purpose: entry ticket and argument for Christian
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superiority.'66 Against the Christian doctrines, Nicolas Longogardi, Emmanuel Diaz Junior and Jean Adam Schall von Bell helped the Ming court to build fire weapons and cannons in Beijing, and were directly involved in the wars with the Dutch.67 During the early-Qing period, the Jesuits even engaged heavily in palace politics. Despite the early success, the effectiveness of the Jesuits missions was suddenly paralysed from home for their acceptance of Chinese family rites and beliefs for honouring ancestors, and their sinicizing of Christian teaching since Matteo Ricci. It prompted the papal condemnation in 1704 (by Pope Clement XI) and later, in 1715 and 1742, of 'improper flexibility in "accommodating" Christian teaching to Chinese custom'.68 Cultural and moral supremacy was then an unquestioned part of the mental world of the educated Chinese. The contradiction with such fundamental Chinese cultural logic could only result in the emperor Kang-Xi's decree (in 1710) that 'all missionaries must accept the Jesuit view or leave the country'. Following his father, and unsatisfied with the Jesuit's interferences for his succession, the emperor Yong-Zheng banned Christianity strictly in 1723. All priests and missioners were expelled from China.69 Ostensibly, it was not the Chinese intellectuals or even emperors who had no curiosity for European science and technology, but the European missionaries and colonists in China had never kept power, war-likeness and their superior religion out of the pure diffusion of knowledge. Whilst Europeans were asking why the moral-ethical-commonsensical-based cultural logics and regime of knowledge in China could not have developed by itself or been adopted from the West's modern science and technology to reach its high level of usefulness, the Ming and Qing Chinese, on the other hand, were asking why the Christian moral and ethical system could not have mastered their own science and technology, and why the European regime of useful knowledge could not have formulated a 'useful' moral-ethical system to constrain their aggressive expansionism and imperialist behaviours. In the Chinese cultural context, the inability to provide an adequate moral protocol only demonstrated the uselessness of European scientific and technological knowledge. True that, with the nineteenth century, everything changed. The 100 years of closure from 1710 had secluded China from a systematic diffusion of European knowledge. The Opium War of 1840-42 and the following two British and French military coalitions of 1857-60 relentlessly taught the Chinese a lesson. The misfortune of China is clear: it was that the European culture of science and technology especially was diffused (if it is still an appropriate term) to the Qing China in such a coercive and forceful way. Surely, humanistic reason had to play a significant role in China: anger, fear, panic, humiliation, abhorrence and unwillingness spilled over from the innermost mind to their pragmatic rationality. 'Resistance' there had been, yet it was only because the historical circumstances had left the Chinese no ground and no time to receive European knowledge in any reflective manner. Would the History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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outcome have been any different if those Europeans who had come to China had been real scientists, like Copernicus, Galileo or Newton, rather than missionaries and colonists? Notes and References 1. P. K. O'Brien, 'Regimes for the Production and Diffusion of Useful and Reliable Knowledge in Western Europe and the Chinese Empire from the Accession of the Ming Dynasty to the First Opium War', paper delivered in the 4th Global Economic History Network Conference, Leiden, Netherlands, 16-18 September 2004. 2. Ibid. 3. The 13 provinces include Zhejing, Jiangxi, Fujian, Shandong, Guangdong, Shanxi, Henan, Huguang, Shaanxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou. And the two municipal capitals are South Zhili (Nanjing) and North Zhili (Beijing). Yang KuoChen (IHSM) and Chen Chih-Ping (^5^), The New Compiled History of the Ming (Taipei, 1999), 44, 53; T. Brook, The Chinese State in Ming Society (London and New York, 2005), 21, 34. 4. Guo Qi-Jia (||5ff^), Schools in Ancient China (t£HSft*K) (Taipei, 1994), 110, 118. 5. Fan Ke-Zheng (9£®gO, History of Chinese Shuyuan CfSW^Sfe) (Taipei, 1995), 171. 6. RenJi-Yu (fiitjlO et al. (eds), Chinese Libraries (^HiKWt) (Shenyang, 2001), Vol. I, chap. 1; Vol. II, 1157-8, 1536; Zhu Han-Ming (^g|g), Shuyuan in China (Taipei, 1993), 118-19; Xue Hai Publisher (W§tHJ!gif±), History of Chinese Shuyuan (^Mr^lS), (Taipei, 1985), 5-6. 7. P. K. O'Brien, op. cit. (1), 32. 8. One juan in the ancient Chinese work is, in most cases, an equivalent to a book chapter of the present day. Yao Guang-Xiao ($&§}*£) & o>l- (eds), d. 1408, Encyclopaedia of Yung-Lo (ylc^ft) (Taipei, 1977, reprints), Preface; Zhang Lian (H3), The Publication under the Despotic Cultural Policy of the Ming' (^«*$K op. cit. (28), Sec. Zi, No. 2, 3. 53. Wu Wei-Zhong (S/fi^), d. 1627, 'Postscript to Selected Illustrations of Rare Instruments from the Far West' (MHtfli§H!ft$lli)> collected in The National Central Library op. cit. (28), Sec. Zi, No. 2, 375. 54. Song Ymg-Xing (^HM), op. cit. (49), Preface, 12. 55. Liu Shi-Xue (SUift^), d. 1599, 'Preface to The Manual of Celestial Weaponry' collected in The National Central Library (Sir^HHit), op. cit. (28), Sec. Zi, No. 1,263. 56. Liang Zuo (^fe), d. 1554, 'Preface to Dan Qian General Collections collected in The National Central Library (Sj^* SB If II), op. cit. (28), Sec. Zi, No. 2, 467. 57. Chen Jin-Mo (KSig), c. 1628, 'Preface to Angle Measurement' (ffiBI), collected in The National Central Library (HiI^^Htftl), op. cit. (28), Sec. Zi, No. 2, 40.
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58. LiJian-Yuan (^jUjn), d. 1596, 'Memorial on Presenting the Systematic Pharmacopoeia ($^f|g), collected in Li Shi-Zhen, d. 1593, Systematic Pharmacopoeia (1999, reprint). 59.1 owe this to the insightful advice of the reviewer. 60. I. Inkster, Science and Technology in History: An Approach to Industrial Development (Hampshire and London, 1991), chaps 2 and 4. 61. E. S. Reinert and A. M. Daast01, 'Exploring the Genesis of Economic Innovations: The Religious Gestalt-Switch and the Duty to Invent as Preconditions for Economic Growth', The European Journal of Law and Economics, 1997, 4(3/4): 233-83. 62. Guo Ting-Yi (fflgLkl), The Guideline History of Modern China (?5ft^Hifi), Vol. I (Taipei, 1994), 17-18; and S. A. M. Adshead, China in World History (London and New York, 2000, first published in 1988), 204-5. 63. P. K. O'Brien et al. (eds), Philip's Atlas of World History (London, 1999), 139; Rang Zhi-Jie dH^fo), 'Reasons Why the Jesuits in Ming and Qing China Defied the Dutch' WmiZMffi*IPj»t-±ffi$!R§fBB65IIH), History Monthly (ffi££f!l), 1999, May: 103-10. 64. Qien Mu (f§|fj|), An Introduction to Chinese Cultural History (Taipei, 1993), 211-14. 65. Li Guo-Qi ($H/]tP), Chinese History (^SH^) (Taipei, 1986), 304. 66. D. Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (London, 1998), 337. 67. Rang Zhi-Jie (Ifcg^), op. cit. (63). 68. J. M. Roberts, The Triumph of the West (London, 1985), 289. 69. Chen Jia-Yen (fSHW) and Yang Jing-Xien (HMW), Chinese Modern History (Taipei, 1988), 7-8.
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Movers and Shakers of
Knowledge in China during the Ming-Qing Period* KENT DENG
The period of 1600-1910 is commonly viewed as one of decline in Chinese science and technology in world history. This article examines the movers and shapers of knowledge in China to show how the Chinese elite tried to catch up with the advancing West. They were not as stubbornly conservative as one might think. However, a degree of openness did not guarantee China's ability to modernize. THE JESUIT PERIOD, c. 1600-1840
How Did It All Begin? The nineteenth century was a period when many twists and turns occurred in Chinese history. Changes undermined the old social order and upset the previous economic equilibrium. These shocks had come externally long before the nineteenth century, first in the form of persistent attempts by the Portuguese to settle in Macao (since 1557) and by the Dutch to colonize Taiwan (1624-61).1 Secondly, changes were brought about by religious conversion by Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci (^fJSfJf, 1552-1610), who reached Macao in 1582 and gradually worked his way to the top to obtain permission to enter Beijing in 1601.2 Giulio Aleni (3cff|B§, 1582-1649) arrived in China in 1613 and followed the footsteps of Ricci.3 Both men spent the rest of their lives there. Thirdly, changes came from trade by the import of goods such as silver (especially via the Manila Galleon Trade of 1565-1815) and opium (from 1729 onwards) to China.4 So, by 1800, the Chinese had about 200 years' experience of contact with Europeans and were exposed in a limited way to Western knowledge. Although increasingly frustrated by the Chinese ways of conducting * I wish to thank my LSE colleague Professor Stephan Feuchtwang for his invaluable comments on the final draft. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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business (such as the notorious Cohong trade monopoly and the kowtow to the throne) and the occasional naval skirmish between the Chinese and Europeans,5 no European force really challenged China's sovereignty and its Asia-wide influence. Instead, a great deal of respect was paid by Europeans to the Celestial Empire of the Far East. Early Jesuits all learnt and mastered the Chinese language and customs. Chinese law was observed (or at least it appeared to be) by most foreigners.6 Those who managed to establish a relationship with China were only able to achieve what they did with extreme patience and readiness to take instructions from the Ming-Qing Confucian bureaucracy. The best example concerns the Portuguese stationed in Macao, who were used by the Chinese government as watch-dogs and mercenaries to drive away unwanted attention from other Europeans (such as the Dutch, Spaniards and British) - a tactic known as 'using barbarians to check barbarians (lil^0JM)'-7 From the European point of view, they had to appear sinicized and to ingratiate themselves with the Confucian elite to get anywhere in China. From the viewpoint of the Celestial Empire, their confidence in dealing with Europeans was deeply rooted in China's accumulated experience with nomads along its long frontiers over millennia. In the past, the empire successfully curbed those threats with 'carrots' (such as marriages, bribes and invitations to join the empire) and 'sticks' (e.g. military campaigns to drive Huns out of Central Asia during the Western Han Period). Confucian cultural assimilation played an important part (especially the Sinicization of the Manchus during the Qing) .8 In this context, useful European knowledge was considered, at best, novel by the Chinese Confucian elite. Overall, very few took it seriously unless such knowledge served the empire directly to make public goods better for China's traditional economy. European knowledge and instruments were strictly limited to almanacs (astronomy), water control and cartography (geometry). The employment of European Jesuit astronomers continued until Emperor Daoguang (JH^, r. 1821-50) ended the practice in 1838.9 The late-Ming Establishment recruited these missionaries to work for the Imperial Observatory in designing a more accurate calendar system. Matteo Ricci and Diego de Pantoja (JUJlSiJc, 1571-1618) set the precedent.10 Ricci was succeeded by Sabbatino de Ursis (t^HfJt, 15751620),11 followed by Johannes Schreck (f^gf, 1576-1630)12 and Johann Adam Schall von Bell (^pgg|, 1592-1666) ,13 The Ming project gradually developed into the new Ming Imperial Almanac (^^il/HMlr) during 1629-34.14 Others, such as Nicolas Longobardi (tl^S, 1565-1655^)15 and Jacques Rho (JUfrg-, 1593-1638),16 joined by invitation. Schreck, von Bell and Rho were responsible for building at least three instruments of European technology for the observatory: a zodiac armillary sphere, a quadrant and a celestial globe. The trend continued in the early Qing, which inherited the Ming approach by employing Jesuits, including Johann Adam Schall von Bell History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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(for his second time), Ferdinand Verbiest (j^ffeC, 1623-88),17 Thoma Pereira (f£H^h 1645-1708),18 Philippus Maria Grimaldi 1639-1712),19Joachim Bouvet (gff, 1656-1730),20 Jean Francois Gerbillon (3Rf$, 1654-1707) ,21 Bernard-Kiliam Stumpf (|HS^, 16551720),22 Joseph Giuseppe Castiglione (gfltftSp, 1688-1766) ,23 Ignatius Koegler 1680-1747),24 Andre Pereira (&%$&, 1690-1743),25 Augustin de Hallerstein (Sljfelfj, 1721-74)26 and several others.27 Increasingly, those Jesuits who worked in Beijing had little to do with the religious mission that they were meant to accomplish. Amongst them, von Bell was the most successful politically. Despite his connection with the Ming, von Bell was trusted by the Manchus after 1644 and consequently appointed the Director of the Imperial Observatory . From 1651 to 1658, he was promoted from Official of the Fifth Rank in Waiting (f/tSpPp) to Official of the First Rank Proper (IE-^pp), reaching the very top of the bureaucratic ladder.28 During the early Qing, there was a continuation of the knowledge flow from the missionaries to the Imperial Court, which circulated exclusively within the court itself. A recent television programme by China Central Television claimed that Emperor Kangxi (Iff^B, r. 16621722) was a keen learner of European science (mathematics in particular), and had a close relationship with von Bell, Verbiest, Bouvet and Gerbillon. Like Kangxi, Emperor Qianlong (f2IH, r. 1736-95) also developed a taste for European artefacts and hired a group of Europeans as court officials. Those Jesuits who became officials were in the minority. Also, they depended heavily on the support of Chinese scholar-officials who were able to appreciate their technical knowledge and skills, meaning that they had to find their opposite numbers in the Qing bureaucracy in order to prise the door ajar. Apart from those highly specialized fields of study, such as mathematics and astronomy, the Jesuits led the horse to water but couldn't force it to drink their religious ideologies. So, judged by the end result of knowledge formation, dissemination and impact, they were qualified as 'marginal movers and shapers of knowledge' in China. They were, at best, ordinary knowledge providers instead. Why Did Western Knowledge Not Take China by Storm before 1800?
To employ foreigners and foreign knowledge was not unprecedented by the time of the Ming and Qing. During the first century AD, Buddhism was introduced to China from India. During the Mongol Yuan, the bureaucracy hired Muslim astronomers and adopted and an Islamic Almanac (HHHIlf), which was used to compliment China's own Almanac (y^|jt®) from the early Ming. So, it was logical for the MingQing authorities to recognize the utility of European astronomers and the Christian Almanac. After all, China was an empire that appreciated input from different ethnic groups.
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In terms of cultural influence measured by religious conversion, what the Jesuits achieved was marginal compared to the Buddhist monks. Many emperors converted to Buddhism but none to Christianity. It is documented that a few officials were converted by the Jesuits, but only at the end of the Ming period. The best example was Xu Guangqi (f^T^^, AD 1561-1633), who was born into a merchantlandlord family in Shanghai County (now Shanghai). He received strict traditional Confucian training and took the traditional route to officialdom. In 1581, at the age of 19, he passed the Imperial Examinations at the level of Cultivated Talent (^f) and earned a living by teaching, first in his home town and then in Guangdong and Guangxi, two of the southernmost provinces of China, where he came into contact with missionaries. In 1597, at the age of 36, he passed the Examinations at a higher level and became a Recommendee (IPA); at the age of 42, he passed the highest level of the Examinations to obtain the degree of Presented Scholar (jUifc), after which he was selected to be a fellow of the Imperial Academy. In 1607, he was appointed Examining Editor (fM^), a formal rank for scholars in the Academy. It took him another 21 years to progress to History Tutor to the Emperor in 1628, a position reserved exclusively for high-ranking scholar-officials. In 1630, he was accorded the title of Imperial Academician (^^I^Pdr) and, 2 years later, at the age of 70, he was appointed Minister of the Rites with the title of Second Grade Grand Secretary , which was the de facto Premier at that time. In 1633, he was finally promoted to First Grade Grand Secretary (^MISAIPit), the highest position a scholar could hold. He was also dubbed 'Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent' (yfc?yfciSO> an honour granted to only a few outstanding ministers. Xu died at his post later that year and was posthumously honoured by the emperor with the title of Most Wise Literate Administrator (;$C$E).29 Through his life, Xu always kept abreast of science and technology.30 By 1600, he had met Matteo Ricci, who attracted him to Christianity and Western science and technology developed since the Renaissance. Xu converted to Catholicism on 15 January 1603 and adopted the name of Paul, studying Western astronomy, geography, water control and philosophy under Ricci's tutelage in 1604. From 1606 to 1607, he cooperated with Ricci to translate Fundamentals of Geometry (ilfnjjjrl^) in order to enlighten his Chinese contemporaries. In 1612, with the collaboration of Sabbatino de Ursis, an assistant of Ricci, he completed a translation of Western Irrigation Methods (^|57JC/£) and produced some new astronomical equipment for a more accurate calendar. When in charge of amending the calendar in 1629, he built three telescopes, just 21 years after its European invention. In short, Xu worked as a contact (|Sf^) f°r the Jesuits and European knowledge to make some modest progress at the time. Even so, Xu Guangqi is best known in Ming-Qing history as a promoter of best practice in agriculture because he believed that China's History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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problems resulted ultimately from the regression of the rural economy.31 In this context, Xu's search for alternatives in effective almanac making and water control was logical according to his Confucian training; that Jesuit missionaries became a source of information was serendipitous. Even if we consider his conversion to Christianity, the motivation was to 'compliment Confucianism with Christian learning' (^Ip^fff^) instead of replacing the former with the latter or absorbing the latter purely due to curiosity. There was a political agenda. On this point, it is questionable whether Xu was ever truly converted. However, Xu's approach was echoed two centuries later during the later Qing by 'Chinese knowledge as the foundation and Western knowledge for utility' Along with Xu, there were two other Ming ranking court officials who took a similar route: Li Zhizao ($;£.ii, 1565-1630), who was Deputy Minister of Public Works (IQ^Jt^f J$) and converted to Catholicism on 3 March 1610, adopting the name of Leo, and Yang TingJim (flgrff, 1557-1627), who was Imperial Inspector (lilllS^) and converted to Catholicism during Easter of 1613 with the adopted name of Michael.32 Also, compared with Xu, Li and Yang were less technologically intrigued by European knowledge. However, Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao and Yang Tingjun should be considered exceptions rather than the rule: open conversions of high-ranking bureaucrats to Christianity were rare in the following Qing period.33 On the flipside, those Jesuit missionaries in China had to join the Ming-Qing bureaucracy and behave like Confucians as a prerequisite. They had no choice but to convert to Confucian bureaucracy; Matteo Ricci called himself a 'Western Confucian' ®f|f) to identify himself with the Chinese code of conduct.34 It is important to note that, before 1800, joint efforts were made between scholarly Jesuit missionaries and Qing scholarly officials to translate European books or co-write textbooks in Chinese. Preliminary research indicates that 400-700 such works were produced,35 of which 120 were works on science and technology.36 Ricci, a productive man, was involved in 24 such works. Thirteen were included in The Qing Imperial Complete Collection of Books (UUK^U) of 3,470 titles in all.37 Even so, European knowledge had only occasional publicity, subject to approval at the highest level. For example, the second edition of the Ming calendar received the title The New Western Almanac (H^iffSflMr) > only with the endorsement of Emperor Shuizhi (J[[jT/n, r. 1644-61). Given that a long time lag often appeared before adoption, it has remained unclear how readily available these works were across the empire, or how well the knowledge in these works was actually absorbed by the Chinese. The Ming Imperial Almanac project was in fact abortive: by the time it had received permission for use from Emperor Chongzhen (it/M, r. 1628-44), the Ming Dynasty was doomed. So the almanac was never put into practice under the Ming.38 Also, there is no History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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evidence that the European water control technology recorded in Western Irrigation Methods (^I§7JQ£) jointly by Xu Guangqi and de Ursis was ever put into practice on China's soil until the end of the Qing. Some very straightforward European techniques such as perspective in painting were missing with even most talented Chinese court artists, despite works of Joseph Giuseppe Castiglione, who was Emperor Qianlong's favourite.39 Overall, for about two centuries from c. 1582, when the first Jesuit group was allowed to enter mainland China, until 1773, when the Jesuit missions were finally ended by Pope Clement XIV, the European influence on China's knowledge stock was hardly noticeable (quantitatively speaking). By 1800, there was no sign that China had been persuaded to adopt European knowledge on a large scale. There was no sign either that European knowledge was able to fundamentally affect ordinary Chinese life. Meanwhile, China continuously and comfortably enjoyed trade surpluses with Europe and America. Emperor Qianlong claimed in a letter of 1793 to King George III of England (r. 1760-1820) that the Celestial Dynasty of the Qing was so abundant that it relied on no goods from those Western countries, which, in contrast, lived on China's exports of tea, porcelain and silk and that he was doing the West a favour in permitting sea trade at Macao.40 No one seemed to dispute Qianlong's conclusion at that time. The Emperor is criticized for his attitude of complacency and arrogance, or Sino-chauvinism, but not for the veracity of the claim. By the same token, China did not need European knowledge in most areas. After all, it had developed independently a cluster of technologies that allowed it to lead the world from c. 100 BC to c. AD 1550, according to Joseph Needham.41 Also, until the arrival of the Jesuits, China was a donor of technology to Europe, at least indirectly with sometimes very long time lags.42 Needham was adamant that: The word 'stagnation' was never applicable to China at all; it was purely a Western misconception. Continuing general and scientific progress manifested itself in traditional Chinese society, but it was violently overtaken by the exponential growth of modern science after the Renaissance in Europe.43 In Ricci's phrase, 'the Chinese believe that they themselves are the only people to possess real sciences and technology'.44 Thus, traditional Chinese science and technology still had some 'shelf-life' by 1800. With it came opportunity costs for change: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.' This determined the slow and patchy dissemination of European knowledge to China, even with the help of influential court officials.45 It also determined a new trend in which European knowledge became a spiritual refuge for Chinese intellectuals during the early Qing period.46
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THE WESTERNIZATION PERIOD, 1840-1910
What Changed the Old Pattern, Rebellions on An Invasion?
It is a commonly held perception that, at the turn of the nineteenth century, the Manchu rule over China was in big trouble internally, as the Qing Empire was struck repeatedly by natural and man-made disasters, which, in turn, led to 'local militarization', social unrest and rebellions,47 as if all of these were unprecedented in the history of China.48 But, from the viewpoint of the long-term history of rebellions, uprisings in the entire nineteenth century under the Qing were by no means the most frequent, the most lasting or on the largest scale. In effect, it was one of the quietest periods since the Yuan Mongol rule.49 In other words, the Qing social unrest and rebellion were well within the threshold of tolerance for a major dynasty. Speaking of the possible causes for unrests and rebellions, there was no evidence that the Qing state was more rent-seeking than the Ming. Overall, the Qing state performed better than its Ming counterpart in tax burden control and disaster relief. Astonishingly, the Qing total rural tax revenue was frozen from 1715 to 1840 (yjC^FJPlS), unprecedented in both China's history and the history of Asia.50 In the absolute sense, the highest annual tax revenue collected in grain under the Qing (in 1820) was only 29% of its counterpart under the Ming (in 1502). In relative terms of tax burden per unit of land, the highest rate under the Qing (in 1661) was only 17% of the peak of the Ming (1542).51 More strikingly, the per capita tax burden in 1766 was merely 8% of that in 1381 under the Ming.52 So, surpluses of unprecedented quantities were left in private hands. In addition, public goods were better provided by the Qing than that of the Ming seen from the scale of the Qing disaster aid.53 Hence, there was no reason why the Qing state could not put up with those rebellions and continue to rule the country longer than the Ming. Clearly, what did change China was not internal unrest that formed a backdrop for the empire anyway, but foreign invasion. It was not an invasion from northern nomads, but from Europe in the form of the Opium War in 1840. The defeat, humiliation and heavy costs of the Opium War served as a wake-up call for the pragmatic part of Chinese culture in general and that of Confucianism in particular. Indeed, Confucianism justifies changes if the country faces critical crises and challenges. The vision of modernity and Westernization began to undercut China's timeless Physiocracy at both the ideological and mundane levels. Indeed, frequent changes became something that was unchanged in Chinese history between 1840 and 1940. Confucian pragmatism allowed the Qing system to be malleable and avoid brittleness. New Ideology of Social Darwinism vs. Old Confucian Culturalism
The lesson that the Qing elite learned from the Opium War defeat was very different from what China had experienced previously. Before that History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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war, the Chinese had accepted their fate when under alien attacks and conquests at least three times: under the Jin Tartar (1115-1234), the Mongols (1271-1368) and the Manchus (1644-1911). The Confucian ideology aimed at gradual cultural assimilation of the alien conquerors known as 'cultivating the barbarians' (J^fH^LBlJ, literally 'removing the rough edges with softness'). This was a game of 'Confucian culturalism', a competition of good behaviour according to a strict code of conduct, rather than of military strength and brutality. The game of Confucian culturalism was playable only on the condition that the alien conquerors accepted their cultural inferiority and that they wanted to become something higher. The tactic had worked repeatedly for the Chinese. All students of the Confucian classics know the description of the Zhou system of 'five-level circles' (SIS) in the chapter Tribute to King Yu' (iSfJt) of Confucius's The Book of History (fpJd).54 According to this system, the capital city of the Zhou regime was considered the centre of civilization with its immediate domain of 500 li in radius (1 Zhou li is equivalent to 346.5 metres55), called the King's Land O&JJM). Secondly, as one moved outward, there were two circles under the names of the Lords' Land and Vassals' Land (fHiM), both being parts of the civilized world, with the outer boundary 1,500 li away from the Zhou capital. Thirdly, there was a ring of the frontiers (ISHIx) where the Zhou civilization ends. Fourthly, it was a Semi-barbarians' Land (Ic)M), a periphery with half-civilized inhabitants, a half-way house between Chinacentred civilization and the aliens called the 'barbarians'. Finally, there was the True Barbarians' Land (MM), where the population did not read or write, nor observed any of the rites observed by the Chinese. In this system, Chinese civilization created a centripetal force, which, given sufficient time, would materialize the goal of the Confucian 'Great Commonality' (^[q]).56 Indeed, the orthodox Confucian concept of being Chinese meant little in terms of ethnicity but a great deal regarding culture. In other words, a 'Chinese' person in the Confucian vocabulary is merely a cultural being. Thus, 'Confucianized' outsiders of non-Han origin were not only accepted into Chinese society, but were also absorbed by the officialdom, including the aforementioned Europeans, such as Matteo Ricci and Sabbatino de Ursis. On the other hand, those Chinese who left China to live in foreign lands were regarded as the 'de-Sinicized' and considered automatically to be 'abandoned by the Celestial Empire' It is worth noting that there exist some common misconceptions regarding the Chinese view of the world order, much coming from the interpretation, word for word, of Zhongguo (^ffl)* literally meaning 'the centre/middle kingdom/empire'. Almost all Western writers have accepted such a judgment from which one can infer a vision of a tightly closed, xenophobic attitude. But it would be wrong to assume that the Chinese elite were always in the dark: from the fifteenth century, the Chinese closely noted and History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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documented the rise of European colonialism along their traditional trading routes in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region. They were well aware of European technology in the form of ship design and weaponry.57 Studies were conducted of the Europeans themselves. This is evident in Chen Lunjiong's (|5tfwflql) Travels of the Seas written in as early as 1730. The Qing elite were aware that the invaders of the Opium War were different. Unlike the Jesuits, who were willing to learn from China and hence tacitly accept China's cultural superiority, the British refused to submit culturally. This alone threw the game of Confucian culturalism out of the window. On the other hand, the Qing elite did not want China to become a European colony. But everyone agreed that China was weak; something needed to be done fast, before it was too late. History proved that the Qing elite were pragmatic and the Qing system was flexible, so changes began. First and foremost, together with Confucian culturalism, the preference for benevolent rule and the distaste for military government had to go. Rather than promoting competition for the most civilized, best mannered and most highly respected, the new religion was Social Darwinism - although Charles Darwin's book was not yet published at the point of the Opium War - meaning the survival of the fittest by wars in a new world of competition for hegemony amongst races. The Qing elite were also fully aware that the means to achieve a victory were modern arms in the form of strong ships with powerful cannons Undoubtedly, Social Darwinism changed China's statecraft. It was the key catalyst for all changes in post-Opium War China.58 This change in ideology ushered in an era of changes for which China was sometimes unprepared. New Movers and Shapers in the Era of Changes, c. 1840-1910
The 1840 Opium War marked a failure of the Manchu regime, as the Qing state was unable to maintain China's national security. The Pax Manchuriana was over. This alone undermined massively the ever shaky legitimacy of Manchu rule. To allow China to be colonized by any foreign group would have meant the end of the Manchu ruling clique, and it was vital for them to be seen as 'flawless'. They deliberately chose Han Chinese to carry out reforms; if they were successful, the Manchus claimed credit and, if not, they blamed the Han. This determined that all the new movers and shapers of knowledge during the Era of Changes were ethnically Han Chinese. In 1839, on the eve of the Opium War, Lin Zexu (^I0f^, 17851850), Imperial Commissioner (i^lly^E) in charge of the ban on the opium trade from 1838 to 1840, began to have European knowledge and information collected and translated into Chinese, including newspapers and magazines published in Portuguese-controlled Macao,59 Emericide Vattel's Law of Nations (if-^M^Hf^M) written in History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
66 Movers and Shakers of Knowledge in China during the Ming-Qing Period
c. 1758, Hugh Murray's Encyclopaedia of Geography (|ZH$f[;£) published in 1834 and Algernon S. Thelwall's moralizing essay on the British opium trade with China, entitled The Iniquities of the Opium Trade with China published in 1834. Immediately after the Opium War, there was a surge of information about Europe, such as Wei Yuan's (fSM) A Comprehensive Survey of Off-Shoretice (IcSfcfrlr), collected in The National Central Library (gj£4^IIIlr!t), op. cit. (28), Countries written in 1841,60 Chen Fengheng's (Bfenif) A Brief History of England (Hpf^IJfgllfg) written also in 1841, Wang Wentai's A Study of England of Red-haired Barbarians (H^§^^^fJ^B§) written in 1842 and Liang Tingnan's (^Jifif) Four Essays on Off-Shore Countries in 1846, Xu Jishe's ($$&£) Records of Lands and Peoples Overseas (MIK^^) in 1848 and Xia Xie's (JUI) Main Events between China and the West (^ffifBliO in 1850. It is important to note that, compared with the early works of the Jesuits, which involved religious pursuit and pure science and technicality in their ivory tower, the new trend in the 1840s was for a wider range of mundane and tangible information concerning Europe, especially in terms of humanities (customs, values, law and social conditions). There was also heated discussion on how to play the game of Social Darwinism against the Westerners. Lin Zexu, who had first-hand experience in dealing with the invading British forces, pointed out that naval warfare was the British trump and that it would be self-defeating if China did not build a modern navy with gunboats.61 Xu's contemporary, the scholar Wei Yuan (Stfe 1794-1857), changed the term yi meaning 'barbarians') to yang (^, meaning 'sea-borne' or 'foreign') in his work written in the 1840s entitled Punitive Expedition of Foreign Fleet under the Daoguang Reign [1821-50] (MT^^IifjE^gB), in which he urged 'learning from Europe in order to turn foreign strength into China's strength to build a rich country with strong armed forces' 62 Earlier, in 1841, Wei Yuan put forward the slogan of 'learning advanced technology from Europeans to fight against them' (Bffi^^JlSi^0-M).63 In 1858, the Deputy Minister of Wars (J^n|£fcf^I|$), Wang MaoyinjzEBollI, asked permission from the throne to circulate A Comprehensive Survey of Off-Shore Countries amongst all court officials and the royal circle. He argued that 'although hard, it is not impossible to resist against the Europeans' (Hfll! ' M^llM£^ttJIS).64 All this was the prelude of the pathbreaking Westernization Movement, which commenced in 1860. In a historical twist, the strongest push for change to take place occurred internally, when the pseudo-Christian Taiping Rebellion (^¥^Hllii) and Nian Rebellion ($£¥) both broke out in 1851 to threaten the foundation of the Qing rule. Out of desperation, Zeng Guofan (^H^f, 1811-72) and his subordinate, Li Hongzhang (^$|TJL, 1823-1901), both provincial officials at that time, were permitted to organize local armed forces: the Hunan Army (SUpC, formed in 1854) and the Anhui Army (^J|L, formed independently also in 1854), which were financed independently by local taxes.65 They each
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ran large personalized quasi-government institutions called mufu meaning 'personal staff). Each mufu employed at any given time several dozen highly qualified people for different tasks.66 This was the de facto franchizing of the Qing state (administration and defence). From then on, the Qing court could no longer monopolize the armed forces. These new armies proved to be more efficient than the Qing standing army of the Eight Banners (Affi): Zeng's Hunan Army eventually put down the Taipings in 1864, while Li's Anhui Army eliminated the Nians in 1868. During the military confrontations, both men appreciated the effectiveness of the European arms in life-or-death situations. This ushered in Westernization and modernity led by military technology. By now, Wei Yuan's slogan from the 1840s of 'learning from Europe in order turn foreign strength into China's strength to make China a rich country with strong armed forces' had a more poignant meaning.67 The shift of political power and military command to the Han Chinese was highly rational, at least in the short run, for the Manchu ruler. However, such a division of labour put the Manchus in a bad light as, inevitably, they appeared inadequate in a changing world. Also, things did not always turn the way the Manchus initially wanted, as the use of Han Chinese to pioneer changes cut both ways: it created an alternative military-power centre in the Qing bureaucracy in the hands of the Han Chinese. Nevertheless, it proved that traditionally trained Chinese scholar officials were fully capable of looking to learn new ideas and new tricks. On the other hand, the crack-down on both the Taiping and Nian rebellions who once controlled a vast area and intended to drag China backwards to its traditional agrarian growth path cleared a main obstacle at the grassroots level for dramatic changes to be implemented.68 Now, the reformers had undisputed leadership for changes to take place. The most significant developments occurred during the entire period of 1860-1910, when changes were pushed peacefully to rebuild China's strength. The emphasis was on the combination of maintaining Chinese ideology as the foundation and introduction of Western knowledge for utility (^iftBlffl) in the 'Self-Strengthening Movement' and 'Westernization Movement' (1860-94), and the 'One-Hundred-Day Reform' (1898), all aiming at altering China's growth trajectory towards modernity. The masterminds of these changes were known as the Westernizers whose members were all ranked Qing officials, well educated in Confucian tradition: Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang 1812-85, Zeng's subordinate), Shen Baozhen (ftl^M, 182079, also Zeng's subordinate) and Zhang Zhidong ('M^R 1837-1909, Li's subordinate). Their spiritual leader was Feng Guifen 1809-74), who advocated the need for adopting Western knowledge and producing Western tools and machines ($j$jSH, $[I^§§).69 The group gained support from Prince Yixin (^i/f, 1833-98). From time to History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
68 Movers and Shakers of Knowledge in China during the Ming-Qing Period
time, the Dowager Empress Cixi (WfjZ'fcJn, 1835-1908) also cut in to offer her half-hearted support. The Westernizers were succeeded after the 1894 Sino-Japanese War by a more radical group called the Reformers (|f ffM), headed by Yan Fu (HH, 1854-1921), Rang Youwei (J^CJi, 1858-1927), Tan Citong 1865-98) and Liang Qichao (^FH, 1873-1929), who launched the '1898 Reform' (Jj^lttS), als° known as the '100-day Reform' (HBf§0r), in a bid to re-mould China into a European model. They were even more Western than the Westernizers and backed by Emperor Guangxu (%M, r. 1875-1908). The 'Self-Strengthening Movement' and 'Westernization Movement' took place first in those provinces in which Westernizers were in charge, while the Reformers worked exclusively top-down. Opening the Floodgate for European Knowledge
During the Jesuit period, European knowledge trickled to China mainly through the handiwork and services of the missionaries themselves. The Chinese were yet to be fully convinced that there was a need to Westernize for modernity. This changed after China's historical defeat in the Opium War. For the first time, the floodgate of European knowledge was opened up and kept open. Firstly, a new government organ, the Foreign Affairs Department (I1S^SWM§JP^), was established in early 1861. Apart from diplomacy, the department dealt with customs, naval defence and the procurement of arms. The Foreign Affairs Department marked the beginning of modern foreign relations and diplomacy in China, in which China related to other nations as equals and recognized the importance of trade with them.70 Secondly, there was a drive for knowledge modernization. The Foreign Affairs Department spearheaded the pro-active diffusion of advanced knowledge from Europe by running the Capital Foreign Language Academy (]^Bf]5[^>Ci1t) and schemes for Chinese students to study in the West. The academy ran an open system of recruitment to ensure the authenticity of knowledge from the West. In 1869, it appointed William A. Martin (Tfljl> 1827-1916), a Yale-educated missionary, as Dean . Martin served in that capacity for 25 years. In the south, the Translation Division of the Jiangnan (Kiangnan) Arsenal in Shanghai was established in 1868 and became the main source of written information regarding European knowledge.71 In the same year, it hired John Fryer (ffUfl, 1839-1928), a Briton, as Translator in Chief. Thirdly, the stock of European knowledge increased steadily after 1860. Under Martin's leadership, international law received priority in both the curriculum and the translation projects of the Capital Foreign Language Academy - something China urgently needed in engaging with the West.72 Twenty-four textbooks were produced by translation or History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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compilation including law (x 6), mathematics (x 3), astronomy (x 3), chemistry (x 3), linguistics (x 3), physics (x 2), medicine (x 2), economics (x 1) and world history (x I). 73 Outperforming Martin in Beijing, Fryer was involved in the production of 129 books in his threedecade-long service in the Jiangnan Arsenal. He also established the first popular modern scientific journal in China called Magazine of Nature in 1875 and ran it until 1892.74 In Translated Works from the Last Forty Years with Brief Descriptions published in 1909, the technical subject areas covered included mathematics (calculus and analytical geometry), electricity, metallurgy, chemistry, medicine, physics, astronomy, geology, geography and cartography. Countries covered included the British Empire, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Persia, India, United States, Mexico, Peru and Brazil. There were also specific publications on foreign armed forces: the British, French, German, Italian, Austrian, Russian, Persian, Indian and Japanese, regarding steam-engine ships, shipyards, marines, weapons, communication, navigation, sea routes, naval warfare, coastal defence, ship deployments, battle formation and annual budgets.75 According to Liang Qichao's (^@M) statistics in 1896, there were 352 translated Western books available in China overall, under the three categories of knowledge (H), politics (iEfc) and morals (i&).76 By then, China had a decent range of the European knowledge. Also, a critical mass had built up to change the knowledge structure of the Chinese elite. Fourthly, the formation and improvement of human capital became the priority. It is documented that, in 1866, Zuo Zongtang sent his appeal to the Foreign Affairs Department that to learn from the West 'depends much on education, .... After the training China will have the right specialists to supervise production of ships and to navigate a fleet; and everything will work for China'.77 This target was largely realized in China's new educational system. The aforementioned Capital Foreign Language Academy, designed to introduce European knowledge systematically, was the beginning of modern education in China, which departed gradually from the old Confucian tradition.78 It had an eight-year system to train competent linguists and diplomats. On the military front, the first naval academy (JIMf6i$#P^) was established in 1867 in Majiang (Jiff), Fujian Province, to train officers. The academy employed several dozen French instructors to train ten Chinese youngsters.79 This trainer-trainee ratio demonstrates just how serious the Chinese authorities were when dealing with naval affairs. The second naval academy was established in Tianjin (5^1) in 1880; the third in Huangpu (ilfif), Guangdong Province, in 1887; the fourth in Nanjing (|tfj?0 in 1890; and the fifth in Yantai (g?l|) in 1903.80
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70 Movers and Shakers of Knowledge in China during the Ming-Qing Period
The training in those academies was predominantly Western. According to Regulations of the Northern Sea Fleet (^t^S^^fM), a governmental publication in c. 1890, the Northern Fleet Training School ran 4-year courses to train young cadets. The basic subjects included (1) English, (2) geography, (3) mathematics (extraction of a root, algebra and logarithms), (4) geometry, (5) physics, (6) chemistry, (7) astronomy and (8) meteorology. The specialized courses included cartography, steam-engine operation, hydromechanics, calculation of longitude and latitude, reckoning, pilotage, artillery and surveying.81 The Northern Fleet Seamen's Training Centre (If HP^) adapted the British standard in training 16 and 17year-olds with minimum literacy but knowledge of cables and knots, handling of sails, steering, use of the compass, rowing, swimming and use of firearms and swords.82 Moreover, from 1876 onwards, naval cadets were sent to foreign naval academies and shipyards in Western Europe, mainly Britain and France, to learn the latest technology and crafts. From 1905 onwards, naval cadets were also sent to Japan for the same purposes. Foreign advisers and technicians, often in their dozens, were always on the payroll of the Chinese naval establishments, some reaching the rank of admiral of the Qing navy.83 However, progress was not always made in a linear fashion. There were hiccups even amongst the most devoted Westernizers. In the wake of the Opium War until the beginning of the Westernization Movement, there was a period when efforts were made to upgrade China's technology without the help of Westerners or their knowledge. In 1841, local officials in Guangzhou built a human-powered paddlewheel boat in an attempt to make it look like a British steamboat used during the Opium War.84 In the following year, two more ships of the European appearance were built, one with a copper-clad hull and the other with a primitive engine. Neither ship seemed sea-worthy.85 This was low-level, almost child-like imitation that did not show any understanding of the essence of steamboat technology. Twenty years later, in 1861, Zeng Guofan established China's first factory, the Anqing Arsenal (^SIRilM^Jf), m Anhuitice (IcSfcfrlr), collected in The National Central Library (gj£4^IIIlr!t), op. cit. (28), to produce fire arms of the European style. It employed only Han Chinese and its production depended on small-scale traditional handicrafts. In 1862, it hired four technicians - Xu Shou, Xu Xianyin, Hua Hengfang and Hua Shifang 1818-84; 1845-1901; 1833-1902; 3pt&5:7 > 1854-1905) - to experiment on steam-engine design by guesswork. The factory eventually managed to build China's first woodenhulled steamer, the Huanghu (HfSI) in 1865.86 But the performance of the ship was deeply disappointing: according to Zeng Guofan's judgment, the ship was useless: '... too slow in manoeuvring and not quite getting it right.'87 So, the first attempt to reinvent the wheel without the input of proper knowledge did not succeed in opening the black-box of European steam-engine design and shipbuilding. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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Zuo Zongtang thus reached the conclusion that copying from the Europeans was the way out if China still wanted to be in the Social Darwinian race.88 A new approach began in 1866, when Zuo sent a report to the throne to ask permission to hire European technicians in Qing shipyards.89 Soon, in 1868, John Fryer joined the Jiangnan Arsenal in Shanghai. Thanks to the Translation Division of the Arsenal, Xu Shou and Xu Xianyin (now transferred from the Anqing Arsenal) were in close partnership with John Fryer, who functioned as a channel of reliable information on European technology. The partnership soon paid off: in 1868, the Huiji (ITa), a 60-metre-long (180 chi), 600-ton gunboat (eight cannons) with nearly 400 horsepower, was launched. It was the first functional modern naval vessel built on Chinese soil.90 In the following decade, until 1876, seven more steamships were built in the Jiangnan Arsenal. The largest was the Yiyuan (IXJs), with a displacement of 2,800 tons. Also in 1866, the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau OlSWfpiWm) and the Fuzhou Shipyard (iSJtljifSJ^orMSjifpJ^) were established by Shen Baozhen, the Minister of Naval Affairs (f&j$C^|5) at that time. More radical measures were taken during the first decade (until 1875) to get access to European technical knowledge by not only hiring French technicians, but also putting them in charge of all the technical aspects of the shipbuilding operation. The gamble paid off: during the first 10 years, the shipyard launched 15 large steam ships with an aggregate displacement of 170,000 tons. The shipyard became the backbone of the Qing modern shipbuilding. It went on to build another 25 ships from 1876 to 1907 with a total displacement of 300,000 tons. Qing shipbuilding easily matched that of the Meiji Japan by 1885 (see Table 1). Before the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese War for Korea, China's ownership of modern warships was not too far behind that of Meiji Japan, either.91 Finally, the Westernizers also took a shortcut by importing ships and arms from Europe (and later Japan), which accounted for 55% of all naval ships in the new Qing navy (Table 2). Difference Made by the New Movers and Shakers: The Case of a New Navy The Westernizers were responsible for the establishment of a wide array of modern industries and infrastructure ranging from cotton textiles, shipping, railroads and banking. But their priority was always given to modern arms, which provides a good case for us to see the effectiveness of the new movers and shapers. Firstly, from 1865 onwards, the Jiangnan Arsenal mass-produced modern arms, soon becoming the largest arms production centre in East Asia and one of the largest in the world at that time. Secondly, the Qing navy came a long way from its humble start with only 30 traditional warships.92 By 1875, China had a new navy with two History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
72 Movers and Shakers of Knowledge in China during the Ming-Qing Period
Table 1 Chinese and Japanese naval shipbuilding compared, 1870-85. Name
Length
Beam
Draught
Horse power
Wooden Wooden Wooden Wooden
205.5 chi 300.0 300.0 225.3
30.6 chi 42.0 42.0 36.0
11.0 chi 19.0 21.0 14.3
605 1,800 1,800 1,900
Wooden Wooden Wooden Wooden Wooden
203ft 153 249 210 210
35ft 25 31 32 35
13ft 12 14 16 17
443 659 1,450 1,267 1,267
HuU
A. Shanghai (Jiangnan Arsenal) W«)ing(J^Sl870) Hai-an (J§3cl872) Zhiyuan (gdfl875) Baomin ({^^1885) B. Yokohama Seiki (1876) Banjo (1880) Jingei (1881) Kaimon (1884) Tenryu (1885)
Source: (1) Chinese ships: based on Wei Yungong (ifcfc©, A History of the Jiangnan Arsenal (ffiSfSBiliJte) (Shanghai, 1905); Wang Er-min Of SO, Rise of the New Arms Industry during the Qing Period (iff^ffR^Jji^jMffi) (Taipei, 1963), 82. (2) Japanese ships: H. Jentschura, D.Jung and P. Mickel, Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869-1945, translated by Antony Preston and J. D. Brown (Annapolis, 1977).
Table 2 Modern naval ships obtained by the Qing Navy, 1862-81.
Br
Fr
Gm
1862-71
13
1
1
1872-81
12
Total (1)
25
Total (2)
1
Total
Locally built
Imports
Year
US
3
2
4
2
FZ
JN
SY
2
2
1
20
18
3
-
38 32
20
5
1
26
Source: Based on Hao, A Naval History (Beiping, 1929), 9-185. Br, Britain; Fr, France; Gm, Germany; USA, United States; FZ, Fuzhou Shipyard; JN, Jiangnan Arsenal; SY, individual shipyards.
modern fleets - equipped with modern ships and Western methods of recruitment, training and management: the Northern Sea Fleet (4t^$§^) and the Southern Sea Fleet (j^¥$S|l).93 There were also provincial naval forces in Fujian and Guangdong Provinces. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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Table 3 Qing Naval Tours, 1870-1911. Year
Places visited
1870
Singapore, Pinang, Korea Bay
1875
Singapore, Pinang, Luzon, Japan
1886
Pusan, Hungnam, Nagasaki, Vladivostok, Inch'on, Seoul
1887
Korea
1890
Korea
1891
Tokyo
1907
Singapore, Saigon
1909
Singapore, Batavia (Jakarta), Surabaya, Pontianak, Yogyakarta, Ujung Pandang, Saigon
1911
South China Sea, Saigon, Batavia, Portsmouth and London*
Source: Based on Hao, A Naval History (Beiping, 1929), 10, 12, 54, 59, 65, 71, 75, 172, 176, 186-7. * For the occasion, in May 1911, of the coronation of George V (r. 1910-36), King of the United Kingdom and Emperor of India.
Such progress impressed Western observers. In the 1870s, they reported that 'China was rapidly becoming a formidable adversary', 'Chinese military power was vastly different from what it had been in I860', 'the output of factories and shipyards was impressive', 'Chinesebuilt warships would soon equal the highest European standards' with 'the whole official class determined to restore China's international position'.94 Overall, China was reported as having fire power that could vie with the most powerful nations in Europe.95 Soon, the new navy began to show off in foreign and international waters. Table 3 contains the main events of its overseas tours. On the 1886 and 1891 tours, the fleet had two cruisers accompanied by three to four frigates.96 These tours demonstrated the sailing range of the fleet. China had its first opportunity to try out its new navy in 1873 after Japan sent 3,000 marines to invade South Taiwan. The Minister of Naval Affairs, Shen Baozhen, led a fleet with 7,000 marines to force the Japanese to withdraw.97 During the Franco-Chinese War in 1883-85 and the SinoJapanese War in 1894-95, the new Qing navy caused severe damage to the French and Japanese fleets, respectively. In the case of the Franco-Chinese War, the Qing navy threw more war materiel than the French and thus won the sea battle. China lost the war only due to its diplomatic failure. In the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, Japan won
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Movers and Shakers of Knowledge in China during the Ming-Qing Period
the war by a narrow margin, with heavy losses on its side. Japan triumphed by its military tactics (with the help of the British military advisers) rather than its firing power.98 In comparison with the days during the Opium War in 1840, when the naval advantage was so completely on the British side, during the 1880s and 1890s, China became a naval power for the industrial world to recognize. In 1899, the Italian navy sent six warships to China with an ultimatum to establish a concession in the coastal Zhejiang Province. After sizing up the Italians, Qing officers convinced the Imperial Court that the Qing navy was fully capable of defeating the invaders. The Italians withdrew empty-handed. It is important to note that the Qing naval capacity was not destroyed after these two wars. After the 1911 Revolution, as many as 41 of the ships were inherited by the navy under the Nationalist government, with a total displacement of 39,795 metric tons and a total propulsive force at 126,200 units of horsepower, 370 cannons and 47 torpedo tubes. These ships continued their services into the 1930s." FINAL REMARKS
During the Ming-Qing period, there were two patterns of knowledge diffusion from Europe to China. The first was a Jesuit-centred top-down pattern. It proved to be very slow. From the year that Matteo Ricci arrived in Beijing in 1601 to the Opium War in 1840, the Jesuits' efforts, at very best, reached the Imperial Court circle but more or less were confined to the ivory tower. For two-and-a-half centuries, knowledge from Europe failed to make a significant difference in a society that was submerged in Confucianism and was obsessed with a competition for the best behaviour in a neatly woven structure. Among many things, it did practically nothing to help China's national security. A new group of elites who acted as movers and shapers of knowledge emerged only after the Opium War, with the adoption of Social Darwinism. The new ideology marginalized the need for a moral high ground of benevolence in the later Qing social policies. Only then was the floodgate for practical European technology and knowledge to flow quite freely in society and tackle more immediate and tangible challenges. So, in terms of the scale, scope and speed of changes, the 50 years of the post-Opium War period (1840-90) broke all the records in the history of the empire of China. This observation implies that China did not have the necessary conditions to develop its indigenous capitalistic industrialization. Capitalism and industrialization had to be introduced from the outside. Notes and References 1. After da Gama established a cross-ocean sea route to Asia in 1498, it took about 15 years for Portugal to trade directly with China: around 1513, Jorge Alvares became the first European merchant to reach Da-ao (or Tamao) near the Guangdong coast; see J. M. Braga, The Tamao of the Portuguese Pioneers', Tien Hsia (World Monthly), 1939, 5: 420-32; also
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Hao Peiyun, A Naval History of Modern China (^ffiSS^) (Helping, 1929), 163, 175, 178. It took another 4 years for the Portuguese under Fernao Peres de Andrade to establish relationships with Canton officials and to send their first ambassador, Tome Pires, to Beijing; see C. R. Boxer (ed.), South China in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1953), xx. 2. He got his work permit to stay in Beijing as a clock-repairing artisan, not as a Jesuit missionary; see M. Ricci (flRHS), c- 1610, Matteo Ricci's Diary on China , translated by He Gaoji (MiSW) (Beijing, 1983), 582. Ricci was mentioned in the official history of The History of the Ming Dynasty ffl^); see Zhang Tingyu (ed.), 1735, 'Entry Biography 214, Foreign 7' (?IJft HH+K, ^ffl-tr), in The History of the Ming Dynasty (H^lfe) (Beijing, 1974, reprint). 3. Francis Xavier (1506-52) attempted to establish a mission in Macao. He did not succeed in entering mainland China. 4. It is stated that 1571 was the year when the first recorded commercial shipment of silver from the West arrived in China; see D. O. Flynn and A. Giraldez, 'Cycles of Silver: Global Economic Unity through the Mid-Eighteenth Century', Journal of World History, 2002, 2: 391-427. However, von Glahn sets the date as far back as 1550; see R. Von Glahn, Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000-1700 (Berkeley, 1996), 140. In 1729, the Portuguese shipped the first recorded 200 chests of opium to Macao, ushering in the age of the opium trade with China; see J. Phipps, A Practical Treatise on the China and Eastern Trade (Calcutta, 1835), 208. The first British opium cargo arrived half a century later, in 1773; see E. H. Pritchard, Anglo-Chinese Relations during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Urbana, 1929), 150. 5. Small-scale naval friction between the Chinese and the Portuguese and then the Dutch first took place in the first half of the seventeenth century; see ZBK (Zhongguo Dabaike Quanshu Chubanshe (Encyclopaedia Sinica Publisher)), 'Chinese History' (^Ullfli), in Encyclopaedia Sinica (^HIAH^^tf) (Beijing and Shanghai, 1992), 676. 6. The Ming judiciary system was considered fair by Europeans. During Zhu Wan's anti-smuggling campaign in China's East Coast, the unlawful Portuguese traders captured in Zhejiang were sent into exile in Guangxi Province, some 1,200 kilometres away. Only four were executed for their killing of Chinese soldiers. The Portuguese offenders were very impressed by their fair trial in the Chinese Court; see Boxer, op. cit. (1), xxix. 7. The Ming state created an incentive by treating the Portuguese differently from other Europeans so long as the Portuguese were 'well behaved' by Chinese standards; see H. B. Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635-1834, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1926-29), 29, 47; see also W. L. Schurz, The Manila Galleon (Manila, 1938, reprint 1985), 61 and chap. 3. 8. See G. Deng, The Premodern Chinese Economy: Structural Equilibrium and Capitalist Sterility (London and New York, 1999), chap. 5. 9. Gaetano Pires Pereira (Ijllp^g) (P-1838), a Portuguese Jesuit who died in his post as the Director, was the last foreigner employed by the Imperial Observatory. 10. Diego de Pantoja, a Spanish-born Jesuit, is believed to have accompanied Ricci to Beijing after 1599 to work for the Ming government. 11. Sabbathin de Ursis, an Italian-born Jesuit, first came to China in 1606 under the recommendation of Matteo Ricci. He succeeded Ricci in 1611 to take charge of the Imperial calendar project. 12. Johannes Schreck, a German-born Jesuit, first came to Macao in 1619, entered China in 1621 and reached Beijing in 1623. He died on his post as Officer of the Ming Imperial Observatory working on the new Ming Imperial Almanac 13. Von Bell, a German-born Jesuit, came to China in 1622. He was the successor of Johannes Schreck by the invitation of the then Ming Premier Xu Guanqi (f^TfcU) in 1630. In 1623, he took advantage of repairing a piano for Emperor Chongzhen to try, unsuccessfully, to persuade the Emperor to convert to Christianity. His biography was included in Zhao Erxun, 'Entry Biography 59' (?!|flffi+A), in Draft of the History of the Qing Dynasty (rff^fe) (Beijing, 1927, reprint 1977). 14. ffl^-W-): 'B^E^ftJSS^ ... ' mJesuit missionary; see M. Ricci (flRHS), c- 1610, Matteo Ricci's Diary on Chinam (*»f 89'. See Zhang, op. cit. (2), chap. 'Imperial Almanac One'. 15. Nicolas Longobardi, an Italian-born Jesuit, was another successor of Matteo Ricci. It remains unclear when he first entered China.
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16. Jacques Rho, an Italian-born Jesuit, first came to China in 1624. He was invited to Beijing in 1630 to join the Ming Imperial Observatory. 17. Ferdinand Verbiest, a Belgian-born Jesuit, entered China in 1659. He was involved in the Qing firearms design in 1675. Like von Bell, Verbiest was appointed the post of Director of the Imperial Observatory in 1669. He supervised the construction of six new instruments for the observatory from 1670 to 1674: a zodiac armillary sphere, an equatorial armillary sphere, two altazimuths, a quadrant and a celestial globe. His biography was included in Zhao, op. cit. (13). 18. Thoma Pereira, a Portuguese-born Jesuit, came to China in 1672. He worked in the Imperial Observatory in the 1670s and 80s. He worked for the Qing as one of the official translators and interpreters for the 1689 Sino-Russian Treaty of Nerchinsk (/b^Sffel^). It was documented that he did all he could to protect China's interests against the Russian attempt to encroach its territory. Incidentally, the treaty has been commonly regarded as an equal and fair treaty for China, very rare during Qing history. 19. Philippus Maria Grimaldi, an Italian-born Jesuit, was the successor of Ferdinand Verbiest to work for the Imperial Observatory. 20. Joachim Bouvet, a French-born Jesuit, first arrived in China in 1688 and was employed by the Qing state from 1707 to 1717 to map the entire Qing Empire with the European technology of cartography. 21. Jean Francois Gerbillon, a French Jesuit, first arrived in China also in 1688 and was employed by the Qing court in 1689 as an official interpreter and translator for the Sino-Russian Treaty of Nerchinsk. 22. Bernard-Kiliam Stumpf, a German Jesuit, was employed by Emperor Kangxi in 1696 to build China's first glass-making factory. He joined the Qing Imperial Observatary in 1715 and was responsible for building a European-style theodolite. 23. Joseph Giusepp Castiglione, an Italian Jesuit, arrived in China in 1715 and was employed almost immediately as the court artist for 50 years until the end of his life. He held the post of Official of the Third Rank (Hnp) of the Qing. 24. Ignatius Koegler, a German Jesuit, arrived in China in 1716 and reached Beijing in 1717 to take up his position in the Imperial Observatory. He was promoted to Director of the Imperial Observatory (Ifc^SEtlE) in 1725. 25. Andre Pereira, a Portuguese Jesuit, worked in the capacity of Deputy Director of the Imperial Observatory alongside Koegler. 26. Augustin de Hallerstein, an Austro-Hungarian Jesuit, was the successor of Ignatius Koegler in charge of the Imperial Observatory. 27. They did mainly house-keeping for the Imperial Observatory: Antonius Gogeis (Itteff, 1701-71), Felix da Rocha (fffpS, 1713-81), Jose de Espinha (SfXJS, 172288), Jose Bernardo de Almeida (S^gJi, 1728-1806), Andre Rodrigues (^IPPs 172996), Alexandre Gouveia (i|±lf, 1787-1807), Vervissimo Monteiro da Serra (BnRi, ?) and, finally, Gaetano Pires Pereira (Ifll^g, P-1838). 28. His fast-track promotion eventually got him into trouble. He was imprisoned on death row in 1664 after the death of Emperor Shuizhi, but Emperor Kangxi (Jit!?B, r. 1662-1722) pardoned him in 1669. 29. Zhang, op. cit. (2), Vol. 251, No. 9. 30. H. Bernard, Matteo Ricci's Scientific Contribution to China, translated by E. C. Werner (Westport, CT, 1973), 67-93; F. Bray, 'Section 41: Agriculture', in J. Needham (ed.), Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. 6. (Cambridge, 1984), 64-9. 31. Kang Chengyi (Jjt$ct§), An Enquiry into the Literature Sources Quoted in the 'Nongzheng Quanshu' (^i&^l^lK RUgHS) (Shanghai: Agriculture Press, 1960), 7. 32. They were later called the Three Pillars of the Catholic Church in China' (^ii^Hft^ii), due to Church propaganda rather than their actual impact on Chinese society. 33. The best known case was Wei Yiji (itS/N 1616-86), a Qing official of the First Rank(—q a p ). 34. See Xu Haisong (f^$|fi£), Chinese Literati and Western Knowledge during the Early Qing (rff#J±AflS*) (Beijing, 2000), 90. 35. The lower figure comes from Li Nanqiu (S^UfA), A Draft History of Translated Science Literature in China (^H^&XtRWIS^I) (Hefei, 1993), 61. The higher figure is
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based on Xu Zongze (f^^gl), Abstracts of Translated Works by Jesuit Missionaries during the Ming-Qing Period (Beijing, 1989). 36. Hou Wailu (f^Hl), A General History of Thought in China (tfHS^SSt), Vol. 4 (Beijing, 1960), 1254. 37. See Jijun (JSB%) (ed.), The Qing Imperial Complete Collection of Books (Taipei , 1772, reprint 1983), The Third Category '- See Zhang, o/?. al (2), chap. 'Imperial Almanac One'. 39. To be fair, Chinese artisans did copy rather religiously European designs for export porcelain pieces. But they may not have been able to create their own. See E. Gordon, Treasures from the East, Chinese Export Porcelain for the Collector (Pittstown, 1984); C. Clunas, Art in China (Oxford, 1997), 194-8. 40. It reads I;', see Anon., Veritable Records of Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty Vol. 1435 (Beijing, 1985, reprint), 15. 41. Needham developed a chart to show how science and technology evolved in China and Europe. In his conclusion of his life-time of work on science and civilization in China, Needham asserted that it was Galileo who marked the turning point, after which Europe overtook China gradually; see J. Needham (ed.), Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. 7 (Cambridge, 2004), 28, 217-24. 42. See Needham, ibid., 214. 43. See Needham, op. cit. (41), 20. 44. See Ricci, op. cit. (2), 94. 45. It is commonly known as|§4pj|CSf, literally 'Western knowledge trickling to China'; see Xu, op. cit. (34), chap. 1. 46. Including Huang Zongxi 1610-95), Fang Yizhi (^1^1611-71), Zhang Erqi (3HBM& 1612-77), Gu Yanwu (JBifeE, 1613-82), Wang Fuzhi 1619-92), Wei Xi 1624-80) and Lu Liuliang (SfiJI, 1629-83). 47. For example, P. A. Kuhn advocated the hypothesis of an irreversible crisis across the empire; see P. A. Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure, 1796-1864 (Cambridge, MA, 1970). 48. Attempts have been made even to provide archival data to support the theory of crisis; see Chen Zhenhan (|^fM8l) (ed.), Economic History Materials from Veritable Records of the Qing Dynasty (Beijing, 1989), passim. 49. See Deng, op. cit. (8), 223-5. 50. Zhao, op. cit. (13), 467. 51. G. Deng, Maritime Sector, Institutions and Sea Power of Premodern China (New York, London and West Port, 1999), 124. 52. Liang Fangzhong (^Jjitf*), Dynastic Data of China's Households, Cultivated Land andLand Taxation (^HKf^DfflifefflKgEft) (Shanghai, 1980), 428. 53. P.-E. Will and R. B. Wong, Nourish the People: the State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650-1850 (Ann Arbor, 1991). 54. Wu^ienyou (^ffi^) (ed.) The Annotated Four Books and Five Classics of Confucianism (HllSg) (Beijing, 1993), 118-19. 55. See Liang, op. cit. (52), 540-4. 56. Datong (^|oj) is commonly translated into 'Great Harmony'. 57. See F. W. Drake, China Charts the World: Hsu Chi-Yii and His Geography of 1848 (Cambridge, MA, 1975), chaps 8-9. 58. It is commonly agreed that Social Darwinism was the corner-stone of all political thought in China during the post-Opium War period; see J. R. Pusey, China and Charles Darwin (Cambridge, MA, 1983); J. A. Fogel and P. G. Zarrow, Imaging the People, Chinese Intellectuals and the Concept of Citizenship, 1890-1902 (Armonk, NY, 1997), 15; A. Ong and D. Nonini, Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism (New York and London, 1997), 46; K. Wang, Modern China: An Encyclopaedia of History, Culture and Nationalism (New York, 1998), 321; E. S. Rawski, The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (Berkeley, 1998), 2; T. Brook and T. B. Wakabayashi, Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839-1952 (Berkeley, 2000), 71; H. Harrison,
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China (London, 2001), 73; K.-W. Chow, K. M. Doak and Poshek Fu, Constructing Nationhood in Modern East Asia (Ann Arbor, 2001), 53-4; G. Wei and Xiaoyuan Liu, Exploring Nationalisms of China: Themes and Conflicts (Westport, CT and London, 2002), 12; S. L. Glosser, Chinese Visions of Family and State, 1915-1953 (Berkley, 2003), 2; G. Arrighi, T. Hamashita and M. Selden, The Resurgence of East Asia: 500, 150 and 50 Year Perspectives (London and New York, 2003), 54; A. D. Voskressenski, Russia and China: A Theory of Inter-State Relations (London, 2003), 91; K.-C. Liu and R. Shek, Heterodoxy in Late Imperial China (Honolulu, 2004), 17; P. F. Williams and Y. Wu, The Great Wall of Confinement: The Chinese Prison Camp through Contemporary Fiction and Reportage (Berkeley, 2004), 13. 59. They included The Chinese Repository (glH^ilg), The Canton Press and The Canton Register (StJUIB^Sz). 60. The main body of text was Lin Zexu's Encyclopaedia of Geography (0jffl;£). It was introduced to Japan in 1854 and became an instant best-seller. 61. It reads 'J¥ffi7JcK, '*JMfn^iaS*§*¥, SS^^-fe'; see Yang Guozhen (HSfi), Collection of Lin Zexu's Letters, Enlarged (Fuzhou, 1985), 193. 62. Wei Yuan (HM), n.d., 'Military Glory' (HKIB), in Punitive Expedition of Foreign Fleet under the Daoguang Reign (1821-50) (M^ffSfiES&lfi, T), Vol. 10 (Shanghai, 1936, reprint), 336. It is important to note that Meiji Japan copied exactly the same approach from Qing China after their 1868 Restoration, despite that fact that the kanji was pronounced as fokoku kyohei. 63. See Preface of his A Comprehensive Survey of Off-Shore Countries 64. See Jia Zhen and Bao Yun (Hffi, &H), Qing Diplomacy with the West, 1851-61 , Book 3, Vol. 3 (Beijing, 1979, originally published 1862), 1049. 65. This was 'local militarization in Qing China'. 66. Li Zhiming (^£3?), Four Major Mufu in the Late Qing (Kr/ffKABW) (Shanghai, 2002). See also Ling Linhuang (^>f^JS), 'Investigation of the Total Number of Zeng Guofan's Mufu and Its Related Organisations' (^H^Slff^ffiliffll^lSMliR^^), in Special Issue of the Association of Chinese History (^SM^Sli^^lfefO), 1997, 29: 363-91. 67. Prince Yixin (86§f) wrote to the throne in 1860 that learning from Europe would help fight against the peasant rebellions; see Shi Zhongwen ($,fItl>0, Records of Prominent Figures in Early Modern China (^IKfi^ASSFJi • illicit) (Beijing, 1997), 46. 68. The Taiping Rebellion, the most powerful rebellion since 1368, swept the richest regions in the 1850s; the Qing government lost as much as 90% of its regular revenues. 69. Association of Chinese History (^lll'fcSNI"), 'Protests from the Xianbin Hut, On Adopting Western Knowledge' (SS3F, 'f&^JS$lli, £RHHH')> in Chinese Early Modern History Series, 1898 Reform, One (^SM^SWKf0, jktftiKfc, —) (Shanghai, 1957), 27-31. 70. See R. Gilbert, The Unequal Treaties, China and the Foreigner (London, 1929), 54-5. 71. The Jiangnan Arsenal was established by Li Hongzhang in 1865. 72. Martin spoke fluent Chinese. His first Chinese translation was Henry Wheaton's 1836 work of Elements of International Law (MS^&), which was first published in 1864. This work was re-translated into Japanese in 1865. He went on to translate two more law textbooks - Outline of International Law (^iKMJI) and Guide to International Law (^AiU'M) - and wrote two of his own - Essence of Foreign Diplomacy (S>5C8llc) and International Law in Ancient China (^HSffi&ffilWfe). See Xiong Yuzhi (^£), Western Knowledge Approaching China and Late Qing Society (S^P^^UBftSfift^) (Shanghai, 1994), 322; Wang Tieya (zESlJlt), Encyclopaedia of Law, International Law Section (t^gf^tfm) (SUfeS^g) (Beijing, 1996), 101; Wang Jian (i
Recent Revisionist Scholarship in Western Languages HARRIET T. ZURNDORFER
ABSTRACT
The first part of this study considers both general and specific publications that have re-framed the way China specialists and others have conceived Chinese science and attempts to relate these representations to diverging patterns of economic development between China and Europe before the nineteenth century. In the second part, this essay focuses on the Jesuit transmission of European science to China, and its consequences. It argues that the Ming and Qing governments' efforts to control the Jesuittransmitted knowledge in these fields stimulated ever more interest among local scholars in Chinese traditions of mathematics and astronomy, which culminated in the eighteenth-century 'evidential research' movement. But because the scientific knowledge the Jesuits conveyed was already out of date, before their arrival in China, local scholars never had the possibility to make a complete reassessment of their own mathematical and astronomical practices. As the primary and — at times, the only — translators of Western scientific thought to China, the Jesuits had an enormous historical impact on how Chinese scholars became trapped in a pre-Copernican universe in which Chinese natural philosophy, with its focus on metaphysical interpretations of the natural world, remained entrenched until the nineteenth century. INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF CHINESE SCIENCE IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE: OLD AND NEW DEBATES
In 1603, the famous Chinese intellectual and Christian convert, Xu Guangqi (1562-1633), offered the local magistrate of his native Shanghai county a proposal outlining the methodology to measure the length, width,
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depth and water flow of a river. Xu's document (later printed in his collection, Nongzheng quanshu (Comprehensive Treatise on Agricultural Administration, comp. 1639), employed conventional surveying practices as well as calculating techniques based on the Pythagorean theorem. Although it is tempting to attribute Xu's achievement here as a direct consequence of his meeting the Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) in Nanjing that same year, it is not certain from extant documentation that this encounter with the European was the defining influence on his water study. Growing up in a region of well connected networks of waterways and extensive wall-building, Xu had already, at an early age, acquired an interest in water control and military matters, pursued mathematical study in that regard and familiarized himself with relevant sixteenthcentury Chinese mathematical texts. But it does seem that this proposal, featuring an illustration of a circle divided into 360 degrees, did demonstrate some Western influence. Xu would go on to translate with Ricci the first six books of Christophorus Clavius' edition of Euclid's Elements, known in Chinese as Jiheyuanben (Geometry by Euclid] 1608), an accomplishment that would earn him distinction and respect among Chinese and European scholars alike. 1 Recent modern scholarship on Xu Guangqi has depreciated Eurocentric portraits of this polymath transmitted in the first instance by the Jesuit mission in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and conveyed later, in twentieth-century secondary writings, as a 'component in the master narrative of the European civilization mission in China'. 2 Instead, as Timothy Brook advocates, Xu's life should be viewed in a 'Mingcentred approach', with his science and his religion considered integral to 'a knowledge system that prized practical solutions to worldly problems, and a world view that strengthened (Confucian) statecraft concerns with a desire for salvation'.3 In other words, Xu Guangqi was a man of his times: a talented scholar and a dedicated Confucian official committed to the propagation of agricultural knowledge, the relief of subsistence crises, the encouragement of military defence and, not least, the promotion of free trade between China and Japan as a way of curbing piracy.4 According to Brook and other critical scholars, one needs to regard Xu primarily as a member of that stream of late-Ming-dynasty (c. 1580-1644) thinkers who endorsed concrete solutions to concrete problems, namely shixue (concrete studies). Thus, in this context, the significance of Xu Guangqi's exploits lies less with what impact Jesuit science had on him, and more with how he may have attempted to solve a number of contemporary problems by utilizing facets of the knowledge conveyed by the Jesuits. This revisionist scholarship may be judged as one more step in overcoming the 'Great Divide' that has castigated the 'scientific West' against the 'exotic, intuitive East' or, in other words, the 'single-minded historical teleology of Western European "success" and non-Western "failure" '.5 The preoccupation with the economic, social and political transformation that constitutes the recent history of Western Europe and North America has frequently indicted other regions and, in particular,
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China for not fulfilling the potential to modern realizations in the spheres of industrial production or military prowess before the nineteenth century.6 In this way, modernity and the diffusion of science (such as that once propagated by the well known historian of science, George Basalla) become a unilinear narrative expressed in rigid models of centre/ periphery or metropole/colony.7 Invariably, such accounts point to the role of science and scientific-related technologies used in agricultural and industrial production as the West's triumph, and even rightful privilege. Such thinking has met a provocative challenge with Kenneth Pomeranz's volume, The Great Divergence, in which the role of science in the making of the modern world economy is quietly set aside.8 Pomeranz has argued persuasively that economic data are sufficient to demonstrate the foundation on which European industrialization was built. He compares the constraints on China's richest and most productive region, Jiangnan, with similar factors affecting the English economy in the eighteenth century. Pomeranz demonstrates how Jiangnan's problems with the growing population's demand on food, fuel, housing and handicrafts prohibited sustainable growth there, and contrasts England's advantages in the last decades of the eighteenth century. Britain benefited from the 'geographical accident' of having accessible deposits of coal and iron, profited from its acquisition of colonies in the New World with its wealth of resources, and thereby overcame its own limitations to develop an industrial economy. But this kind of refutation is exceptional and, until the last few decades of the last century, the study of China's path to modern development was an opportunity to cast praise for what Europe developed and possessed, and blame for what China did not, and, in particular, science. The positivistic view of science favours the notion of the transmission of science as transparent: since scientific knowledge is positive, how can one resist it? And so, when the first Europeans visiting Ming China expressed how adeptly officialdom supervised practical matters such as salt production, iron manufacture, flood control and agricultural development, they also voiced surprise that these administrators achieved their responsibilities through an examination system testing moral and literary values. In his letters to Europe, Ricci communicated about this matter and noted that the Chinese were 'trapped' in a humanist civilization that valued literary ideals exclusively. As he commented, 'The study of mathematics and that of medicine were held in low esteem, because they are not fostered by honours as is the study of philosophy, to which students are attracted by the hope of the glory and the rewards attached to it'. 9 Thus, beginning with Matteo Ricci's writings, and continuing well into the eighteenth century with proclamations such as those uttered by the director of the Academy of Sciences in Paris, Jean-Baptiste Dortous de Mairan, or even Voltaire, there has been a continuous repudiation of China's failure to generate 'science', namely a certain kind of mathematical and theoretical reasoning along with systematic experimentation.10 In this regard, the disavowals made in the first half of the twentieth century
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were particularly vociferous. For example, Bertrand Russell, after a year's lecturing in East Asia, wrote in his 1922 volume, The Problem of China, that until European influence had reached that region, there had been neither science nor industrialization. 11 Russell's assertions were repeated 20 years later in the writings of the Yale University philosophy professors, Filmer Northrop and Wilmon Sheldon, and a decade after that in a well known letter written in 1953 by Albert Einstein, who communicated his astonishment that the Chinese sages did not make the steps '[to] invent the formal logical system (i.e. Euclidean geometry) nor to find out [the] causal relationship by systematic experiment'. 12 It was against this kind of intellectual disclaimer that Joseph Needham (1900-95) began his Science and Civilization in China project, which has culminated in more than 30 volumes documenting China's contributions to mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and to mechanical, civil and nautical engineering.13 Needham proposed that Chinese attainments in these fields were part of a 'grand titration' in which China was an equal contributor among the tributaries that flowed into the river of modern science.14 Instead of a radical civilizational divide between the West and China, Needham emphasized that there had been a radical temporal break between 'primitive science' (originating both in ancient China and ancient Greece) and 'modern science', which he claimed culturally universal but uniquely Western in origin. Over time, his study of this divide became known as the 'Needham problem': why did modern science, the mathematization of hypotheses about Nature, with all its implications for advanced technology, take its meteoric rise only in the West at the time of Galileo?15 While Needham will always be credited for his most important breakthrough, namely to put European inventiveness in a wider perspective, he also attracted critics and even during his lifetime. Aside from those historians of science, such as the late A. C. Crombie or Derek de Solla Price, who became even more convinced of science as a uniquely Western accomplishment after familiarizing themselves with Needham's work,16 the most important challenge has been the critique by the China scholar, Nathan Sivin. On the one hand, Sivin censured 'the excesses' of Needham's rehabilitation of Chinese science and, on the other hand, he doubted the usefulness of attempts to compare the science and technology of civilizations in their entirety. 17 In Sivin's perception, there were many diverse traditions - 'from techniques, to institutional settings, to views of nature and man's relation to it' - originating in various locations, which 'interacted . . . continuously until they were replaced by local versions of the modern science that they all helped to form'. 18 Moreover, in contrast to Needham, who dismissed the contribution of Confucian scholars to science, Sivin has demonstrated the specific achievements of a number of literati (e.g. Wang Xishan (1628-82)) in mathematics and astronomy, and directed attention to the importance of careful analysis of their written works. He views the primary preoccupation of this tiny, educated elite to be the preservation and revivification of its own culture and, in that way,
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their interest in science and, in particular, mathematics as integral to the history of Chinese intellectual development. Sivin's own path-breaking work, which still goes on, has also been enriched by the important publications of Benjamin Elman.19 Elman has demonstrated the centrality of the concepts of appropriation, translation and innovation to the history of science in China, and that the establishment of Western science in China was a complex narrative, rather than a singular historical teleology of European triumph over Eastern diffidence. Sivin's reproach of Needham has also extended to the matter of his synthesis of science and technology. The second part of the 'Needham problem' asks why, between the first century BCE and the fifteenth century CE, Chinese civilization was much more efficient than occidental in applying human natural knowledge to practical human needs. But Sivin discounts the role of science in technology and argues that during these 1600 years or so, science and technology were separate entities (technology not being 'applied science') and that Chinese superiority in technology was not indicative of more advanced science. He believes technology and manufacturing techniques were matters of craft traditions inherited from one generation to the next without written instruction, while science was carried out on the whole by members of the minority of educated people in China, and transmitted in books.20 Thus, the written history of China's agricultural practices and industrial arts, such as that illustrated in the Tiangong kaiwu (The Exploitation of the Works of Nature] 1637), originated not with those people who fired porcelain or spun cotton and weaved cloth, but from literati observers eager to communicate the achievements of the lower orders. In that regard, it is interesting to point out the differences between how Qing China and Tokugawa Japan diffused agricultural knowledge.21 While both regimes printed agricultural handbooks (nongshu (Chinese)/ nosho (Japanese)), the Japanese aimed these manuals at the educated peasant who would have found the level of technical information comprehensible. In the case of China, where official government policy was indeed to encourage agriculture (quannong], these books were written by bureaucrats for bureaucrats, and the dissemination of improved agricultural knowledge probably followed the age-old process of person-toperson, word-of-mouth that paralleled the bureaucrats' communication. Recent revisionist modern scholarship has also raised the significance of the role of magic to the development of Chinese science. Despite the Confucian self-image of a secular and pragmatic society, most of China's most well known inventions, ironically, originated in the mantic arts.22 Writing probably grew from the requirements of divination; printing from the desire to gain merit by multiplying prayers and chants; magnetism, geology and the navigator's compass from the geomancer's arts; gunpowder from the use of fireworks to scare off evil spirits; astronomy from astrology; and, not least, chemistry from alchemy.23 And, as for the latter, it is noteworthy that the world's richest depository of knowledge about chemical reactions and their products up to around the year 1200 may be found in Chinese alchemy texts.24
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Finally, we should regard another facet of this revisionist scholarship of the last decades, namely the focus on China's 'fertile relations' with other cultures in a global concourse. China could boast about long-term experience with the world-wide flow of useful and reliable knowledge that sometimes came 'bundled' with foreign religion.25 Buddhism originating in India was the most important stimulus in China for printing. The reproduction of identical Buddha images led to the use of wooden blocks to publish Buddhist sutras, and eventually to the printing of the Confucian classics as well as vernacular literature, and the creation of the well known book industry that flourished from the eleventh century.26 And Islam, so closely connected to international trade, brought China in contact with astronomers, mathematicians and medical doctors of other civilizations. But, unlike these two religions, which acquired social and economic functions in China and thereby integrated into local life, Christianity was never institutionalized in such ways. New revisionist scholarship on the Jesuit mission in China has also cast a critical eye on the entire venture and, in particular, the so-called 'superior technical and scientific training' the Jesuits were supposed to have introduced to a small, educated elite.27 Liam Brockey's work, which finds the efforts of the China Jesuits a tribute to the genius of the Society's publicity enterprise, has raised a number of serious questions about this mission. And so, given how much attention Westerners have paid to the Jesuit project in China with regard to the transmission of European science, we should now probe more deeply into the circumstances of this contact and how revisionist scholarship has exposed the difficulties that ensued. In this paper, we will focus on three aspects of the encounter between the Jesuits and their Chinese interlocutors: how the Chinese authorities accommodated the Jesuit mission for their own purposes; how the Jesuits controlled what 'useful and reliable knowledge' they conveyed to Chinese scholars; and how Chinese intellectuals re-evaluated their own scientific legacies in relation to what the Jesuits communicated with them. In the process, we hope to dispel a number of myths and illusions about Chinese science and mathematics as well as to demonstrate the centrality of politics in late imperial China to the propagation and reproduction of knowledge. JESUIT SCIENTIFIC MISSION IN CHINA: FLATTERY AS STRATEGY
As is well known, the first Jesuit mission arrived in China in 1583 with the aim of converting the Chinese masses to Christianity. The Jesuits were among the best educated men in sixteenth-century Europe and, as contenders to the Reformation's humanist scholars, 'they made learning, both religious and secular, a major tool in the defence and propagation of Catholicism'.28 They established numerous schools and colleges in which they emphasized mathematical skills so as to prove that they stood at the frontiers of modern knowledge. The 236 Jesuit colleges scattered around various regions in Southern Europe and Germany as well as in the Spanish History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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and Portuguese colonies in Latin-America and Asia made this Order's educational programme truly a global enterprise. Although other Catholic orders - Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians and the secular French Society of Foreign Missions - also entered China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was the Society of Jesus that dominated, but with finite success. With a total of some 900 Jesuits working in China during this period, the Society could claim only limited numbers of converts probably no more than 200,000 in sum over the two centuries (out of a total population of some 300 million). And yet, this relative accomplishment was also the key to the Jesuits' long-term problems: as Brockey convincingly argues, with ever more converts, but a dwindling number of new priest recruits, there was not enough trained manpower and the entire operation became 'a massive house of cards'.29 At the start of the mission, however, there was promise of success. It was Ricci who, after having become fluent in written classical Chinese and spoken Mandarin, first set the parameters by which the Jesuits established their undertaking. His strategy consisted of three main principles: propagation from the top down, namely focusing on the Chinese literati elite; secondly, maximal 'accommodation' to the lifestyle of that elite which included a certain tolerant attitude towards the Chinese ritual tradition; and, thirdly, 'indirect propagation', namely combining the religious message with elements of Western science and technology that should serve to impress educated Chinese with the superiority of Western culture. Interestingly, because the first decades of the Jesuit mission in China coincided with a major Buddhist revival that attracted literati sympathy but official condemnation, the Ming authorities did not halt the Jesuit efforts in their religious propagation to negate Buddhism and, to a lesser degree, Daoism. But Ricci himself had difficulty with these circumstances. According to the modern scholar, Jacques Gernet, Ricci did not understand the stakes involved in the anti-Buddhist reaction of the period, which he used to form alliances with educated Chinese. Nor did he comprehend the cosmic mysticism of neo-Confucianism or the philosophical aspects of Buddhism.30 The very first Chinese scholars whom Ricci entertained believed him to be an alchemy wizard who could extract silver from quicksilver mercury.31 But he did not turn these potential converts away, and amused them by demonstrating his prowess in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, cartography and mechanics. For example, in 1584, he arranged to have a mappa mundi (based on Mercator's 1569 and Ortelius's 1570 maps) issued, which showed China at the centre of the world and with all the place names transcribed in Chinese.32 This mappa mundi also attracted imperial attention: the Ming Wanli Emperor (r. 1573-1620) ordered a gigantic version composed of six panels, each over 6 feet wide, for display in the inner chambers of his Beijing palace.33 Ricci's map went through seven more editions before 1609. Through extensive discussions with these Chinese literati, Ricci began to perceive their knowledge of astronomy and concluded, as he wrote to his
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Jesuit superiors, the 'absurdities' (le cose absurde) of their conceptions. By the time he died in 1610, he had developed a well versed programme for flattering the tastes of the Chinese scholar elite for the science, technology and arts of Europe while he communicated with his Jesuit brothers 'his opinion ... that the Chinese possess the ingenuous trait of preferring that which comes from without to that which they possess themselves, once they realize the superior quality of the foreign product. Their pride, it would seem, arises from an ignorance of the existence of higher things and from the fact that they find themselves far superior to the barbarous nations by which they are surrounded'.34 And so Ricci laid one of the first stones in the vast edifice of European belief that the Chinese were rich, arrogant and incompetent.35 One of the goals that Ricci had achieved for himself before his death was to gain the right to residence in the capital. There, he had further opportunity to convert several high-ranking officials and, not least, to secure permission to bring more Jesuits to Beijing. This second cohort of missionaries also stationed themselves in some of China's leading intellectual centres in the Lower Yangzi region (Nanjing, Hangzhou, Shanghai) and in Fujian and Shaanxi provinces, where literati were known to congregate for scholarly exchange and intellectual pleasure. A number of Ricci's successors were expressly recruited by Nicolas Trigualt (1577-1628) for their accomplishments in the calendrical arts. Catholic Europe's own major 1582 calendrical reform, which had institutionalized the intercalculating leap year, had prepared these missionaries for their work in China, and gave them impetus to gain further acceptance in imperial circles and thereby the power and opportunity to acquire the faithful - a process that Jonathan Spence has described as 'to God through the Stars'.36 The second cohort, who entered China in the early seventeenth century (including Adam Schall von Bell (1592-1666); Johann Terrenz (d. 1630) and Giacomo Rho (1590?-!638)), got their breakthrough in 1629, when Xu Guangqi, by then holding the influential office of vice-president of the Board of Ceremonies, arranged a comparison of solar eclipse predictions by the conventional Chinese, Muslim and newly introduced European methods. Although the matter of Ming dynasty calendar reform had an extensive history long before Ricci's arrival, these previous efforts to eradicate errors had all ended in failure.37 Because the European method proved to be the only accurate one, imperial approval was granted for reform of the Chinese calendar according to the Westerners' calculating procedures. From then onwards, a team of Jesuits and Chinese scholars under Xu's direction began an extensive programme of the manufacture of instruments and translation of scientific books at court. In a certain sense, imperial patronage of the Jesuits in this way followed a long-standing convention of appointing foreign 'technicians' for calendrical work. Like the Indian astronomers of the Tang dynasty (618-906), or the Persians and Central Asians recruited by the Mongols during the Yuan dynasty, the Jesuits were utilized by the Chinese because they were outsiders. Since
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astronomy and calendrical science had great politico-religious importance in China - with the Emperor regarded as the mediator between Heaven and Earth, and the calendar issued in his name - it was more prudent to designate foreigners to oversee time-keeping and other calendrical matters than local experts, who might use the opportunity to usurp the throne. For their part, namely lending their scientific expertise, the Jesuits also expected returns from their Chinese hosts, but such a presumption was not outrageous, given the mores of the times. The practice of giving 'scientific marvels' to gain social status and patronage or to acquire access to a network of communication was common among the learned in the Renaissance courts. 38 In that way, the Jesuits were not initiating something new with their behaviour in China. Although the Ming authorities allowed the Jesuits to help to prepare the calendar, the Europeans remained under the authority of the Muslimled Directorate of Astronomy. It was only with the collapse of the Ming dynasty that the Jesuits could overcome their subordinate status; in their haste to assume power, the Manchus called upon their expertise in mathematics and astronomy to consolidate their claims to the Mandate of Heaven with an accurate calendar. The new Qing dynasty (1644—1911) accepted the evidence of Adam Schall's superior skills at predicting solar and lunar eclipses, and therefore made him director of the Bureau of Astronomy.39 But, before Schall ascended to this new position, he had shared with Ming officials another of his talents: his ability to cast cannon. During the last months of the dynasty, in the hope to defend the capital against attack, Ming officials asked the Jesuit to improve the indigenous cannon, which were too heavy to wield in rapid deployment. Schall produced more than 500 'forty-pounders' and, with a Chinese colleague, wrote a work on gunnery, the Huagong jieyao (Essentials of Gunnery}*® This would not be the first occurrence a European was requested to share 'useful and reliable knowledge' about weaponry, and it would seem that both the Ming and Qing authorities, no matter what they thought about Western science and technology or the general ineffectiveness of firearms in warfare on the steppe, did perceive the advantages of European fire power when the occasion arose.41 By yielding to this 'call to arms', the Jesuits were once again forced to accommodate their hosts. In his new position in the Qing government, Schall took advantage by demanding that all those working under him in the Bureau would have to convert to Christianity. But it was only a matter of time (actually, some 20 years) before his enemies, led by a nativist literatus, Yang Guangxian (1557-1669), would have him vilified and threatened with death for spying, intrigue and, not least, scientific incompetence in 1664.42 Even after he was proved innocent of the latter accusation, thanks to the help of another Jesuit, the newly arrived Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-88), the other charges were never dropped; Schall died a broken, shattered man, Catholicism became proscribed and all the missionaries banned to Macao. Schall's Christian foes, who also were exiled, circulated the joke 'One
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Adam having driven us out of Paradise, another has driven us out of China'.43 Verbiest spent his early years in China under house arrest but obtained the chance to change his status when the accuracy of the calendar, now under the charge of Schall's successor, Yang Guangxian, and the Moslem official, Wu Mingxuan, became doubtful. In the same way that Schall had proved his astronomical skills in 1644, Verbiest dared to demonstrate to the Manchu authorities the errors of Yang and Wu. The young Kangxi Emperor (r. 1662-1722) ordered the accuracy of Verbiest's calculations confirmed and, on that basis, assigned him in 1664 to the directorship of the Astronomy Bureau. He gained further favour with the throne when he helped cast cannon (like Schall had done in 1644) that helped support the Manchu arsenal. Verbiest also carried on the Jesuit tradition of cartography and produced another world map; it synthesized new knowledge and updated the geographical treatise that another Jesuit missionary, Guilio Aleni, had produced in 1623.44 Verbiest and the Emperor enjoyed a good relationship that culminated in his appointment as personal tutor to the monarch; in that capacity, the Jesuit taught him Euclidean geometry and, later, spherical trigonometry, and supervised for him practical experiments in astronomical observation and terrestrial measurement. Nevertheless, the Qing ruler continued to restrict the religious activities of the mission, overcoming any papal attempts to subjugate the missionaries or their converts during the Rites Controversy (1705—07); this Emperor even claimed personal control over the calendar. Spence sums up Verbiest's years of imperial service as dominated by trivia: At the Emperor's request he spent weeks on end perfecting a system of pulleys to lever giant stones over a rickety bridge, making gay sundials and a water clock, building pumps to raise the water in the royal pleasure gardens, and painting tiny trompe d'oeil figures to be viewed through a prismatic tube.45
Nevertheless, to his dying day, Verbiest remained convinced that the monarch, in the face of such delights, as well as the insights of Western astronomy, would swing to the faith behind the science. Neither the Kangxi Emperor's son, the Yongzheng Emperor (r. 172336), nor his grandson, the Qianlong Emperor (r. 1736-95), flaunted much interest in science or mathematics and both descendants had little patience with the proselytizing activities of the Europeans. The Yongzheng Emperor expelled all foreign missionaries to Macao except those who rendered technical services to the court; and the Qianlong Emperor continued to issue edicts banning Christians in the provinces. It was during the reign of Qianlong that the extent to which the Jesuits had misled Ming and Qing authorities about the true nature of the universe was first revealed. In 1760, the Jesuit Michel Benoist (1715-74) informed the Emperor on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday of the heliostatic world model. Sivin reports the Emperor's reaction as simple and dismissive: Tn Europe you have your way of explaining the celestial phenomena. As for
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us, we have ours too, without making the earth rotate.'46 As missionary influence in China steadily declined, the Society of Jesus also lost support in Europe. In 1773, the Pope suppressed the organization around the world. Thus, by the time the famous Macartney mission from Britain arrived in China in 1793,47 the Qing court had long ceased any specific fascination for European products.48 Although the purpose of this particular embassy was quite different from that of the Jesuit mission, namely to establish free trade relations and a permanent embassy in Beijing, the British strategy here was not all that different from the missionaries'. Like the Jesuits, Macartney and his government believed a demonstration of the superiority of the European sciences would access them favour and eventually power in China. HELPING TO MAKE THE EARTH STAND STILL: THE JESUIT AGENDA AND CHINESE PRIORITIES
Modern scholars who have examined closely the extensive (and, not least, diflicult-to-read) Chinese documentation on the Jesuit scientific enterprise in China have disagreed on how to interpret Chinese efforts to master, in their own terms, what they called Western learning (Xixue] in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. From a broad perspective, the debate falls into two camps. On the one hand, Nathan Sivin has argued that the Jesuits, by withholding the knowledge of the Copernican system, did not introduce modern science to China. The Church's injunction of 1616 against the teaching of heliocentrism led the Jesuits to present the Tychonic system as the most modern but which, in its essentials, had not gone beyond the bounds (set) by Ptolemy.49 According to Sivin, not only did the Jesuits not translate any work by Copernicus or Galileo, Kepler or Newton, Descartes or Huygens, but they also 'strategically' simplified and rewrote the texts of occidental astronomy to conform much more to their own priorities. 'To the very end of their presence in China, the Jesuits presented the rivalries of cosmologies as that between one astronomical innovator and another, for the most convenient and accurate methods of calculation.'50 Thus, by the eighteenth century, when Newton's great Principia Mathematica was being popularized throughout Europe, and Newtonian mechanics and continental calculus were common foci of scientific study in Europe, the Chinese remained convinced of a pre-Copernican universe. Sivin has also argued that the Jesuit presentation of Western astronomy made it incomprehensible. Chinese mathematics and astronomers who pursued cosmological study found inconsistencies and contradictions.51 In sum, China's first encounter with modern science from the West was incomplete because of Jesuit distortions. The other camp of modern experts who, too, have researched the extensive contemporary record in Chinese (born out of Jesuit-transmitted knowledge) has laid emphasis on the common and shared concerns of the missionaries and their Chinese interlocutors but also the ultimate
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incompatibility of their world views, which inhibited further scientific development in China. The French scholar Jean-Claude Martzloff regards the Jesuits as responsible for stimulating Chinese interest in, and use of, European-imported reckoning techniques, including calculating instruments, plane and spherical trigonometry and, to a certain level, infinite series.52 In his view, the Europeans and Chinese shared the ideals of a common conception of time and space as measurable and quantifiable elements, and of the validity of astronomical prediction based on the correspondence between calculation and observation. But this does not mean, as Martzloff makes clear, that the Chinese mathematicians and astronomers appreciated the value of reasoning by discourse in mathematical theorizing. For example, the popular Chinese version of Euclid's Elements was expurgated of nearly all the demonstrative discourses. In the eyes of the shixue proponents of Euclidean geometry, such discourses were 'reminiscent of religious quibbling, whether Christian or Buddhist ... and the root of all evil in view of its uselessness and indulgence'.53 Martzloff adds that discursive logic did not form a part of the astronomer Wang Xishan's treatises. In conclusion, Martzloff believes that the Chinese authors of mathematical and astronomical studies acknowledged the utility of European predictive systems but refused, at the same time, to endorse the conceptual structure on which they were built. MartzlofFs analysis complements Jacques Gernet's well known argument that late-Ming/early-Qing China lacked the motives and the peculiar intellectual framework that led to the development of classical science in Europe.54 His focus on the linguistic barriers between the Europeans and Chinese has a philosophical basis: '... in Chinese, it is so difficult to express how the abstract and the general differ fundamentally, and not just occasionally, from the concrete and the particular.'55 This means, in Gernet's view, that the Jesuits could not be expected to penetrate the Chinese (Confucian) unitary vision of man, ethics, politics and the universe. Gernet sums up this divergence with the observation: Chinese thought at that time [i.e. seventeenth century] knew only of one sort of time, which was evolutionary, of one physics, heavenly as well as terrestrial (that of the combinations ofjym andyang), of very long durations in astronomy [and] in [the history of] the earth and of man. It appears modern to us in its independence from any dogma and in the importance it attached to change, but at the same time, devoid of the motifs and of the very peculiar intellectual framework that in Europe allowed for the development of experimental science.56
These contrasting points of view between Sivin and Martzloff/Gernet are not necessarily exclusive, and other modern contributors have pursued the course of other forms of Jesuit-generated knowledge in China. Richard Smith, in his penetrating and provocative studies of Chinese cartography, has concluded that 'despite a long tradition of sophisticated geographical cartographic scholarship, an equally long history of foreign exploration (and conquest), . . . the "outer" world remained relatively unimportant to History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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the vast majority of Chinese - elites and commoners alike'.57 He argues that unlike the West, where the great voyages of discovery ignited flames of interest, Zheng He's dramatic naval expeditions from 1405 to 1431, which sailed through the seas of Southeast Asia to India, to Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, and as far as Malindi on the east coast of Africa, met no such reaction. Smith also refers to the surveying techniques first conveyed by Verbiest that enabled the Qing dynasty in the early eighteenth century to create a far more mathematically 'accurate' map of the empire than had ever been produced: the Huangyu quanlan tu (Map of a Comprehensive View of Imperial Territory; 1718) remained the most authoritative atlas of the realm for nearly two centuries. He argues that such cartography was appreciated for its military and strategic value, but had little effect on Chinese mapmaking in the long term. He claims that Chinese mapmakers borrowed little of cartographic substance from the Jesuits, and preferred to arrange foreign locations topologically rather than topographically. Moreover, Chinese scholars saw the various mappa mundi as evidence of the Jesuits' recognition of the centrality of Chinese culture in a universe in which everyone paid tribute to the Emperor. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FIRST ENCOUNTER: INTELLECTUAL DEAD END?
Modern scholars have also observed that one of the effects of China's first encounter with European scientific knowledge was the genesis of a nativist movement to retrieve the ancient Chinese mathematical and astronomical traditions, and to help revive them.58 Benjamin Elman argues that Xu Guangqi inspired a later generation of Ming thinkers associated with the Fushe (Return (to Antiquity) Society] to reject Confucian philosophical speculation, and to reaffirm the original Confucian texts and doctrines. Such intellectual 'purification' in the spirit of'concrete studies', he claims, became the basis for the kao^heng (evidential research) movement of the eighteenth century, which stressed exacting research, rigorous analysis and the collection of evidence drawn from ancient artefacts and historical documents and texts. According to Elman: . . . abstract ideas and a priori rational argumentation gave way as the primary objects of discussion among literati scholars to concrete facts, verifiable institutions and historical events. This research program placed proof and verification at the centre of the organization and analysis of the classical tradition.59 Henderson has suggested that for seventeenth and eighteenth-century Chinese literati, the more accurate astronomy brought by the Jesuits along with geometry became a model for the classical scholarship of phonology, philology and textual criticism. With these disciplines, scholars now had a way of gauging the degree or quality of their intellectual and moral enlightenment. 60 The question arises as to what extent Chinese intellectuals re-evaluated their own scientific legacies in relation to what the Jesuits conveyed to
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them. As we have indicated earlier, mathematics and calendar reform were important concerns among Ming literati before the arrival of the Europeans and, thus, the Jesuits did not 'rescue' Chinese science from decline. Elman's study of the Chinese examination system asserts that during the Ming dynasty, candidates were expected to demonstrate many of the technicalities of the calendar, astronomy and music. Questions on methods to measure time, to predict eclipses or to evaluate mathematical harmonics were common on Ming-era examinations.61 Moreover, as Elvin has shown, in his study of the Wu za zu (Fivefold Miscellany] 1605) by Xie Zhaozhe (1567-1629), there was evidence already then of a kind of experimental-style thinking and 'hints of hypothetical modelling, and a certain insight into the problem of taxonomies'.62 Such revisionist scholarship has helped us to reconsider how much 'science' was available in Ming China. While the first Qing rulers banned any focus in the civil exams on astronomical portents and the calendar, probably because they pertained to Qing dynasty legitimacy, they did not dismiss the value of scientific study. The Kangxi Emperor institutionalized mathematical calculation and calendrical studies by creating a special academy in which he could converse informally with scholars versed in mathematics and science. In the Studio for the Cultivation of Youth (Mengyangzhai), first established in 1712-13 on the model of the Parisian Academy of Sciences, he invited Qing literati and Manchu bannermen only (and, thus, not Jesuits, to ensure undue foreign influence) to explore Chinese mathematics and sciences, with the goal to promote native talent. In this regard, he also initiated a project to update Ming compendia on mathematics inspired by the Jesuits, and another to issue new compilations that introduced European algebra and logarithms to the base 10, again in the spirit that local scholars could improve their knowledge of both Western and Chinese calculating techniques.63 In a certain sense, it was the Kangxi Emperor who 'domesticated' Western learning. He appealed to scholars like Mei Wending (1633-1721), a leading mathematical astronomer who already in 1680 had written a treatise ^hongxi suanxuetong (The Synthesis of Chinese and Western Mathematics], to find the correspondences between the orthodox Confucianism (daoxue) of the Song dynasty and Jesuit astronomy. In effect, what the Emperor did here was to propagate the idea that Western science had Chinese origins (Xixue ^hongyuan) - a concept that generally became accepted among eighteenth-century scholars. Here, again, there was a clear political purpose: by endorsing Western science in this way, the Manchu monarch attempted to convince Han Chinese that he was not advocating something 'foreign', but rather restoring the most authentic Chinese traditions. He was asking them to consider how the ancients' lack of trigonometry was remediable; he stimulated the literati to reconstruct a new line of transmission from ancient China to contemporary Jesuit astronomy.64 Such authorization helped 'civilize' the Jesuit importation of science and mathematics into native status and, with the incorporation of a number of
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Jesuits into China's first formal collection of 280 life histories (including 37 Europeans) of those well versed in mathematics and astronomy, the Chouren zhuan (Biographies of Mathematicians and Astronomers', 1796-99) by Ruan Yuan (1764-1849), the assimilation of Western science into the Chinese record took on its final formal encapsulation.65 Such official endorsement of native science also allowed Chinese scholars to question openly the scientific value of what knowledge the Jesuits had conveyed. For example, Xu Guangqi's preface to a study on practical arithmetic translated by Ricci, which claimed the superiority of the Western mathematics over earlier Chinese works, was removed and the volume itself, Tongwen suanzhi (Translations of Guidelines for Practical Arithmetic, 1611?), was no longer printed in the eighteenth century. It was Mei Wending who set the tone of the Xixue ^hongyuan movement with complaints about the internal contradictions of European astronomy, many of which later Chinese scholars were to demonstrate emanated from the Jesuits' failure to teach heliocentrism.66 Mei's work was 'followed-up' by Jiang Yong (1681-1762), an intellectual well versed in the complexities of practical astronomy, who expressed the demerits of Chinese methods of calculation and the merits of Western computing techniques while he disdained the conceptions upon which they were built. 67 It was for the men of the following generation, those of Ruan Yuan's time, that the contradictions between the exacting measurements of Western mathematics and astronomy and Chinese cosmology became central in kaozheng discourse. With Ruan, Qian Daxin (1728-1804) helped to complete the incorporation of the technical aspects of Western astronomy and mathematics into the Confucian tradition. Qian proclaimed the legitimacy of Western mathematical methodology for the reconstruction of antiquity, revising ancient writings and broadening the literati tradition, thus reversing centuries of Confucian scholars' focus on moral and philosophical problems. In that way, Qian and his colleagues discouraged any potential to view 'science' as an independent field of inquiry. 68 Unlike seventeenth-century English practitioners of mathematics, who dedicated their writings especially to artisans, seamen and craftsmen, Qian and company aimed to elevate and to situate the study of measurement with classical learning. This meant that by the mideighteenth century, knowledge of mathematics and related disciplines in China would continue to remain the exclusive preserve of a relatively tiny, literate elite.69 Finally, a few words should be said about the particular environment in which Chinese intellectuals communicated with each other and the implications thereof. As mentioned above, the Kangxi Emperor favoured academies as a vehicle for intellectual communication and, consequently, he encouraged provincial officials to establish local institutions in which literati could exchange information and participate in the massive literary projects he initiated, and which his grandson, the Qianlong Emperor, would continue. Both the gigantic officially sponsored compilations Qinding Gujin tushu jicheng (Imperially Approved Synthesis of Books and Illustrations Past
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and Present; 1726-28, consisting of 852,408 pages divided into 6,109 subsections) and the Siku Quanshu (The Complete Library of the Four Branches of Literature] 1783, incorporating 2.3 million (hand-written) pages) encouraged literati to commit to 'evidential research', and to do so in the flood of academies that emerged by the mid-eighteenth century. Academies became the framework in which textual scholarship was debated, deliberated and discussed.70 Although academies were located all over the empire, the regions of the Lower Yangzi and the southeast coast (Fujian and Guangdong provinces), where a flourishing commercialized economy sustained intellectual life, had the highest concentration of these institutions. 71 And, interestingly, the native place of many of the intellectual giants (including some of those named above) who attended these academies in the Lower Yangzi area was one particular region, namely Huizhou. Huizhou was a locale famous for its merchants and their far-reaching empire-wide trading and business activities. 72 The extended families of Huizhou literati, commonly organized in corporate lineages, were known to mobilize their economic and cultural resources to support academies, libraries, book production and special learning institutes, with the result that the major forms of knowledge production and reproduction in eighteenth-century China were in the hands of this relatively small group of people who were bounded together through marriage, patronage and friendship. It would not be until the mid-nineteenth century that the intellectual transformation of China's second encounter with 'useful and reliable knowledge' through Protestant missionaries would exceed the intellectual boundaries of textual scholarship and China's 'intellectual map [would be] redrawn'. 73 In the process, the narrow confines of the small Chinese intellectual elite would dismantle, but the institutional structure for the creation of modern science would still await the twentieth century and the 'third encounter' with Western science. Moreover, the transfer of Western technology did not fare much better in China during the first half of the nineteenth century. On the one hand, Europeans would still seek the technological secrets for silk production, textile weaving, porcelain-making and large-scale tea production from the Chinese.74 As late as 1849, another of Xu Guangqi's most important studies, his compendium on silk manufacture and the cultivation of the mulberry tree, was still being translated into French and English. And, on the other hand, Westerners tried without much success in the mid-nineteenth century to convince Chinese manufacturers of the advantages of machines.75 After 1861, when the British import-export firm of Jardine, Matheson and Co. established a steam-powered silk-reeling filature in Shanghai, Chinese entrepreneurs and silk guild leaders would shut the foreign plant down after a few years by making sure the foreigners had an inadequate supply of silk cocoons, and thereby protecting their own industry from encroachment. Similar Chinese organizational efforts curtailed foreign intrusion into the soybean packing industry in north China in the 1870s.
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SOME FURTHER OBSERVATIONS
In this paper, we have reviewed the conditions in which China first experienced 'useful and reliable knowledge' from the West. Although China had, for centuries, incorporated technological and scientific discoveries from other regions into its material and intellectual well-being, the Jesuit transmission of European science only really confirmed that there existed alien ways of thinking. A deliberately incomplete transmission of European astronomy, mathematics and other scientific information coupled with a foreign religion that lacked a certain appeal, and that ignited repulsion by the imperial authorities (despite their tolerance of the creed up to a point), formed the background to this encounter. The Ming and Qing governments treated the Jesuit missionaries like they did all foreign 'technicians', as minions to serve the court and to support the astronomical, military and geographical needs of the regime.76 And, in a political environment in which the manipulation of scholarship was the norm, it was only a question of time before native scholars would incorporate the Jesuit-conveyed 'useful and reliable knowledge' into the corpus of local learning, and thereby exclude the possibility of European science becoming freed from the entrenchment of Chinese metaphysics. Finally, we have tried to elucidate the limitations of the knowledge discourses that preoccupied Chinese intellectuals on the eve of the 'Great Divergence'. The question remains of how we can evaluate this encounter between Europe and China in the context of contemporary global and local developments. One answer to this question may be found in the observations of the modern scholar P. E. Will, who views China in the eighteenth century experiencing modernization 'but without science'. Will proposes that in the more dynamic regions of the empire, then, there were certain conditions that hinted of transformation, places where we have something not unlike what certain historians, dealing with early modern Western Europe, have termed 'Smithian growth' - a multifaceted process including market expansion, more complex and more efficient trade organizations, regional specialization of production and increased monetization of social relations, a process that does not necessarily entail any scientific breakthroughs, or even any significant increase in per-worker or per-acre activity. 77 Will also points to the efficacy of the eighteenthcentury Sino-Manchu state's fiscal and bureaucratic reforms to construct a better integrated, more efficient and more productive society. Moreover, this state did not discourage individual initiative, namely the efforts by ambitious peasants, landowners or merchants to promote crop specialization, expand handicraft production or generate new market organizations. Ironically, he suggests, it may have been the very success of this state flexibility and widespread integration that made a dismantling of traditional social and economic relations in the nineteenth century more problematic. Certainly, in the matter of China's absorbing the transfer of European technology up to the twentieth century, as mentioned above, the problem of 'success' seems paramount. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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In other words, Will's presentation leaves us with the thought that there is sufficient evidence to argue the framework of China's indigenous modernization before the nineteenth century, but without the abstract reasoning so often associated with the speculative sciences of the West.78 While the best Chinese minds did employ European mathematical science to revitalize their own traditions, they could not see its potential for other uses, except calendrical calculation. Notes and References 1. P. Engelfriet, Euclid in China: The Genesis of the First Translation of Euclid's 'Elements' in 1607 and Its Reception Up to 1723 (Leiden, 1998). 2. T. Brook, 'Xu Guangqi in his Context: The World of the Shanghai Gentry', in C. Jami, P. Engelfriet and G. Blue (eds), Statecraft and Intellectual Renewal in Late Ming China: The Cross-Cultural Synthesis of Xu Guangqi (1562-1633) (Leiden, 2001), 72-98, citation from p. 72. 3. Ibid., 97. 4. T. Brook, 'Japan in the Late Ming: The View from Shanghai', in J. A. Fogel (ed.), Sagacious Monks and Bloodthirsty Warriors: Chinese Views of Japan in the Ming-Qing Period (Norwalk, CT, 2003), 42-62. 5. B. Elman, 'Jesuit Scientia and Natural Studies in Late Imperial China, 1600-1800', Journal of Early Modem History, 2002, 6(3): 209-32, quotation from p. 209; cf. H. Zurndorfer, 'La Sinologie immobile: Note critique', Etudes chinoises, 1989, 8(2): 99-120. 6. D. Landes, The Wealth and Power of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor (London, 1998). 7. G. Basalla, 'The Spread of Western Science', Science, 1967, 156: 611-22; cf. Fan Fa-ti, 'Redrawing the Map: Science in Twentieth Century China', Isis, 2007, 98: 524-38. 8. K. Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton, 2000). 9. L. J. Gallagher, trans., China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matteo Ricci 15831610 (New York, 1953), 32. 10. M. Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, 1989). 11. B. Russell, The Problem of China (London, 1922). 12. Quoted in A. F. Wright, 'Review of Science and Civilisation in China vol. 2: History of Scientific Thought', American Historical Review, 1957, 62(4): 918-20, quotation from p. 918; cf. R. Hart, 'Beyond Science and Civilization: A Post-Needham Critique', East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, 1999, 16: 88-114. 13. H. T. Zurndorfer, 'Oecumenical or Parochial? Reflections on Recent Publications Concerning the History of Chinese Science', Etudes chinoises, 1992, 11(1): 141-56. In recent years, Needham's personality and oeuvre have come under scrutiny. See J. Goody, 'Science and Civilization in Renaissance Europe', in his book, The Theft of History (Cambridge, 2006), 125-53; and S. Winchester, Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China (London, 2008). 14. J. Needham, The Grand Titration: Science and Society in East and West (London, 1969). 15. The 'Needham problem' has been the topic of much scholarly discussion and debate. See G. Blue, 'Science(s), Civilization(s), Historie(s): A Continuing Dialogue with Joseph Needham', in S. Irfan Habib and D. Raina (eds), Situating the History of Science: Dialogues with Joseph Needham (New Delhi/Oxford, 1999), 29-72, esp. 47-51. 16. A. C. Crombie, Styles of Scientific Thinking in the European Tradition: The History of Argument and Explanation Especially in the Mathematical and Biomedical Sciences and Arts, three volumes (London, 1996); D. de Solla Price, Science since Babylon (New Haven, 1961); for a brilliant refutation to Crombie, see M. Elvin, 'Some Reflections on the Use of "Styles of Scientific Thinking" to Disaggregate and Sharpen Comparisons between China and Europe from Song to Mid-Qing Times (960-1850 CE)', History of Technology, 2004, 25: 53-103; and M. Elvin, 'Vale Atque Ave', in K. G. Robinson (ed.), Science and Civilisation in China, Part 2: 'General Conclusions and Reflections' (Cambridge, 2004), xxiv-xliii. 17. N. Sivin, 'Why the Scientific Revolution Did Not Take Place in China-Or Didn't
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It?', Chinese Science, 1982, 5: 45-66; N. Sivin, 'Max Weber, Joseph Needham, Benjamin Nelson: The Question of Chinese Science', in E. V. Walter (ed.), Civilizations East and West: A Memorial Volume for Benjamin Nelson (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1985), 37-49. 18. N. Sivin, 'Science and Medicine in Chinese History', in P. S. Ropp (ed.), Heritage of China: Contemporary Perspectives on Chinese Civilization (Berkeley, 1990), 164-96, quotation from p. 164. 19. In particular, B. Elman, On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550-1900 (Cambridge, MA, 2005) and B. Elman, A Cultural History of Modern Science in China (Cambridge, MA, 2006). 20. Sivin, op. at. (17) (1982). 21. P.-E. Will, 'Modernisation Less Science? Some Reflections on China and Japan before Westernisation', in K. Hashimoto, C. Jami and L. Skar (eds), East Asian Science: Tradition and Beyond (Osaka, 1995), 33-48. 22. R. J. Smith, For tune-Tellers and Philosophers: Divination in Traditional Chinese Society (Boulder, CO, 1991). 23. E. Wilkinson, Chinese History: A Manual (Cambridge, MA, 2000), 666. 24. Sivin, op. at. (18), 186. 25. J. Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History (New York, 1999), chap. 1. 26. T. Barrett, The Woman Who Discovered Printing (New Haven, 2008); L. Chia, Printing for Profit: The Commercial Publishers of Jianyang, Fujian (llth—17th Centuries) (Cambridge, MA, 2002). 27. L. Brockey, Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579-1724 (Cambridge, MA, 2007); and see Jonathan Spence's important discussion of Brockey's book in the The New York Review of Books, entitled 'The Dream of Catholic China', appearing in Vol. 54, No. 11 (June 28, 2007). Brockey's volume is a major critique of Jesuit missionaries in China. 28. Engelfriet, op. cit. (1), 11. Cf. J. Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (New York, 1984). 29. Spence, op. cit. (27), uses this expression to refer to the Jesuit enterprise. 30. J. Gernet, 'La societe chinoise a la fin des Ming', Recherches de science religieuse, 1984, 72: 27-36. 31. W. Peterson, 'Learning from Heaven: The Introduction of Christianity and Other Western Ideas into Late Ming China', in D. Twitchett and F. W. Mote (eds), The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 8, The Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644, Part 2 (Cambridge, 1998), 789-839, esp 797; see also Spence op. cit. (28), 185-6. 32. Elman, op. cit. (19) (2006), 127-30. 33. Spence, op. cit. (28), 96-7. 34. J. Spence, To Change China: Western Advisers in China, 1620-1960 (Boston, 1969), 6. 35. J. Spence, 'The Dialogue of Science', his, 1984, 75: 180-9. 36. Spence, op. cit. (34), 3-33. 37. W. Peterson, 'Calendar Reform Prior to the Arrival of Missionaries at the Ming Court', Ming Studies, 1986, 21: 45-61. 38. M. Biagioli, 'Galileo's System of Patronage', History of Science, 1990, 28: 1-62, esp. 22-5; P. Findlen, 'The Economy of Scientific Exchange in Early Italy', in B. T. Moran (ed.), Patronage and Institutions: Science, Technology, and Medicine at the European Court, 1500-1750 (New York, 1991), 5-24. 39. H. T. Zurndorfer, 'One Adam Having Driven Us Out of Paradise: Another Has Driven Us Out of China: Yang Kuang-hsien's Challenge of Adam Schall von Bell', in L. Blusse and H. T. Zurndorfer (eds), Conflict and Accommodation in Early Modern East Asia (Leiden, 1993), 141-68. 40. Waley-Cohen, op. cit. (25), 118. 41. Cf. H. T. Zurndorfer, 'Ming China, the Imjin Waeran, and the Dynamics of Peace and War in East Asia 1550-1600', Leidschrijft: Historisch Tijdschijft, 2004, 18(3): 17-31; and see also P. Lorge, The Asian Military Revolution: From Gunpowder to the Bomb (Cambridge, 2008), 6687. 42. Zurndorfer, op. at. (39). 43. Spence, op. at. (34), 22. 44. Elman, op. at. (19) (2006), 32. 45. Spence, op. cit. (34), 28.
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46. N. Sivin, 'Copernicus in China', Studio Copernicana (Warsaw), 1973, 6: 63-122, quotation from p. 98. 47. J. L. Cranmer-Byng and T. H. Levere, 'A Case Study in Cultural Collision: Scientific Apparatus in the Macartney Embassy to China, 1793', Annals of Science, 1981, 38: 503-25 claim that Macartney never presented to the imperial court the pulleys, air pump, chemical and electrical contrivances or even steam-engine models that his ship had on board. Instead, the apparati were returned to the British East India Company or to the ship's mechanic and mathematician James Dinwiddie (1746-1815), who gave demonstrations to Chinese merchants in Guangzhou. See also B. Elman, 'Who Is Responsible for the Limits of Jesuit Scientific and Technical Transmission from Europe to China in the Eighteenth Century', in C. Wing-chung Ho (ed.), Windows on the Chinese World: Reflections by Five Historians (Lanham, MD, 2009), 45-66, esp. 59-60. 48. H. T. Zurndorfer, 'Comment la science et la technologic se vendaient a la Chine au XVIIIe siecle: Essai d'analyse interne', Etudes chinoises, 1988, 7(2): 59-90; J. Waley-Cohen, 'China and Western Technology in the Late Eighteenth Century', American Historical Review, 1993, 98: 1525-44; M. Berg, 'Britain, Industry and Perceptions of China: Matthew Boulton, "Useful Knowledge and the Macartney Embassy to China 1792-94'", Journal of Global History, 2006, 1: 269-88. 49. Sivin, op. at. (46), 66-70. 50. Ibid., 63. 51. See Zurndorfer, op. cit. (48). 52. J.-C. Martzloff, 'Space and Time in Chinese Texts of Astronomy and of Mathematical Astronomy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries', Chinese Science, 1993-94, 11: 66-92. 53. Ibid., 71. 54. J. Gernet, La Chine et christianism: action et reaction (Paris, 1982); J. Gernet (J. Lloyd, trans.), China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures (Cambridge, 1985); cf. H. L. Goodman and A. Grafton, 'Ricci, the Chinese, and the Toolkits of Textualists', Asia Major (3rd series), 1990, 3(2): 95-148. 55. Gernet, ibid. (1985), 239. 56. J. Gernet, 'Introduction', in C. Jami and H. Delahaye (eds), L'Europe en Chine: interactions scientijiques, religieuses et culturelles aux XVHe et XVIIIe siecles (Paris, 1993), v—xiii, quotation from p. xii; cf. H. T. Zurndorfer, Review of C. Jami and H. Delahaye (eds), L} Europe en Chine: interactions scientifiques, relegieuses, et culturelles aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles in Etudes chinoises, 1995, 16(2): 262-5. 57. R. J. Smith, 'Mapping China's World: Cultural Cartography in Late Imperial Times', in Wen-hsin Yeh (ed.), Landscape, Culture, and Power in Chinese Society (Berkeley, 1998), 52-105, citation from p. 95; cf. R. J. Smith, Chinese Maps: Images of'All under Heaven' (Hong Kong and Oxford, 1996). 58. J. Henderson, 'The Assimilation of the Exact Sciences into the Ch'ing Confucian Tradition', Journal of Asian Affairs, 1980,5: 15-33; J. Henderson, The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology (New York, 1984); B. Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, MA, 1984); Elman, op. cit. (19) (2005); Elman, op. cit. (19) (2006). 59. B. Elman, A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China (Berkeley, 2000), xxvi. 60. Henderson, op. cit. (58) (1984). 61. Elman op. cit. (59) (2000), 477-81. 62. M. Elvin, 'The Man Who Saw Dragons: Science and Styles of Thinking in Xie Zhaozhe's "Fivefold Miscellany'", Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia, 1993-94, 25/26: 141, quotation from p. 39; cf. M. Elvin, 'Space and Time: Science and Religion in the Encounter between China and Europe', Chinese Science, 1993-94, 11: 93-102. 63. Elman, op. cit. (19) (2005), 180. 64. Hu Minghui, 'Provenance in Contest: Searching for the Origins of Jesuit Astronomy in Early Qing China, 1664-1705', The International History Review, 2002, 24(1): 1-25. 65. Bai Limin, 'Mathematical Study and Intellectual Transition in the Early and MidQing', Late Imperial China, 1995, 16(2): 23-61; J. Porter, 'The Scientific Community in Early Modern China', his, 1982, 73: 529-44; Wei P'ei-t'i (Betty), Ruan Yuan, 1764-1849: The Life
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and Work of a Major Scholar in Nineteenth Century China before the Opium War (Hong Kong, 2006). 66. Zurndorfer, op. at. (48) (1988), 80-3. 67. Ibid., 83-6. Cf. Chu Pingyi, 'Ch'eng-Chu Orthodoxy, Evidential Studies and Correlative Cosmology: Chiang Yung and Western Astronomy', Philosophy and the History of Science, 1995, 4(2): 71-108. 68. Elman, op. at. (58) (1984), 81-3. 69. Bai, op. cit. (65); Horng Wansheng, 'Chinese Mathematics at the Turn of the 19th Century: Jiao Xun, Wang Lai, and Li Rui', in Cheng-Hung Lin and Daiwie Fu (eds), Philosophy and Conceptual History of Science in Taiwan (Dordrecht, 1993), 167-208. 70. Elman, op. cit. (58) (1984), 121-9. 71. H. T. Zurndorfer, 'Lineages, Learning, and Locality in Late Imperial China: A Comparative Study of Education in Huichow (Anhwei) and Foochow (Fukien) 1600-1800', Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 1992, 35(2/3): 109-44, 209-38. 72. H. Zurndorfer, Change and Continuity in Chinese Local History: The Development of HuiChou Prefecture, 800-1800 (Leiden, 1989). 73. D. Reynolds, 'Redrawing China's Intellectual Map: Images of Science in Nineteenth Century China', Late Imperial China, 1991, 12(1): 27-61; D. Wright, Translating Science: The Transmission of Western Chemistry into Late Imperial China, 1840-1900 (Leiden, 2000). 74. Elman, op. cit. (5) (2002), 209. 75. H. T. Zurndorfer, 'The Transfer of Industrial Technology from the West to China 1780-1870: Some Theoretical and Practical Considerations', in Y. Keiji (ed.), The Transfer of Science and Technology between Europe and Asia, 1780-1870 (Kyoto, 1994), 79-94. 76. Elman, op. cit. (5) (2002), 229. 77. P.-E. Will, 'Development quantitatif et development qualitatif en Chine a la fin de 1'epoque imperiale', Annales: Histoire et Sciences sociales, 1994: 863-902; P.-E. Will, op. cit. (21); cf. H. Zurndorfer, 'Review of P. E. Will, "Development quantitatif et development qualitatif en Chine a la fin de 1'epoque imperiale'", Annales: Histoire et Sciences Sociales, 863-902, in Revue bibliographique de sinologie, 1996, 14: 110. 78. Cf. J. Mokyr , The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Society (Princeton, 2002).
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Special Issue: The Mindful Hand EDITED BY LISSA ROBERTS AND IAN INKSTER
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Introduction: Transcending Boundaries: Mindful Hands in the History of Technology LISSA ROBERTS
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY?
Time once was when the history of science was dominated by intellectual histories of theoretical formation and application. The history of technology was about engineers and inventors and the objects they built. In the past few decades, however, historians of technology have launched other visions of their field. Edward T. Layton, for example, is often cited for urging that technology be seen as 'science's mirror-image twin'. He and others have taken pains to argue against the image of technology as tinkering by portraying it as 'knowledge' and 'technologists' as knowledgemakers. This collection of essays, however, isn't concerned to set technology on a par with science, to raise its status by associating it with knowledge rather than 'mere' material production or, even, to demonstrate its power over science.1 Rather, it has a double agenda. First is to recover the practical entanglement of material production and knowledge production between the late Renaissance and early industrialization - an entanglement that belies the very supposition that science and technology are historically separable into spheres of reflective inquiry and material invention. Second is to trace the historical struggles during the same time period whereby the work of reason came to be seen as separate from and superior to know-how (henceforth identified pejoratively with manual labour) - a distinction put to work by elites as a way to organize and manage both material and knowledge production. This special issue is an outgrowth of a volume published in 2007 entitled The Mindful Hand: Inquiry and Invention from the Late Renaissance to Early Industrialization, which traces these twin processes in detail. Co-edited by Lissa Roberts, Simon Schaffer and Peter Dear, and featuring an epilogue by Ian Inkster, it charts the hybrid nature of material and knowledge production in Europe between the sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries. 2 Both involved a two-fold, intimate collaboration - between natural inquiry and invention and between mind and hand - that the book's essays discuss in terms of 'the mindful hand'. But the book simultaneously traces the asserted separation of knowledge production
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from material production, as well as the separation of contemplation from manual labour, revealing how elite claims to the ownership of reason and its dominion over physical work were used to buttress attempts to gain control over the processes of production. Hence, readers encounter artisans and skilled labourers whose work manifested the intimate interplay of mental and manual dexterity. These were individuals who regularly relied on mathematics, models and various other forms of abstraction and representation, picking them up as instruments in combination with the other tools of their trade. Readers are also re-introduced to more famous figures - natural philosophers such as Descartes, Galileo and Newton, whose deliberations not only brought them into contact with those usually identified as 'hand-workers'. Their active collaborations frequently transgressed the declared divisions between philosophy and craft, between reflection and physical labour. Descartes' oeuvre thus rested as much on his own hands-on experiences with grinding lenses, drawing and manipulating diagrams, performing anatomical examinations and other such activities, as it did on his advertised reliance on 'clear and distinct ideas'. But, at the very same time that natural inquiry and invention were interlocked endeavours, both engaging the hand and mind, socio-cultural dynamics fed the realization of separate, hierarchically arranged realms, often projected as the pristine world of polite, gentlemanly examination and the rough, dirty world of work. Already present in the practical collaborations that co-existed with the institutional divisions of early modern European society, this tension visibly heightened by the early nineteenth century as reason was increasingly wielded as a managerial weapon with which to discipline both nature and labour, the elements of which were so often characterized in mechanical terms.3 Chances are that readers of this journal are most familiar with the lastmentioned facet of this story - that is, with the disciplining of labour in contexts of increasing mechanization and standardization. Our challenge here is to point to ways in which that understanding can be profitably joined to the other facets of this project's historical outlook. But, especially because The Mindful Hand is already published, we would also like to use this special issue as an opportunity to take up some points that were either neglected or treated only implicitly in the book. The four essays in this issue are situated in a broad range of geographical locations, from Dutch gardens and French streams to Russian academies and Japanese markets. They likewise span from the early seventeenth century to the dawn of the nineteenth and introduce us to a wide range of actors, none of whom can be pigeon-holed as belonging strictly to the history of science or the history of technology as these disciplines are more narrowly construed. Rather, these essays examine episodes that transcend recognized boundaries and feature both actors and artefacts whose careers were shaped by the tensions described above. They are joined by an afterword that explores the implications of considering the patterns and processes of innovation - both past and future - in terms of 'mindful handedness'.
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STUDIES OF THE MINDFUL HAND
The first essay, by Alette Fleischer, anatomizes the resonant relations between the seemingly distinct realms of material and knowledge construction by examining the tripartite career of some seventeenthcentury crystals. Beginning with their extraction by mine workers from 'the bowels of the earth', she analyses how they were simultaneously implicated in the construction of a garden grotto on the estate of a Dutch nobleman and in the composition of Christiaan Huygens' Traite de la Lumiere, one of the most important texts in the history of optics. One might assume that mining crystals was strictly a technical matter. But Fleischer reveals how local miners and craftsmen combined hard-won knowledge with artful skill to extract and fashion crystals as objects that simultaneously embodied claims of nature's fertility (crystals were understood to 'grow' in their natural habitat), market value and the added value of symbolic worth. Once freed from their earthy womb, some of these crystals were transported to new and seemingly quite different homes - an artificial grotto in a nobleman's garden and the Parisian study of a natural philosopher. We normally think of a garden as the product of nature's transformation by a combination of artful design and varyingly skilled labour. But, if this already opens the door for recognizing the hybrid nature of art and skill, both of which engage the tools of contemplation and manual dexterity, Fleischer goes farther to show that the construction of a seventeenth-century garden harnessed the processes of material construction and knowledge production to enhance and deepen each other. For the guiding purpose of contemporary garden architecture was to artfully re-sculpt and augment the environment so as to reveal the beautiful, law-bound order with which God originally undergirded her creation. Once this marriage of natural inquiry and inventive work was in place, visitors could marvel at the beauty and wisdom displayed in a pleasurable setting. Likewise, Huygens and his network of collaborators did more than sit and ponder the natural knowledge embodied in the crystals he collected. An extended and difficult process of cutting, polishing, modelling and measuring, corresponding and contemplating, drawing diagrams and fabricating formulae went into the composition of Huygens' justly famous treatise on light. Ironically, to return to the key role of crystals in this story and the importance of their various settings, Huygens was ultimately unable to tame all his crystals to the point that the divine law governing their structure was revealed, leading him to suppress this topic from his final publication. It was their resplendent setting in a garden grotto that did most to illustrate the underlying regularity claimed to reside in nature's bounty. Even more ironically, perhaps, this seeming inversion of the revelatory powers of art and natural philosophy was countered by elite insistence that gentlemanly pursuits were separate from and superior to the work done by physically engaged labour and that knowledge production was best pursued in increasingly institutionalized locations. Natural History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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philosophy remained enshrined in elite institutions and leather-bound texts that outlived the transient character of garden structures, leaving us with the impression that, indeed, here lies the source of wisdom and truth. The second essay of this issue, by Chandra Mukerji, takes us back to a subject area that is no doubt more familiar to historians of technology, as it examines the construction of a portion of the Canal du Midi in the late seventeenth century. But Mukerji's story likewise holds a number of surprises whose mysterious presence can only be resolved by recourse to an in situ analysis of'mindful-handedness'. The focus of her essay centres on the building of an extremely complicated eight-lock staircase that was needed to convey water-borne traffic across a particularly hilly area in southwest France. As the story unfolds, readers are introduced to this phase of the larger canal project as simultaneously a technical and political challenge. Canal building was generally the site of much technological innovation during the seventeenth century, but much of this took place in the relatively flat lands of the Netherlands and Lombardy's plains. And, most staircase locks connected no more than two or three basins. This project, on the other hand, called for the construction of eight succeeding steps in highly inauspicious terrain. But not only were the engineering challenges enormous. The entire Canal du Midi project was an ongoing drama that pitted the aspirations and resources of its managing entrepreneur Pierre-Paul Riquet against those of Louis XIV (represented by his minister, Colbert) and various local governing interests. This particular phase in the project came at a point when resources, reputations and trust were already stretched to the limit. And yet, amazingly, this demanding engineering and construction task was placed in the hands of two apparently uneducated brothers and their crew of largely peasant women. Management of such a complex engineering undertaking called on hybrid skills that ranged from practical mathematics and hands-on engineering expertise to the ability to negotiate with and manage both employees and patrons. Because the written sources provide limited details of just what this entailed in the case of the brothers Medailhes, Mukerji makes recourse to evidence embodied in the project itself, situated as it was in a broader culture of Ancien Regime engineering practice. This is even more so for the recovery of details regarding work carried out by the project's predominantly female crew and, here, Mukerji acquits herself masterfully. We learn that women from the Pyrenees (whence these workers must have come) had a long tradition of expertise in hydraulics, with roots going back to Roman engineering, the traces of which could still be found under the centuries-old layers of adaptations engineered by local women. Combined with the equally local experience of their male coworkers, who brought their hard-won expertise in mining and forestry to bear on the task of domesticating the forbidding slopes through which the canal and its locks would have to pass, this workforce achieved just the engineering feat that Riquet needed to keep his project afloat. Of special interest here is that Mukerji chooses to equate these workers'
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'mindful-handedness' with the more common term 'tacit knowledge'. This is explicitly intended to open the door to discussions with sociologists of science and technology who recognize that skill embodies more than practical abilities garnered by rote. But tacit knowledge is generally taken to be local in nature and, as such, remains opposite to the kind of knowledge taken to be entailed in universal laws and standards. Does this threaten to return us to the very sort of divisions that our 'mindful hand' project is intended to overcome? As explained in the preface to our volume, the answer is a historically grounded no. For, between the local geographies of tacit knowledge and the universalizing urges of laws and standards lies the historical field of cunning intelligence, known already to the ancient Greeks as metis.4 Greek commentators argued that it was the very nature of things that granted cunning intelligence its power. Because the phenomena of nature and society were multiple and shifting, their mastery required multiply shifting skills. Standards for shipbuilding, for example, were well and good, but individual ships had to carry different loads and sail the constantly changing seas. While cunning methods continued to be denigrated by the Platonizing tradition of separating out and granting priority to reason over practice (a view still embodied in much current intellectual history), it remains the case that the historical engagement of metis with the recalcitrance of local circumstances and materials was coupled with its involvement with the very sorts of projects from which standardization sprouted and universal laws were induced. Mukerji's locally situated history of engineering practice and management can and should be seen as an episode of this larger history. The gist of our third essay, written by Simon Werrett, is somewhat different. By focusing on the multi-faceted biography of a single individual, Werrett is interested to demonstrate that the categories of 'mind' and 'hand' are, in fact, historically and geographically contingent - the unstable products of specifically located socio-cultural claims and negotiations. The complicated career trajectory of the eighteenth-century Russian instrument-maker and inventor, Ivan Petrovich Kulibin, shows him to have been a man on the move, frequently crossing apparent boundaries of practical, social and cultural engagement as he took on new positions and projects. Thus, he was, in turn, a provincial craftsman, an urban instrument-maker, the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences' foremost inventor and a semi-independent entrepreneur who managed the 'mechanical labour' of others. As Werrett explains, each of these positions practically demanded the collaborative engagement of mind and hand. And yet, they simultaneously situated Kulibin in successive local economies of both practical and socio-cultural negotiation in which 'philosophical contemplation' and 'mechanical work' were key labels for defining and evaluating the worth of one's activities. Within such a geography, success depended on fashioning convincingly awe-inspiring instruments and automata, on one hand, and an equally convincing persona on the other. Understanding the well timed and locally determined need to project one's identity as an exotic craftsman,
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pliant servant or philosophical inventor was crucial to advancing Kulibin's career. But the choice of identifying characteristics - especially one's asserted position on the continuum sliding from mental to manual engagement - could not be solely determined by the individual. The micro-cultures of court patronage, academy politics and market dynamics were replete with their own hierarchies and aspirants to status who assertively ascribed identities to others. Mind and hand, then, were not simply markers for the opposition between knowledge and skill or contemplation and material engagement. They were all too abbreviated stand-ins, whose analysis helps us recover a practical world in which one almost always acted in concert with the other, and a cultural geography in which identifying ascriptions located individuals and their activities on a managerial map of hierarchical value. Werrett mentions one identifying category in passing that might deserve further attention as we seek to come to terms with the history of minds and hands and mindful-handedness. What is the significance of ascribing the status of 'genius' to someone? In the case of Kulibin, this label created a space that individualized him and his work, setting them beyond the calculation of value that opposed mind and hand. Though seen by some as a materially engaged, untutored artisan, Kulibin's reputation as a genius could yet place him on a par with those contemplative souls who sullied their hands with nothing more than pen and ink. Isn't this the very same ruse used to glorify 'great' inventors such as James Watt and Thomas Edison, the same vehicle placed on the alter of nineteenth-century Romanticism as a way to free individuals from the claimed constraints of Enlightenment reason?5 Might a companion historical analysis of genius help us fill out our historical understanding of natural inquiry and invention as key elements in the interactively material and cultural developments that we usually speak of as the history of science and technology? The fourth and final essay, written by Lissa Roberts, opens with a criticism of The Mindful Hand for its predominantly Eurocentric focus. Noting that the history of natural inquiry and invention between the sixteenth and early nineteenth century cannot properly be seen as exclusively European, she cautions that this should not be read as a call for a comparative history that examines contemporary developments in other parts of the world. Rather, if the intimately related arenas of material and knowledge production engaged the hybrid exertions of mindful-handedness, so too did they depend on a global network of material and knowledge exchange through which European-based endeavours were inextricably linked to resources and activities in various parts of the world.6 The body of her essay, however, focuses on consumption rather than production and poses a set of questions that link Europe and the world in another way by asking what happened when material goods and embodied knowledge bearing the stamp of European provenance were exported and taken up by local goals and circumstances. What became of their identities and the identity of the European culture History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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they were often taken to represent? Did the historical tension between the mind and hand's practical collaboration and assertively official claims of their hierarchical separation give way to other visions as exploration and commerce spread Western captains, commodities and concepts around the world? The vehicle for this essay's analysis is the exclusive trade carried on between the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) and Japan during the second half of the long eighteenth century; between 1641 and 1853, the Netherlands was the only Western nation allowed to enter and trade with Japan. Along with resident Chinese traders, the VOC was the only conduit through which European texts and artefacts reached the Japanese. Of special interest is the fact that among the post popular European exports to Japan were optical and other scientific instruments, eye glasses, glassware, mirrors and books dealing with topics such as natural history, anatomy and artisanal techniques. As recorded by the work of contemporary Japanese artists and authors, this trade clearly left its mark in arenas ranging from urban markets and theatres to court discussions, popular literature and medical reform. But the central point of the essay is to show that the mark it left gained form, not through the influence of Western knowledge and know-how so much as through highly complex processes of local demand and appropriation. This sort of story used to be told (and too often still is) frequently in terms of science and technology 'transfer' and 'diffusion' - words that imply a level of passivity on the part of foreign 'consumers'. Such conceptions project producers as inhabiting active centres for the creation of ideas and goods, which move uni-directionally to peripheral areas where they are adopted and consumed (or not). Not surprisingly, such centreperiphery talk carries with it claims of (relative) advancement and superiority. As a model for inter-cultural relations, it suggests the need/ reality of peripheral emulation (or perverse rejection) of Western culture, science and technology - the measure of which is expressed in terms of 'progress'. But, if revamping the history of science and technology as a history often inhabited by 'mindful hands' helps to overcome the organizing claim of reason's practical dominance over manual skill, revising the related history of global exchange as one of local demand and appropriation can help to free us from simplistic narratives of the diffusion of 'Western' science and technology to other parts of the world. The 'mindful hand' approach eschews the kind of comparative history entailed in identifying (natural) knowledge production with 'science', which is simultaneously projected as 'Western' and universal. In his intriguing afterword, however, Ian Inkster argues that rather than closing off any possibility of global comparison, the 'mindful hand' actually offers a more fitting (because it is non-Eurocentric) frame for evaluating local differences in the patterns and processes of innovation around the world, both past and future. If productive material innovation is neither dependent on the application of previously produced 'scientific' knowledge nor the result of organizing the production of knowledge directly in
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'contexts of application', examining past performance and advising for future growth demand a different mode of investigation.7 If we identify material productivity with sites in which contemplation and manipulation are practically intertwined, might it be possible to evaluate local regimes of production and governance in terms of the extent to which unfettered and minimally hierarchical collaboration between the mind and hand is either stimulated or hindered? If so, the 'mindful hand' is promising on three important fronts. It holds the key to understanding the politics and practice of material and knowledge production in European history. It opens the door to developing a similar history on a global scale that is not based on Eurocentric categories. And, finally, it offers a new analytic framework for strategic foresight studies that seek to chart future challenges and productive possibilities. We look forward to the responses that our project elicits. Notes and References 1. E. T. Layton, 'Mirror-Image Twins: The Communities of Science and Technology in Nineteenth-Century America', Technology and Culture, 1971, 12: 562-80; E. T. Layton, 'Technology as Knowledge', Technology and Culture, 1974, 15: 31-41. The most recent variation on this theme is P. H. Smith, The Body of the Artisan (Chicago, 2003), in which she argues that what she calls 'artisanal epistemology' was actually a crucial resource for the Scientific Revolution. For an insightful critique of technology as knowledge, see M. Hard, 'Technology as Practice: Local and Global Closure Processes in Diesel-Engine Design', Social Studies of Science, 1994, 24: 549-85. 2. L. Roberts, S. Schaffer and P. Dear (eds), The Mindful Hand: Inquiry and Invention from the Late Renaissance to Early Industrialization (Amsterdam, 2007). The volume is available for free download at www.knaw.nl/cfdata/publicaties/detail.cfmPboeken ordernr = 20041102 . 3. Since the mechanization of labour was first celebrated by Andrew Ure and criticized by (among others) Karl Marx, much has been written on the demeaning mechanization of labour in conjunction with the growing dominion of standardizing reason. This topic is eloquently handled most recently in S. Schaffer, 'The "Charter'd Thames": Naval Architecture and Experimental Spaces in Georgian Britain', in Roberts et al., op. cit. (2), 279-305. 4. M. Detienne and J.-P. Vernant, Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society (London, 1978). 5. See, e.g. C. MacLeod, 'James Watt, Heroic Invention and the Idea of the Industrial Revolution', in M. Berg and K. Bruland (eds), Technological Revolutions in Europe: Historical Perspectives (Cheltenham, 1998), 96-115; C. Macleod, Heroes of Invention (Cambridge, 2007). 6. This perspective is persuasively argued for in K. Raj, Relocating Modern Science: Circulation and the Construction of Knowledge in South Asia and Europe, 1650-1900 (London, 2007) and forms the backbone of S. Schaffer, L. Roberts, J. Delbourgo and K. Raj, The Brokered World: Go-Betweens and Global Networks of Knowledge, 1770-1820 (Sagamore Beach, MA, 2009). 7. For the idea of producing knowledge in contexts of application, also known as 'mode two knowledge production', see M. Gibbons, C. Limoges, H. Nowotny, S. Schwartman, P. Scott and M. Trow, The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies (London, 1994) and H. Nowotny, P. Scott and M. Gibbons, Rethinking Science: Knowledge and the Public (London, 2001).
History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
Into the Light: Crystals and the Recreation of Nature in Seventeenth-Century Garden Caves and Cabinets ALETTE FLEISCHER*
INTRODUCTION
Mylord Bentings . . . delicate Gardens, Walks, Ponds, Motes, Grottoes, Fountaines and figures, Bridges and Gates and great Plenty of fruit and flowers very Curious and various; A place so neatly composed that here Art and Nature seem to go 'hand in hand'. 1 (Thomas Penson, 1690) There are many bodies, vegetable, mineral, and congealed salts, which are formed with fixed angles and regular forms. . . . All these things are worthy of being carefully investigated to ascertain how and by what artifice nature there operates.2 (Christiaan Huygens, 1690)
In the same year, the English gentleman Thomas Penson and the Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygens commented in their writings on the relation between art and nature. Penson admired the garden of Hans Willem Bentinck's estate, Zorgvliet (Flight from Care), near The Hague, for the way art ordered nature and the well designed composition of the different artificial and natural elements. Zorgvliet was a fine example of how the mundane act of gardening entailed combining aesthetics and engineering techniques to restore the ordered splendour of pre-lapsarian nature. Like other contemporary garden designers, Bentinck and his constructors sought to make manifest the dominion of nature's laws, which God had hidden from sinful humans. 3 A garden thus became a representation of or a clever allusion to divine design, where its layout manifested mathematical rules and its movements were mechanical. Imposed by garden constructors, art rendered nature more 'natural'. 4 Christiaan Huygens' remark records his enthralment with the beauty of nature's hidden order, which he found lodged in plants, minerals and salts. He declared artifice to be the designer of nature. In this case, art was not a human activity, but a grand design that sprang from God. Huygens sought to reveal nature's laws by using mathematical rules and the vision of a mechanically operating nature. While he experimented with natural
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elements and processes to expose these divinely imposed rules, Penson experienced the garden as a site where human art applied rules and augmented nature in order to recover the beauty and order of God's original design. Mr Bentinck, his garden constructors and Huygens manipulated and contemplated nature for reasons that were both enlightening and entertaining, in order to reveal or recreate nature's working. This essay focuses particularly on one specimen of nature to illustrate how both constructors and examiners of nature sought to compose a compelling expression of nature's orderliness: rock crystal. Unearthed as a by-product from a mine in Germany, rock crystal entered both Bentinck's garden and Huygens' cabinet. Various groups of collaborating actors simultaneously transformed rock crystal into an object of adornment and an object of revelation. The outcome in which this process played a part were Bentinck's Grotto of Ganymede and Huygens' Traite de la Lumiere. This essay discusses how different groups of people manually and mentally appreciated the embodied qualities of the crystal and for different reasons, in order to reveal what they took to be the crystal's 'true' nature. The crystal was an ingredient of the reconstruction of nature in a garden grotto, where its refractive nature formed part of a cunning spectacle with light. At virtually the same time, it led to the representation of nature in a natural philosophical treatise on light, where its refractive nature was explored to reveal the law that governed it. The rock crystal brought together a network of people from various backgrounds and with different skills and talents. There was the nobleman and diplomat Hans Willem Bentinck, the gentleman Gonstantijn Huygens, who was secretary to the Dutch Stadholder William of Orange, Constantijn's younger brother the mathematician Ghristiaan Huygens, the silk merchant Philips de Flines, Prince Johan Maurits of Nassau and various anonymous engineers, miners and garden constructors. The way this circle interacted and exchanged information, ideas and objects was essential to both material and knowledge production. Importantly, this entailed a history of collaboration rather than one of distinction in which theory held sway over manual labour and mindless tinkering. Although noblemen, mathematicians, merchants, miners and others mundanely interacted and collaborated, potent social and cultural conventions prevailed to distinguish groups from each other. The nobleman Christiaan Huygens, for example, donned the label 'geometre' to set himself, as a gentleman scholar, apart from those who practised mathematics in the field, such as engineers.5 Elites socially and culturally stood above manual work, keeping labourers at bay. But actual practice often revealed a different pattern of interaction. Huygens depended as much on his extended network of patrons, merchants, miners and family as on his connections with Newton and other geometers. Objects and ideas circulated within this network, whereby they were transformed into elements of natural inquiry and invention. One outcome of this transformation was a hugely important treatise on the nature of light; another was a much appreciated garden grotto. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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Historians of science such as Alan Shapiro have chosen to focus their work mainly on Huygens' relationship with other scholars while discussing the generation of his treatise on light and the 'internal' development of his optics. But, to do so leaves out the larger theatre of his collaborations and interactions.6 The history presented here is not one of the great heroscientists Descartes-Huygens-Newton or of the construction of a theory that informed the work and understanding of amateurs and artisans. Rather, it sets out to show that the construction of Traitede la Lumiere was a collaborative effort. Huygens' knowing and doing as well as those of the other members of this broad network together provided the formative components of this inventive treatise. This essay, thus, places Huygens' inquiry into light and refraction in a different light. It connects the construction of a grotto and a treatise, thereby stressing how examining and recreating nature were two sides of the same coin. Following the journey of rock crystal from the dark recesses of the earth into the limelight reveals how this circulation and interaction led to the construction of a garden grotto and a treatise on light. As it passed through the mindful hands and handy minds of constructors and examiners of nature, the crystal's path traced the contours of the ways in which members of this diverse network simultaneously adapted and displayed their apprehension of the orderly beauty and workings of nature. Creating a garden grotto involved the transformation and embellishment of natural elements into an artful nature. Garden owners and their gardeners restructured nature by contemplating and manipulating the rules of geometry, jointly engaging their hands and minds as they structured the landscape and populated it with plant beds, orangeries, statuary and fountains. In a garden grotto, more specifically, they manipulated and contemplated the movement of light in order to create optical trickery. Natural philosophers jointly engaged their hands and minds to investigate nature in their cabinets by examining specimens with instruments and working with pen on paper, in order to understand the rules that order nature's operations. Restructuring and investigating nature were mutually reinforcing ways of producing embodied natural knowledge, whether in the form of a garden grotto or a book. In order for nature to be transformed into an intriguing ornament or an object of inquiry, its elements and/or processes had to be removed from their natural surroundings. 7 In their original habitat, elements of nature remained invisible in a way; untouched by art or contemplation, nature hid its secrets from prying humans. Once removed and transported to a garden grotto or a study, humans could investigate, transform and exchange naturalia.8 Both sites can be considered as laboratories where invention teamed with natural inquiry in order to domesticate nature. In these laboratories, the reconstruction of nature, the recording of ideas and an exchange of information took place. The objects and elements themselves or the information about them found their way - permanently or temporarily - into other gardens, grottoes and workrooms, where they were further manipulated and contemplated.
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To map out the complex transformative journey of the crystal, this essay starts at the site from which the rock crystal was extracted: a mine in the county of Lingen (today's Germany). Then, we follow its trail to the Grotto of Ganymede in Bentinck's garden just outside The Hague, and further to the quarters of Christiaan Huygens in the Bibliotheque Royale in Paris. The concluding section links these last two locations, where mental and manual labour created objects of revelation in order to explain the workings of nature. THE BELLY OF THE EARTH
Passing through Lingen, on the way to Celle, I was shown large pieces that were half earth and half rock, upon which a number of points grow that resemble and have the same hexagonal shape as rock crystal. I take these points to be about a half inch [pouce] in diameter, but the Magistrate of Lingen told me that larger ones have been found, which could be cut into seals and other things. They are so little valued there that he told me that he had sent very large pieces from this mine to Mr. Benting, solely to decorate the fountains being built at Sorgvliet. (Constantijn Huygens to Christiaan, 3 October 16809)
In the autumn of 1680, Constantijn Huygens accompanied the Dutch Stadholder Prince William III, as secretary, on a political mission. One of the stopovers was the city of Lingen in the county of Lingen. This area was a protectorate of William III, who appointed his courtier and diplomat Hans Bentinck as sheriff of Lingen in 1675. Huygens witnessed that the magistrate of Lingen, Mr Tollius, had shipped a whole load of large pieces of crystal to Bentinck in The Hague as ornaments for his garden. The political connotation of this gift underlined the patronage of William III to the County of Lingen, since this industrious mining area was under his protection and managed by Tollius and Bentinck. Constantijn seemed surprised that the people of Lingen valued the crystals so little, that they would give them away as mere ornaments. He calculated that these hexagonally shaped rocks would certainly be valuable to his brother's inquiry into nature. The Lingen miners, so it appeared to Huygens, did not realize that this crystal contained knowledge of nature. Huygens, however, did not understand that for the mine workers, the crystals did signify something. For them, the gifting of rock crystal expressed a political message whereas bits of rock crystal, polished into little ornaments, bore a symbolic meaning. Seen from a commercial standpoint, it made sense to say that the locals considered the pieces with small crystal points of little value. They used only the bigger pieces of crystal to carve and polish marketable ornaments such as seals. The Lingen craftsman transformed elements of nature into art objects - a process that entailed a certain knowledge of nature. 10 Carved with images of saints, biblical figures or of miners' tools, these ornaments became precious talismans. 11 This gave an added and divine meaning to the crystals, which the Lingen miners understood as a way to protect them while doing their dangerous work.
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There were three mines in the county of Lingen: a limestone quarry close to the village of Rheine and, in nearby Ibbenburen, a stone quarry and a coalmine.12 The still active coalmine is known today as a site where the type of rock crystal described by Constantijn Huygens might be found. 13 The excavated rock crystal was a by-product from one of these mines. Constantijn told his brother, 4 years later, that the crystal 'grew in a grotto' deep in a mountain. 14 This 'grotto', tucked well into the earth, did not at all resemble Bentinck's idyllic and well designed garden grotto that would become the rock crystal's new environment. The dark quarry was an inhospitable, irregular and eerie place.15 It 'lacked symmetry and proportion', if we follow the view of Andre Felibien, who also described the Grotto of Thetis in Versailles.16 He regarded caves as the natural bowels of the earth, where the mysterious growth of rocks and plants occurred.17 In his description, he opposed natural caves with artificial garden grottoes. The latter exposed and resolved the mystery of a natural cave through their symmetry and proportion, order and variety.18 In mines, nature's dark secrets were only visible to the miners. With their tools and torches, they extracted the crystals from the earth, thus making the first step in the crystal's transformation from an undisclosed 'invisible' part of the earth's interior to an object of contemplation and manipulation. Working in a hostile environment, the mine workers relied on their accumulated knowledge of the earth's textures, to find their precious ores and minerals, while keeping an eye out for their own safety. This involved close teamwork and a sharing of skills and knowledge, a combination of on-site experience and years of manual and mental understanding. 19 This hierarchically organized skilful workforce knew what to do and how to do it, thereby passing their accumulated wisdom on to younger generations. The art of mining was a complex activity, which entailed amassing knowledge of the mine area through calculation, experience and experiment. Before anything else, the miners - usually those with surveying experience - had to gain information regarding the whereabouts of the deposits of the natural riches. They used surveying instruments both on and below the earth's surface to measure the borders and determine the depth of the mine; investigated the composition of the earth's layers before constructing vents and shafts; took steps to control the water level inside the mine; established the routes and method of transportation of people, tools and goods in both vertical and horizontal directions; and, finally, obtained the various mining equipment that they would need to retrieve the coal, rocks and rubble from dark mine shafts and galleries. The examination of minerals and other unearthed rocks and stones took place above ground. 20 Below the earth's surface, invisible to all except the miners, the mine was constructed according to a pattern of vertical shafts and horizontal galleries. The miners transformed the belly of the earth into a geometrical environment in order to free its hidden treasures using their tools, carts, baskets, ropes, candles, geometrical devises and their accumulated knowledge of the terrain. While reshaping the earth into
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an organized and accessible underworld, they obtained an understanding of nature's construction. These miners retrieved the once hidden minerals for the world above ground by imposing order upon nature. 21 During the final stages of the mining process, the miners separated the coal from the rubble, thereby distinguishing the rocks with minerals from those without. The coal fuelled the local lime-kilns, which was Lingen's main economic pillar. The rocks containing large crystals also formed a source of income for the miners, since the local craftsmen transformed the large crystals into ornaments to be sold as talismans. For the Lingen inhabitants, the rocks with the small crystal points served to pay tribute to the first visit of an Orange Stadholder and to Bentinck, Lingen's far-flung sheriff. The miners' manipulation of nature in order to reveal its hidden secrets was thus motivated by a combination of mundane economical and political reasons, for the Lingen people hoped that with this gift the Stadholder and the sheriff would, in return, ease the taxes and allow them to remain Roman Catholic.22 Returning to Constantijn's remark that the people of Lingen valued the rock crystal insufficiently, we can say instead that they valued the rock crystal differently. They appreciated it for its use to express a political union with the Dutch Republic. Constantijn may have found the workers an ignorant lot because they did not consider the crystals as a potentially valuable step towards the examination of light and refraction. However, without the miners' ways of knowing and doing, their skilful knowledge of nature, the crystals would not be 'freed'. Finally out in the open, the rock crystal could continue its journey of transformation. Having arrived in a fully manmade environment, crystals were domesticated by nature's examiners and constructors, transformed into objects of study, appreciation, delight and wonder. In the grotto, crystals reminded constructors and observers of the fertile mysteries occurring in the earth's bowels. In the study, crystals prompted examiners to reveal nature's hidden laws. From their perspective, nature's beautiful order remained unexplained in 'the wild', but could be further transformed, contemplated, examined, explained and manipulated in these 'laboratories'. Previously unseen, the crystal's exposure in these controlled environments clarified nature's laws in various ways. Aesthetically replaced in a grotto, this new vision of nature's variety and unity could be projected back out to make sense of the world at large.23 By the end of 1680, the shipload of crystals arrived at Zorgvliet. The constructors began to alter these stones into grotto ornaments. For this, they used their artful knowledge and skill, thereby adapting grottobuilding conventions to fit local requirements. Ensconced in Bentinck's grotto, the crystal's meaning transformed to symbolically reveal the earth's secrets and emphasize the political bond between Bentinck and the Stadholder. Ganymede, as the cupbearer of the gods, pointed to Bentinck's position as servant to the Prince of Orange. The Grotto of Ganymede became a complex construction filled with natural and artificial objects for reasons that were both entertaining and enlightening. History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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Some 2-3 years after Constantijn Huygens left Lingen, pieces of the rock crystals arrived in his brother's cabinet, where Christiaan examined them as part of his inquiry into the nature of light.24 From 1672 to 1690, Huygens tinkered with both Iceland and rock crystals in his quest to uncover nature's laws and explain the nature of light. With art and reflection, he transformed his crystals so that they would reveal their secrets. This entailed a process of manipulating and contemplating different types of crystal. His findings were made public to the world through his treatise on light, the Traite de la Lumiere of 1690.25 But, before turning to Christiaan's handling of crystals and light, we trace the crystal's adaptation from an unadorned rock into a stunning ornament in the garden of Bentinck. THE GROTTO OF GANYMEDE
From 1674, when Bentinck became the owner of Zorgvliet, he bega huge overhaul of the existing garden by redesigning and enlarging it to almost triple its original size. Its new overall layout consisted of various rectangular sections filled with intricately designed parterres, a labyrinth with an artificial mount, a pyramidal-shaped mount, two grottoes, a large orangery, various kitchen gardens and orchards, an aviary and fishponds. The garden housed a wealth of plants and objects from both northern and southern garden traditions adapted to fit local requirements (Figure 1). The construction of the Grotto of Ganymede started in 1679 and was probably finished in 1681. To reach it, one walked from the house, passing the semicircular conservatory and an enclosed orchard filled with fruit trees. Then, at the end of a lane with clipped linden trees alongside it, Bentinck's garden pavilion appeared. Bentinck himself, most likely with the advice of the Stadholder William III, chose this location.26 As an amateur gardener, Bentinck was actively involved in the architectural design of his garden and grottoes, but whom he hired as architect, land surveyor, fountain-maker, carpenters, stonemasons and gardeners remains unknown. Nor have any sketches or plans of this building (or of the garden) survived, provided that these ever existed. This also is the case for a similar grotto, built in 1647-49 for the Stadholder Frederik-Hendrik's garden at Honselaarsdyk. But, here, the accounts provide certain names, such as the grotto-builder Joseph Dinant. He was paid for his services, his material and his workforce, without any specification regarding the various tasks or names of artisans; just one master carpenter was mentioned by name. 27 Unfortunately, Bentinck's workforce remains invisible, but we can draw on one other example close to this case for reference: the garden grotto of Prince Johan Maurits of Nassau in The Hague, which was built between 1668 and 1670 and demolished in 1679.28 Bentinck was acquainted with Prince William Ill's elderly cousin and thus knew the Prince's house and garden in The Hague well.29 In 1679, when Johan Maurits learned that the courtier wanted to build a grotto, he offered part of his grotto's History of Technology, Volume Twenty-nine, 2009
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