NOTE: Today we're continuing our weekly series of essays by Dr. Stacy Trasancos on the "stillbirths" of science. They're based on Fr. Stanley L. Jaki's research into the theological history of science in the ancient cultures of Egypt, China, India, Babylon, Greece, and Arabia. See past articles here.

 
There is so much written about China’s rich and illustrious past that no case could ever be made—from the Shang Dynasty (1523–1028 B.C.) to the Ch’ing Dynasty (A.D. 1644–1912)—that there was no progress in civilization, art, or literature. Likewise, volumes have been written on the question of the history of science and Chinese civilization. In Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe and The Savior of Science (pages 46 and 35 respectively), Jaki referred to the extensive research of British biochemist Joseph Needham. In seven volumes comprised of twenty-seven books, Needham and his team of international collaborators reviewed the history of science and technology in China. The massive work was eventually published by the Cambridge University Press under the title Science and Civilisation in China; and the project, which began in 1954, continues to the present day.

A brief overview of the content of these volumes will demonstrate the extent of cultural development in China and the futility of ignoring such a rich history. Needham’s first volume (1954) is an introduction to the rest of the work. Volume Two (1956) covers the history of scientific thought in China, including the organic naturalism of the great Taoist school, the scientific philosophy of the Mohists and Logicians, and the quantitative materialism of the Legalists. Volume Three and the three-part Volume Four (1959–1971) addresses mathematics and the sciences of the heavens and earth, physics, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, and nautics. Volume Five (1985–1999) has thirteen parts: the first on paper and printing; the second through the fifth on spagyrical discovery and inventions including gold and immortality, cinnabar elixirs, synthetic insulin, apparatus, and physiological alchemy; the sixth and seventh on military technology from missiles and sieges to the “gunpowder epic;” the ninth on the textile industry while the eighth and tenth are still works in progress; the eleventh on ferrous metallurgy; the twelfth on ceramic technology; and the thirteenth on mining. Volume Six (1986–2000) deals with botany, agriculture, agroindustry, and forestry in the first three parts and fermentations, food science, and medicine in the fifth and sixth parts, while the fourth part of Volume Six is still in progress. Finally, Volume Seven (1998–2004) covers language and logic, and then gives the general conclusions and reflections. (See full list here.) The purpose of listing these volumes published over a span of six decades is to demonstrate that intensive work has been devoted to the history of science in China, and Jaki was aware of this. He acknowledged it in the development of the “stillbirths” argument.

In Science and Creation (pages 30-32) Jaki discussed how around 350 B.C., the astronomer Shih Shen drew up a catalogue of around 800 stars and how the manuscripts were stored in the Imperial Library. The ability to catalogue and store documents displayed great sophistication. Technological improvements were made in water works and the extension of the Great Wall, a massive achievement. During the three and a half centuries known as the age of the Warring States (480–220 B.C.), cultural growth continued. The Chinese invented the waterwheel, the wheelbarrow, and other devices that demonstrated continued technological development. Around the middle of the fourth century, Hu Hsi made observations that led him to discover the precession of equinoxes, although the Greek scholar Hipparchus is credited with discovering it centuries earlier.

The peak periods of Chinese culture spanned the Han, Sung, Thang, Yuan, and Ming periods (collectively 202 B.C.– A.D. 1644) and represented a length of time when scientific endeavor could have “received a decisive spark.” There were technological feats in which the Chinese were the “sole inventors” for a number of centuries. They invented the effective use of horses, the foot-stirrup and breast-strap harness. They discovered magnetic ore. They invented the revolutionary skill of paper-making, which led to the production of printed books. They invented the process of making gunpowder, the production of porcelain, and the development of water-driven mechanical clocks. They used magnets for travel and moveable clay types for printing.

The Chinese also, Jaki noted, developed algebra at a level compatible with the best in Europe around A.D. 1250. According to Francis Bacon, printing, gunpowder, and magnets were the factors that ushered in the age of science more than anything, but Jaki challenged Bacon’s assertion by noting that even with these developments the Chinese “remained hopelessly removed from the stage of sustained, systematic scientific research.”

The Chinese had rockets for centuries but did not investigate trajectories or free fall. Their ability to print books did not lead to a “major intellectual ferment.” Magnets were installed on their ships and they were the best navy in the world for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but they never circumnavigated the globe.

Historians have also noted that the “Industrial Revolution” did not originate in China, and that is of great significance for Jaki’s argument that science was “stillborn” in Chinese culture. Jaki cited a 1922 article in The International Journal of Ethics entitled “Why China Has No Science: An Interpretation of the History and Consequences of Chinese Philosophy." The author, Yu-Lan Fung, who contributed to Needham’s volumes, noted that the history of Europe and the history of China before the Renaissance are “on the same level,” by which he meant that they both progressed at about the same pace, albeit in different ways. After that time the pace differed: “China is still old while the Western countries are already new.” Fung asked, “What keeps China back?” He answered that it is because “she has no science . . . because according to her own standard of value she does not need any . . . China has not discovered the scientific method, because Chinese thought started from mind, and from one’s own mind.” If truth and knowledge are in the mind, separated from the external world, there is no need for scientific investigation beyond practical skill.

Fung contrasted the three major powers which competed to conquer the entire empire of China from 570 B.C. to about 275 B.C–Taoism, Moism, and Confucianism. Taoism taught a “return to nature” with nature being the natural state of all things, including the natural tendency of man toward vice. According to Taoism, “every kind of human virtue and social regulation is to them against nature.” Knowledge was considered to be of no use because the Tao is inside man, as the god of the pantheistic philosophy. Taoism did not require any questioning of a beginning and an end, about final purposes and goals, or about the controlling of the forces and patterns in the workings of the Yin and Yang. The cosmological passage from the Chuang Tzu demonstrated this mindset:

"Men who study the Tao do not follow on when these operations [properties belonging to things] end, nor try to search out how they began: - with this all discussion of them stops." Texts of Taoism, translated by J. Legge (New York: Julian Press, 1959), Book XXV, par. 11, 568-69; quoted in Jaki, Science and Creation, 30.

The key to success in Taoism was to merge into the rhythm of cosmic cycles.

The fundamental idea of Moism was “utility,” and virtue was seen as useful. Universal love was taught as a doctrine for the benefit of the country and people, and progress was the ideal of mutual help; anything that was incompatible with the increase of wealth and population was to be fought against. Confucius stood between the two, emphasizing discrimination in different situations. He taught that human nature is essentially good although men are not born perfect. To become perfect, the innate reason must be developed and lower desires “wholly taken away.” His concerns were ethical, not metaphysical. Therefore, Confucius taught that the individual should seek what is in himself and leave external things to their natural destiny.

In these competing theories of existence, the power that governs the universe is the omnipotent Tao for Taoism, the personified self-god in Moism, and Heavenly Reason according to Confucianism. Moism did have a notion of Heaven as personal and caring for humans, a monotheism of sorts, but its ethics were severed from this idea. As these powers competed over time, to put it far too concisely to do the history enough justice, they actually merged and philosophical investigation of “things” gave rise to two forms of Neo-Confucianism, one school that sought “things” externally and another that sought “things” as phenomena in the mind. In Medieval Europe the same ideas about “things” more or less existed too, but from there on, China and Europe diverged:

"In other words, Medieval Europe under Christianity tried to know God and prayed for His help; Greece tried, and Modern Europe is trying to know nature and to conquer, to control it; but China tried to know what is within ourselves, and to find there perpetual peace." (Fung, "Why China Has No Science")

So China did not have use for the scientific method because the religions sought what is in the mind separate from the external world. Fung concluded his paper with a call for mankind to become wiser and to find peace and happiness by turning attention to Chinese wisdom so that the “mind energy of the Chinese people of four thousand years will yet not have been spent in vain.” Even if modern science was not born in China, there were other aspects of the culture that were worthy of admiration.

In concluding this consideration of China’s history, it needs to be noted that other scholars concurred with Fung. In 1995, Justin Yifu Lin of Peking University published an essay titled “The Needham Puzzle: Why the Industrial Revolution Did Not Originate in China.” Lin noted from evidence documented in Needham’s work that “except for the past two or three centuries, China had a considerable lead over the Western world in most of the major areas of science and technology.” From an economic and social perspective, he considers why, despite early advances in science, technology, and institutions, China did not take the next step in the seventeenth century as Western Europe did.

Ultimately that answer depends on how the Chinese viewed the external world and whether it was created by God or was God itself. In believing that the world was God and was eternal, there was no need to question a beginning and an end or how everything came to be. Needham also acknowledged that it is a theological orientation of Chinese thought that can be singled out as the decisive factor that blocked the attitude conducive to developing a systematic, scientific investigation. (Science and Civilisation in China, 580-582) “There, according to Needham’s admission, all the early cultivators of science drew courage for their pioneering efforts from a belief in a personal and rational Creator.” (Jaki, Science and Creation, 40.)

For the purposes of Jaki’s argument, the similarity of the Egyptian and Chinese cultures bears emphasizing. Both were pantheistic, with some degree of monotheism but still a monotheism that held that the world was God, which is basically pantheism. Neither had a loving Creator who “ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight,” who made man in His image with intellect and free will, or who became Incarnate to redeem mankind. “In a universe without the voice of God there remains no persistent and compelling reason for man to search within nature for distinct voices of law and truth.” (Jaki, Science and Creation, 41.)

Sources:

• Stanley L. Jaki, Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, Ltd, 1986).
• Stanley L. Jaki, The Savior of Science (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000).
• Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 2, History of Scientific Thought (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1956).
• Yu-Lan Fung, “Why China Has No Science: An Interpretation of the History and Consequences of Chinese Philosophy,” The International Journal of Ethics, 32 (1922), 237-263.
• Texts of Taoism, translated by J. Legge (New York: Julian Press, 1959).
• Justin Yifu Lin, “The Needham Puzzle: Why the Industrial Revolution Did Not Originate in China,” Economic Development and Cultural Change (University of Chicago Press, 1995), 269-292.

 
 
(Image credit: Wikimedia)

In late December 1668, in a contest held at the Chinese Bureau of Astronomy, the Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest (1623-1688) correctly predicted the length of a shadow cast by a vertical rod. The Kangxi Emperor was impressed. But he challenged Verbiest to two additional tests: the prediction of the exact position of the sun and planets on a given day and the timing of an approaching lunar eclipse. Verbiest successfully completed the final two tests, and, in the process, showed that the Chinese had much to learn from their Jesuit visitors.

With his scientific prowess firmly established, Verbiest became close with the Emperor, often accompanying him on excursions throughout the empire. Verbiest would make the most of this opportunity. Before he had passed on from this life, he had designed a self-propelled vehicle, cast cannons for the imperial army, written a 32-volume handbook on astronomy, composed a 2000-year table of future eclipses, and rebuilt the imperial observatory, enriching it with several bronze astronomical instruments. His funeral serves as an indication of his achievements: it featured musicians, standard bearers, and fifty horsemen.¹

Verbiest is one of many illustrious Jesuits to make valuable contributions to Chinese science. By 1800, more than 900 Jesuit missionaries had reached China.² It was science that served their primary purpose of sharing the Catholic faith and allowed the Jesuits to wield significant influence in China. Verbiest clearly understood the importance of science to evangelization efforts: “As a star of old brought the magi to the adoration of the true God, so the princes of the Far East through knowledge of the stars would be brought to recognize and adore the Lord of the stars.”³

The Jesuit Chinese missions represent one of the great untold stories of modern history. Jesuit missionaries would introduce the telescope and the discoveries of Galileo, determine the Russo-Chinese border,⁴ discover a land route between India and China,⁵ introduce European astronomy and mathematics, revise the Chinese calendar, map out the empire using modern methods, introduce stereographic projection of maps, participate in the division of China into time zones, and discover that Korea was a peninsula rather than an island.

Besides Verbiest, several other missionaries stand out for their valuable contributions. Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), a student of Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Christopher Clavius, inaugurated the Jesuit missions in China when he reached Macau in 1582. Eventually adopting the dress of Chinese scholars and acting as an adviser to the Imperial court, Ricci introduced Christianity and recent European scientific discoveries to his Chinese hosts. In mathematics, he was the first to introduce trigonometry⁶ and the works of Euclid⁷ to China.

Ricci’s most important scientific contribution, however, was his Impossible Black Tulip map, a cartographical wonder that greatly expanded Chinese geographical knowledge and was considered more accurate than contemporary maps of Europe.⁸ While previous Chinese world maps showed only the fifteen provinces of China surrounded by water and a few islands,⁹ the Impossible Black Tulip is the oldest surviving Chinese map to show the Americas. A 1602 edition of the map recently sold for $1 million and was displayed at the Library of Congress.

Ricci not only introduced European science to China, he was the first to provide Europe with an account of Chinese geography, culture, and literature. Ricci was more than a herald of scientific discoveries: he may one day be a saint. The Church has named Ricci a Servant of God, which denotes that his cause for beatification and canonization has been set in motion.

Another important Jesuit missionary is Adam Schall von Bell (1592-1666), an accomplished astronomer who entered Macau in 1619. By the time Schall von Bell reached China, the Chinese calendar, which had been used for 40 centuries, was in desperate need of revision. After arriving in Beijing in 1630, Schall von Bell began working tirelessly on calendar reform. Indeed, during his life, he would write no less than 150 treatises on this subject.¹⁰ In 1644, Schall von Bell was able to earn the respect of the Chinese government by correctly predicting an eclipse (The Chinese astronomers had erred by an hour in their prediction). After Schall von Bell’s astronomical feat, he was appointed director of the Board of Astronomy, the first Jesuit to fill this post.¹¹

With his newly earned position of authority, he reduced the number of Chinese calendars from five to two. Because of his astronomical and calendrical work, Schall von Bell was given the title Mandarin of the First Class, an honor normally reserved for Chinese dignitaries, and a sign of Schall von Bell’s influence. “It can be said,” writes a Jesuit historian, “that no westerner in the whole history of China ever enjoyed as much influence as Schall did.”¹²

Remarkable Jesuit contributions were not confined to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Several Jesuits connected with the Zikawei Observatory would make important contributions into the twentieth century. Marc Dechevrens (1845-1923) became director of Zikawei in 1876. With fellow Jesuits Francisco Faura and Jose Maria Algue, Dechevrens was one of “the first to study the nature and characteristics of typhoons.”¹³ An instrument he designed to measure wind velocity was installed on the Eiffel Tower for the 1889 World’s Fair.

In 1888, Stanislas Chevalier (1852-1930) succeeded Dechevrens as director of the observatory, continuing his predecessor’s work with typhoons. Chevalier also carried out a cartographic study of the Yangtze, made no less than 1200 astronomical observations, and determined the geographical coordinates of 50 Chinese towns. His research eventually led to the creation of 64 maps, earning him a medal from the Geographical Society of Paris.¹⁴ Finally, in 1920, Ernesto Gherzi (1886-1976) was appointed to Zikawei, where he studied typhoons and Chinese climatology. Gherzi was “one of the first to investigate the relationship between microseismic noise and oscillations in the atmospheric pressure.”¹⁵ He later became a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Taken collectively, the Jesuit Chinese missions form an important chapter in the long and often complex relationship between religion and science. Joseph Needham, in his important multi-volume Science and Civilisation in China, highlights the significance of the Jesuit Chinese missions: “In the history of intercourse between civilisations there seems no parallel to the arrival in China in the 17th century of a group of Europeans so inspired by religious fervour as were the Jesuits, and, at the same time, so expert in most of those sciences which had developed with the Renaissance and the rise of capitalism.”¹⁶ When history offers us ‘no parallel,’ we should take notice.
 
 
(Image credit: Wikimedia)