Redrawing China's Intellectual Map: Images of Science in

Nineteenth-Century China

David C. Reynolds

Late Imperial China, Volume 12, Number 1, June 1991, pp. 27-61 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/late.1991.0002

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 REDRAWING CHINA'S INTELLECTUAL MAP:
IMAGES OF SCIENCE
IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY CHINA

David C. Reynolds

Conventional wisdom has it that China failed twice to adopt Western sci-
ence and technology: first, when the Jesuits, beginning in the seventeenth
century, brought knowledge of pre-Renaissance Western mathematics and
astronomy to China; second, in the post-Taiping Rebellion period (1865-)
when Western Protestant missionaries offered the Chinese knowledge of post-
Renaissance Western science and technology. These early attempts to bring
science and technology to China floundered, in the conventional account, on
the shoals of traditional culture and Confucian orthodoxy. Only the icono-
clasm of the New Culture period (1915-1927) which discredited Chinese tra-
dition and substituted science as the "functional equivalent" of Confucianism
provided the cultural conditions necessary for the emergence of a nascent,
but weak, scientific community in China.1
If these conventional accounts are correct in their argument that the for-
mation of a scientific community and institutions of scientific research in
China awaited the twentieth century,2 their explanations of the earlier "fail-
ures" are misleading. As recent research has demonstrated, many in the
community of "evidential scholars" (k'ao-cheng) that developed in the lower
Yangtse valley during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw science as
a legitimate form of intellectual work.3 Other research has suggested "reso-
nances" between traditional learning and modern science.4 If traditional cul-
ture and Confucian orthodoxy did not impede the scientific interests of many
1 Goldman and Simon 1989; Baum 1982.
2Jonathan Porter (1982) argues that "by the late seventeenth century scientific activity
in China evinced many characteristics of a continuous and systematic social activity."
Nonetheless, as he points out, this nascent scientific community was at best ill-defined and
fragile. Science "was not yet perceived as a form of knowledge having inherent goals" and
"the social status of scientists remained imperfectly differentiated, and often linked to non-
scientific activity." Only in the twentieth century did a fully professionalized community
of scholars who self-consciously saw themselves as "scientists" emerge in China. See Buck
1980 and Reynolds 1986.
3Elman 1984:62-64, 79-85.
4Henderson 1980; Henderson 1986.
Late Imperial China Vol. 12, No. 1 (June 1991): 27-61
© by the Society for Qing Studies
27
28David C. Reynolds

important 17th and 18th century scholars, other research strongly suggests
that China's "failure" to undergo a scientific revolution may be as much the
result of the inability of the Jesuits to introduce Copernican and Newtonian
science as the results of any limitations imposed by "Confucianism."5 Para-
doxically, China's "failure" in the pre-Taiping Rebellion period was, perhaps,
more a Western failure than a Chinese failure.
Like their counterparts in the pre-Taiping period many Chinese in the late
Ch'ing were eager to see science as a legitimate interest for Chinese scholars.
Their efforts, as this essay will demonstrate, succeeded in creating intellectual
space for science in China.6 Traditional culture and Confucian orthodoxy did
not impede the creation of that intellectual space. Rather, the very complex-
ity and diversity of China's traditional culture allowed nineteenth century
writers to adopt rhetorical strategies that provided a sense of legitimacy for
science within the Chinese intellectual world.
The rhetorical strategies adopted in post-Taiping writings on science can
be seen as a part of the institutional construction of science in China. Ac-
cording to Thomas Gieryn, rather than viewing science as an institution as
an objective social fact, an institutional contructivist approach to science sees
science as socially constructed in that its "definitions, relationships, values,
and goals are negotiated by ordinary people in ordinary settings."7 Like func-
tionalist approaches to the institutionalization of science, social constructivist
approaches stress the importance of differentiation. However, constructivism
differs from functionalism in its "attention on actor's constructions of insti-
tutions like science, on what people mean when they use the words science,
scientist, or scientific."8 This approach leads to a focus on "rhetorical ac-
complishments" : "Processes of differentiation are to be found in the actor's
discursive efforts to draw 'maps' of their society that show overlapping, con-
tiguous, or distanced institutional territories-and in their efforts to persuade
others that this or that map is reality."9
Gieryn's application of an institutional contructivist approach to science
in seventeenth-century England is suggestive for post-Taiping China. He
argues that English scientists relied on "two logically incompatible reper-
tories" to interpret science and its relation to religion. The first, "partial
coincidence," presented a "map" in which "science and religion shar[ed] an
overlapped territory that holds common values and goals." The second, a dis-
tancing, mapped out "science and religion as discrete institutional territories
5Sivin 1973; Gernet 1980; Sivin 1982; Elman 1984.
6For the concept of "intellectual space" see Shapin and Schaffer 1985:332-34.
7Gieryn 1988:588-89.
8Gieryn 1988:589.
9Gieryn 1988:589.
Redrawing China's Intellectual Map29

with space or distance between them." The incompatibility of these divergent

"maps" was functional, Gieryn argues, because the two allowed scientists, on
the one hand, to "promote their activities ... by enlisting friends and quelling
enemies. . . . The coexisting maps may have alleviated the fear that science
would usurp the cultural authority of religion, by suggesting that the two
institutions pursued a common agenda but in complementary ways. Perhaps
the growing prestige and practice of science in seventeenth-century England
was due as much to rhetorical efforts that distanced science from religion as
to the rhetorical efforts that linked the institutions through the values they
shared."10
Post-Taiping constructions of science in China, similar to those offered
in seventeenth-century England, reveal rhetorical strategies which, in their
efforts to provide legitimacy for science within the Chinese intellectual world,
both overlapped and distanced science from a variety of traditional forms
of learning. These strategies produced a new intellectual map in China on
which science was distanced from Confucian political thought by overlapping
its benefits with the general goals of Legalism and partially overlapped with a
variety of Confucian traditions of learning-e.g. Neo-Confucianism (li-hsüeh),
evidential scholarship (k'ao-cheng), and substantial learning (shih-hsiieh)-axid
the pre-Ch'in non-canonical traditions (chu-tzu). In general, these strategies
recognized the diversity of traditional Chinese culture. Those in the post-
Taiping period who wrote about science rarely contrasted the West (as a
cultural whole) with an equally holistic China.
These strategies performed the same function for post-Taiping Chinese
that those adopted in seventeenth-century England did for English scientists:
they allowed Chinese interested in Western science to quell their fears that
Western science (backed, now, by military might) would displace Chinese
culture (in all its diversity). There would be space for all on China's new in-
tellectual map. Moreover, the increased prestige that science was accorded in
the late Ch'ing and early Republic, in part, can be attributed to the rhetorical
accomplishments of post-Taiping discussions of science.
However much prestige these strategies provided science in the late Ch'ing
and early Republic, they did not, like those strategies employed by English
scientists in the seventeenth century, result in the creation of the social space
necessary for scientific work. Science in post-Taiping China was only partially
institutionalized. As in the first Chinese encounter with a version of West-
ern science in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the second Chinese
encounter with science in the nineteenth century did not see the formation
of a community of scientists. Moreover, like the earlier "failure" to create a
DGieryn 1988:590-93.
30David C. Reynolds

community of scientists, the nineteenth century "failure" had less to do with

the constraints of traditional culture or the "sociopolitical milieu" of tradi-
tional China11 than with a bias inherent in the vision of science presented
to Chinese by late nineteenth century Western missionaries. As in the first
encounter, China's "failure" may have been more a Western "failure."
This essay will examine the post-Taiping encounter with Western science
with two goals: first, to illuminate the strategies which Chinese used to place
science on a re-configured Chinese intellectual map; second, to suggest why
those strategies were unable to create sufficient social space for the formation
of a scientific community in China.

The Nineteenth Century

The second Chinese encounter with modern science came in the nine-
teenth century. As in the first encounter, the medium through which Chinese
were initially exposed to science was translations of Western scientific works
prepared by missionaries and their Chinese collaborators.12 Like the Jesuit
Fathers of the seventeenth century, nineteenth-century missionaries saw sci-
ence as a way of attracting Chinese intellectuals to Christianity.13 Early in
the century Peter Parker, an early Protestant medical missionary, combined
medicine with preaching in his attempts to interest Chinese in Christianity.14
Later in the century other Christian missionaries worked hard to insure that
science would have an important place in the curriculum of modern schools
in China.15 Still others devoted their considerable energies and talents to
journalism and translations. In the 1870s John Fryer, an English missionary
educator and, later, translator of hundreds of Western scientific books into
Chinese, begun publication of a journal devoted exclusively to providing in-
formation about science and technology to the Chinese public: The Chinese
Scientific and Industrial Magazine (Ko-chih hui-pien).16 Similarly, beginning
in the 1860s and continuing through the 1880s, the Church News (Chiao-hui
hsin-pao) and its successor the Universal Gazette (Wan-kuo kung-pao) pro-
vided their readers with ample coverage of modern scientific and technological
advances.17 These journalistic efforts were supplemented by the work of mis-
sionary translators working at the Kiangnan Arsenal (Chiang-nan tsao-chu)
"Goldman and Simon 1980.
"Peterson 1973; Peterson 1975; Chang 1976.
13Wang 1966:17-19, 45-66; Spence 1969:133; Lutz 1971:21.
14Spence 1969:34-56.
15DuUS 1966; Hyatt 1976:185.
16Bennett 1967; Li 1974.
17Bennett and Liu 1974; Bennett 1975; Bennett 1976.
Redrawing China's Intellectual Map31

—founded in 1865—and the Shanghai Polytechnic Institute (Ko-chih shu-

yuan)—founded in 1876. 18
These individuals were primarily missionaries, not active scientific re-
searchers.19 Although they were often well educated in the sciences, their
knowledge of science and their commitment to scientific practice was that of
a "cultivator" rather than a "researcher." According to Nathan Reingold,20
unlike the researcher who is characterized by "a single-minded devotion to
research," the cultivator was characterized more by "learned culture" than
an active engagement in scientific practice. Moreover, missionaries shared a
culture in which scientific education—in the tradition of the old liberal arts
college or lyceum—was seen as an adjunct to character building and mental
discipline, not as a means of creating new knowledge.21 In this culture, scien-
tific work as often meant the diffusion of knowledge as its advancement. The
museum and the public lecture were two prime examples of scientific insti-
tutions;22 the laboratory, which in the twentieth century became the prime
location for scientific practice, was in this culture often connected directly
with lecture halls and designed for display rather than discovery.23
Hundreds of works on science and technology were translated into Chinese
in the late nineteenth century. These works are testimony to the energy and
linguistic skills of the missionaries. However, as talented and energetic as
they were, the missionaries could not have been so prolific without the help
they received from a small coterie of Chinese scholars who had developed
an interest in science independent of the missionaries. Most notable are Li
Shan-Ian (1810-1882) and Hsu Shou (1818-1884). Both Li and Hsu came
from the lower Yangtse valley and both, like many other members of the
local elite, pursued careers outside the Imperial bureaucracy24 Li, whose
scientific interests were primarily in mathematics, served as a private secretary
in Tseng Kuo-fan's private bureaucracy, a teacher in the T'ung-wen kuan,
and as a translator for the London Missionary Society.25 Hsu, whose major
interest was chemistry, worked as a translator at the Kiangnan Arsenal and
as a lecturer at the Shanghai Polytechnic Institute.26 Furthermore, these
translations were immensely influential among late Ch'ing intellectuals. Both
K'ang Yu-wei and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao read widely in them as, it seems, did many
18Biggerstaff 1956; Wang 1976.
19Buck 1980:8-45.
20Reingold 1976:37-39.
21Hofstadter 1961:209-74; Schmidt 1957; Veysey 1965; Bledstein 1976.
22Scott 1980; Kohlstedt 1987.
23Owens 1985:185.
24Rankin 1986.
25Hummel 1943:479-80; Li 1936; Jüan 1935:835-44; Wang 1966:144-82.
26Hummel 1943:54.
32David C. Reynolds

other, less well known Chinese.27

Moreover, in the last two decades of Ch'ing rule, the efforts of mission-
aries to provide information about science were supplemented by Chinese-
sponsored and edited journals of science. Among these are: Science News
(Ko-chih hsín-?a?), aI-wen-lou et Revue Scientifique,'" (Ko-chih i-wen hui
pao) [1898], Geography Magazine (Ti-Ii tsa-chih) [1908], Science Magazine
(Li-hsiieh tsa-chih) [1907-1908], General Science (K'o-hsüeh i-pan) [1908],
and Journal of Learning (Hsiieh-pao) [1908-1909].28
Science was a popular topic in Chinese writings in the late Ch'ing. Student
journals like the Hupei Student World (Hupei hsiieh-sheng chieh) [1902-1903]
and the Journal of Translations ( Yu-hsüeh i-pien) [1903-1904] as well as more
general readership journals such as Eastern Miscellany ( Tung-fang tsa-chih)
[1909-] regularly carried articles on science. Science was a topic for provincial-
level examination essays in Hunan in 1898 and also figured prominently in the
private writings of Chinese scholars. Not only did reformers like Liang Ch'i-
ch'ao and Lu Hsun write about science, but conservative traditional scholars
like Yu Yiieh (1821-1907), Liu Yii-yun, and Wang Jen-chiin were involved in
efforts to interpret science for the Chinese public.
There are four distinctive features of the nineteenth century encounter
with Western science. First, Western science was now accompanied by the
force of Western military and technological might which, by mid-century, had
seriously encroached on the power of the Chinese state. Second, the full range
of modern science was brought to China, not only Copernicus (whose work
and significance were misrepresented by Jesuits writers on astronomy), but
also Newton and Darwin.29 Third, more emphasis was given to technology
in the second encounter than in the first. Indeed, technology was often con-
fused with science in post-Taiping writings and the Chinese response to what
Western missionaries offered was often as much to its technological aspects as
to its scientific dimensions. Finally, the missionaries gave little attention to
science as a form of practice or to the institutions in which scientific knowl-
edge is produced. Rather than seeing science as a type of knowledge that is
produced, they presented scientific knowledge as something to be displayed
and diffused.
These features had important consequences for the Chinese reception of
science in the nineteenth century. First, nineteenth-century accounts of sci-
ence reflect a greater emphasis on technology and the practical benefits of
science than do accounts of science from the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
27Wang 1965:1-12; Lo 1967:38; Howard 1962:304-05; Chang 1971:71-72; Bennett 1967:43-
44; Li 1974.
28Kuo 1974.
29Sivin 1973.
Redrawing China's Intellectual Map33

turies. Second, Chinese in the nineteenth century demonstrated increased

desire to assimilate science into traditional categories and thus to provide it
some legitimacy. Third, in the nineteenth century less attention was given
to methodological issues and to science as a means of producing knowledge
than was true in the earlier encounter with Western science.30

The Benefits of Science

Although Chinese scholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
were aware of technological prowess that science offered, they constructed
an image of science that overlapped science and evidential scholarship (k'ao-
cheng), a form of Confucian scholarship, by emphasizing the ability of science
to complement traditional tools in the scholars' pursuit of textual studies
and quest for self-cultivation. These concerns were central to the intellectual
project of seventeenth and eighteenth century Confucians.31 Ch'ing scholars
looked to textual criticism for answers to fundamental philosophical prob-
lems; the differences between "the school of principle" (li-hsiieh) and "the
school of mind" (hsin-hsiieh) could be resolved and proper interpretations to
classical texts such as the Great Learning (Ta-hsüeh) revealed, once the "text"
itself was understood. The more accurate astronomy brought by the Jesuits
was held to be efficacious in this endeavor and the "geometrical method" -
deductive logic- was held to be a model for classical scholarship (phonology,
philology, and textual criticism) as well as for "Confucian scholarship."32
This method could provide certain and complete knowledge of principle (Ii),
the goal of Neo-Confucian learning. As John Henderson has suggested, it
seemed to offer a solution to the perennial problem of "gauging the degree or
quality of one's intellectual or moral enlightenment."33
Equally important to these intellectuals was the mental and moral dis-
cipline that the study of geometry was felt to provide. The deductive logic
central to the geometrical method, Hsu K'uang-ch'i argued, demanded intel-
lectual rigor and precision on the part of the student. While basic intelligence
was important, those whose minds were precise but whose intellectual talent
was average were better suited to the study of geometry, in Hsu's view, than
30Although it exceeds the scope of this essay, which focuses on Chinese attempts to
make sense of science rather than on the uses that they put to knowledge and theories
derived from science, a third characteristic might be added: a willingness to incorporate
elements of Western scientific cosmology into Chinese visions of the world order. This
aspect of nineteenth-century Chinese reception of science has been explored extensively.
See Li 1980; Li 1978; Wakeman 1973:124-29; and Pusey 1982.
31Yu 1976:87-157; Elman 1984.
32Henderson 1980:23.
33Henderson 1980:24.
34David C. Reynolds

those who possessed superior intellectual qualities but whose thought was
careless. However, he held out hope even for those who initially lacked the
necessary mental discipline. All should study geometry; even those whose
minds are frivolous will find that the study of geometry will dispel their lack
of mental discipline and "train their essential mind."34
Similarly, Hsu suggested that moral excellence is both required for and
developed by the study of geometry. For him, moral as much as intellectual
laxity was inappropriate to the study of geometry. Those who are impetuous,
vulgar, self-satisfied, jealous, or arrogant should not study geometry. In a leap
of logic that seemed to contradict his claims concerning the moral qualities
necessary to the study of geometry but which perhaps reflected the Neo-
Confucian (li-hsiieh) assumption that all learning is essentially an aid to moral
self-cultivation, Hsu argued that "[geometry] not only increases talent, it
provides a foundation for morality."35
In the nineteenth century Chinese saw the benefits of science as primarily
pragmatic: to many it held the key to "wealth and power" for the Chi-
nese state. In contrast to earlier Chinese discussions of the benefits of "sci-
ence," nineteenth-century writings, by locating the secret of Western success
in aspects of Western culture, reveal an rhetorical strategy that "distanced"
science from the scholarly and moral concerns of Neo-Confucianism and over-
lapped it with the central goals of Legalism.
As early as the 1840s, reformist scholars began to look for the source of
Western strength in Western culture. For instance, in calling for transla-
tions of Western books, Wei Yuan (1794-1857)—an advocate of New Text
Confucianism; a reformer; and the author of the Illustrated Gazetteer of
Maritime Nations (Hai-kuo t'u-chih), an early and important Chinese world
geography—suggested that the secrets of Western power and the key to Chi-
nese success could be found in those books.36 While Wei had in mind knowl-
edge of Western economic geography, by the 1860s and 1870s science (and
technology) was seen by many Chinese scholars as the primary locus of West-
ern strength.
Western missionaries writing in Chinese presented science as the central
aspect of Western learning; this message was reiterated many times over in the
writings of Chinese scholars in the late Ch'ing. John Fryer's remarks were
typical: "Science is the basis of Western learning. ... If the people follow
science they will acquire wealth; if the nation relies on science it may be
called strong."37 So too were those offered by Hsiieh Fu-ch'eng (1838-1894),
34Henderson 1980:25; Hsu 1963:76.
35HsU 1963:78.
36Ch'u 1974:90; Wei 1976:207.
37Fryer 1896:1a.
Redrawing China's Intellectual Map35

a private secretary to both Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang between 1865

and 1884, and in the 1890s Chinese minister to England, France, Italy, and
Belgium: "In the West [science] is the first principle of wealth and power."38
A number of assumptions underlie the arguments presented by Fryer,
Hsüeh, and others in the nineteenth century concerning the relation of science
to wealth and power. First, not only was Western society presented as highly
technological, but technology was also viewed as the essence of Western cul-
ture. These writings presented the nineteenth century as a technological age;
it was, Chinese readers were told in characters and illustrations, the century
in which the steamship, telegraph, telephone, railroad, and electric light had
been developed.39 Both the Wan-kuo kung-pao and the Ko-chih hui-pien were
filled with descriptions (and pictures) of the marvels of modern technology.
Second, this literature did little to draw a distinction between science
and technology. Indeed, science was presented as both the source of West-
ern strength and the origin of Western technological wonders. Science and
technology advance apace one another. Moreover, no attention was given to
the distinction between pure science and applied science that had begun to
appear in the rhetoric of Western scientists in the late nineteenth century.40
In a sense, this literature suggested that pure science might be collapsed into
applied science.
Third, little recognition was given to the cognitive aspects of science.
Although John Fryer argued that mathematics was the basis of all other
sciences and thus did provide some justification for an interest in the cognitive
aspects of science, his argument quickly returned to the practical benefits of
science:

Mathematics is the basis of the other sciences. If it is not un-

derstood, then the principles of the other sciences will be difficult
to explain. . . . Mathematics is a science that has practical ap-
plications. However, unlike other sciences, one does not have to
understand it totally before it can be applied. If one's knowl-
edge of mathematics is shallow, then it can be used only in daily
affairs. ... If one masters it thoroughly then it can be used to man-
ufacture machinery. . . . Some feel that science and mathematics
are different and that one can study the sciences without studying
mathematics. These individuals do not realize that science strives
for the illumination of principle and that the verification of the
38KCHP 5; see also: KCSYKI 1887:5a; 1886:4b, 5a; 1889:20a, 27a-b; YHTIL 1898:102,
120; Ch'u 1974:92, 110, 131, 151; Hummel 1943:331-32.
39YHIP 1:27.
40Kevles 1977:45-59.
36David C. Reynolds

principles of many other sciences depends on mathematics. If the

principles of other sciences can not be verified by mathematics,
must we not doubt the correctness of the other sciences (hsiieh)?*1
Fryer's account, however, was not typical. Chinese writings on science
in the late nineteenth century demonstrated little interest in science as a
cognitive activity; it was the instrumental value of science and, perhaps most
often, technology, that drew their primary attention.
Nonetheless, Chinese were not all ignorant of the cognitive side of science.
Indeed, in the first half of the century, some, like Li Shan-Ian, made important
contributions to the development of mathematics.42 Late Ch'ing interest in
the non-instrumental benefits of science was revealed most clearly in the few
discussions of the scientific method offered in late nineteenth-century writings.
In nineteenth-century Chinese language accounts of the scientific method,
Baconian empiricism has replaced Euclidian deduction (the "geometrical meth-
od" ) as the model for the way in which knowledge of natural principles could
be obtained. Both missionaries writing in Chinese and Chinese scholars were
fascinated with the empiricism of Bacon's vision of science. Wang T'ao (1828-
1897), an editorial assistant for the missionary press in China, research as-
sistant for James Legge's translation of The Chinese Classics, one of China's
first modern journalists, and a prolific writer of reformist tracts,43 is typical;
he presented Bacon as an advocate of "seeking truth from concrete facts"
(shih-shih chiù shih) and argued that the method of science stressed "obser-
vation" and the need for principles to be derived from facts, not facts from
principles.44 Other writers also stressed the importance of observation and
some added that the use of "intelligence" and "experimentation" is needed to
transform raw observations and to provide confirmation of hypotheses.45 Yet
others suggested that in the scientific method, as outlined by Bacon, lay the
means to understand the world and control it for human benefit as well as a
means through which clarity of thought and character development could be
fostered.46
The empiricist bent to Chinese discussions of the scientific method con-
tinued into the early years of the twentieth century. Yen Fu, as Schwartz has
noted, was deeply committed to "Mill's fanatical inductionism" and presented
it as the model of science.47 Similarly, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao also saw induction
41 Fryer 1896:lb-2a.
42Wang 1966:108-43.
43Cohen 1967; Cohen 1974
44Wang 1885.
45KCSYKI 1889:la-b, 8b-10b, 15b-16a; KCHY:la-3b; KCTHCM:la-12a.
46KCHP 2.
47Schwartz 1964:189; Yen 1922:la-3b.
Redrawing China's Intellectual Map37

and empiricism as the basis of science. His account of Bacon, published first
in the early 1900s, stressed the empiricism of Bacon's thought and presented
Bacon himself as the father of modern science.48
Significantly, these discussions of the scientific method did not lead to
considerations of scientific practice. Although some recognition was accorded
to the necessity of experimentation in the scientific method, the importance
of scientific research and research institutions was generally ignored. The fail-
ure of the Chinese to explore the social and institutional aspects of science
is understandable given the view of science that the missionaries presented
them. For the missionaries, whose education in science stressed the impor-
tance of display and demonstration, not experimentation, science was less a
form of practice than a body of knowledge to be learned and applied. Thus
it is natural that despite their formal adherence to a Baconian interpretation
of the scientific method, science, for Chinese in the nineteenth century was
fundamentally a body of received knowledge.49 The benefits of science came
from the mastery and application of currently understood scientific princi-
ples. These principles could be found and conveyed best in books-hence the
importance given to translation. If Chinese could just master that knowledge,
then the key to wealth and power would be theirs.
Absent as well from this body of writings was the earlier Chinese con-
cern to overlap science and Confucian scholarship by arguing that Baconian
inductivism could serve instead of Elucidian deductionism as the model for
scholarship. Nineteenth-century interest in science was less methodologically-
centered than that of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Rather than
attempting to assimilate science and technology by overlapping them with a
variety of Confucian scholarship, these arguments distance science from the
general concerns of Confucianism and overlap them with Legalism, whose
central goals were "wealth and power" for the state. This rhetorical strategy
created space on China's intellectual map for science, but defined that space
as essentially non-Confucian. However much intellectual space this strategy
created for science, it provided little basis for the creation of the social space
necessary for the emergence of science as a form of practice in China. As
long as science was seen as fundamentally a form of received knowledge, the
creation of social space that could accommodate scientific practice in China
would remain impossible.

48Liang 1975:202.
49Based on an examination of English language sources, Peter Buck 1980:11, draws a
similar conclusion about the views of nineteenth century medical missionaries in China.
38David C. Reynolds

The Assimilation of Science

Despite their attraction to the instrumental value of science, many Chinese
in the late Ch'ing remained deeply ambivalent about the value of science
and about its legitimacy as an intellectual activity. Science did provide a
means with which to increase state power. However, for many late Ch'ing
intellectuals, a rhetorical strategy that simultaneously overlapped science
and Legalism and distanced it from Confucianism was not fully satisfactory.
This strategy could not fully legitimate science in their view. As the source
of wealth and power, science was merely an implement (ch'i). It was not
concerned with fundamental principles (tao) and hence was clearly inferior to
Chinese learning (hsüeh). Unless science could also be partially overlapped
with Confucianism and placed in Confucian spaces on China's intellectual
map, it would remain suspect.
This ambivalence is most clearly revealed in late Ch'ing writings that
attempt to make science (the unfamiliar) familiar (thereby providing some
legitimacy to it). In these efforts three basic tacks were used. First, science
was assimilated to a variety of traditional philosophical categories. Second, a
cultural essentialism that stressed the fundamental differences between Chi-
nese and Western cultures was interpreted in a manner that allowed present
differences to be dismissed as historical aberrations in favor of deeper and
more authentic areas of cultural convergence. Third, the origins of Western
science were "located" in China's antiquity.
For the most part, these writings did not represent efforts to reject sci-
ence as an unwelcome and irrelevant foreign intrusion into China. Rather
they were efforts to construct an image of science that would provide it with
legitimacy by overlapping science and a variety of traditional forms of learn-
ing. Nonetheless, the images of science constructed in these writings reveal
a good deal of ambivalence about science. If science was overlapped with
traditional scholarship in these writings, the two were also distanced. Many
Chinese were concerned to insure that the overlap between science and that
scholarship would only be partial. Science was not to displace traditional
scholarship on China's intellectual map. Science, granted some legitimacy by
partially overlapping it with traditional scholarship, was ultimately seen as
secondary (often inferior) to that scholarship.
Perhaps the most common way in which writers in the late Ch'ing at-
tempted to assimilate science into traditional philosophic categories was to
suggest that science, in fact, was a variety of the "investigation of things"
(ko-wu). In an essay written in 1861, Feng Kuei-fen (1809-1874), an advi-
sor to Li Hung-chang, a writer on administrative and social reform, and a
Redrawing China's Intellectual Map39

scholar of Chinese mathematics with a strong interest in Western science,50,

suggested that Western science represented "the acquisition of the utmost
principle of the investigation of things."51 Fourteen years later, Hsu Shou,
in his preface to the Ko-chih hui-pien made similar claims.52 This claim was
still common twenty-four years later when Liu Yii-yun used ko-wu in the title
of his encyclopedia of Chinese science, Ko-wu Chung-fa (The Chinese Method
of the Investigation of Things).53 This usage persisted into the early twenti-
eth century; Liang Ch'i-ch'ao once characterized Bacon as "a member of the
investigation of things school" (ko-wu p'ai).54
The investigation of things was a central Confucian concept. As A.C.
Graham has suggested, the interpretation of this concept was central to the
debates between the Sung School of Principle (li-hsüeh) and the Ming School
of Mind (hsin-hsüeh).55 For the Sung Neo-Confucian Chu Hsi (1130-1200)
ko-wu meant "to reach the utmost principles of activities and things."56 Al-
though Chu acknowledged that the acquisition of empirical knowledge (wen-
chien chih chih), including knowledge of the natural world, was a part of the
project of the investigation of things, he argued that that knowledge must be
balanced with the knowledge of moral nature (te-hsing chih chih). Both kinds
of knowledge were central to the investigation of things. However, the funda-
mental goal was the moral self-realization of the scholar, not the acquisition
of empirical knowledge.
Wang Yang-ming (1472-1529), writing in the Ming, offered another major
interpretation of the investigation of things. Like Chu Hsi, Wang saw the
investigation of things as central to the goal of self-realization. However, he
ultimately rejected Chu Hsi's interpretation of the investigation of things be-
cause he felt it lacked "an order of priority, together with sense of urgency."57
By focusing on external principles (Ii) Wang argued that Chu's method ne-
glected what was fundamental to the pursuit of sagehood: the rectification of
the mind. For Wang the ko of ko-wu meant: "to eliminate what is incorrect
in the mind so as to preserve the correctness of its original substance."58 In
Wang's interpretation, the careful balance that Chu Hsi attempted to strike
between empirical (external) knowledge and moral (internal) knowledge has
50Hummel:241-43.
51CHMKKK:77.
52KCHP 1.1:1a.
53LiU 1898.
54Liang 1975:202.
55Graham 1958:xix-xx.
56Lau 1960; Petersen 1975; Ch'ien 1975:504-50; T'ang 1966:312-23.
57Tu 1976:169.
58Tu 1976:170.
40David C. Reynolds

shifted. While Wang's position is not anti-intellectualist,59, it did little to

bolster the importance of studying the external world-either through books
or in direct confrontations with nature.
Although the interpretations of the investigation of things offered by Chu
Hsi and Wang Yang-ming differed significantly from one another, both held
moral self-realization as the ultimate goal. However, as T'ang Chun-i and
Yu Ying-shih have suggested,60 in the late Ming and early Ch'ing Chinese
scholars offered interpretations which shifted the focus of the investigation
of things from moral self-realization to the pursuit of objective knowledge
of "affairs and things." Empirical knowledge (wen-chien chih chih) began
to replace moral knowledge (te-hsing chih chih) as the central concern of
Confucian scholarship.
This empiricism took many forms. In the late Ming, Lo Ch'in-shun (1465-
1547) and Wang T'ing-hsiang (1474-1544) gave more weight to empirical
knowledge and intellectual cultivation than did earlier Neo-Confucians. Both
stressed the importance of observing the external world to the investigation
of things61 and both argued that empirical knowledge was not secondary to
moral knowledge. In his Elegant Words (Ya-shu, 1538), Wang argued that
truly comprehensive knowledge can only come from the slow accumulation
of empirical study and thought.62 This new empiricism was also evident
in early Ch'ing interest in history, local customs, geography, and statecraft
scholarship.63
It is not surprising that when the Jesuits and their principal converts, Hsu
Kuang-ch'i (1562-1633) and Li Chih-tsao (d. 1630), looked for a Chinese term
to translate scientia (the then current European equivalent of the modern
English term science) they chose ko-chih. This translation was derived from a
a sentence in the Great Learning which reads "the extension of knowledge lies
in the investigation of things" (chih chih ts'ai ko-wu).64 The choice of ko-chih,
which combined the notions investigation and extension, was a particularly
appropriate translation for scientia. Scientia implied a concern for knowledge
of the empirical world and a knowledge that would lead to salvation. Like
59Yu 1976:132.
60T'ang 1966:331; Yu 1976:131-56.
61Bloom 1979:98-106.
62Yu 1976:135.
63In history, local customs, geography and statecraft scholarship Ku Yen-wu (1613-1682)
and Huang Tsung-hsi (1610-1695); textual studies Yen Jo-chu (1636-1704); practical studies
Yen Yuan (1635-1704) and Li Kung (1659-1746); the exact sciences Mei Wen-ting (1633-
1721); as well as in Fang I-chih's (d. 1671) reorientation of the investigation of things
toward a greater concern with the natural world. T'ang 1966:330-36; Yu 1976:136-56; Tu
1975; Petersen 1975; Liang 1959.
64Wang 1966:6-29; Lo 1960:29.
Redrawing China's Intellectual Map41

the Chinese term used to translate it, scientia was laden with both empirical
and moral concerns.65
Although in Chinese discussions of science shih-hsüeh (substantial learn-
ing) and shih-shih chiù shih (search for truth in actual facts) were used
more often in the eighteenth century than either ko-wu or ko-chih, ko-chih
still served as the Chinese translation for science (scientia) and was still
used in the titles of Chinese books concerned with the natural world—e.g.
Ch'en Yuan-lung's Ko-chih ching-yuan (Mirror of Scientific and Technical
Origins).66 Moreover, ko-chih remained the standard Chinese translation for
science throughout the nineteenth century. In the first decade of the twen-
tieth century it was gradually superseded by the current Chinese term for
science, k'o-hsiieh, a Japanese neologism.67
In formulating their vision of science as a form of ko-wu, many in the late
nineteenth century derived their interpretation of ko-wu from that offered
by Chu Hsi. However, by equating science (seen as the pursuit of empirical
knowledge) with the activity of ko-wu, these nineteenth-century writings up-
set the balance between moral and empirical knowledge that Chu Hsi had
maintained in his interpretation of ko-wu. Only the "knowledge of hearing
and sight" remained. Though pushed to an extreme, these interpretations
were consistent with a tendency present in Chinese thought since the late
Ming to interpret ko-wu in an increasing empirical manner.
Although not everyone who wrote about science in the late Ch'ing ac-
cepted fully the easy equation of science and the investigation of things, few
argued that there were no similarities between the two. Wang Tso-ts'ai, an
"imperial student" from Chekiang, was one of the few who refused to accept
the equation of science and the investigation of things. For Wang, Chinese
ko-chih was concerned with "the principles of righteousness" (i-li), while that
of the West with "the principles of things" (wu-li). From his point of view,
the two shared nothing in common.68
While others as well noted differences in orientation between the ko-chih
of China and that of the West, they did not feel that the two projects were
incompatible. Yü Yüeh, a well known textual scholar noted for his eclecticism
and interest in non-Confucian classical texts, writing in the 1890s, reminded
his readers that while Western science did in fact derive from the investiga-
tion of things, there were important differences between Chinese and Western
ideas of ko-wu. Chinese focused on the "Tao of humans" while Westerners

65Weisheipl 1978; Wallace 1978; Feldhay 1987.

66T'ang 1966:335; Needham 1954:48.
67Yang 1981.
68KCSYKI 1889:5a-6b; also 1887:la-2b, 3a-5a, 5a-9b; 1889:5a-6b, 8b-10b, 15b-16a.
42David C. Reynolds

were primarily concerned with "physical things."69 Nonetheless, Yu's recog-

nition of this difference did not lead him to reject science; rather his general
eclecticism lead to a willingness to include science within the realm of what
a scholar should know.70
Some even suggested that the two should be combined to the ultimate
benefit of China. One of these was Lin I-shan (ca. 1890s) who argued that
science might be understood as a form of ko-wu just as long as scholars remem-
bered that the Great Learning begins with "making the intentions sincere"
(ch'eng-i), not with the investigation of things.71 Yuan Ch'ang (1846-1900),
a reform-minded Ch'ing official, offered a view of the relation between ko-wu
and science that was very similar to that of Lin.72 Like Lin, Yuan did not
want his readers to reject science, but he did want them to remember that
science was only a portion, and not necessarily the major portion, of the
project of the investigation of things. According to Chang, "that which is
called the ancient and modern learning of the exhaustion of principles and
the investigation of things ought to have four essentials." Those essentials
included moral knowledge (i-li chih hsüeh), knowledge of China's literary tra-
ditions (ming-li chih jen), knowledge of China's historical literature (shih-li
chih shih), and, finally, knowledge the natural world (wu-li chih shu).73 Sci-
ence, in these interpretations, was presented as important to the scholar and
to China, but only if accorded its proper place in the broader project of the
investigation of things.
Another common way in which writings in the late Ch'ing attempted
to assimilate science to China was to suggest that science was, in fact, an
example of "substantial learning" (shih-hsüeh) . Although shih-hsiieh was not
equated with science in the late Ch'ing (some writings did, however, come
close to equating it with Western learning), few would have disagreed with
John Fryer's assertion that the practice of shih-hsiieh was essential to science:
"If one wishes to extend knowledge, then one must first investigate things. If
one is to be successful at the investigation of things, then shih-hsüeh must be
discussed." 74
In appropriating shih-hsüeh as a vehicle with which to "overlap" science
and traditional scholarship, writings in the nineteenth century were imper-
fectly echoing earlier uses of this concept. The term itself is highly ambiguous;
it implies a concern with both moral substantialness and practical results. Ac-
69Yu 1896: la-b.
70Tseng 1971:22.
71Lm 1896:2a.
"Hummel 1943:945-48.
73Yuan 1899: la-2b; KCSYKI 1889: la-b.
74Fryer 1896:1a.
Redrawing China's Intellectual Map43

cording to de Bary, shih implies the "moral solidity of principles as the prime
reality and also the practicality of moral values based on human relations."75
In the early Ch'ing, this term was central to the critique of late Ming
thought and society raised by Ku Yen-wu, Huang Tsung-hsi, and others.
However, the meaning of shih-hsüeh was stretched in the seventeenth century
to include in addition to "moral solidity," a concern for empirical evidence and
social, political, and administrative practicality. Although these seventeenth-
century additions were not entirely absent in earlier uses of shih-hsüeh, in the
seventeenth century, the "center of gravity" of shih-hsüeh had shifted from
"an early emphasis on moral substantiality and metaphysical truths to the
pursuit of objective, empirical investigations serving utilitarian ends."76
Nineteenth-century discussions of shih-hsüeh retained seventeenth and
eighteenth century concerns with empirical verification and administrative
reform. However, in virtually equating "Western learning" with shih-hsüeh
they added a new element to the discourse. In the past shih-hsüeh had been
held to be the true realization of learning—even Chu Hsi had used the term to
characterize the type of learning he advocated.77 Now shih-hsüeh was often
counterpoised to Chinese learning. Western learning was shih while Chi-
nese learning was hsu ("empty")—the same term of scorn that early Ch'ing
thinkers used to describe Sung and Ming Neo-Confucianism.
This bifurcation of learning (hsüeh) is suggestive of the cultural iconoclasm
generally associated with the New Culture era. However, in attributing hsu
to China and shih to the West, these writings did not offer a wholesale rejec-
tion of Chinese tradition. Rather, like their predecessors in the seventeenth
century, late nineteenth-century intellectuals were criticizing tendencies in
Chinese thought that lead it toward hsu. In using shih-hsüeh to refer to sci-
ence and in advocating that more attention be given to shih they hoped to
open the way for change and for the regeneration of learning in China.78
In fact, these writings suggest that what was needed was for Chinese to
return their focus to fundamentals, to those principles that do not change
with the passing of time. In one interpretation, these unvarying fundamen-
tals included constants of nature and certain moral universals— "humane
knowledge" (jen-chih) and "loyalty and sincerity" (chung hsin).79 Indeed,
although most discussions of shih-hsüeh focused on practicality, the impor-
tance of "moral solidity" was not ignored. In 1898 the Journal of Substantial
75de Bary 1979:24.
76de Bary 1979:25.
77r
7Cheng 1979.
78KCIWHP 92:733a-34a; Wang 1885:la-b; KCIWHP l:lb-2b; KCSYKI 1886:5a-llb;
CHMKKK: 455-56; Ho 1898.
79Ho 1898:165.
44David C. Reynolds

Learning (Shih-hsüeh pao), for instance, left a place for "sagely teachings"
within the parameters of shih-hsüeh; still, empirical knowledge dominated its
notion of shih-hsüeh:

This journal will cover four broad areas. First, the study of the
heavens (t'ien-hsüeh). This includes the essentials of the k'ai-
t'ien and hun-t'ien systems, the general methods of mathematical
astronomy as well as Western methods of measurement and cal-
culation. Second, the study of land (ti-hsüeh): the essentials of
physical geography, and border defense, as well as political and
economic geography. Third, the study of man (jen-hsüeh): the
teaching of the sages and state documents; the comparative study
of institutions in China and foreign nations; and the study of rit-
ual, music, war, punishments, commerce, and crafts. Fourth, the
study of things (wu-hsüeh): science (ko-chih), substance and func-
tion (t'i-yung), and the shape and form of animals and plants as
well as optics, chemistry, acoustics, electricity, physics, and me-
chanics.80

The key to shih-hsüeh was taken to be implementation. Western superi-

ority was not based on differences in physique or intelligence. Chinese and
Westerners do not differ in any significant way. The differences between the
two cultures arose, as Ho Shu-ling put it in 1898, not because of racial differ-
ences, but because the West practices shih-hsüeh and China does not.81
In Ho's suggestion that implementation was crucial to the success of shih-
hsüeh there was an awareness of the importance of practice. If shih-hsüeh
was to be implemented, then Chinese scholars must address themselves to
the practical problems of reform. Elegant words and essays would no longer
suffice. Nonetheless, in the end supporters of shih-hsüeh often advocated little
more than the translation of a variety of Western books. Even Ho Shu-ling
seemed to fall victim to this:

Although we are not able to implement [shih-hsüeh] , it is still bet-

ter to say something. Fancy, artificial good words are still better
than vulgar, artificial evil words. To speak empty words concern-
ing Western astronomy and geography is better than producing
empty words in eight-legged essays. Books on morality can be
recited by all, but they are not implemented. These axe merely
books of recorded sayings. However, books which speak of the
80CHMKKK:455.
81Ho 1898:165.
Redrawing China's Intellectual Map45

search for profit can be recited and implemented. . . . Western

books on commercial activities should be translated; Western
books on agricultural methods should be translated; Western books
on mining should be translated; and Western works on manufac-
turing should be translated.82
Aside from suggesting the importance of translation, neither Ho or other
advocates of shih-hsüeh provided much guidance as to how science could be re-
alized in China. In fact, in so far as science was seen as coterminous with shih-
hsüeh, nineteenth-century advocates of science did not move much beyond the
empty talk they hoped to avoid. In these discussions, science emerged as little
more than a body of received knowledge about the natural world contained
in a variety of Western books.
The cultural essentialism which argued for two distinctly different cultural
orientations for China and the West that was evident in late nineteenth-
century discussions of shih-hsüeh was widespread in late Ch'ing China. Sci-
ence, as a central part of Western culture, was made familiar and accept-
able (once assigned its proper place) by assimilating it to one pole in a
number of dyads found in traditional philosophical discourse: Tao-ch'i (The
Way/concrete object), t'i-yung (substance/function), pen-mo (foundation/ex-
tension), chu-fu (principal/ancillary) , and yüeh-po (essential/breadth). For
example, Western culture was said to be oriented primarily toward ch 'i, Chi-
nese culture toward the Tao.83 Wang T'ao's remarks are typical: "That which
is above forms is China. This is to excel at the Tao. That which is within
forms is the West. This is to excel at ch'i"84
In their use of these dyads, late Ch'ing intellectuals drove a wedge between
what had been previously-inseparable pairs. As used in the tradition, these
dyads were ordinarily held to pertain to the same object. For instance, in
Chu Hsi's use of the tao ch'i dyad, each pole of the dyad while clearly distinct
was held to be inseparable from the other:

The Tao is the reason things are as they are. Every object and
every affair must have their reason (tao-li). The ch'i are physical
manifestations [of the Tao] . Every object and every affair has its
physical manifestation. If there is a Tao, there must also be a
ch'i; and if there is a ch'i, there also must be a Tao.85
82Ho 1898:167.
83Wang 1969:51-100; Ch'u 1974.
84Wang 1969:56.
85Ch'ien 1975:2.422, 420-40; Chan 1963:785-86; Fung 1953:532-71.
46David C. Reynolds

Moreover, these writings also interjected a sense of hierarchy among the

poles of the dyads that was lacking in the tradition. The cultural essential-
ism that allowed writers in the late Ch'ing to argue that China was oriented
toward the Tao and the West toward ch 'i was not a cultural relativism which
acknowledged cultural differences but refused to render judgment about val-
ues. Rather, implicit in this literature was the assumption that one of the
poles in each dyad (at least as applied to differences between China and the
West) was superior to the other. Thus in stressing China's orientation toward
the Tao, and the West's toward ch'i these writers were in fact suggesting that
Chinese culture addressed itself to things that were truly important while the
West merely focused on those things that are secondary.
The devaluation of Western culture relative to Chinese culture that was
evident in the use of these dyads can be best seen in the writings of those who
forthrightly denied that Western culture (and science) had anything impor-
tant or long lasting to offer China.86 These individuals were as interested in
wealth and power for China as were those who advocated the use of science
and they were, at times, willing to acknowledge the technological superiority
of the West. Nonetheless, they were certain that those who looked to West-
ern science and technology as the answers to China's problems had misplaced
their faith. What was needed instead was a return to the unvarying funda-
mentals of good government—humanity (jen), righteousness (i), and ritual
(U).

Even if we could master the intricacies of technology and the

means of wealth and power, how would that compare to the Tao
of ordering the family, ruling the nation, and bringing peace to
the empire? If it can be said that mathematics can be used to
understand all that is heaven, earth, and man, then one would
also have to assert that foreign nations know only order and not
disorder, only prosperity, not decline, only life, not death, only
strength, not weakness, and only wealth, not poverty. But has
the West been able to achieve these ideals? In mathematics there
is a controlling heavenly principle (t'ien-li). Yet foreigners are able
to make predictions about one era and one generation. Chinese,
on the other hand, have had, from antiquity, the ability to make
predictions across hundreds of generations and thousands of ages.
This is because we have sages that foreign nations can not even
begin to match.87
86Ch'u 1974:176-240.
87Ch'u 1974:200.
Redrawing China's Intellectual Map47

Western science and technology, in this point of view, were clearly de-
ceptive in their promises. They were rejected, even as a means to wealth
and power; whatever benefits science and technology might offer were clearly
short-lived and directed attention away from the true source of wealth and
power: "humane government" (jen-cheng). Science was rejected here not
because it was foreign or because it was inappropriate to the scholar, but
because it was ineffective.
Cultural essentialism could also be used in arguments in support of science
and technology. In these arguments, the bifurcation of culture remained as
did the notion of cultural hierarchies. Both notions were, however, given
an interesting twist. Cultural bifurcation was acknowledged but only as a
contemporary phenomena. If the orientations of China and the West differed
fundamentally in the nineteenth century that had not been always the case.
In China's high antiquity, Chinese culture had encompassed both Tao and
ch 'i, yüeh and po, etc. By positing an ancient cultural unity, these arguments
opened the way for cultural syncretism in the present and for the possibility
of a restored and revitalized (united) culture in China.
Cheng Kuan-ying's views were representative. According to Cheng, a
comprador and reformist writer, China's high antiquity was characterized by
a cultural unity that, with the loss of the ko-chih section of the Great Learning,
was destroyed as Chinese scholars fell into the practice of writing "empty
essays" (kung-wen) and discussing "nature and principle" (hsing-li) .88 With
this loss, Chinese culture had become unbalanced and partial. In Cheng's
view, the culture of the West was equally partial. In contrast to Chinese
culture which had maintained what was essential (yüeh), Western culture
had only developed a certain breadth (po):
What is breadth? It is that which the West calls science. It
includes the study of meteorology, optics, chemistry, mathemat-
ics, physics, astronomy, geology, and electricity. All of these can
be relied on. They are the ch'i. What is essential? It is that
which is capable of embracing the origins of nature and fate and
of comprehending the affairs of heaven and earth. This is the Tao.
Foreigners in coming to China have in effect returned to the es-
sential from breadth. Now that men from the five continents have
entered the central land, the start of common orientations, lan-
guage, and ethics is at hand. From this time on it will be possible
to completely encompass hsu and shih, unite principle and num-
bers, meld objects (wu) and principle, so that in a few hundred
88CHMKKK:118.
48David C. Reynolds

years the divisions among the various teachings will have dimin-
ished and humans will have returned to the correct [doctrines] of
Confucius and Mencius.89

Cheng's arguments were not a rejection of science. The partiality of the

West was to be rejected as was the partiality of China; neither po or yüeh,
ch'i or Tao, by themselves, were sufficient. If the cultural unity that Cheng
wished restored was to be realized, China had to be willing to take from the
West and a process of cultural syncretism had to take place. Nonetheless, in
the end, a sense of disparity surfaces in Cheng's account. In this syncretic
process Chinese learning was still seen as more fundamental than that of the
West: "Chinese learning is to seen as principal (chu) and Western learning
as ancillary (fu)."90 Science is thus legitimate as long, that is, as it retains
its proper (secondary) place in the larger scheme of learning.
Cheng's arguments about cultural syncretism and cultural unity in China's
high antiquity reveal the third strategy used by writers in the late nineteenth
century to make science familiar: the claim that modern science originated
in China. The sciences (ko-chih) were highly developed in antiquity, Cheng
suggested, but in the late Han this tradition was cut off: "since the loss of
the chapter on ko-wu in the Great Learning and the Tung-kuan chapter of
the Rites of Chou(Chou-li), the ancient learning of names, things, forms, and
numbers left China and entered the West. Since that time China has not
been able to equal the West in these arts and sciences."91
Cheng was not the first to use this argument. Seventeenth and eighteenth-
century mathematician and astronomers like Wang Hsi-shan (1628-1682), Mei
Wen-ting, Mei Ku-ch'eng (1681-1763), and the K'ang-hsi emperor used it to
help justify their interest in Western science.92 Early in the nineteenth cen-
tury Jüan Yuan (1754-1849) and others associated with his Hall of Martime
Studies (Hsueh-hai t'ang sought recourse in this argument to legitimate their
interest in Western science.93 Among the more prominent late imperial Chi-
nese who resorted to this argument were Li Hung-chang,94 Wang T'ao,95 and
Fang Chun-i [1815-1889].96 Finally, in the 1890s, three major works, which
offered an abundance of textual evidence for this position, were published by
conservative classical scholars:Liu Yüeh-yün'sTTie Chinese Method of the"In-
89CHMKKK:118.
90CHMKKK: 123.
91CHMKKK:118.
92Wang 1966:78-9; Ch'u 1974:242; Ch'uan 1973.
93Ch'iian 1973:221-24; Sivin 1973:99.
94Ch'u 1974:244.
95Ch'u 1974:245-46.
96Ch'u 1974:245.
Redrawing China's Intellectual Map49

vestigation of Things" (Ko-wu Chung-fa), Wang Jen-chun's Ancient Traces

of Science (Ko-chih ku-wei) and A Record of the Luxurious Flowering of the
Investigation of Things (Ko-wu ching-hua Iu).97
These works did not claim that similar developments in the sciences had
occurred in China and the West in high antiquity or that Chinese and Western
scholars had, independent of each other, made identical discoveries. Rather,
they argued that Western science originated in China and was transmitted
to the West when, some said, Yao ordered the younger Ho to reside in the
West. Once this knowledge had been transmitted to the West, the West was
able to develop its full potential.
Examples were drawn from a wide variety of Western sciences and ancient
Chinese books to support these contentions. Jüan Yuan suggested that Tseng
Tzu had discovered the spherical nature of the earth; that diffraction was
explained in Chiang Meng's theory of the movement of the ether (yu-ch'i);
and that the retrograde motions of the planets had been accounted for by
Ch'i Meng's theory of the "non attachment."98 Others located the origins
of optics, physics, and astronomy in the Mohist texts.99 Still others saw
algebra as the Chinese system of t'ien-yüan; 10° chemistry as a refinement of
ideas in Taoist texts; 101 and geography in the Treatise on the River Chart
(Ho-t'u).102
These arguments about the Chinese origins of modern science were not
offered as a way of dismissing science as an unimportant Chinese discard.103
In part, they were responses to those like Wo-jen, the conservative Manchu
statesman, who rejected science as non-essential for China's true needs.104
They were also affirmations that science was a proper activity for a Chinese
scholar. It was not shameful to study science nor to acknowledge Western
superiority in science and technology. As Wang Jen-chün put it, what was
truly shameful is that Chinese now have so little knowledge of science:
At present, if we wish to control machinery then we must be able
to measure the movements of the myriad things, and use the power
of water and fire. [This knowledge] can only be obtained from
trigonometry, chemistry, mechanics, electricity, and other arts.
Although these names are Western, scholars should not consider
97AIsO see: KCSYKI 1886:5a-llb; 1887:la-2b, 5a-9b; 1889:28a-32b.
98Ch'uan 1973:219-22.
"Ch'uan 1973:223.
100Ch'uan 1973:236.
101 Ch'uan 1973:238.
102Ch'uan 1973:249.
103KCSYKI 1886:5a-llb; 1887:la-2b, 5a-9b.
104Levenson 1968:71.
50David C. Reynolds

these arts to be shameful. [Once] it is realized that they originated

in China, then the scholar (ju) ought to take his lack of knowledge
as shameful.105
Liu Yüeh-yün agreed. Moreover, echoing Ho Shu-ling's assertion about the
intelligence of the Chinese, Liu argued that the apparent superiority of the
West should not be seen as indicative of Chinese potential.106 The flourishing
of science in antiquity was evidence, for Liu and others, of Chinese capacities.
Indeed, in his view, it is the West that is derivative (and inferior): "The
methods used by the barbarians are all Chinese methods. . . . There is not
one area in which they do not rely on Chinese methods."107
Conclusion
The ability of Chinese in late imperial times to adopt intellectual strategies
that could simultaneously "overlap" and "distance" science and traditional
scholarship suggests something of the complexity of the Chinese response to
modern science. The use of these logically incompatible strategies allowed
science to be placed on China's "intellectual map" without totally re-drawing
that map. Moreover, these strategies helped quell the fear that science (West-
ern learning) would displace traditional scholarship, yet allowed those who
saw the need for reform to grant "science" a certain amount of legitimacy.
Thus, the failure of science to take root in China during the nineteenth century
can not be explained simply by the "constraints" of indigenous scholarship
or of traditional culture.
Nor can the "failure" of Chinese in the nineteenth century to establish
an institutional structure for science be attributed wholly to the weakness of
traditional culture. The narrow vision of science as knowledge to be diffused
rather than a social activity which produces new knowledge brought to China
by Western missionaries, did not provide fertile grounds for the construction
of an institutional structure for science in China or for Chinese to grasp
fully the importance of institutions to the pursuit of science. Only in the
twentieth century, after Chinese had become students of science in Western
universities and were exposed to a view of science that saw the laboratory
and experimental field as the location of scientific activity and science as a
type of work which not only spreads but creates knowledge, did a community
of scientists begin to form in China.
Twentieth-century scientists did not object to the basic strategies adopted
by Chinese intellectuals in the nineteenth century. Indeed, they agreed that
105Wang 1898a 4:26b.
106Wang 1898a 2:27b.
107LiU 1898 "Hsu":la-3b.
Redrawing China's Intellectual Map51

"science" must be "overlapped" with traditional scholarship if it was to be

accorded the legitimacy necessary for it to take root in China. Nineteenth-
century constructions of science differed from those of the twentieth not in
their willingness to "overlap" "science" and traditional scholarship, but in
the manner in which they attempted to "distance" science from traditional
scholarship. In the nineteenth century Chinese "distanced" science from tra-
ditional scholarship by arguing that science was to be distinguished in its
goals, methods, and objects from Confucian learning. Twentieth-century
Chinese scientists "overlapped" the two by arguing that science shared a set
of common goals with traditional forms of learning although the objects and
methods of the two were still seen as distinct. The "map" that they con-
structed contained considerably broader areas of "overlaps" between science
and traditional scholarship than envisioned by Chinese in the nineteenth cen-
tury.108
Seen in this light, earlier Chinese constructions of "science" did not so
much offer barriers to the "rooting" of science in China. Rather, they pre-
pared the way for Chinese scientists in the twentieth century to offer yet a
third construction of science, which like the earlier two, both "overlapped"
and "distanced" science and traditional scholarship. The broader "overlap"
inherent in the third construction, however, provided more fertile soil for
science to take root than the first two Chinese constructions of "science."

Abbreviations

CHMKKK see Chung-hua Min-kuo k'ai-kuo wu-shih nien wen-hsien: Ch'ing-

t 'ing chih kai-ko yu fan-tung
KCHP see Ko-chih hui-pien
KCIWHP see Ko-chih i-wen-hui-pao
KCSYKI see Ko-chih shu-yuan i-k'o
YHTIL see Yüan-hsiang t'ung-i Iu
YHIP see Yu-hsüeh i-pien
KCHY see Ko-chih hsiao-yin
KCTHCM see Ko-chih tsung-hsüeh ch'i-meng

8Reynolds 1986.
52 David C. Reynolds

Glossary

Ch'en Yuan-lung Í^LtLí Feng Kuei-fen ;.£)#!-$·

ch'eng-i fj^ -J^, fu jtf
ch'i % Hai-kuo t'u-chih

ch'i & HoShu-ling *^-§£

Cheng Kuan-ying jfo %§ ffo-i'u 5^lj^

Chiang Chi J^, ^ hsin-hsüeh /?3.*?F

Chiao-hui hsin-pao Jk^áfrtlíL hsing-li 'fi ?f

Chiang-nan tsao chü Ï* i$)»!t_^| hsu /&

chih-chih tsai ko-wu ??£«4*?&4<3 Hsu Kuang-ch'i *£&&.
Chou-lì Hsu Shou ^-If
Chu Hsi 3$.I; hsüeh &

chu-fu ^, $¡j¡ Hsüeh Fu-ch'eng & ?$#,

chu-tzu ^j :}. Hsüeh-hai t'ang ·?| J^ I^

chung hsin %·^% Hsüeh-pao ¡^ -^
Fang Chun-i ^r i| jj Huang Tsung-hsi -$) 1^ ^
Fang I-chih ^ v),f& hun-t'ien >;|-?.
Redrawing China's Intellectual Map 53

Hupei hsüeh-sheng chieh ìtHltijK^fi Ko-chih hsiao-yin H&ík «Y*)

i-li 4* Ko-chih huì-pien $&-3&$4?$)
i-li chih hsüeh Ji jg ; Ko-chih ku-wei fâ-^$ Í0>»
jen \? Ko-chih shu-yuan %&¦&;% $ú
jen-cheng \s. ¡^ Ko-chih i-wen hui-pao ^&4fc.él$Hfe|pt,
jen-chih *µ ig Ko-chih shu-yuan i k'o ñ£t%k,%íi

jen-hsüeh A.^ Ko-chih tsung-hsüeh ch'i-meng

ko-wu #.&-#}

Jüan Yuan ]%, ?. Ko-wu ching-hua lu j&^lqfà^Çfy

kai-t'ien Jj A Ko-wu Chung-fa ?&^"? &
K'ang Yu-wei ko-wu ?'ai /fê·^ ^

K'ang-hsi /^ &£ KuYen-wu J^ £ #¿

k'ao-cheng ^ it k 'ung-wen ? ^_

k'o-hsüeh JA¡& kung-yang *¿ j¿

K'o-hsüeh i-pan Mi^ --$(, Li Chih-tsao $ £. &
ko-chih fá ^ Li Hung-chang C ^h'v

Ko-chih ching-yuan ?^·^?^^, Li Kung ^ ¿&.

Ko-chih hsin-pao ?&^?ß^^?. Li Shan-lan %\\
54 David C. Reynolds

li-hsüeh Sf^ shih-li chih shih % Jg ^Jr^

Li-hsüeh tsa-chih iÇii?4!j|"«& shih-shih chiù shih '%$'%*Ì$L

Liang Ch'i-ch'ao $&&$ t'i-yung .¡j£fQ
Lin I-shan ^fî^a» t'ien-hsüeh A^y
Liu Yüeh-yün fei ¿giß? t'ien-li ^iU

t'ien-yüan ^A-
Lo Ch'in-shun |^,||j
Lu Hsün ¿fa \a T'ung-wen kuan \ï^_X'|f
Mei Wen-ting fáX$¡ ?a-hsüeh j<J&

Mei Ku-ch'eng ^ ^.J^ tao V^

ming-li chih jen£ íf ^?. tao-ch'i ^Jj f£
pen-mo J^^ tao-li ^ #g
po tfj. te-hsing chih chih ?^??" ?*§
shih ti-hsüeh *fc>|í
shih 7?-/? íao-c/ii/i *tfc 3€-^-^.

shih-hsüeh F pi Tseng Kuo-fan ^ ^) >f

Shih-hsüeh pao $kfâi!ïl> Tseng Tzu ^ ^

shih-li chih hsüeh "% *? ^.¡f Tung-fang tsa-chih ^ Tiìffii t£.

Won-Aruo kung-pao _|& $¡J -ií'iffsL
Redrawing China's Intellectual Map 55

Wang Hsi-shan :£,/£ ?a-shu ¡$^

Wang Jen-chun J ^- -flL. Yao fc
Wang T'ao 3. jfa Yen Fu $j£
Wang Tso-ts'ai 3M£;f YenJo-chu itfljgjj.
Wei Yuan ^. Aj Yen Yuan ^ jt,
wen-chien chih chih )*^J¡I,^.^ Yu Yüeh $J ^
Wo-jen j£ fa yu-ch'i i^^
wu '^ Yu-hsüefe i-pien 5s}J ¿^ |S J^
wu-hsüeh ¿fate Yüan-hsiang t'ung-i Iu ÍTL^Ii

wu-li 2#7 *£ Yuan Ch'ang -&?ß

wu-li chih shu -^b *$ ^- % yüeh-po 44j -fÄ

56David C. Reynolds

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