Why Science Did Not Develop in China: A Historical Comparison With Europe - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - by Graeme Lang, Ph.D., Department of Applied Social Studies, City University of Hong Kong. (e-mail: [email protected]) Why did modern science develop in Europe, but not in China? Most people give cultural answers to this question. But there is a better explanation. It was not the cultures of Europe and China which explain why Europe developed science and China did not. Differences in the state-systems of the two regions, which were ultimately the result of differences in geography and ecology, are the key to the problem. I have written a couple of papers outlining this proposed explanation (Lang 1997a, 1997b, available on request). Some of the ideas were also reviewed in a short article in Nature (Diamond, 1998). At the suggestion of Dr. Su Qian, I offer a brief summary below for interested readers of China News Digest. Readers should consult the articles for more extensive analysis and for the full bibliography and references. First, a brief definition of modern science. Modern Science What do we mean by modern science? Were there not scientists - investigators of nature - in many ancient civilizations, including China? Modern science, however, is different. It includes not only methods of pursuing knowledge about the world, but also a social system for critically examining and testing findings and theories (particularly, in scientific forums such as meetings and journals). The social system of science is a key feature of the methodology used by science for finding out about the world. It has led to increasingly refined methods of observation, precise measurement through mathematization, and (where possible) controlled experiment, because the social system for critically assessing results drives scientists toward greater precision and tighter theories, and scientists have discovered that this leads to more rapid progress. Modern science developed in Europe from the 16th century, when we find the first explicit formulations of scientific method, and (by the 17th century) the first scientific societies, devoted to review and assessment of scientific studies. There were investigators of nature and theorists in other cultures. European thinkers were greatly stimulated by writings from ancient Greece which they obtained in translation from Muslim writers and scholars. Europeans also benefited from mathematical concepts developed in Muslim lands or in India, and reports of technological developments in China. But no other society or civilization produced anything like the scientific work and scientific associations which began to develop in Europe from the 16th century, and which began to produce an increasingly rapid accumulation of useful scientific findings and theories by the 19th century. Cultural Explanations A common explanation is that Chinese culture was unfavorable for science. Etienne Balazs expressed the idea this way: most probably the main inhibiting cause was the intellectual climate of Confucianist orthodoxy, not at all favorable for any form of trial or experiment, for innovations of any kind, or for the free play of the mind (quoted in Karp and Restivo 1974). A similar idea was recently been expressed by an eminent scientist in China, who wrote, One of the great tenets of Confucianism, the need for each individual to know his or her place in the social hierarchy, contributed much to the continuation of Chinese civilization through the dynasties. But knowing ones place also militates against curiosity and creativity, and I believe that the influence of Confucius explains why China has never been strong in science, especially abstract science (Tsou 1998). Cultural explanations have also been offered to explain why science developed in Europe (eg. Huff 1993, Merton 1970). Cultural explanations, however, are inadequate. First, there were ideas and ideologies in Christian Europe which were just as hostile or more hostile to scientific investigation than anything in Confucian China, but they did not prevent the emergence of science. Second, culture is complex, and can be used to justify what people really want to do, if they have the power to choose freely among available ideas. People find ways to reinterpret inherited culture to justify new practices. (For example, scientists in Europe tried to justify science to their contemporaries as the investigation of Gods handiwork, and therefore not a challenge to religion or to the church). Third, even if culture was a factor, what explains culture? If Confucianism was not favorable to science, why was Confucianism so dominant in China, and not just one philosophy among many? Cultural explanations, in a sense, merely beg the question (Needham 1969). Is there a deeper answer? One way to pursue such an answer is to compare Europe and China in terms of preconditions for the emergence of modern science. Preconditions for Modern Science For what we call modern science to develop, certain conditions must be present. Obvious factors include surplus food, a division of labor, and a writing system. All were present in China. (Some scholars believe that Chinese characters were an obstacle to science. I believe they were an obstacle to literacy, but not to science, if other conditions had been favorable). Other conditions, however, sharply distinguished Europe from China. First, for science to develop there must be a number of occupations which provide time for inquiry, and a number of independent but communicating nodes of inquiry. (A single node of inquiry will be too conservative, and too vulnerable to conditions at the site over time). Second, there must be freedom of inquiry in many of these nodes, without severe distortions produced by religious or political repression. Third, a society must provide substantial rewards for success in adding to knowledge about nature or producing more successful manipulations of nature. Such rewards will induce bright and energetic persons to take up investigations of nature, and ensure competition among them for these rewards. (This competition is part of the reason for progress in science). Fourth, there must be an educational system which assimilates useful new knowledge. Europe provided all of these conditions to a much greater extent than China. Preconditions for Modern Science: A Comparison of Europe and China First, Europe had more than eighty universities by the 17th century. Many of these universities were quite conservative, but they provided settings in which debate and analysis of theories about nature could and did occur (Huff 1993). China, during the same period, had no universities. The Chinese academies were mostly cramming schools for the imperial examinations. Why did Europe have universities while China did not? One key factor is that in Europe, relatively autonomous towns developed in many areas as trading centers where privately produced surpluses of agricultural goods could be exchanged locally and with distant trading partners. These towns developed their own institutions, including universities in some towns with their own charters and with some autonomy from local governments. The most important condition for this kind of development was that agriculture throughout much of Europe depended on rainfall (Karp and Restivo 1974). The agricultural revolution in Europe between the 6th and 9th century provided the agricultural surplus to support the growth of the towns, and these towns evolved relatively independent institutions because the state was weak and remote. The state, in turn, was weak and remote during the period when these towns were developing their political institutions and political traditions, because there was no need for the state to be involved in the production of the agricultural surplus. In China, by contrast, the state arose originally in the river plains and developed large-scale water-control projects to increase the surplus food and support a larger population, and thus to provide more resources for the rulers. This is the hydraulic agriculture theory which holds that relatively despotic regimes develop in areas of hydraulic agriculture, because this kind of system requires coercive and intrusive control over the local population (Dorn 1991). This theory has its critics, but it does explain why states in areas of hydraulic agriculture did become relatively more despotic than regimes in areas where industry, trade, and commerce produced relatively independent towns and urban merchant elites before the rise of the centralized state, as in Europe. European universities had already absorbed the works of Aristotle and other Greek and Arab writers in the 13th and 14th centuries, and by the 16th century they had also begun to teach and debate new theories and discoveries about nature. In China, meanwhile, the educational system was extremely conservative, and was mostly devoted to laborious memorization of the Confucian classics and the approved commentaries (Lin 1995). The examination system in China was one of the extraordinary features of Chinese civilization. From the point of view of the development of science, it was important because the content of the material to be studied was strictly controlled by the state, and channelled the energies of Chinas brightest minds into tedious mastery of an entirely state-serving ideology as embodied in the approved classics and commentaries (Qian 1985). Thus the educational system could not and did not provide a context for active debate and discussion of nature and vigorous criticism of the classics. In Europe, by contrast, the universities which existed throughout Europe were not controlled by any single state, and by the 15th century they had become increasingly diverse in their teaching and writings. They were not forced by a regional empire to adhere to any single ideology, because no such empire existed in Europe. Thus there was much more intellectual pluralism in Europe than in China. There were certainly repressive regimes in Europe. But scholars persecuted in one state could usually find refuge in a nearby state (Wuthnow 1980). In China, however, dissident scholars who challenged official ideologies could be silenced anywhere within China through the network of state officials. Thus, for three of the preconditions for the emergence of modern science, Europe was well ahead of China. But these three conditions could be present without necessarily producing modern science. (Inquirers could use their positions and freedom to write poetry, philosophy, or treatises on government). The fourth condition is also important: enough rewards for successful inquiries into nature to attract some of the brightest minds into this kind of activity. Such rewards and such competition occurred in Europe, but not (until the 20th century) in China. The key to the existence of these rewards in Europe four hundred years ago was the development of a number of nearby competing states in Europe. China, during the same period, was a single isolated empire. We must look at the state-systems in the two regions. State-systems in Europe and China China has been united into a single vast state or empire for most of the past two thousand years. Every time independent states appeared after the breakup of the empire, they lasted only a short time before being reunited (usually by military conquest) into a single empire with nearly the same size and shape as the previous empires. From the beginning of the Yuan dynasty in the 13th century until the end of the Qing, China was united under a single emperor (except for brief periods between the decline and fall of one dynasty and the rise of the next). This empire was largely isolated from any other comparable empires or states. None of the minor states on its periphery offered any significant threat. (Japan was not a threat until the end of the nineteenth century when it acquired a modern naval fleet). In Europe during the same period, there was never a single empire which ruled over all of Europe. Since the 13th century, Europe has been divided among a number of kingdoms and states. These states were quite close to each other, and most shared a border with one or two other states in the region. They competed for supremacy on the seas, to which most of them had access through their coastlines, and they also competed through periodic land wars. However, none of these states ever managed to conquer and control the whole region. This difference in state-systems between China and Europe is very important for understanding the different fates of science in the two regions. State-systems and Inquiry The multi-state system in Europe had two important consequences. First, it provided continual competition among these states for economic, military, and industrial advantage. This competition produced greater success for those states which could develop better navigation at sea, bigger and faster ships, more powerful and accurate cannons, and so on. Rulers and officials of these states were aware that such innovations came from innovators, not from scholars who diligently taught the classics. They tolerated and even patronized such innovators (some of whom eventually came to be called scientists). By the 17th century, rulers in England and France had also begun to patronize what we would now call scientific societies, devoted to the circulation and critical assessment of investigations in science and technology. Because inventions, innovations, and better theories could attract public acclaim and appointments to desirable positions, talented persons were motivated to conduct such investigations. In China, however, there was no need for the state to tolerate inquirers and innovators who might challenge traditional ideas held by officials and rulers. No nearby states provided any threat which might make Chinese rulers eager to benefit from new inventions or new thinking. The second important result of the European multi-state system was that no one ideology or system of thought could be imposed over the whole region. Scholars with unpopular ideas in one state could often find safety in a nearby state, by crossing a border a few hundred miles away, and continue their work and their investigations. As a result, Europe produced a much greater diversity of ideas than China. Such diversity of ideas stimulated analysis and debate. Meanwhile, in China, the empire was able to impose a single state-serving ideology over the whole region, and to pursue and suppress dissident scholars anywhere within the realm. There was no escape if one wanted to remain within the boundaries of Chinese civilization. But why did Europe have a multi-state system, while China remained a single vast empire? The answer is not culture, but geography. Geography and State-Systems Europe is geographically fragmented into regions and sub-regions separated from each other by mountains and seas. Britain, France, Italy, and Spain are all partially protected by such barriers, which allowed these regions to develop distinctive ethnic cultures, and avoid easy invasion from other kingdoms and states. Conquest was not impossible, and all of these states were invaded at one time or another. But since all of the states in the region presented such difficulties, it was very difficult for a would-be emperor to conquer and control the whole region. In addition, these states formed alliances to ensure counterbalancing power and provide further protection from would-be conquerors. In China, however, there were no major barriers within the country which could allow any of the sub-regions in China to remain independent in the face of a determined imperial regime. At the same time, China was surrounded by major geographical barriers which protected it for most of the past thousand years from external conquest by other empires (a vast ocean to the east, deserts to the west, the most difficult mountains in the world to southwest, and dense jungle to the south). Until advanced sailing ships arrived from distant empires, China was only vulnerable in the northwest (hence the Great Wall). So, European geography favored a multi-state system, and chronic competition among these states for advantage, which in turn favored science. Chinese geography favored a single vast empire isolated from any serious competitors (until the seventeenth century), which did not favor science. Summary Science gradually emerged in Europe in the context of a system of competing states, the competition for innovations and the intellectual pluralism which developed in this multi-state system, and the numerous universities which provided the setting for such intellectual pluralism. China did not develop science because it was comprised of a single vast empire which did not have to concern itself with serious competition from neighboring states, and which was able to impose a single ideology throughout the entire empire, reinforcing this ideology through a conservative state-controlled examination system. Chinese culture has been shaped to a large extent by this imperial system and its state-serving ideology. These differences between the state-systems in the two regions were the result of differences between Europe and China in geography and ecology. The many natural geographical barriers within Europe favored a multi-state system because they made it difficult for conquerors to establish a regional empire. The relative lack of such barriers in China allowed conquerors to repeatedly re-establish a regional empire, while the natural barriers around this empire protected it from serious competition from other comparable states. Ecological differences between Europe and China were also important, because they help to explain why Europe also included town-based universities which achieved relative autonomy from the state, while no such institutions developed in China. In short, political differences, related ultimately to differences between Europe and China in their ecology and geography, explain why Europe developed science and China did not. Selected References Balazs, Etienne. 1964. Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy. New Haven: Yale University Press. Diamond, Jared. 1998. Peeling the Chinese onion. Nature, vol. 391, 29 January, 433-434. Dorn, Harold. 1991. The Geography of Science. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Huff, Toby. 1993. The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lang, Graeme. 1997a. Structural factors in the origins of modern science: a comparison of China and Europe. Pp.71-96 in Steven T. de Zepetnet and Jennifer W. Jay (eds.), East Asian Cultural and Historical Perspectives. Edmonton: Research Institute for Comparative Literature and Cross Cultural Studies, University of Alberta. Lang, Graeme. 1997b. State systems and the origins of modern science: a comparison of Europe and China. East-West Dialogue 2,1:16-31. Lin, Justin Yifu. 1995. The Needham puzzle: why the industrial revolution did not originate in China. Economic Development and Cultural Change 43:269-292. Merton, Robert. 1970 [1938]. Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth Century England. N.Y.: Howard Fertig. Needham, Joseph. 1969. The Grand Titration: Science and Society in East and West. London: Allen and Unwin. Qian, Wen-yuan. 1985. The Great Inertia: Scientific Stagnation in Traditional China. London: Croom Helm. Tsou Chen-lu. 1998. Science and scientists in China. Science, vol. 280:528-9. Wuthnow, Robert. 1980. The world-economy and the institutionalization of science in seventeenth-century Europe. In Albert Bergesen (ed.), Studies in the Modern World-System. N.Y.: Academic Press.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 06:42:55 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015