Why ancient China did not emphasize the development of natural science

Ancient China was not just a place for the literary sentiment of "leaning against the sky to put the sword to watch the sea, slanting into the hibiscus and drunken Yao Tai", nor was it just a place for calligraphy, paintings, porcelains and embroideries, but it was also a place for science and technology! Turn over the "history of Chinese science and technology", each page, each brilliant achievements have made the world attention, marvel: complete and accurate celestial records, world-class mathematical achievements, the profound Chinese medicine, the world-renowned four great inventions ...... British philosopher, the originator of modern experimental science Bacon once pointed out that: printing press, gunpowder, and compasses "have changed the face of the world," and "no empire, no religious sect, no eminent personage, can produce a greater force and influence in the cause of mankind than these three inventions." Marx even more eloquently pointed out: "gunpowder, compass needle, printing press - these are the three major inventions that foretell the arrival of bourgeois society". China's ancient civilization, science and technology, represented by the Four Great Inventions, have made great contributions to human civilization. China's ancient science and technology has long been ahead of the world. However, the development of science and technology has stagnated and lagged behind in modern times.

The outstanding scientific and technological achievements of ancient China were nourished by the specific economic, social and cultural environment of ancient China.

During the Warring States period, when there were fierce changes and frequent wars, whoever had enough food would have the magic weapon to defeat their rivals, so the idea of "agriculture" became the ruler's idea of governing the world. Since then, successive rulers have taken agriculture as the foundation of the world: Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty issued an edict saying: "Agriculture, the world's basic services are not great", and Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty said: "Agriculture is the most urgent, and must not be lost." Agriculture is the root of the country's wealth, agricultural development is good or bad, maintaining the fate of the country, the dynasty. Therefore, the development of agronomy, with the protection of the ecological environment, the awareness of resources. Therefore, astronomy and calendar science, which is closely related to agriculture, was also developed.

Feudal emperors believed that the heavenly phenomenon directly related to the fate of the king Chaoyang, "Yi" said: "the sky dropping the elephant, see the good and bad ......" the rise and fall of the royal family is the heavenly phenomenon in the earth's reflection of the "celestial and human induction ", "the divine right of kings", so the accuracy of the calendar, is seen as a sign of the dynasty whether to comply with the will of heaven. Farmers in the natural economic conditions, in the long term rely on the sky in the work of the land has accumulated a wealth of experience. This is the reason why ancient astronomical calendars started early and made remarkable achievements.

To make a precise calendar, we need to accurately measure the sky, we need to be good at calculating, so mathematics developed along with astronomy; China has a vast land, a large population, the central government for the effective management of the country, the development of geography. In ancient times, the spiral development of the natural economy, the increase of agricultural productivity, the improvement of handicraft technology, the prosperity of commerce and cities created important conditions for the development of science and culture.

The regular political system and measures contributed to the development of science and technology. The rulers of the Warring States period, the Sui and Tang dynasties, and the Northern Song dynasty all emphasized culture. The Warring States period, as the early Qing Dynasty thinker Wang Fuzhi said, is "a major change in the past and present". Many contradictions and complexity, the ideological community is more active than ever, the monarchs of various countries in order to defeat their own enemies, to attract talent, the emergence of "a hundred schools of thought" situation, in this cultural atmosphere, agriculture, water conservancy, science and technology, astronomy and calendars, medicine and so on, have been considerable development.

Sui-Tang period is a prosperous era of feudal society, the feudal economy is highly developed, the rulers adopted a series of policies to govern the country, there is a clear political, social stability, people happy "Zhen Guanzhi", "Kaiyuan Sheng Shi". In various fields of science and technology, there were many achievements: the world's oldest stone arch bridge, Zhaozhou Bridge, which has been preserved to the present day; the world's first pharmacopoeia compiled and promulgated by the state, the Tang Materia Medica; the astronomical achievements of the monk monk and his line; the invention of engraved printing, which was published in 868 (the ninth year of the Xiantong reign); and the development of the Chinese language and culture. In 868 (the ninth year of the reign of Xian Tong), the long scroll of the Diamond Sutra was the earliest preserved engraved print with pictures in the world, which was beautifully engraved and skillfully cut, with a simple and heavy font and even ink color, and had reached a fairly high level of craftsmanship.

The Northern Song Dynasty was established in 979 AD, basically unified the Central Plains and the South, the end of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms split the situation. Based on the economy of the Sui and Tang dynasties, the commodity economy of the Northern Song Dynasty developed. The development of the paper industry in the Northern Song Dynasty created the necessary conditions for the prosperity of the printing industry. The engraving and printing industry of the Song Dynasty entered into its heyday. Some experienced laborers tried to reform, Bisheng created the movable type printing, which had an important influence on the development of the world's printing technology and the spread of culture.

The Tang Dynasty invented gunpowder, and the Northern Song Dynasty applied gunpowder to the military, and gunpowder weapons showed great power in war. Engels said, "At the beginning of the fourteenth century, gunpowder was introduced into Western Europe from the Arabs, and it revolutionized the whole method of warfare, as every schoolboy knows."

The Northern Song Dynasty, foreign trade is more prosperous than the previous generation, this time the shipbuilding industry has been quite developed, overseas trade continues to expand, due to the need for navigation, one of China's important inventions - compass, from this time onwards, commonly used in the sea vessels. Northern Song Dynasty "Pingzhou can talk" records, 1098-1106 years in Guangzhou "boatmen know geography, night is to watch the stars, day is to watch the sun, yin and hui view compass." Soon, the Arabs learned to use the compass from the Chinese, and it was introduced to the Europeans. Marx said, "Gunpowder blew the chivalric class to pieces, the compass needle opened up the world market and established colonies, while the printing press became the instrument of Protestantism and, in general, the means of scientific revival, the most powerful impulse for the creation of the necessary prerequisites for spiritual development."

In ancient times, especially in the Tang and Song dynasties, intellectuals could truly serve as the brains of society. Beginning in the Sui Dynasty and perfected in the Tang Dynasty, the imperial examination system created a certain social mobility for bureaucrats. During the Wei, Jin, and Northern Dynasties, the scholarly class had been corrupted, and the commoner landowners, who were of humble origins and had real talent, gradually took over the position of the scholarly class. The imperial examination system provided the people of the time with certain opportunities to compete for higher needs. When the imperial examination system was first established, it provided a broad stage for intellectuals to actively participate in political affairs, give full play to their expertise, and concentrate on research, so the Tang and Song dynasties were characterized by brilliant scientific and technological achievements.

In ancient times, Chinese people were more liberal than Westerners. The Warring States period saw the emergence of the "Hundred Schools of Thought"; the Wei and Jin dynasties were characterized by a sense of freedom; and competition was fairer in the early years of the imperial examination system. Although Chinese feudal society was highly centralized, people in a natural economy (based on the family) were much freer than those in the West who were ruled by religious theology in the Middle Ages. It is precisely because of the freedom of human beings and the space for creativity that it is possible to have a consciousness that transcends existence and materializes it into existence.

Western Europe in the Middle Ages, due to the dominance of religious and theological ideology, stifled human nature and creativity, giving birth to the "one-sided moral personality" of Western Europe in the Middle Ages. Engels said: "The history of the Middle Ages knows only one form of ideology, that is, religion and theology." This single ideology, the "one-sided moral personality", made the Middle Ages in Western Europe a gloomy time for scientific and technological development. As a result, the scientific and technological achievements of ancient China stood out and shone brightly.

In addition, China's vast land and people, frequent exchanges between the various ethnic groups, the unique cultural qualities of the Chinese people, so that the Chinese culture has a long history, based on the previous generations, continue to develop and create. Chinese culture is the only uninterrupted culture in the world. Moreover, the open policy of successive dynasties, while spreading the achievements of Chinese culture, pay attention to the absorption of foreign cultures, forming a profound and profound Chinese cultural circle, which has been spread to the East and the West. In the West, although there was once a brilliant ancient Greek civilization, Roman civilization, but due to geological changes, foreign invasions, the influx of the Germanic people like a tide, destroyed everything. Western Europe in the Middle Ages was rebuilt on the ruins of its culture and lacked a solid cultural foundation. That is why ancient Chinese technology was at the forefront of the world.

But while the West was alive with science and technology at the end of the Middle Ages, at the dawn of the New Age, and throughout its modern history, China's scientific and technological development stagnated.

In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, due to the active commodity economy, the sprout of capitalism in Suzhou and other places was being "nurtured", but the successive rulers still advocated the ideology and policy of "emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce", which stifled the development of the commodity economy, and the sprout of capitalism was very weak. The sprout of capitalism was very weak. "These idyllic rural communes, however innocuous they may appear to be, have always been the firm foundation of Oriental despotism; they have confined the human mind to a very small sphere, made it a tame instrument of superstition, a slave to the rules of tradition, and incapable of any greatness or any historical originality." The end of the rotten feudal system seriously hindered the development of new productive forces and became a shackle on them.

The extreme imperial and cultural authoritarian policies under the super-stable system of feudal society imprisoned people's minds. From the Sui and Tang dynasties, the imperial examination system, to the Ming and Qing dynasties, the eight-legged scholarship, the emergence of the extreme barbaric prison of words, also makes the intellectuals can only "give up the present and seek the ancient, give up the human affairs to the nature of the sky." Lu Xun once said: "In the Qianlong period, people were even more afraid to use articles to speak. The so-called scholars could only hide and read the scriptures, proofread and publish ancient books, and do some ancient articles, articles that had nothing to do with the time." There was a deadening of the academic culture. The intellectuals under the feudal cultural dictatorship became tame tools, had no creativity to speak of, and could not play the role of the social mind.

In the period of feudal society, the practicality of the Chinese people's behavioral orientation greatly contributed to the development of ancient science and technology, but too much attention to the practicality of the study of the theory was neglected. After a certain period of development, it was difficult to leap into a new stage of development due to the lack of a strong basic theory. The fact that the fruits of science and technology were possessed by the ruling class made the study of science and technology fall into the orbit of political science, and failed to enter the hall of philosophical reasoning and scientific abstraction. Although there were philosophical theories such as the doctrine of heaven and man and the doctrine of yin and yang and the five elements in ancient China, these theories were universal and applied to everything in heaven and earth, which explained some natural phenomena in a general and vague way, emphasizing the ****ness and lacking in specific, individual and analytical exploration of natural phenomena. Traditional science is good at synthesizing and grasping things from the whole and the connection, and it is full of simple dialectic, but neglecting the individual material entities and substances, and neglecting the individual material entities and substances. However, it neglects the independent research on individual material entities and the internal deep structure of matter, tolerates the haziness of thought and the imprecision of understanding, and lacks the basic method of scientific empirical evidence and analysis, which ultimately becomes an obstacle to people's deep understanding of the essence of things and the formation of scientific and specialized theories. The traditional Chinese science and technology, which emphasizes on practical application but not on theoretical exploration, and the research method and thinking method which emphasizes on overall synthesis but not on individual analysis, have limited the creative transformation of Chinese science and technology from traditional form to modern form.

Feudal society in China utilized the Confucian class to form a bureaucracy to manage the country, which integrated the political and ideological structures. Therefore, China became a country with a strong tendency to politicize its culture. Under the cultivation of Confucian culture, intellectuals read the scriptures, took the imperial examinations, and regarded the career path and the Dragon Gate as the best choice, which in fact was also the most promising. This kind of cultural orientation, make intellectuals on the career of a rush, all kinds of security and ruling the country is not directly related to the learning, are regarded as useless, not urgent investigation, abandoned without treatment, thus resulting in a lot of important scientific works unattended, tied up on the shelves or lost. The concept of emphasizing politics over technology has hindered the progress of science and technology.

Traditional Chinese culture has a tendency to emphasize human relationships over nature. Rulers emphasized virtue over talent. Cao Cao once said, "Functionality is rewarded when there is something to do, and moral integrity is emphasized when there is peace." Sima Guang called those with more talent than virtue villains. Ancient Chinese academic thought also has a tradition of emphasizing the "way" over the "tool". In terms of academics, humanities are emphasized over natural sciences. As far as natural sciences are concerned, the keen observation and novel insights of ancient Chinese philosophers on the natural world are always oriented towards the enlightenment of the human heart in the end. The tendency of intellectuals to emphasize the "way" of politics and human relationships and the "reason" of all things in heaven and earth, and to underestimate specific scientific knowledge and production techniques, is undoubtedly also an important reason for hindering the continued development of science and technology in China.

The slow development of the super-stability of the Chinese feudal society has created a general "atrophied personality". The psychological characteristic of Chinese Confucian culture is "practical rationality". The so-called "practical rationality" means that rationality is guided and carried out in daily life, moral sentiments and political concepts, without any abstract and metaphysical thinking. The center of the whole ideology is to "restrain oneself and return to propriety", and to create an ideal society in which "the whole world returns to benevolence" through the development of people's moral power. Therefore, while moral strength is emphasized in personality, "independence" and "decisiveness" to fight against authority and tradition are not sufficiently emphasized in will quality, and "competitiveness", which is necessary to maintain a positive and enterprising attitude, is even more rarely emphasized. Competitiveness", which is necessary to maintain a positive attitude towards life, is even rarer. The rulers emphasized virtue rather than talent, and denied the individuality of human beings. At the end of feudal society, the politicization of Confucianism made Chinese intellectuals a tame tool for the maintenance of feudal rule, stifling and curbing the spirit of creative and pioneering personalities. According to Lu Xun, dissatisfaction is the driving force of social history, and dissatisfaction is the wheel of upward movement. A race can only move forward when there are more dissatisfied people, otherwise it will fall. The vitality of society and culture comes from: first, the ability to self-criticism; second, open education. However, the feudal cultural dictatorship put heavy shackles on intellectuals and cultivated a material and cultural atmosphere. Engels once said: "After the dark night of the Middle Ages, science reemerged all at once with unexpected force and developed with miraculous speed; once again, then, we owe this miracle to production." Feudal theology, which had bound people's minds, was attacked, and the generalized belonging "moral personality" of the Middle Ages was transformed into a "self-respecting personality". Humanism was the guiding principle of the bourgeois Renaissance. The new bourgeois scholars rejected the feudal culture centered on Christian theology, and were eager to study man and nature, affirming man and human nature and emphasizing the development of individuality. At this time, human beings returned to their origin from the confusion of religious theology, returned to nature, and gained freedom. The advanced thinkers of the Enlightenment shouted the slogan "Knowledge is power", which impacted the traditional superstitions and beliefs, and they were full of optimism and confidence in the power and role of knowledge.

With the industrial revolution and the development of capitalist economy, the western culture shows more and more obvious externality, emphasizing the external transcendence; western scientists study the stars, the human body, levers, chemical substances, and strongly demand to change the external environment, while the traditional Chinese culture is an internally inclined culture, emphasizing the internal transcendence. Most of the Chinese readers were keen on studying the revised ancient sounds and words, too far away from science and technology - the first productive forces - to have the characteristics of changing the external world. Especially after the Opium War, China's door was opened by the Western powers, the economy was backward, the country was exhausted, and the Chinese were called "the sick man of East Asia". The development of Chinese science and technology, the lack of a corresponding economic foundation and the necessary human resources structure, so, at the end of feudal society until modern times, China's scientific and technological field gradually lost the dominant, vibrant style.