Joseph Needham - The Grand Titration: Science and Society in East and West

CHINA

THE GRAND TITRATION

HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, ECONOMICS

CHINA: HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, ECONOMICS

First published in 1969

Reprinted in 2005 by

Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX14 4RN

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

First issued in paperback 2013

1969 George Allen & Unwin Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

The publishers have made every effort to contact authors/copyright holders of the works reprinted in China: History, Philosophy, Economics. This has not been possible in every case, however, and we would welcome correspondence from those individuals/companies we have been unable to trace.

These reprints are taken from original copies of each book. In many cases the condition of these originals is not perfect. The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of these reprints, but wishes to point out that certain characteristics of the original copies will, of necessity, be apparent in reprints thereof.

A CIP catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library

The Grand Titration

ISBN13: 978-0-415-84875-6 (pbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-36165-1 (hbk)

ISBN 978-1-136-57448-1 (ePub)

China: History, Philosophy, Economics

1 The majesty of traditional China; a depiction of an emperor and his court on a blue-and-white Nanking vase of the late 17th century. The officials remind us that for 2000 years China was governed by a non-hereditary lite, the mandarinate, recruited by public examination. The terrestrial globe reminds us that geographical science was cultivated early, successfully and continuously in Chinese culture, the age of quantitative cartography long preceding that of Europe. Reproduced with acknowledgements to the Earl of Mansfield at Scone Palace, Perth, where the piece is, as also to Mr. L. G. Cogman (Curator), and to Mr. N. A. Huddleston, who brought us knowledge of it.

THE GRAND

TITRATION

SCIENCE AND SOCIETY IN EAST AND WEST

Joseph Needham F.R.S.

London

GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD

RUSKIN HOUSE MUSEUM STREET

FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1969

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, 1956, no portion may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1969

SBN 04 93I005 4

To

LU GWEI-DJEN

the explainer, the antithesis,
the manifestation,
the assurance of a link
no separation can break

The system of romanization of Chinese names used in this
book is that of Wade-Giles with h substituted for the
aspirate apostrophe.

The historical civilization of China is, with the Indian and the European-Semitic, one of the three greatest in the world, yet only in recent years has any enquiry been begun into its contributions to science and technology. Apart from the great ideas and systems of the Greeks, between the first and the fifteenth centuries the Chinese, who experienced no dark ages, were generally much in advance of Europe; and not until the scientific revolution of the late Renaissance did Europe draw rapidly ahead. Before that time, however, the West had been profoundly affected not only in its technical processes but in its very social structures and changes by discoveries and inventions emanating from China and East Asia. Not only the three which Lord Bacon listed (printing, gunpowder and the magnetic compass) but a hundred othersmechanical clockwork, the casting of iron, stirrups and efficient horse-harness, the Cardan suspension and the Pascal triangle, segmental-arch bridges and pound-locks on canals, the stern-post rudder, fore-and-aft sailing, quantitative cartographyall had their effects, sometimes earth-shaking effects, upon a Europe more socially unstable.