Ideas About the Role of Heaven in Production

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chapter 3 Ideas about the Role of Heaven in Production Techniques in Song Yingxing’s Heaven’s Work in Opening Things (Tiangong kaiwu): ‘Natural Theology of Industry’ in Seventeenth-Century China?*

1 Introduction

I have chosen the title of my essay intentionally to imitate that of Charles Gillispie’s classic paper, “The Natural History of Industry.”1 From that short paper, I, like many other historians of science of my generation, learned to think critically about the relationship between science and technology, and about the real nature of written materials on techniques and trades, those in the famous Encyclopédie, for example. Much of what Gillispie said in showing ‘natural historical’ aspects of many French technical writings of the eighteenth century applies to the subject of the present essay, the Tiangong kaiwu 天工開物 (“Heaven’s Work in Opening Things,” published in 1637), a famous seventeenth-century Chinese book of production techniques written by Song Yingxing 宋應星 (1587-1666, ca.), whom Joseph Needham has called “the Diderot of China.”2 In this essay, I will reexamine Song Yingxing’s attitude to

* Originally published as “‘Natural Theology of Industry’ in Seventeenth Century China?: Ideas About the Role of Heaven in Production Techniques in Song Yingxing’s Heaven’s Work in Opening Things (Tiangong kaiwu),” in A Master of Science History: Essays in Honor of Charles Coulston Gillispie, ed. Jed Z. Buchwald (New York: Springer, 2012), 197-214. 1 Charles C. Gillispie, “The Natural History of Industry,” Isis 48 (1957): 398-407. 2 The two major studies on the Tiangong kaiwu are: Yabuuchi Kiyoshi 藪內淸 ed., Tenkō kaibutsu no kenkyū 天工開物の硏究 [Studies on the Tiangong kaiwu] (Tokyo: Kōseisha 恒星社, 1954); Pan Jixing 潘吉星, Tiangong kaiwu jiaozhu ji yanjiu 天工開物校注及硏究 [Critical Annotations and Studies on the Tiangong kaiwu] (Chengdu: Bashu shushe 巴蜀書社, 1989). In addition, Pan Jixing has written an extensive biography of Song Yingxing: Pan Jixing 潘吉星, Song Yingxing pingzhuan 宋應星評傳 (Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe 南京大學出版社, 1990). There have been translations of the Tiangong kaiwu into English, modern Chinese, Japanese, and Korean: Sun, E. Z. and Sun, S.-c. trans., T’ien-kung K’ai-wu: Chinese Technology in the Seventeenth Century (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1966); Zhong Guangyan 鍾廣言 ed., trans., Tiangong kaiwu 天工開物 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 1978); Yabuuchi Kiyoshi 藪內淸 trans., Tenkō kaibutsu 天工開物 (Tokyo: Heibonsha 平凡社, 1969); Ch’oe Chu, 崔炷 trans. Ch’ŏn’gong kaemul 天工開物

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, �� | doi ��.��/��4265318-005-002-p0001 54 chapter 3 the production techniques and his motivation for writing the book, and call attention to another aspect of the book that has not been noted so far: a ‘natural theology of industry.’ Many modern scholars have praised the Tiangong kaiwu for dealing with various production techniques relating to agriculture, mining, and other tradi- tional Chinese industries. Yabuuchi Kiyoshi 藪內淸, for example, has pointed out that the book is important as it covers all the major industries, and is detailed in discussing the production processes of each industry.3 The most enthusiastic praise has come from Pan Jixing 潘吉星, who has worked on the book most extensively. He referred to it as a ‘systematic,’ ‘conclusive’ treatise of Chinese agriculture and production techniques up to Ming times (1368-1643).4 There have also been comments on the background and the motivation behind Song Yingxing’s writing of this specialized book devoted to production techniques. Most scholars have pointed out the general intellectual climate of the late Ming, which displayed a great interest in practical utility.5 It has also been noted that the publication of the Tiangong kaiwu was in line with the wide- spread interest during the late Ming in miscellaneous and strange things,

(Seoul: Chŏnt’ong Munhuasa 傳統文化社, 1997). For various editions and reprints of the Tiangong kaiwu, see Pan Jixing, Tiangong kaiwu jiaozhu ji yanjiu, 131-171. Needham’s reference to Song Yingxing appears in Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), 13. 3 Yabuuchi Kiyoshi 藪內清, “Tenkō kaibutsu ni tsuite” 天工開物について (On the Tiangong kaiwu), Yabuuchi Kiyoshi, ed., Tenkō kaibutsu no kenkyū 天工開物の硏究 (Tokyo: Kōseisha 恒星社, 1954), 1-24, esp. 2. 4 Pan Jixing, Tiangong kaiwu jiaozhu ji yanjiu, 21, 92. Pan Jixing went as far as to say that at the time there was no book on technology even in the West that could compare to the Tiangong kaiwu in depth and breadth of coverage: ibid, 98-100. He also saw some characteristics of modern science in the book, using such expressions as “experimental science,” “mathemati- zation,” “critical spirit,” and “enlightenment thought”: ibid., 76-78. 5 Yabuuchi, “Tenkō kaibutsu ni tsuite,” 15-16; Pan Jixing, Tiangong kaiwu jiaozhu ji yanjiu, 16. Peter Golas has also pointed out such aspects as “stress on concrete accomplishments whether as an official or in a private capacity,” “willingness to accept the legitimacy of profit- taking by merchants,” and “interest in scientific and technological learning that had practical application,” as well as more immediate motivations as “reputation” and “income”: Peter Golas, “‘Like Obtaining a Great Treasure’: The Illustrations in Song Yingxing’s The Exploitation of the Works of Nature,” in Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China: The Warp and the Weft, ed. Francesca Bray, Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, and Georges Métailié (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 574.