The Danish Peace Academy

SCIENCE AND SOCIETY

John Avery
H.C. Ørsted Institute, University of Copenhagen

Chapter 4 CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST

China

After the fall of Rome in the 5th century A.D., Europe became a culturally backward area. However, the great civilizations of Asia and the Middle East continued to flourish, and it was through contact with these civilizations that science was reborn in the west.

During the dark ages of Europe, a particularly high level of civilization existed in China. The art of working in bronze was developed in China during the Shang dynasty (1,500 B.C. - 1,100 B.C.) and it reached a high pitch of excellence in the Chou dynasty (1,100 B.C. - 250 B.C.).

In the Chou period, many of the cultural characteristics which we recognize as particularly Chinese were developed. During this period, the Chinese evolved a code of behaviour based on politeness and ethics. Much of this code of behaviour is derived from the teachings of K’ung Fu-tzu (Confucius), a philosopher and government official who lived between 551 B.C. and 479 B.C.. In his writings about ethics and politics, K’ung Fu-tzu advocated respect for tradition and authority, and the effect of his teaching was to strengthen the conservative tendencies in Chinese civilization. He was not a religious leader, but a moral and political philosopher, like the philosophers of ancient Greece. He is traditionally given credit for the compilation of the Five Classics of Chinese Literature, which include books of history, philosophy and poetry, together with rules for religious ceremonies. The rational teachings of K’ung Fu-tzu were complemented by the more mystical and intuitive doctrines of Lao-tzu and his followers. Laotzu lived at about the same time as K’ung Fu-tzu, and he founded the Taoist religion. The Taoists believed that unity with nature could be achieved by passively blending oneself with the forces of nature. On the whole, politicians and scholars followed the practical teachings of K’ung Fu-tzu, while poets and artists became Taoists. The intuitive sensitivity to nature inspired by Taoist beliefs allowed these artists and poets to achieve literature and art of unusual vividness and force with great economy of means. The Taoist religion has much in common with Buddhism, and its existence in China paved the way for the spread of Buddhism from India to China and Japan.

From 800 B.C. onwards, the central authority of the Chou dynasty weakened, and China was ruled by local landlords. This period of disunity was ended in 246 B.C. by Shih Huang Ti, a chieftain from the small northern state of Ch’in, who became the first real emperor of China. (In fact, China derives its name from the state of Ch’in). Shih Huang Ti was an effective but ruthless ruler. It was during his reign (246 B.C. -210 B.C.) that the great wall of China was built. This wall, built to protect China from the savage attacks of the mounted Mongolian hordes, is one of the wonders of the world. It runs 1,400 miles, over all kinds of terrain, marking a rainfall boundary between the rich agricultural land to the south and the arid steppes to the north. In most places, the great wall is 25 feet high and 15 feet thick. To complete this fantastic building project, Shih Huang Ti carried absolutism to great extremes, uprooting thousands of families and transporting them to the comfortless north to work on the wall. He burned all the copies of the Confucian classics which he could find, since his opponents quoted these classics to show that his absolutism had exceeded proper bounds.

Soon after the death of Shih Huang Ti, there was a popular reaction to the harshness of his government, and Shih’s heirs were overthrown. However, Shih Huang Ti’s unification of China endured, although the Ch’in dynasty (250 B.C. - 202 B.C.) was replaced by the Han dynasty (202 B.C. -220 A.D.). The Han emperors extended the boundaries of China to the west into Turkistan, and thus a trade route was opened, through which China exported silk to Persia and Rome. During the Han period, China was quite receptive to foreign ideas, and was much influenced by the civilization of India. For example, the Chinese pagoda was inspired by the Buddhist shrines of India. The Han emperors adopted Confucianism as the official philosophy of China, and they had the Confucian classics recopied in large numbers. The invention of paper at the end of the first century A.D. facilitated this project, and it greatly stimulated scholarship and literature. The Han emperors honoured scholarship and, in accordance with the political ideas of K’ung Fu-tzu, they made scholarship a means of access to high governmental positions. During the Han dynasty, the imperial government carried through many large-scale irrigation and flood-control projects. These projects were very successful. They increased the food production of China, and gave much prestige to the imperial government.

Like the Roman Empire, the Han dynasty was ended by attacks of barbarians from the north. However, the Huns who overran northern China in 220 A.D. were quicker to adopt civilization than were the tribes which conquered Rome. Also, in the south, the Chinese remained independent; and therefore the dark ages of China were shorter than the European dark ages.

In 581 A.D., China was reunited under the Sui dynasty, whose emperors expelled most of the Huns, built a system of roads and canals, and constructed huge granaries for the prevention of famine. These were worthwhile projects, but in order to accomplish them, the Sui emperors used very harsh methods. The result was that their dynasty was soon overthrown and replaced by the T’ang dynasty (618 A.D. - 906 A.D.).

The T’ang period was a brilliant one for China. Just as Europe was sinking further and further into a mire of superstition, ignorance and bloodshed, China entered a period of peace, creativity and culture. During this period, China included Turkistan, northern Indochina and Korea. The T’ang emperors re-established and strengthened the system of civil-service examinations which had been initiated during the Han dynasty.

Printing

It was during the T’ang period that the Chinese made an invention of immense importance to the cultural evolution of mankind. This was the invention of printing. Together with writing, printing is one of the key inventions which form the basis of human cultural evolution. Printing was invented in China in the 8th or 9th century A.D., probably by Buddhist monks who were interested in producing many copies of the sacred texts which they had translated from Sanscrit. The act of reproducing prayers was also considered to be meritorious by the Buddhists.

The Chinese had for a long time followed the custom of brushing engraved official seals with ink and using them to stamp documents. The type of ink which they used was made from lamp-black, water and binder. In fact, it was what we now call “India ink”. However, in spite of its name, India ink is a Chinese invention, which later spread to India, and from there to Europe.

We mentioned that paper of the type which we now use was invented in China in the first century A.D.. Thus, the Buddhist monks of China had all the elements which they needed to make printing practical: They had good ink, cheap, smooth paper, and the tradition of stamping documents with ink-covered engraved seals. The first block prints which they produced date from the 8th century A.D.. They were made by carving a block of wood the size of a printed page so that raised characters remained, brushing ink onto the block, and pressing this onto a sheet of paper.

The oldest known printed book, the “Diamond Sutra”, is dated 868 A.D.., and it consists of only six printed pages. In was discovered in 1907 by an English scholar who obtained permission from Buddhist monks in Chinese Turkistan to open some walled-up monastery rooms, which were said to have been sealed for 900 years. The rooms were found to contain a library of about 15,000 manuscripts, among which was the Diamond Sutra.

Block printing spread quickly throughout China, and also reached Japan, where woodblock printing ultimately reached great heights in the work of such artists as Hiroshige and Hokusai. The Chinese made some early experiments with movable type, but movable type never be- came popular in China, because the Chinese written language contains 10,000 characters. However, printing with movable type was highly successful in Korea as early as the 15th century A.D..

The unsuitability of the Chinese written language for the use of movable type was the greatest tragedy of the Chinese civilization. Writing had been developed at a very early stage in Chinese history, but the system remained a pictographic system, with a different character for each word. A phonetic system of writing was never developed. The failure to develop a phonetic system of writing had its roots in the Chinese imperial system of government. The Chinese empire formed a vast area in which many different languages were spoken. It was necessary to have a universal language of some kind in order to govern such an empire. The Chinese written language solved this problem admirably.

Suppose that the emperor sent identical letters to two officials in different districts. Reading the letters aloud, the officials might use entirely different words, although the characters in the letters were the same. Thus the Chinese written language was a sort of “Esperanto” which allowed communication between various language groups, and its usefulness as such prevented its replacement by a phonetic system. The disadvantages of the Chinese system of writing were twofold: First, it was difficult to learn to read and write; and therefore literacy was confined to a small social class whose members could afford a prolonged education. The system of civil-service examinations made participation in the government dependant on a high degree of literacy; and hence the old, established scholar-gentry families maintained a long-term monopoly on power, wealth and education. Social mobility was possible in theory, since the civil service examinations were open to all, but in practice, it was nearly unattainable.

The second great disadvantage of the Chinese system of writing was that it was unsuitable for printing with movable type. An “information explosion” occurred in the west following the introduction of printing with movable type, but this never occurred in China. It is ironical that although both paper and printing were invented by the Chinese, the full effect of these immensely important inventions bypassed China and instead revolutionized the west.

The invention of block printing during the T’ang dynasty had an enormously stimulating effect on literature, and the T’ang period is regarded as the golden age of Chinese lyric poetry. A collection of T’ang poetry, compiled in the 18th century, contains 48,900 poems by more than 2,000 poets.

The technique of producing fine ceramics from porcelain was invented during the T’ang dynasty; and the art of making porcelain reached its highest point in the Sung dynasty (960-1279), which followed the T’ang period. During the Sung dynasty, Chinese landscape painting also reached a high degree of perfection. In this period, the Chinese began to use the magnetic compass for navigation. The first Chinese text clearly describing the magnetic compass dates from 1088 A.D.. However, the compass is thought to have been invented in China at a very much earlier date. The original Chinese compass was a spoon carved from lodestone, which revolved on a smooth diviner’s board. The historian Joseph Needham believes that sometime between the 1st and 6th centuries A.D. it was discovered in China that the directive property of the lodestone could be transferred to small iron needles. These could be placed on bits of wood and floated in water. It is thought that by the beginning of the Sung dynasty, the Chinese were also aware of the deviation of the magnetic north from the true geographical north. By 1190 A.D., knowledge of the compass had spread to the west, where it revolutionized navigation and lead to the great voyages of discovery which characterized the 15th century.

The Sung dynasty was followed by a period during which China was ruled by the Mongols (1279-1328). Among the Mongol emperors was the famous Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan. He was an intelligent and capable ruler who appreciated Chinese civilization and sponsored many cultural projects. It was during the Mongol period that Chinese drama and fiction were perfected. During this period, the mongols ruled not only China, but also southern Russia and Siberia, central Asia and Persia. They were friendly towards Europeans, and their control of the entire route across Asia opened direct contacts between

China and the west.

Among the first Europeans to take advantage of this newly-opened route were a family of Venetian merchants called Polo. After spending four years crossing central Asia and the terrible Gobi desert, they reached China in 1279. They were warmly welcomed by Kublai Khan, who invited them to his summer palace at Shangtu (“Xanadu”). The Great Khan took special interest in Marco Polo, a young man of the family who had accompanied his uncles Nicolo and Maffeo on the journey. Marco remained in China for seventeen years as a trusted diplomat in the service of Kublai Khan.

Later, after returning to Italy, Marco Polo took part in a war between Venice and Genoa. He was captured by the Genoese, and while in prison he dictated the story of his adventures to a fellow prisoner who happened to be a skilful author of romances. The result was a colorful and readable book which helped to reawaken the west after the middle ages. The era of exploration which followed the middle ages was partly inspired by Marco Polo’s book. (Colombus owned a copy and made enthusiastic notes in the margins!) In his book, Marco Polo describes the fabulous wealth of China, as well as Chinese use of paper money, coal and asbestos.

Other Chinese inventions which were transmitted to the west include metallurgical blowing engines operated by water power, the rotary fan and rotary winnowing machine, the piston bellows, the drawloom, the wheel-barrow, efficient harnesses for draught animals, the cross bow, the kite, the technique of deep drilling, cast iron, the ironchain suspension bridge, canal lock-gates, the stern-post rudder and gunpowder. Like paper, printing and the magnetic compass, gunpowder and its use in warfare were destined to have an enormous social and political impact.

India

Evidence of a very early river-valley civilization in India has been found at a site called Mohenjo-Daro. However, in about 2,500 B.C., this early civilization was destroyed by some great disaster, perhaps a series of floods; and for the next thousand years, little is known about the history of India. During this dark period between 2,500 B.C. and 1,500 B.C., India was invaded by the Indo-Aryans, who spoke Sanscrit, a language related to Greek. The Indo-Aryians partly drove out and partly enslaved the smaller and darker native Dravidians. However, there was much intermarriage between the groups, and to prevent further inter- marriage, the Indo-Aryians introduced a caste system sanctioned by religion.

According to Hindu religious belief, the soul of a person who has died is reborn in another body. If, throughout his life, the person has faithfully performed the duties of his caste, then his or her soul may be reborn into a higher caste. Finally, after existing as a Brahman, the soul may be so purified that it can be released from the cycle of death and rebirth.

In the 6th century B.C., Gautama Buddha founded a new religion in India. Gautama Buddha was convinced that all the troubles of humankind spring from attachment to earthly things. He felt that the only escape from sorrow is through the renunciation of earthly desires. He also urged his disciples to follow a high ethical code, the Eightfold Way. Among the sayings of Buddha are the following: “Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time; hatred ceases by love.”

“Let a man overcome anger by love; let him overcome evil by good.” “All men tremble at punishment. All men love life. Remember that you are like them, and do not cause slaughter.”

One of the early converts to Buddhism was the emperor Ashoka Maurya, who reigned in India between 273 B.C. and 232 B.C.. During one of his wars of conquest, Ashoka Maurya became so sickened by the slaughter that he resolved never again to use war as an instrument of policy. He became one of the most humane rulers in history, and he also did much to promote the spread of Buddhism throughout Asia. Under the Mauryan dynasty (322 B.C. - 184 B.C.), the Gupta dynasty (320 B.C. - 500 A.D.) and also under the rajah Harsha (606 A.D. - 647 A.D.), India had periods of unity, peace and prosperity. At other times, the country was divided and upset by internal wars. The Gupta period especially is regarded as the golden age of India’s classical past. During this period, India led the world in such fields as medicine and mathematics.

The Guptas established both universities and hospitals. According to the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, Fa-Hsien, who visited India in 405 A.D., “The nobles and householders have founded hospitals within the city to which the poor of all countries, the destitute, crippled and diseased may go. They receive every kind of help without payment.” Indian doctors were trained in cleansing wounds, in using ointments and in surgery. They also developed antidotes for poisons and for snakebite, and they knew some techniques for the prevention of disease through vaccination.

When they had completed their training, medical students in India took an oath, which resembled the Hyppocratic oath: “Not for yourself, not for the fulfillment of any earthly desire or gain, but solely for the good of suffering humanity should you treat your patients.” In Indian mathematics, algebra and trigonometry were especially highly developed. For example, the astronomer Brahmagupta (598 A.D. - 660 A.D.) applied algebraic methods to astronomical problems. The notation for zero and the decimal system were invented in India, probably during the 8th or 9th century A.D.. These mathematical techniques were later transmitted to Europe by the Arabs. Many Indian techniques of manufacture were also transmitted to the west by the Arabs. Textile manufacture in particular was highly developed in India, and the Arabs, who were the middlemen in the trade with the west, learned to duplicate some of the most famous kinds of cloth. One kind of textile which they copied was called “quttan” by the Arabs, a word which in English has become “cotton”. Other Indian textiles included cashmere (Kashmir), chintz and calico (from Calcutta, which was once called Calicut). Muslin derives its name from Mosul, an Arab city where it was manufactured, while damask was made in Damascus.

Indian mining and metallurgy were also highly developed. The Europeans of the middle ages prized fine laminated steel from Damascus; but it was not in Damascus that the technique of making steel originated. The Arabs learned steelmaking from the Persians, and Persia learned it from India.

The Nestorians and Islam

After the burning of the great library at Alexandria and the destruction of Hellenistic civilization, most of the books of the classical Greek and Hellenistic philosophers were lost. However, a few of these books survived and were translated from Greek, first into Syriac, then into Arabic and finally from Arabic into Latin. By this roundabout route, fragments from the wreck of the classical Greek and Hellenistic civilizations drifted back into the consciousness of the west.

We mentioned that the Roman empire was ended in the 5th century A.D. by attacks of barbaric Germanic tribes from northern Europe. However, by that time, the Roman empire had split into two halves. The eastern half, with its capital at Byzantium (Constantinople), survived until 1453, when the last emperor was killed vainly defending the walls of his city against the Turks.

The Byzantine empire included many Syriac-speaking subjects; and in fact, beginning in the 3rd century A.D., Syriac replaced Greek as the major language of western Asia. In the 5th century A.D., there was a split in the Christian church of Byzantium;and the Nestorian church, separated from the official Byzantine church. The Nestorians were bitterly persecuted by the Byzantines, and therefore they migrated, first to Mesopotamia, and later to south-west Persia. (Some Nestorians migrated as far as China.)

During the early part of the middle ages, the Nestorian capital at Gondisapur was a great center of intellectual activity. The works of Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Euclid, Archimedes, Ptolemy, Hero and Galen were translated into Syriac by Nestorian scholars, who had brought these books with them from Byzantium.

Among the most distinguished of the Nestorian translators were the members of a family called Bukht-Yishu (meaning “Jesus hath delivered”), which produced seven generations of outstanding scholars. Members of this family were fluent not only in Greek and Syriac, but also in Arabic and Persian.

In the 7th century A.D., the Islamic religion suddenly emerged as a conquering and proselytizing force. Inspired by the teachings of Mohammad (570 A.D. - 632 A.D.), the Arabs and their converts rapidly conquered western Asia, northern Africa, and Spain. During the initial stages of the conquest, the Islamic religion inspired a fanaticism in its followers which was often hostile to learning. However, this initial fanaticism quickly changed to an appreciation of the ancient cultures of the conquered territories; and during the middle ages, the Islamic world reached a very high level of culture and civilization.

Thus, while the century from 750 to 850 was primarily a period of translation from Greek to Syriac, the century from 850 to 950 was a period of translation from Syriac to Arabic. It was during this latter century that Yuhanna Ibn Masawiah (a member of the Bukht-Yishu family, and medical advisor to Caliph Harun al-Rashid) produced many important translations into Arabic.

The skill of the physicians of the Bukht-Yishu family convinced the Caliphs of the value of Greek learning; and in this way the family played an extremely important role in the preservation of the western cultural heritage. Caliph al-Mamun, the son of Harun al-Rashid, established at Baghdad a library and a school for translation, and soon Baghdad replaced Gondisapur as a center of learning.

The English word “chemistry” is derived from the Arabic words “alchimia”, which mean “the changing”. The earliest alchemical writer in Arabic was Jabir (760-815), a friend of Harun al-Rashid. Much of his writing deals with the occult, but mixed with this is a certain amount of real chemical knowledge. For example, in his Book of Properties,

Jabir gives the following recipe for making what we now call lead hydroxycarbonate (white lead), which is used in painting and pottery glazes:

“Take a pound of litharge, powder it well and heat it gently with four pounds of vinegar until the latter is reduced to half its original volume. The take a pound of soda and heat it with four pounds of fresh water until the volume of the latter is halved. Filter the two solutions until they are quite clear, and then gradually add the solution of soda to that of the litharge. A white substance is formed, which settles to the bottom. Pour off the supernatant water, and leave the residue to dry. It will become a salt as white as snow.”

Another important alchemical writer was Rahzes (c. 860 - c. 950). He was born in the ancient city of Ray, near Teheran, and his name means “the man from Ray”. Rhazes studied medicine in Baghdad, and he became chief physician at the hospital there. He wrote the first accurate descriptions of smallpox and measles, and his medical writings include methods for setting broken bones with casts made from plaster of Paris. Rahzes was the first person to classify substances into vegetable, animal and mineral. The word “al-kali”, which appears in his writings, means “the calcined” in Arabic. It is the source of our word “alkali”, as well as of the symbol K for potassium.

The greatest physician of the middle ages, Avicinna, (Abu-Ali al Hussain Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sina, 980-1037), was also a Persian, like Rahzes. More than a hundred books are attributed to him. They were translated into Latin in the 12th century, and they were among the most important medical books used in Europe until the time of Harvey. Avicinina also wrote on alchemy, and he is important for having denied the possibility of transmutation of elements.

In mathematics, one of the most outstanding Arabic writers was al-Khwarizmi (c. 780 - c. 850). The title of his book, Ilm al-jabr wa’d muqabalah, is the source of the English word “algebra”. In Arabic aljabr means “the equating”. Al-Khwarizmi’s name has also become an English word, “algorism”, the old word for arithmetic. Al-Khwarizmi drew from both Greek and Hindu sources, and through his writings the decimal system and the use of zero were transmitted to the west. One of the outstanding Arabic physicists was al-Hazen (965-1038). He made the mistake of claiming to be able to construct a machine which could regulate the flooding of the Nile. This claim won him a position in the service of the Egyptian Caliph, al-Hakim. However, as al-Hazen observed Caliph al-Hakim in action, he began to realize that if he did not construct his machine immediately, he was likely to pay with his life! This led al-Hazen to the rather desperate measure of pretending to be insane, a ruse which he kept up for many years. Meanwhile he did excellent work in optics, and in this field he went far beyond anything done by the Greeks.

Al-Hazen studied the reflection of light by the atmosphere, an effect which makes the stars appear displaced from their true positions when they are near the horizon; and he calculated the height of the atmospheric layer above the earth to be about ten miles. He also studied the rainbow, the halo, and the reflection of light from spherical and parabolic mirrors. In his book, On the Burning Sphere, he shows a deep understanding of the properties of convex lenses. Al-Hazen also used a dark room with a pin-hole opening to study the image of the sun during an eclipes. This is the first mention of the camera obscura, and it is perhaps correct to attribute the invention of the camera obscura to al-Hazen.

Another Islamic philosopher who had great influence on western thought was Averr¨oes, who lived in Spain from 1126 to 1198. His writings took the form of thoughtful commentaries on the works of Aristotle. He shocked both his Moslem and his Christian readers by maintaining that the world was not created at a definite instant, but that it instead evolved over a long period of time, and is still evolving. Like Aristotle, Averr¨oes seems to have been groping towards the ideas of evolution which were later developed in geology by Steno, Hutton and Lyell and in biology by Darwin and Wallace. Much of the scholastic philosophy which developed at the University of Paris during the 13th century was aimed at refuting the doctrines of Averr¨oes; but nevertheless, his ideas survived and helped to shape the modern picture of the world.

Chapter 5: SCIENCE IN THE RENAISSANCE.

Suggestions for further reading

1. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, (4 volumes), Cambridge University Press (1954-1971).
2. Charles Singer, A Short History of Scientific Ideas to 1900, Oxford University Press (1959).
3. Ernst J. Grube, The World of Islam, Paul Hamlyn Ltd., London (1966).
4. Carl Brockelmann, History of the Islamic Peoples, Routledge and Kegan Paul (1949).
5. Marshall Clagett, The Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison (1959).

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