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Ruminations - European and Chinese Scientific Collaboration in the Age of Galileo
| Glimpses | Matteo Ricci | Johann Schreck | Adam Schall | Ruminations |
I hope that by delving into the stories of Ricci, Schreck and Schall provided by these glimpses into Chinese-European interaction in the 17th century, you've begun to grapple with the complexity and enigmas of historical interpretation. In these stories we see both of the two themes of this course, the complexities of cross-cultural communication and of interdisciplinary interactions (including science and religion).
The Jesuits as Religious Order and as Scientific Society
The Jesuits pose us many paradoxes which simply cannot be resolved if our primary focus is determined by rational reconstruction based upon whether they advanced or hindered scientific development. The real story is far more interesting and complex than that. In an article published a few years ago, I outlined some of the enigmas posed by the Jesuits in their practice of the mathematical sciences as follows:
"Finally, ever since Galileo, rumor and suspicion have clouded historical understanding of Jesuit endeavors in natural knowledge. Jesuits have been dismissed as opposed to Copernicanism, slow to appreciate novel discoveries and enslaved to censorship and biblical literalism. Indeed, the Jesuits took the lead in marshalling arguments against the Earth’s motion (Grant, 2003, p. 128). Yet preoccupation with the Jesuit rejection of Copernicanism relies on the assumption that Copernicanism was the sine qua non of the Scientific Revolution, with the inescapable implication that Catholics in general, and Jesuits in particular, played a marginal role in the post-Galilean development of science. On the other hand, despite official opposition, many Jesuit works propagated a keen admiration of Copernicanism, explaining it at length in knowledgeable and sympathetic discussions. And while the Jesuits carefully qualified the competence of mathematical demonstration, they nevertheless emphasized the pursuit of mathematical sciences and led mathematical investigations in the 17th century. In addition, to later historians, Jesuit adherence to biblical authority functioned almost as a prerequisite for the conflict model of the warfare of science and religion, insofar as literalism could fuel efficient instruments of censorship. On the other hand, Jesuit obedience to official decrees was in reality far more complex (e.g. Dinis, 2003, pp. 195–196), and Jesuit theologians often conducted biblical exegesis in ‘open exchange’ with Jesuit mathematicians (Remmert, 2009, pp. 672, 684). With the specific exception of the motion of the Earth (in which the language of Genesis 1 was not at issue), biblical language was generally more supple and fluid, resisting rigid interpretations. A malleable literalism offered substantial options for incremental and multi-valent adjustment. For example, despite their avowed allegiance to Aristotle, Jesuits were more receptive than scholastics to sunspots, new stars, fluid orbs, the corruptibility of the heavens and various non-Ptolemaic geocentric systems (Grant, 2003, pp. 135–136, 146; Remmert, 2009, p. 678). For these and other reasons, over the last two decades numerous scholars have begun to restore a more adequate picture of vigorous Jesuit participation in the mathematical sciences, consisting of sustained investigations in optics, geodesy, astronomy and cosmology (e.g., Ashworth, 1986a; Feingold, 2003). Ashworth asserts that ‘In areas unrelated to the controversial matter of Copernicanism, the Jesuits were a remarkably bold and imaginative scientific body,’ the first scientific society in existence in the 17th century (Ashworth, 1986b, pp. 5)." [Kerry V. Magruder, “Jesuit Science after Galileo: The Cosmology of Gabriele Beati,” Centaurus 2009, 51: 189-212.]
So nothing makes sense about the Jesuit encounter with China and the collaboration with Chinese astronomers represented by the Schall encyclopedia unless we comprehend the serious devotion of the Jesuits to scientific knowledge, particularly in the mathematical disciplines such as geography and astronomy.
What about Copernicus?
It used to be said, as a criticism of the Jesuit scientific work in China, that they failed to advocate for Copernicanism among the Chinese. To me, this is merely a red herring, and only arises from an ahistorical mindset. The Chinese literati were no more ready for heliocentrism and a moving Earth than European intellectuals, so the Jesuit principle of cultural accommodation could hardly have encouraged them to try to propagate an alien idea that would have seemed not only ridiculous to the Chinese, but a threat to their own indigenous intellectual traditions. Some of the Jesuits in China may well have been closet Copernicans, many of the Jesuit astronomers were likely sympathizers, but it seems to me that in the name of cultural accommodation they would have wished to disseminate Copernicanism no more eagerly than their counterparts in Europe.
Why did the Jesuits seek to evangelize through science?
But if their primary mission was to evangelize China, why did the Jesuits place such an emphasis on science? We saw that the Jesuits made extensive attempts to accommodate to Chinese culture, particularly in dress and language and the reverence they were willing to show in Confucian ancestor rites, which quite upset other Christian groups back in Europe. Yet they believed that European science, particularly astronomy, gave them a leg up over traditional Chinese natural knowledge in their missionary enterprise. This only makes sense if we begin to comprehend how, to the Jesuits, knowledge across the various disciplines was organically linked. For the Jesuits, various disciplines such as astronomy, physics, or theology were not only relevant to one another, but coordinated, and serious dialogue between them was expected and normal. In China, the Jesuits encountered a culture with similar expectations that the various intellectual disciplines would be closely coordinated, so that, for instance, the knowledge of the calendar provided by astronomy would be integrated with justice and authority and knowledge of the divine.
It is impossible to understand 17th-century science, even in Europe only, without grasping something of this integrated nature of an encompassing endeavor called "natural philosophy." We will see next week that much of the controversy underlying the Galileo affair derived from Galileo's attempt to break the mathematical disciplines free of the need to be coordinated with the methods of other sciences, particularly physics and theology. And even Newton's great work on mathematical physics was entitled Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, and therefore as part of "natural philosophy" was deemed relevant for ethics and includes an appeal to what can be known from nature about God. The assumption that various disciplines are linked, or at least should be coordinated, in a broad enterprise of natural philosophy, helps explain why the Jesuits were so determined to begin their evangelization of China at the unlikely starting point of reforming Chinese astronomy. Or, at least, if basing Christian missions on astronomy seems an unlikely starting point to us today, then this may indicate to us that we have a different underlying conception of the relation between various disciplines, seeing them (as did Galileo) as more autonomous rather than as closely integrated with one another. On the other hand, the creationist who believes that Christian evangelization begins with Young Earth scientific evidence; the adherent to scientism (that only the conclusions of the natural sciences should count as knowledge); or the evolutionary atheist who insists that human ethics (or theological knowledge) must be based upon the foundation of natural science, are each holding to an ideal of disciplinary integration more similar to the Jesuit and early modern concept of "natural philosophy." The Jesuits and China, the Galileo affair, and these modern controversies all raise the question: How can different disciplines interact without inappropriately influencing one another? This question is not easily resolved, and therefore historical study of episodes like these may hold a key to facilitating the interdisciplinary collaboration that is often needed today.
(essay continues below after the optional video...)
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Interlude -- Optional video: For an insightful discussion of the ambiguities raised by the Jesuit conception of natural philosophy and the organic relationship of scientific disciplines, watch Eugenio Menegon's presentation (50 mins) entitled "Shooting for the Stars: Science and Religion in the Early Modern Jesuit Mission to China." (iTunes)
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How was the China Mission linked with the suppression of the Jesuit Order?
If you have watched The Mission, you already know a lot about the Jesuits, their commitment to global evangelism, the extent to which they would go in cross-cultural accommodation, and the complexity of forces behind the suppression of their order. At the time of Schall's encyclopedia, the Jesuits were engaged in a bitter dispute with Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian missionaries who reprimanded the Jesuits for being overly influenced by Confucianism, as many of the rites practiced by Chinese converts were a mixture of Christian and Confucian practices. This controversy, which centrally involved Adam Schall, played out, above all, in Rome, where the respective orders acted out their rivalries, each contriving to ingratiate itself with the pope. Schall's compilation of his astronomical encyclopedia was intended to influence the pope in this debate by showing the fruits of cross-cultural accommodation, but as fate would have it, the book arrived in Rome after the death of the pope it was intended to reassure because of the length of the journey from Beijing to Rome (requiring around four years, including a stopover in India).
How did the Jesuit-Chinese collaboration affect Asian science?
Adam Schall's joint Chinese-Jesuit publishing effort was of importance to science not merely in China but throughout Asia. In Japan, beginning in 1720, the eighth Shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, rescinded a prohibition on Chinese books containing European science that had been in force since 1630. Thereafter, the ban pertained only to books concerning Christianity or written by Christians, like the Schreck treatise on Marvellous Machines of the Far West. The armillary sphere with dragon legs [shown in the Janux video] comes from one of the first books printed in Japan that was influenced by European astronomical techniques, the Shogaku tendon shinansho (Introduction to Astronomy) by Baba Nobutake (Osaka, 1706).
May I see these books at OU?
Schall's encyclopedia is held at the Vatican and the Collegio Romano. Works held by the OU History of Science Collections related to Galileo and China include Matteo Ricci and Nicolaus Trigault, De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas (Lyon, 1616); Johann Schreck, Ensei kiki zusetsu rokusai (Diagrams and Explanations of Wonderful Machines of the Far West, 1830), Johann Schall von Bell, Historica narratio de initio et progressu missionis Societatis Jesu apud Chinenses (Vienna, 1665); Athanasius Kircher, China Monumentis (Rome, 1667); Athanasius Kircher, Chine Illustrée (Amsterdam, 1670); Confucius, Sinarum philosophus (Paris, 1687); J.B. du Halde, General History of China (1741) and Hasa ibn Yazid, Ancient Accounts of India and China (London, 1733), as well as 17th-century maps of China by Cantelli and Coronelli, and the engineering works used by Schreck in writing his textbook. These and others will be displayed in the Galileo’s World exhibition coming in 2015. For more, follow the Collections' blog at ouhos.org.
| Glimpses | Matteo Ricci | Johann Schreck | Adam Schall | Ruminations |
Do you have a great quote for this page? Let me know! (If used, a new quote is worth 1 point extra credit)
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HSCI 3013. History
of Science to 17th century |
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Many thanks to the pedagogical model developed in Mythology and Folklore and other online courses by Laura Gibbs, which have been an inspiration for this course.
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This course is currently undergoing major reconstruction to bring it into alignment with the new version of the course at Janux |
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