SCIENCE AMONG THE CHINESE 523 



condition of the Grand Canal, which has doubtless been its condition 

 for a century or more, is an eloquent witness to arrested development 

 due to failure to apply hydraulic improvements. 



While giving due credit for what they have done, we feel justified 

 in concluding that the arts and the inventions of the Chinese do not, 

 after all, witness to any degree of scientific attainment among them. 

 Many of the later modern inventions of western people are the result 

 of applied science, which certainly was not the case with these early 

 inventions of the Chinese. There seems, however, to be room for a 

 difference of opinion even among authorities. In 1839 G. T. Lay 

 asserted in writing about Chinese musical instruments : 



It has been declared that the Chinese have no science, but of a surety, if 

 we advance in the free and scholar-like spirit of antiquarian research, we shall 

 be obliged to set our feet upon the head of this assertion at every step in our 

 progress. 



And yet in his authoritative work, Williams closes his rather com- 

 pendious account of " Science among the Chinese " with this summary : 



On the whole it may be said that in all departments of learning the Chinese 

 are unscientific; and that while they have collected a great variety of facts, 

 invented many arts, and brought a few to a high degree of excellence, they 

 have never pursued a single subject in a way calculated to lead them to a right 

 understanding of it, or reached a proper classification of the information they 

 possessed relating to it. 



It may be of interest then to notice some of the leading ideas in 

 what we may call " Chinese science " and to inquire into the causes of 

 China's scientific backwardness as compared with modern western 

 knowledge. In doing this we shall be largely indebted to Williams's 

 " Middle Kingdom " for many of our facts and to Martin's " Lore of 

 Cathay " for suggestive lines of thought. 



II. The Content of " Chinese Science " 



1. Anatomy. — Wylie has noted fifty-nine Chinese treaties in medi- 

 cine and physiology (some of them belonging to the earliest days), 

 many of which contain good sense and sound advice amid the strangest 

 theories. Harland has lucidly and in detail described the Chinese 

 ideas (apart from the gradually spreading foreign teaching) concern- 

 ing the organization of the body and the functions of the chief viscera — 

 false ideas which a very little dissection, a prohibited practise, would 

 have banished. We shall not pause to consider these, but merely note 

 that the most curious is perhaps their idea of the liver, which they 

 place on the right side of the body. 



It has seven lobes; the soul resides in it; and schemes emanate from it; the 

 gall-bladder is below and projects upward into it, and when the person is angry 

 it ascends; courage dwells in it; hence the Chinese sometimes procure the gall- 



