It is normal that two cultures meet and adapt to each other, and now we are interested in how and what. Through a text analysis of the document that had played the role of intermediator between China and the West in the late Qing period, we could perhaps find the answers. For the need of adoption of Western learning, the late Qing published translated collections of Western materials, which in form were sorted by the disciplinary system and in fact were the interpretation of the original, i.e., knowledge reproduction. Therefore, it is necessary to look into the adaptation and response concerning Chinese culture, which is the aim of the study.
Scholars have usually regarded the late Ming and early Qing Western learning (old Western learning) and the late Qing Western learning (new Western learning) as two different research fields. However, the new Western learning had inherited the old tradition, and the Jiaqing and Daoguang eras were at the critical stage of the transition. Since the Kangxi era, the family of Xu Chaojun in Songjiang had pursued Western learning and made Western instruments for five generations, and owned a large collection of Chinese Western learning texts. Through bonds like bloodlines and texts, they contributed to the transmission and localization of the old Western learning. Written by Xu Chaojun and published sequentially between 1807 and 1829, the five-volume book Enlightenment on the Heaven and the Earth served both as a comprehensive summary of old Western learning and a key reference for the book A Short Account of the Maritime Circuit (1844) by Xu Jiyu, which was the manuscript for A Brief Description of the Ocean Circuit (1848). Interestingly, when A Brief Description of the Ocean Circuit was formally published, the Enlightenment on the Heaven and the Earth disappeared from its references. This paper proposes the dual concepts of “primary Chinese Western learning texts” and “secondary Chinese Western learning texts.” Represented by the Enlightenment on the Heaven and the Earth, the secondary Chinese Western learning texts served as a crucial local intellectual resource for late Qing literati to understand the new world, deal with new changes, and comprehend new Western learning, playing a transitional role in the trans-spatiotemporal connection between old and new Western learning.
Placing various citizen readers compiled under the framework of “public education” in the late Qing period and the early Republic of China back in their original historical trajectories, this paper examines how the ideas of modern political system reform were converted to knowledge and popularized. The different purposes of political system reform in the late Qing period were reflected in public education plans that aimed to educate modern Chinese citizens. The citizen readers compiled respectively by county, provincial, and national governments had their different contexts, resulting in different approaches to intellectualizing the plans of modern political system reform. Some emphasized political identity, whereas others stressed the practical common sense indispensable to participation in common political life. In terms of the development of political system reform and national education from the late Qing period to the early Republic of China, the intellectualization of the modern political system reform evolved in the contexts of either state leadership or social participation. It was popularized and specialized in the framework of the new three-tiered modern school system, percolated or spread as common knowledge in the framework of the social educating and lecturing system, and the printing tradition of daily-use encyclopedias. Evidently, the rise of political science in China took a different path from that in the modern West and the Meiji era in Japan, where it was dominated by the modern university system as well as academic associations and journals. This historical trajectory constitutes the distinctively indigenous context for the emergence and development of the political science discipline in China.
The translation of “natural history” as bowuxue, originating in the late Qing to the early Republic of China period, served as a crucial link in academic combination between modern China and the West. Although this translation approach recognizes the shared historical experiences of China and the West and integrates local knowledge resources with modern concepts of disciplines, it fails to fully capture the inherent conception of bowu in the Chinese context. An examination of significant ancient Chinese bowu intellectuals and their works reveals that Chinese bowuxue reflects not only universal human experience but also unique local cultural characteristics. It constitutes an independent knowledge system intricately associated with classical doctrines, fangshu, food-and-commodities, and livelihoods. It is also a collection of approaches to understanding the world of its own existence, practical experiences, and emotional encounters, incorporating the way of Heaven, human activities, and material objects. Its humanity-focused and historiographical traditions stand out as its most distinctive feature.
In recent years, academic inquiries such as the history of science, natural history culture, visual culture, iconography, and local knowledge of anthropology have almost simultaneously been applied to the research of ancient artworks. Among these, the analysis from the perspective of natural history is unique and foundational. This requires researchers to be well-versed in history and local knowledge, and to make full use of modern natural science disciplines such as taxonomy and ecology to describe the details of antiques basically. The aim is to reveal the “life-world” scenes and cognitive levels of the local people at that time and subsequently discuss the cultural, historical, and political implications. The Qing court left behind numerous natural history-themed paintings and related archival materials. It is highly necessary to analyze their natural history details and local characteristics. Qing court paintings exhibit distinct natural history characteristics in inheriting Han culture, integrating Manchu culture, and reflecting Chinese-Western material and cultural exchanges. Substantive analysis of these Qing court painting cases will provide a highly promising potential approach for the natural history research of ancient artworks.