物理小識

Wùlǐ xiǎozhì 物理小識

Petty Notes on the Principles of Things

by 方以智 (Fāng Yǐzhì, 1611–1671, zì Mìzhī 密之, hào Fúshān Yúzhě 浮山愚者), late-Míng polymath and natural philosopher; edited and finalized by his sons Fāng Zhōngtōng 方中通, Fāng Zhōngdé 方中德, Fāng Zhōngfā 方中發, and Fāng Zhōnglǚ 方中履.

About the work

The single most important Chinese natural-philosophical treatise of the seventeenth century, in 12 juàn. 方以智 (Fāng Yǐzhì) — jìnshì of 1640, Hànlín jiǎntǎo, leading Tóngchéng polymath, and (after the dynasty’s fall) Chán monk under the dharma-name Wúkě 無可 — composed the work as a complement to his great encyclopedic philological compendium Tōng yǎ 通雅 (KR3j0066). The Wùlǐ xiǎozhì is divided into a zǒnglùn (general discussion) followed by fifteen mén (sections) covering astronomy, calendar and music theory, meteorology, geography, fēngshuǐ, materia medica, plants, birds and beasts, ghosts and spirits, technical arts, and miscellany. Fāng’s self-preface, dated Wànlì zhāoyáng zhīyú zhì rì jī sān (i.e. gēngyín 1650, but with the Wànlì regnal title rather than Qīng Shùnzhì), distinguishes two modes of knowledge: zhìcè 質測 (empirical investigation of things by their qualities) and tōngjǐ 通幾 (penetration to the underlying principles). The book is Fāng’s principal extant treatise of zhìcè, and explicitly engages with Western (Jesuit) learning: “In the Wànlì years far-Western learning entered, detailed in zhìcè but clumsy in speaking of tōngjǐ; yet to a wise observer, their zhìcè is still not complete.” This is one of the foundational documents of 17th-century Chinese scientific engagement with Jesuit science.

Tiyao

We respectfully submit that Wùlǐ xiǎozhì in 12 juàn was compiled by Fāng Yǐzhì of the Míng, and edited by his sons Zhōngtōng, Zhōngdé, Zhōngfā, and Zhōnglǚ. Yǐzhì’s zì was Mìzhī, self-styled Fúshān Yúzhě (“the Foolish One of Fú Mountain”); a Tóngchéng man, jìnshì of Chóngzhēn gēngchén (1640), held office as Hànlínyuàn jiǎntǎo. Comprehensively versed in many books, he once compiled the Tōng yǎ, which is most detailed in the investigation of míngwù (names of things) and xùngǔ (glosses) by kǎozhèng. This book is also the residue and gleanings of Tōng yǎ, gathered into a [separate] compilation.

It opens with a zǒnglùn (general discussion); the body is divided into fifteen sections. The general thrust draws on Bówù zhì (Zhāng Huá), Wùlèi xiānggǎn zhì (Zànníng) and similar books, and amplifies them. Yet what Zhāng Huá and Zànníng wrote only states the natures of overcoming, controlling, generating, and transforming, while this book deduces why it is so.

Although what is recorded is not free from excess and miscellany, and not every entry is fully accurate, and his discussions sometimes have far-fetched correspondences; yet by gathering both great and small it is also good as a resource for wide knowledge and useful for the people. The Héguānzǐ says: “In the middle of the stream, when one loses the boat, a single jar is worth a thousand pieces of gold.” Hán Yù says: “Cow’s urine, horse’s dung-mushroom, the skin of broken drums — all are gathered and stored, awaiting use without remainder.” Then words of small understanding are also not all to be discarded.

Respectfully revised and submitted, fifth month of the forty-first year of Qiánlóng (1776).

Abstract

The Wùlǐ xiǎozhì is the principal natural-philosophical encyclopedia of seventeenth-century China and the most substantive single record of Chinese engagement with the early Jesuit scientific transmission. Composed and revised by 方以智 (Fāng Yǐzhì) across some three decades and posthumously edited by his four sons, it complements his lexicographic encyclopedia Tōng yǎ (KR3j0066) as the zhìcè (empirical) wing of his epistemological program.

The book’s principal contributions:

1. Zhìcè / tōngjǐ distinction. Fāng’s self-preface lays out his celebrated distinction between zhìcè (investigation of phenomena by their qualities) and tōngjǐ (penetration to underlying principles) — one of the most important methodological statements in Ming-Qīng intellectual history.
2. Engagement with Jesuit science. The book draws systematically on Jesuit astronomical and physical knowledge transmitted through the late-Míng accommodation mission (Matteo Ricci, Sabatino de Ursis, Giulio Aleni, Adam Schall), digesting it in fifteen substantive sections on astronomy, calendar, meteorology, geography, materia medica, technology, etc.
3. Critical natural philosophy. Fāng goes beyond his predecessors Zhāng Huá and Zànníng by attempting to explain why things behave as they do — a step toward causal explanation in pre-modern Chinese natural philosophy.
4. Fifteen sections. The systematic arrangement makes this one of the most carefully organized natural-philosophical encyclopedias in the Chinese tradition.

Dating. Fāng began work on the book in the 1630s and continued through the dynastic fall (1644), his southern Míng service, and his monastic life. The self-preface in the WYG is conventionally dated to 1643 in some recensions and to 1650 in others (using Wànlì rather than Qīng era-names — itself a political signal). Editorial completion by his sons followed his death in 1671. The bracket notBefore 1631 (earliest substantive composition) and notAfter 1664 (his final round of revisions) is conservative.

Authorship attribution. The WYG attributes the work to Fāng Yǐzhì as Míng author, despite his post-1644 monastic life under the Qīng. The Sìkù attribution preserves his identity as Míng jìnshì and Hànlín official.

Translations and research

Major secondary scholarship:

• Willard J. Peterson, Bitter Gourd: Fang I-chih and the Impetus for Intellectual Change, Yale, 1979. The classic English-language monograph on Fāng. Treats Wù-lǐ xiǎo-zhì extensively.
• Catherine Jami, The Emperor’s New Mathematics: Western Learning and Imperial Authority during the Kangxi Reign, OUP, 2012 — places Fāng in the broader history of 17th-century Chinese science.
• Zhang Yongtang 張永堂, Fāng Yǐzhì de shēng-píng yǔ sī-xiǎng 方以智的生平與思想, Taipei: Wén-shǐ-zhé, 1987.
• Modern Chinese editions: Wù-lǐ xiǎo-zhì with critical apparatus, in Fāng Yǐzhì quán shū 方以智全書, Shànghǎi Gǔjí, several volumes.

Other points of interest

The Wùlǐ xiǎozhì records, in the yìyòng (technical arts) section, one of the earliest Chinese descriptions of the Western water-clock, microscope, and various optical phenomena transmitted by the Jesuits. The medical juàn preserves Fāng’s substantial knowledge of late-Míng materia medica and surgical techniques. The book’s structure — opening with a zǒnglùn on epistemology and proceeding through fifteen substantive mén — was unprecedented in the Chinese natural-philosophical tradition.

Links

• Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Zájiā lèi 3, Wùlǐ xiǎozhì entry.
• Wikipedia: Fang Yizhi.