§102. Observation

The Chinese were accomplished observers and understood the discipline good observation requires. If you “watch from a selfish point of view,” there are things you cannot see, and if you “listen from a selfish point of view” there are things you will not hear, but “if the heart is even-tempered, the ears and eyes will work better.” Looking outward, looking carefully, patiently, the obsessive ego vanishing into things, is the forte of their observation in every field, though astronomy is exemplary.²⁶

Needham describes their astronomers as “the most persistent and accurate observers of celestial phenomena anywhere before the Renaissance.” The Imperial Astronomical Bureau operated without interruption from the Former Han dynasty in the third century bce to the terminal Qing dynasty in the twentieth century.

The Bureau's work was uninterrupted even by dynastic change, so great was the urgency of any new dynasty to assert control of celestial phenomena. The man who would become the first Ming emperor established his own Astronomical Bureau even before completing his conquest of the Mongol Yuan dynasty, so that a new calendar would be in hand when the time came for him to take over the administration. From the latter thirteenth century, the Astronomical Bureau employed instruments modeled on those of the Persian Maragha observatory, also using their methods of planetary computation, and communicating regularly with the Maragha staff, thus indirectly linking these Chinese astronomers with one source of Copernicanism (§23).²⁷

The Bureau was responsible for astronomical observation, the calendar, astral divination, and the calculation of planetary movements. Astronomers observed the sun, moon, stars, winds, clouds, and vapors, reporting any abnormalities to the emperor, and they maintained a clepsydra, or water clock.

Like the Babylonians, they developed calendric computation without a physical model, calculating without assumptions about the composition of heavenly bodies or the cause of their motion. However, the comparison with Babylonians is imperfect because the Chinese astronomers had in their earliest phase sought a cosmological model, but found the problem too hard, and settled for calendar calculations. Thereafter, the sense of cosmos drops out of their astronomy. While the algebraic methods of the Chinese were independent of a physical model, the Greek geometrical model implies the real movement of celestial bodies in space. An emphasis on periodicity, cycles of time, rather than spatial relations, is described as “the paradigmatic style of Chinese astronomical research.”²⁸

These practitioners apparently had no expectation that the whole pattern could be mastered. Every system requires constant adjustment; not even a sage could design a perpetual system. “The Celestial Way being irregular, lacking uniformity, there are bound to be remainders. These remainders will have their own disparities, which cannot be made uniform.” Maybe nature cannot be adequately or finally described in words or numbers at all. “Sound and light are always more subtle than the ‘numbers' of things.” “Measurements cannot be precise enough and subtle enough to approximate the dao.” Angus Graham suggests that Chinese science is dominated by the “suspicion that anomaly is inherent in nature.” The cosmos is too large and nature too subtle to be completely predictable. Apropos a patient whom he discovered to have no pulse, a Ming dynasty physician writes, “One can see that the transformations of things in the world in truth emerge so inexhaustibly that it is simply impossible to fully understand every one according to normal principles.”²⁹

The stars were not the only objects of observation. The Detailed Record of Bamboo (Zhu pu xiang lu), by the Yuan dynasty painter Li Kan, is an abundantly detailed natural history of bamboo prepared especially for painters.

Li offers systematic, minute, carefully illustrated observations on all aspects of bamboo relevant to the painter, including their process of growth, differences in their appearance in light or heavy rain, breeze or heavy wind, in sunshine, with dew, or withering; and the appearance of their clusters, leaves, stems, and branches. He distinguishes seventy-six species as good for painting; other species of abnormal shape, color, or spirit; species that look like bamboo but are not; and species that are called bamboo but are not.³⁰

Human abilities were also observed, the better to use people in offices. The Study of Human Abilities (Ren wu zhi) by Liu Shao, from the mid-third century CE, is the most complete treatment in Chinese on the problem of how to discern people's suitability for office or service. He explains the urgency of this knowledge and its value for rulers. Appointments should be based on fitness, which depends on character and is indicated by behavior, Liu disqualifying physiognomy and divination as suitable methods. His position is that mental characteristics are manifested in behavior and can be accurately observed. The abilities important for public employment are innate, not capable of being acquired, and not modified by environment or education, qualities that make people's abilities eminently observable to one who knows the way. Liu coordinates the quality of a person's character (an unseen condition) with its manifestation in behavior (an indicative sign), in a way that resembles medical semiology. All abilities have their manifestations and can be discerned by the indications Liu explains. The treatise systematically divides abilities and discusses each, with attention to how they can be observed in behavior and the mistakes people tend to make in judging the abilities of others.³¹

Related to the problem of selecting the right people is figuring out why they died at the wrong time, which is another problem for trained observation.

Chinese law mandated an inquiry in cases of murder or the death of a prisoner, and Confucian-trained literati-officials were the only ones authorized to conduct them. It was important to do the work well, and for that they needed guidance, which they found in the Washing Away of Wrongs (Xi yuan ji lu) by Song Ci in the mid-thirteenth century, the oldest extant work on forensic investigation in any tradition. The author was a Confucian literatus with a high degree from the civil service examinations, and his treatise, constantly supplemented, remained authoritative for seven hundred years. He was not a physician, however, and forensic examination was not associated with medicine, unlike European practice since the medieval coroner.³²

Song avers that “factual accuracy is supremely important,” and that “at the time of investigation nothing may be treated lightly. If an infinitesimal mistake is made, the repercussions will stretch to a thousand li” The work attests to the problems of subtle crime, such as how to distinguish unnatural, accidental, or deliberate death, or distinguish suicide from murder, or mortal from postmortem wounds. An inquest involves a forensic examination of the corpse, and while the heavy lifting was performed by attendants, the official was expected to observe closely. The examination was public, conducted in the presence of clerks, attendants, the accused, the village chief, and relatives of the deceased. In the course of the examination, results were called aloud and noted on the inquest report. By the thirteenth century officials were provided with printed ventral and dorsal outlines of the human body on which the location of injuries were indicated with red ink as the examiner called them out to the witnesses, who would later inspect these documents and sign them, attesting to their accuracy.³³

Song's description of different indications of poison is exemplary empiricism; for instance, he notices the signs of poisoning, including disfigured mouth or eyes, discolored skin or nails, loose hair, and curled or blistered lips.

He describes the effects of different poisons, vegetable and mineral, including arsenic, and explains a test for poisoning. A silver needle is cleaned with pods of soap bean, then inserted into the throat, covering the mouth and nose with paper. If the needle turns bluish-black, a discoloration subsequently not removable with the same soap beans, then death occurred by poisoning.³⁴

The expected finality of the inquest is uncoerced assent, which was the norm in Chinese justice especially in Song's time, when an accused who refused to consent to the verdict was automatically given a full retrial. We can imagine the tense proceedings. The accused, the victim's family, the village head, the official, and his attendants gathered in one room with the victim's naked body, washed in boiled vinegar and arrayed before them on a cloth. Decisions reached with these procedures were thought to invite less dissent or accusation of impropriety against examining officials. Many officials probably thought they were also more likely to produce the right result. As a collective group, the people think for Heaven. Nothing that a single person perceives can be accurate; the experience is partial and the result is partial too. Really accurate perception is communal, the perception of a ceremonial group bound by shared emotion.³⁵

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Source: Allen B.. Empiricisms: Experience and Experiment from Antiquity to the Anthropocene. Oxford University Press,2021. — 527 p.. 2021

§102. Observation

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