[转载]李约瑟与《中国的科学与文明》（二)

   JOSEPH NEEDHAM: Science and Civilization in China.

                  李约瑟与《中国的科学与文明》                   

                                        Compiled and Written by Robin Gilbank

                       Translated by Hu Zongfeng

                                 （英）罗宾·吉尔班克     

                                 胡宗锋   译

      What of Needham’s continued relevance to the study of Chinese invention and to contemporary debates about rates of technological development in East and West? Well, as the ever-expanding scale of Science and Civilization in China suggests the originator of that project was as adept at opening up fresh avenues for research as he was at resolving his original research questions. Those who have never read his work or even heard of the man himself may nevertheless be familiar with the so-called “Needham question” which formed something of a persistent backdrop to his investigations. He asked:-

           李约瑟对中国发明的相关研究以及今天对东西方科学技术发展节奏的辩论意义何在呢？影响越来越广泛的《中国的科学与文明》给人们的启示是：这一工程的发起者既精于开拓研究的新领域，也善于解决研究中的难题，那些未读过其大作或甚至没有听说过他的人也许不熟悉所谓的“李约瑟之谜”，这是他从事这项研究的永恒背景。他曾叩问：

       Why did Chinese science always remain empirical, and restricted to theories of

primitive or medieval type? What were the inhibiting factors in their civilianization which prevented the rise of modern science in Asia?

为什么中国的科学总是停留和局限在原始理论和中世纪的经验阶段呢？拟制亚洲在现代科学上崛起的因素是什么呢？

     “李约瑟之谜”（Needham question，又译为“李约瑟难题”是指在其编著的15卷《中国的科学与文明》中提出的著名难题：“如果我的中国朋友们在智力上和我完全一样，那为什么像伽利略、托里拆利、斯蒂文、牛顿这样的伟大人物都是欧洲人，而不是中国人或印度人呢？为什么近代科学和科学革命只产生在欧洲呢？……为什么直到中世纪中国还比欧洲先进，后来却会让欧洲人着了先鞭呢？怎么会产生这样的转变呢？”等诘问为什么资本主义和现代科学起源于西欧而不是中国或其他文明？

      李约瑟难题是一个两段式的表述：第一段是：为什么在公元前一世纪到公元十六世纪之间，古代中国人在科学和技术方面的发达程度远远超过同时期的欧洲? 中国的政教分离现象、文官选拔制度、私塾教育和诸子百家流派为何没有在同期的欧洲产生？第二段是：为什么近代科学没有产生在中国，而是在十七世纪的西方，特别是文艺复兴之后的欧洲？李约瑟难题的实质内容在于中国古代的经验科学领先世界一千年，但为何中国没有产生近代实验科学，这是关于两种科学研究范式的起源问题。——译者注）

         At some point around the year 1700 China, which had been the source of most of the critical inventions in history, apparently fell behind European countries in terms of new technological development. Enlightenment thinkers in the West were inclined to blame this on a growing sense of complacency within China. Having achieved unparalleled civilianization and relative domestic stability, the Chinese were perceived to have lost their spirit of innovation. Denis Diderot in the 18^th century mused that “the Oriental spirit which tends towards easiness and laziness and is concerned only with one’s immediate interests and lacks the courage to challenge traditional common sense.” Needham did not refute outright the complacency thesis, though he did take pains to gather as much evidence as possible to confirm that from the later Ming or early Qing Dynasty the country did experience a form of technological stagnation. One journal article is insufficient to solve the problem of another person’s lifetime, but it does provide a prime opportunity to reassess the personality behind this great project. I shall first of all offer a characterization of Needham’s highly-individualistic interest in matters Chinese before evaluating the pertinence of the “Needham question” to China in 2014.

          大约在1700年，也就是历史上大多数重要的发明出笼时，中国显然在新技术的发展上落在了欧洲国家的后面。西方的启蒙思想家趋于将此归罪于中国人与日俱增的自大感。无以伦比的文明和相对稳定的国势，使中国丧失了创新精神。狄德罗在18世纪反思说：“东方对安逸和慵懒的追求，使得他们只关心个人的切身利益，缺乏挑战传统常识的勇气。”李约瑟虽然下功夫在搜寻证据，以便证明在晚明和清初中国的确经历了一段时间在科技上的停滞不前，但他却没有一味的否认中国自大说。一篇杂志的文章不足以对一个人盖棺定论，但却可以有机会重审这一宏伟工程后面的人格。在评价一直延续到2014年的“李约瑟之谜”前，我将首先描述一下李约瑟对中国的慧眼独识。

         By the time he reached Volume IV, Part 3 of his masterwork (the sub-volume on Civil Engineering and Nautics) Needham must already have been bothered by issues of teleology. In other words, the man had spent so much time and energy delving into the origins of science and technology that now aged seventy, he ought to have harboured at least a shadow of a doubt that he could ever hope to see the task through to completion. The Preface rather wittily evinces how he sought to exorcise his own doubts by using an allusion to British Romantic poetry. He writes:-

         在他完成了该巨匠工程的第四卷第三分册《土木工程和航海》时，李约瑟已经为技术问题在烦恼了。换句话说，这位化了大量时间和心血挖掘科学和技术来龙去脉的学者已过了古稀之年，他至少有那么一点疑惑的阴影，想自己可能看不到大功告成了。在前言中，他试图通过英国浪漫派诗人的诗行来驱赶自己心头的阴影，他写到：

        Pursuing our exploration of the almost limitless caverns of Chinese scientific history, so much of which has never come to the knowledge and recognition of the rest of the world, we now approach the glittering veins of physics and physical technology ….

                                                                                 (Volume IV: 3, p. xlv).

       探索几乎是个无底洞的中国科学史，太多东西不为世人所知晓，现在我们接触到了物理与物理技术这一闪闪发光的脉络............

        The reference here is not that hard to identify as being the opening to the unfinished Kubla Khan (written 1797) in which Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) envisaged the brilliance of the physical situation in which the Far Eastern tyrant established his palace:

         此处的所引不难看出乃未完成的《忽必烈汗》之开篇，在这首诗中柯勒律治（Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772-1834，英国浪漫派诗人）在想象远东的君王建造宫殿时辉煌的物理技术，诗中写到：

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure dome decree:

Where Alph the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

       Down to a sunless sea.

 忽必列汗在上都降旨
造一座巍峨的逸乐宫：
那里有圣河亚佛流奔，
穿过深不可测的洞门，
流入不见阳光的海洋。

         Needham reworks these lines into a pithy metaphor. For so long he and those who have been on the journey with him have woven a subterranean course not unlike that of the River Alph. Along the way they have been blessed to survey fresh seams of scientific learning, piled up like geological deposits. Nonetheless, Needham adds a clever cadence. Whereas Coleridge’s caverns were “measureless to man” his are “almost limitless.” That is to say that their inaccessibility is merely an optical illusion; Needham fully anticipates that his map of knowledge can and will be completed.

       李约瑟将这些诗行重组为一个简洁的妙喻。长期以来，他和同在一条旅途上的团队已经编织出了一个与圣河亚佛不同的地下通道。沿着这条通道，他们有幸从一个新缝隙窥到了犹如地质沉淀那样的科学知识。柯勒律治笔下“深不可测的洞”在李约瑟的眼中则“几乎是个无底洞”，那就是说深不可测不过是幻觉中的假象，李约瑟充分预计到自己的这一蓝图能够也一定会圆满完成。

          His single-minded dedication to this task occupied half a century of the life of one of the finest minds in England. By 1931, Joseph Needham had already garnered acclaim for being the author of a three-volume survey on the history of embryology and could, with few reservations, look forward to a long career divided between the classroom and the laboratory. Even at this early stage, he displayed super-human traits which placed him beyond the reach of ordinary researchers. His wife Dorothy Moyle (herself a renowned scientist) recounted how Needham would lie in bed at night and bring to mind every single page of the manuscript he had just completed without actually having any of the document physically there to consult. Corrections would be jotted down onto a notepad which rested on his belly and registered on the proofs at the office the following day. For him, this was as natural a pastime to undertake of an evening as reading a novel or listening to the radio were to other people.

        李约瑟一心一意所钟情的事业耗去了这位英国精英之一半个世纪的光阴。在1931年，他已因著述三卷本的《胚胎学历史》而出名，而且很容易在教室和实验室里谋到一份长期稳定的工作。即便是在这样的早起阶段，他也显示出超越普通学者的天赋。他的妻子李大菲（英文原名多萝西·莫伊尔Dorothy Moyle，也是一位有名的科学家——译者注）曾讲述过他是怎样工作的，晚上躺在床上，在手头没有任何参考资料的时候，他会在脑海里过一遍刚刚完成的每一页手稿，需要做的修改就速记放在肚子上的一个记事簿上，第二天再到办公室里修改。对他来说这很自然，就像其他人为了消磨时间在床上看小说和听广播一样。

                                             汉语原文刊《美文》2015年第二期（未完待续）