The Influence of Europe on Chinese Science in the 17th Century

The 17th Century ushered a direct cultural contact between China and Europe.European missionaries played a key role in the exchange of personnel and ideas in the late Ming and early Qing period.More than 30 Jesuits had arrived in China then.Following the strategy of teaching useful knowledge and technology,the Jesuits introduced large quantities of western pre - modern and modern science into China,stirring up a kind of in Chinese astronomy.This article focused on the collaboration between the Chinese official - scholar Xu Guangqi and the Jesuit Matteo Ricci,who made an outstanding contribution to this Sino - western scientific exchange,in the translation of western scientific works and the impact of western scientific paradigm on Xu Guangqi and other Ming scholars like Li Tianjing and Li Zhichao etc..It is argued that the Chinese scholars had a real understanding of European natural philosophy,scientific methodology and scholarly tradition. Nevertheless,the transmission of the fundamental ideas and methodology of European scientific tradition had not led a scientific revolution in China.A- part from the social upheaval of the change of dynasties,the absence of relative social and cultural background and driving forces were responsible for the failure of modern science to rise in China then.