Sir
Adrian Johns wrote in his Words essay1 that “science originated partly from a need to master as many [words] as possible”, and that the impetus for this need came from “the development of printing in the mid-fifteenth century”.
Printing was, of course, first developed in Tang Dynasty China (ad 618–907). The earliest surviving example of printed text is a 'dharani sutra' scroll printed between 704 and 751, now kept in Pulguksa Temple, Kyongju, Korea, and the earliest extant example of a printed book is the Diamond Sutra of 868, now kept in the British Museum. Both were printed in China.
It is therefore doubtful that the sudden deluge of printed material in fifteenth-century Europe was a major cause of the Scientific Revolution. It has been estimated that, by 1700 or even 1800, more written and printed pages existed in Chinese than in all other languages of the world put together2,3. Creel also estimates that, until the middle of the eighteenth century, more books had been published in Chinese than in all other languages put together4.
The most prolific printing period in history was probably not the European Renaissance, but the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). It was noted that “of the quarter of a million titles of Chinese publications known to have accumulated throughout the dynasties, no less than one half were produced during this period, the greatest amount in all history”5.
If the ready availability of printed material were indeed the main impetus for the Scientific Revolution, it would have happened in China, and not in Europe.
References
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Swingle, W. T. Bulletin of the American Library Association 11, 121 (1917).
Latourette, K. S. The Chinese: Their History and Culture 770 (Macmillan, New York, 1946).
Creel, H. G. Chinese Writing 15 (American Council on Education, Washington DC, 1943).
Needham, J. & Tsien, T.-H Science and Civilisation in China vol. 5, pt 1, 190 (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1985).
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Chau, PL. Why didn't flood of print launch science in China?. Nature 409, 662 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35055718
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35055718