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Review of Sung: Chinese Mystical Philosophy in Modern Terms
This appendix is attributed to Herbert Chatley as an extract from "The China
Journal of Science and Arts".
The following quote is of interest (p131):
"It need scarcely be said that many erudite Chinese have held that their
philosophers have anticipated Western science in all essential respects. The
author fears that this is an entirely unwarranted generalization. The most
that can fairly be said is that certain of the Chinese ancients were well on
the way towards making good guesses as to the inner nature of things..."
I think this is a little unfair in that I think these systems of
thought are more than merely guesses. We cannot now know, but it
seems that much Chinese thought is born from a systematically
developed view of the structure of the perceived world. Although it
was not, by contemporary western standards, good "scientific"
investigation, it was clearly more than guess work.
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