Hybrid Discourse and Textual Practice: Sinology and Natural History in the Nineteenth Century

The essays in Wilson Ming Cayley John (eds), Europe studies China (London, 1995) together provide a panoramic survey of the history of sinology in Europe. See, also, Franke Herbert , Sinology in German universities (Wiesbaden, 1968), 1–11; Barrett T. H. , Singular listlessness: A short history of Chinese books and British scholars (London, 1989), 19–75: Duyvendak J. J. L. , Holland's contribution to Chinese studies (London, 1950), 3–23; Yao-Sheng Ch'en Hsiao Paul S. Y. , Sinology in the United Kingdom and Germany (Honolulu, 1967); Schafer Edward , What and how is sinology? Inaugural lecture for the Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures, University of Colorado, Boulder (Boulder, 1982), 1–7.

Said Edward , Orientalism (New York, 1978); Schwab Raymond , The Oriental Renaissance: Europe's rediscovery of India and the East, 1680–1880 (New York, 1984).

This essay addresses the same historical issue as do many works in postcolonial studies: How was Western knowledge about other parts of the world produced? My focus differs from theirs in that I directly engage in the current discussion among historians of science on the practice of science and the cultural history of natural history.

Many of the essays in Jardine N. (eds), Cultures of natural history (Cambridge, 1996) and Lightman Bernard (ed.), Victorian science in context (Chicago, 1997) concern the practice of natural history. On fieldwork, see, for example, Kuklick Henrika Kohler Robert (eds), “Science in the field”, Osiris, n.s., xi (1996); Camirini Jane , “Remains of the day: Early Victorians in the field”, in Lightman (ed.), Victorian science in context , 354–77. On the natural history museum, see, for example, Winsor Mary , Reading the shape of nature: Comparative zoology at the Agassiz Museum (Chicago, 1991); Kohlstedt Sally G. , “Museums: Revisiting sites in the history of the natural sciences”, Journal of the history of biology, xxviii (1995), 151–66; Forgan Sophie , “The architecture of display: Museums, universities and objects in nineteenth-century Britain”, History of science, xxiii (1994), 139–62; Lenoir Timothy Ross Cheryl Lynn , “The naturalized history museum”, in Galison Peter Stump David (eds), The Disunity of science: Boundaries, contexts, and power (Stanford, 1996), 370–97.

Ashworth's William “Emblematic natural history of the Renaissance”, in Jardine (eds), Cultures of natural history (ref. 4), 17–37, takes the mid-seventeenth century as the turning point. On the other hand, some see Buffon and Linnaeus as pivotal figures. See Rappaport Rhoda , When geologists were historians, 1665–1750 (Ithaca, 1997), chap. 3; Sloan Phillip Lynn John , From natural history to the history of nature: Readings from Buffon and his critics (Notre Dame, 1981), chap. 1; Lindroth Sten , “Two faces of Linnaeus”, in Frängsmyr Tore (ed.), Linnaeus: The man and his work (Canton, Mass., 1994), 1–62.

Several scholars have pointed out the connections between humanism and natural history during an earlier period. E.g. Shapiro Barbara , “History and natural history in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England: An essay on the relationship between humanism and science”, in Shapiro Barbara Frank Robert , English scientific virtuosi in the 16th and 17th centuries (Los Angeles, 1979), 3–55; Findlen Paula , Possessing nature: Museums, collecting, and scientific culture in early modern Italy (Berkeley, 1994). William Ashworth suggests the importance of antiquarianism in natural history, see his “Natural history and the emblematic world view”, in Lindberg David Westman Robert (eds), Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (Chicago, 1990), 303–32. Levine Joseph , Dr. Woodward's Shield: History, science, and satire in Augustan England (Ithaca, 1977); idem, “Natural history and the new philosophy: Bacon, Harvey, and the two cultures”, Humanism and history (Ithaca, 1987), 123–54; Rossi Paolo , The dark abyss of time: The history of the Earth and the history of nations from Hooke to Vico (Chicago, 1984), part 2, 3; Blair Ann , “Humanist methods in natural philosophy: The common place book”, Journal of the history of ideas, liii (1992), 541–51; Bylebyl Jerome , “The School of Padua: Humanistic medicine in the sixteenth century”, in Webster Charles (ed.), Health, medicine and morality in the sixteenth century (Cambridge, 1979), 335–70; Harrison Peter , The Bible, Protestantism, and the rise of natural science (Cambridge, 1998). Anthony Grafton has emphasized the broad and lasting influence of humanist scholarship in a different context. See, for example, his Defenders of the text: The traditions of scholarship in an age of science, 1450–1800 (Cambridge, 1991) and Forgers and critics: Creativity and duplicity in Western scholarship (Princeton, 1990).

E.g. Gernet Jacques , China and the Christian impact (Cambridge, 1987), esp. 238–47; Peyrefitte Alain , The immobile empire (New York, 1992).

Schwartz Benjamin , “Culture, modernity, and nationalism — Further reflections”, Daedalus , no. 122 (Summer 1993), 207–26, esp. pp. 207–8. Schwartz criticizes and modifies this view.

I have benefited from the insights in a number of otherwise very different works. Liu Lydia , Translingual practice: Literature, national culture, and translated modernity - China, 1900–1937 (Stanford, 1995), 1–44; Hevia James , Cherishing men from afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793 (Durham, 1995); Lloyd G. E. R. , Demystifying mentalities (New York, 1990). The controversy around Hevia's book concerns to some extent this methodological issue. It seems to me that one does not have to embrace Hevia's interpretation of the Macartney Embassy to appreciate some of his methodological concerns. Esherick Joseph , “Cherishing sources from afar”, in Modern China, xxiv (1998), 135–61; Hevia James , “Postpolemical historiography”, Modern China, xxiv (1998), 319–27; Esherick Joseph , “Tradutore, traditore”, Modern China, xxiv (1998), 328–32.

Bretschneider Emil , “Botanicon Sinicum: Notes on Chinese botany from native and Western sources”, Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (hereafter JNCB), xvi (1882), 18–230, p. 19.

By comparison, the Chinese intellectuals' roles in translating Western science into late Qing China are much better documented and studied. The best survey is Yuezhi Xiong , Xixue dongjian yu wan Qing shehui (Shanghai, 1994). See, also, Rear-Anderson John , The study of change: Chemistry in China 1840–1949 (New York, 1991), chaps. 1 and 2; Wright David , “Careers in Western science in nineteenth-century China: Xu Shou and Xu Jianyin”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3 ser., v (1995), 49–90; idem, “John Fryer and the Shanghai Polytechnic: Making space for science in nineteenth-century China”, The British journal for the history of science, xxix (1996), 1–16; idem, “The translation of modern Western science in nineteenth-century China, 1840–1895”, Isis, lxxxix (1998), 653–73; Wann-Sheng Horng , “Li Shanlan: The impact of Western mathematics in China during the late nineteenth century” (Ph.D. diss., City University of New York, 1991); Hailin Zhang , Wang Tao ping zhuan (Nanjing, 1993); Cohen Paul , Between tradition and modernity: Wang Tao and reform in late Ching China (Cambridge, 1974); Pusey James , China and Charles Darwin (Cambridge, 1983); Yoshinobu Sakade , Chūgoku kindai no shisō to kagaku (Kyoto, 1983), chap. 4; Andrews Bridie , “Tuberculosis and the assimilation of germ theory in China, 1895–1937”, Journal of the history of medicine and allied sciences, lii (1997), 114–57; Lei Sean Hsiang-Lin , “From Changshan to a new anti-malarial drug: Re-networking Chinese drugs and excluding Chinese doctors”, Social studies of science, xxix (1999), 323–58.

The literature on Jesuits in China is legion. See, e.g., Peterson Willard , “Learning from the heaven: The introduction of Christianity and other Western ideas into late Ming China”, The Cambridge history of China, viii/2 (Cambridge, 1998), 789–839; Gernet , China and the Christian impact (ref. 7); Ronan Charles Oh Bonnie , East meets West: The Jesuits in China (Chicago, 1988); Spence Jonathan , The memory palace of Matteo Ricci (London, 1985). Young John , Confucianism and Christianity: The first encounter (Hong Kong, 1983).

Ricci Matthew , China in the 16th century: The journals of Matthew Ricci, 1583–1610 (New York, 1953), 28.

The Chinese interpreters were Catholic converts brought to Europe by the Jesuits. See Barrett , Singular listlessness (ref. 1), 37–38, 49; Spence Jonathan , “The Paris years of Arcadio Huang”, in his China roundabout (New York, 1992), 11–24; idem, The question of Hu (New York, 1989).

E.g. Lundbaek Knud , T. S. Bayer (1694–1738), pioneer sinologist (London, 1986), 31–140.

Bold John , “John Webb: Composite capitals and the Chinese language”, Oxford art journal, iv (1981), 9–17. Rossi , The dark abyss of time (ref. 6), 137–44. Mungello David , Curious land: Jesuit accommodation and the origins of sinology (Stuttgart, 1985), chaps. 4–6.

Gerbi Antonello , The dispute of the New World: The history of a polemic, 1750–1900 (Pittsburgh, 1973), 150–4.

Slaughter Mary , Universal languages and scientific taxonomy in the seventeenth century (Cambridge, 1982), 112–13; Knowlson James , Universal language schemes in England and France, 1600–1800 (Toronto, 1975), 25–27; Mungello David , Leibniz and Confucianism: The search for accord (Honolulu, 1977), 43–65; idem, Curious land (ref. 16), chap. 6.

Wells C. A. , The origin of language: Aspects of the discussion from Condillac to Wundt (Le Salle, Ill., 1987), 61–62.

Bretschneider Emil , History of European botanical discoveries in China (2 vols, Leipzig, 1962 [1898]), i, 8–20.

Goodrich L. C. , “Boym and Boymiae”, T'oung Pao, lvii (1971), 135; Roi J. , “Les missionnaires de Chine et la botanique”, Collectanea Commissionis Synodalis in Sinis, xi (1938), 695–706; Kajdnski Edward , “Receptarum Sinensium Liber of Michael Boym”, Janus, lxxiii (1990), 105–24; Pelliot Paul , “Michael Boym”, T'oung Pao, xxx (1933), 95–151. Chabrie Robert , Michel Boym: Jésuite polonais et la fin des Ming en Chine (Paris, 1933) remains the fullest account of his life. Jixing Pan , Zhongwai kexue zhi jiaoliu (Hong Kong, 1993), 479.

For the musk deer, see Billing Timothy James , “Illustrating China: Emblematic autopsy and the catachresis of Cathay” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1997), 243–65; Baldwin Martha , “The snakestone experiments: An early modern medical debate”, Isis, lxxxvi (1995), 394–418.

Foust Clifford , Rhubarb: The wondrous drug (Princeton, 1992); Carey Daniel , “Compiling nature's history: Travellers and travel narratives in the early Royal Society”, Annals of science, liv (1997), 269–92, esp. p. 281. Leigh Denis , “Medicine, the city and China”, Medical history, xviii (1974), 51–67.

Koerner Lisbet , “Nature and nation in Linnaean travel” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1993), 203–7, 224–34, 253–8.

du Halde J.-B. , Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique … etc. etc. (4 vols, Paris, 1735).

Wilson Caley , Europe studies China (ref. 1), 13–14.

Wakeman Frederic , “The Canton trade and the Opium War”, in Fairbank John (ed.), The Cambridge history of China, x/1 (Cambridge, 1978), 163–212; Spence Jonathan , The search for modern China (New York, 1990), 117–64.

The dramatic increase of British contributions to Western research into China's natural history is documented in Bretschneider, History of European botanical discoveries in China (ref. 20).

Barrett , Singular listlessness (ref. 1), 29–57.

Cranmer-Byng J. L. , “The first British sinologists: Sir George Staunton and the Reverend Robert Morrison”, in Drake F. S. Eberhard Wolfran (eds), Symposium on Historical Archaeological and Linguistic Studies on South China, South-East Asia and the Hong Kong Region (Hong Kong, 1967), 247–59; Stifler Susan , “The language students of the East India Company's Canton factory”, JNCB, lxix (1938), 46–82.

Chinese repository, v (1836–37), 119. Postcolonial critics often emphasize the discursive liaisons between the objectifying vision of Europeans and a (gendered) Orient, between a desiring gaze and a (projected) seductively veiled body. There is ample evidence in the naturalists' writings to confirm this view. And few will deny that imperial imagination and aggressive cognition were inscribed in the discourse of nineteenth-century natural history. Our job here is not to dwell on these well-explored points, but to discover the strategies the naturalists developed to overcome the “obstacles” to their natural historical research.

Chinese repository, v (1836–37), 119.

Hao Yen P'ing , The comprador in nineteenth-century China: Bridge between East and West (Cambridge, 1970).

See Coates P. D. , The China Consul (Hong Kong, 1988), 81–86.

Wright Stanley , Robert Hart and the Chinese customs (Belfast, 1950), 277.

One can easily come up with a list of British missionary- and diplomat-sinologists: Morrison Robert Legge James Wade Thomas Edkins Joseph Giles Herbert , to name only the best known.

See Fan Fa-Ti , “British naturalists in China, 1760–1910” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999), chap. 3.

Johnson Linda Cooke , Shanghai from market town to treaty ports, 1074–1858 (Stanford, 1995), chaps. 7–12.

For an account of the early days of the Society, see JNCB, xxxv (1903–1904), pp. i–xx.

Bridgman E. C. , “Inaugural address”, Journal of the Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society , 1 (1858), 1–16, p. 6. Bridgman was an American missionary.

There are as yet no general accounts of these journals. But see King Frank , The China Coast newspaper project of the Center for Research Libraries and the Center for East Asian Studies (Lawrence, n.d.) focuses on newspapers, but it gives a general idea of the busy publishing scene in Western communities in China. Both the Chinese repository and the Chinese recorder were founded by American missionaries. On the Chinese repository, see Rubinstein Murray A. , “The wars they wanted: American missionaries' use of The Chinese repository before the Opium War”, in The American neptune, xlviii/l (1988), 271–82.

British academic sinology never caught up with its Continental counterpart. But the large British population in China and their facilities made possible the growth of a wide range of areas of interest, including natural history.

Journal of the Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society , 1 (1858), “Preface”. Emil Bretschneider made the same point in the preface to his On the study and value of Chinese botanical works, with notes on the history of plants and geographical botany from Chinese sources (Foochow [Fuzhou], 1871). The work first appeared in several parts in Chinese recorder, iii (1870).

Mayers W. F. , “On the introduction of maize into China”, The pharmaceutical journal and transactions, 3rd ser., i (1870–71), 522–5.

For the general importance of nomenclature in nineteenth-century natural history, see Ritvo Harriet , The platypus and the mermaid, and other figments of the classifying imagination (Cambridge, 1997), chaps. 1 and 2.

Swinhoe Robert , “The small Chinese lark”, JNCB, no. 3 (1859), 288.

Swinhoe Robert , “On a new rat from Formosa”, Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1864, 185–7.

Swinhoe to Newton, 23 Nov. 1869, in Cambridge University Library MSS, Alfred Newton papers. Swinhoe writes, “Soo Tungpo is a good classical Chinese name, and Science might well admit such worthy names. However, as it offends you. …”.

Bretschneider , “Botanicon sinicum” (ref. 10), 110.

Heude's taxonomic work would, however, prove to be controversial because of his anti-Darwinian point of view. He was also an important scientific traveller and field naturalist in China. See Mémoires concernant l'histoire naturelle de l'empire chinois, v/2 (Shanghai, 1906), 1–29; Fournier P. , Voyages et découvertes scientifiques des missionnaires naturalistes français (Paris, 1932), 36–42.

Fournier , Voyages et découvertes scientifiques, 67–91; Boutan Emmanuel , Le nuage et la vitrine: Un vie de Monsieur David (Bayonne, 1993) is a biography based on David's correspondence.

Galison Peter , Image and logic: A material culture of microphysics (Chicago, 1997), chap. 1.

Similar issues have been discussed in colonial context. See, for example, Sangwan Satpal , “From gentlemen amateurs to professionals: Reassessing the natural science tradition in colonial India 1780–1840”, in Grove Richard (eds). Nature and the Orient: The environmental history of South and Southeast Asia (Dehli, 1998), 210–29; Reingold Nathan Rothenberg Marc , Scientific colonialism: A cross-cultural comparison (Washington, D.C., 1987).

There are as yet no adequate studies of the Chinese literature about their natural environment or the Chinese attitudes towards the living world. Needham Joseph , Science and civilization in China, vi/l: Biology (Cambridge, 1986) is the closest thing we have despite its tendency to impose modern scientific categories on Chinese knowledge traditions.

Sampson Theophilus , Botanical and other writings on China, 1867–1870, ed. by Walravens H. (Hamburg, 1984), 19.

Watters T. , “Chinese notions about pigeons and doves”, JNCB, n.s., iv (1867), 225–41; idem, “Chinese fox-myths”, JNCB, n.s., viii (1873), 47–49.

The British were highly interested in Chinese medicine and medicinals. See Leigh Denis , “Medicine, the City and China”; Bivins Roberta , “The needle and the lancet: British acupuncture and the cross-cultural transmission of medical knowledge” (Ph.D. diss., MIT, 1997).

Hanbury Daniel , “Notes on Chinese materia medica”, collected in his Science papers (London, 1876). He corresponded with Henry Hance, William Lockhart, and F. Porter Smith. The latter two were missionary doctors. See Royal Pharmaceutical Society of London (hereafter RPS): Hanbury Papers, P273 [8], [62]; Hanbury Miscellaneous Letters, P300 [39]; P301 [34], P313 [1], etc. Most of the letters were replies to Hanbury's questions about certain Chinese drugs.

Smith F. Porter , Contributions towards the materia medica and natural history of China, for the use of medical missionaries and native medical students (Shanghai, 1871). There was also a potential audience in Europe, and Hanbury helped to find a London publisher for the work. RPS: Hanbury Miscellaneous Letters 1871, P302 [72], [73].

List of Chinese medicines, China Imperial Maritime Customs, III, Miscellaneous series, no. 17 (Shanghai, 1889).

National Botanical Gardens (Glasnevin, Ireland): Augustine Henry Papers, 581.634, “Pharmac. Notes”. Henry Augustine , “Vegetable productions, central China”, Bulletin of miscellaneous information (Royal Gardens, Kew) , no. 33 (1889), 225–7; idem, Notes on economic botany of China (Kilkenny, Ireland, 1986 [1893]), and “Chinese drugs and medicinal plants”, Pharmaceutical journal, lxviii (1902), 316–19, 322–4.

Ford Charles Kai Ho Crow William Edward , “Notes on Chinese materia medica”, China review, xv (1886–87), 214–20, 274–6, 345–7; xvi (1887–88), 1–19, 65–73, 137–61. Ford evidently took pride in this enterprise. See his letters to Thistleton-Dyer, Kew Gardens: Chinese and Japanese Letters, 150 (310), (322), (323), (356).

Browne Janet , The secular ark: Studies in the history of biogeography (New Haven, 1983); idem, “Biogeography and empire”, in Jardine (eds), Cultures of natural history (ref. 4), 305–21; Dettelbach Michael , “Humboldtian science”, ibid. , 287–304; Rehbock Philip , The philosophical naturalists: Themes in early nineteenth-century British biology (Madison, 1984), Part 2; Nicolson Malcom , “Alexander von Humboldt and the geography of vegetation”, in Cunningham Andrew Jardine Nicolas (eds), Romanticism and the sciences (Cambridge, 1990), 169–85.

E.g. Kingsmill's T. W. presidential address, “Border lands of geology and history”, JNCB, n.s., xi (1877), 1–31.

de Candolle Alphonse , Géographie botanique raisonnée, ou exposition des faits principaux et des lois concernant la distribution géographique des plantes de l'époque actuelle (2 vols, Paris, 1855), ii, chap. 9; idem, Origin of cultivated plants (New York, 1967 [1886]), chap. 2.

De Candolle , Géographie botainique raissonnée (ref. 65), ii, 979–80.

Bretschneider , On the study and value of Chinese botanical works (ref. 43), 6–7; idem, “Botanicon sinicum” (ref. 10), 20–21.

References are numerous and can be found in Laufer Berthold , Sino-Iranica: Chinese contributions to the history of civilization in ancient Iran, with special reference to the history of cultivated plants and products (Chicago, 1919), passim. Most of the disagreements were about if a particular plant was introduced by Zhang Qian. Few, if any, questioned the story that Zhang Qian brought back some exotic plants from central Asia.

Bretschneider , On the study and value of Chinese botanical works (ref. 43), 7.

Bretschneider , “Fu-sang, or who discovered America?”, Chinese recorder, iii (1870–71), 114–20; Sampson , “Buddhist priests in America”, in his Botanical and other writings (ref. 55), 30–31.

Pagden Anthony , European encounters with the New World (New Haven, 1993), chap. 1.

Métailié Georges , “La création lexicale dans le premier traité de botanique occidentale publié en chinois (1858)”, Documents pour l'histoire du vocabulaire scientifique, ii (1981), 65–73; Jixing Pan , “Tan ‘Zhiwuxue’ yi ci zai Zhongguo he Riben de youlai”, Daziran tansuo, iii (1984), 167–72; Xuehui Zhongguo Zhiwu (ed.), Zhongguo zhiwu xueshi (Beijing, 1994), 122–3. The term zhiwu means the plant, and xue means an organized body of learning. Xue was frequently adopted by the translators to denote Western or Western-styled disciplines of learning. Bowu is “a wide range of things”. The Chinese did have a genre called bowu zhi, “records of a wide range of things”, whose catholic inclusion of natural things must have reminded the Western translators of Pliny's Natural history and other similar works, hence the rendition of natural history into bowu xue. However, bowu did not have the connotation that it referred only to natural objects until it was associated with xue in the neologism. Similarly, zhiwu was a traditional term. It had been used to denote the plant, for example, in Wu Qijun's Zhiwu mingshi tukao (1848), which might be translated as “the pictorial study of the names and natures of plants”.

Goody Jack , The cultures of flowers (Cambridge, 1993); Clunas Craig , Fruitful sites: Garden culture in Ming Dynasty China (London, 1996); Yi Wang , Yuanlin yu Zhongguo wenhua (Shanghai, 1990).

von Möllendorff O. F. , “The vertebrata of the province of Chili with notes on Chinese zoological nomenclature”, JNCB, n.s., xi (1877), 41–111, p. 44. For a concise introduction to Bencao gangmu, see Unschuld Paul , Medicine in China: A history of pharmaceutics (Berkeley, 1986), 145–64; Needham , op. cit. (ref. 54), 308–21. For Li Shizhen, see Nathan Sivin's essay in Dictionary of scientific biography, viii, 390–8. See also Xuehui Zhongguo Zhiwu (ed.), Zhongguo zhiwu xueshi , 69–81; Li Shizhen yanjiu lunwen ji (Wuhan, 1985); Métailié Georges , “Des plantes et des mots dans le Bencao gangmu de Li Shizhen”, Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident, x (1988), 27–43. Jixing Pan discusses the transmission of the Bencao to Europe in his Zhongwai kexue zhi jiaoliu (ref. 21), 206–14.

Williams S. Wells , The Middle Kingdom (2 vols, New York, 1913 [1882]), i, 372.

Williams , The Middle Kingdom, i, 370.

Möllendorff , “The vertebrata” (ref. 74), 44–45. For an interesting comparative study of Bencao and a Renaissance herbal, see Métailié Georges , “Histoire naturelle et humanisme en Chine et en Europe au XVI^c siècle”, Revue d'histoire des sciences, xlii/4 (1989), 353–74. He argues that there are significant similarities between the botanical knowledge in the two works, though one can probably question his grounds for comparison.

Möllendorff , “The vertebrata” (ref. 74), 42.

Needham , op. cit. (ref. 54), 22–23.

Bretschneider , “Botanicon sinicum” (ref. 10), 66.

Ibid., 66–67.

Ibid., 65.

Ibid., 65–66.

Rudolph Richard , “Illustrated botanical works in China and Japan”, in Buckman Thomas (ed.), Bibliography and natural history (Lawrence, 1966); Haudricourt André Georges Métailié Georges , “De l'illustration botanique en Chine”, Études chinoises, xiii (1994), 381–416.

JNCB, n.s., xxv (1890–91), 403.

Bretschneider , “Botanicon sinicum” (ref. 10), 50. Haudricourt and Métailié, “De l'illustration botanique en Chine” (ref. 84) compare Chinese and Renaissance European herbals and argue that the representations of plants in Chinese herbals, such as Bencao, remained fundamentally verbal. It is a point well taken, though one still wonders why the works included plates at all.

Bretschneider , “Botanicon sinicum” (ref. 10), 55.

Sampson , Botanical and other writings (ref. 55), 41.

Fauvel A. A. , “Alligators in China”, JNCB, n.s., xiii (1878), 1–36.

Robert Swinhoe to Richard Owen, 18 Feb 1870, Natural History Museum of London: Owen Correspondence, xxv, ff. 69–70. Möllendorff , “The vertebrata” (ref. 74), 44.

Bretschneider , “Botanicon sinicum” (ref. 10), 35.

Both Georges Métailié and modern Chinese scholars convincingly argue that Wu Qijun had been influenced by the kaozheng philological methodology popular among Chinese scholars since the late eighteenth century. The kaozheng school emphasized dogged evidential scholarship. Generically speaking, Wu's Zhiwu was more a pictorial dictionary of plants than an herbal. Henan sheng kexue jishu xie hui (ed.), Wu Qijun yanjiu (Zhenzhou, 1991), 55–57; Haudricourt Métailié , “De l'illustration botanique en Chine” (ref. 84). For the kaozheng school, see Elman Benjamin , From philosophy to philology: Intellectual and social aspects of change in late Imperial China (Cambridge, 1984).

Bretschneider's On the study and value of Chinese botanical works (ref. 43) includes eight plates from the Zhiwu.

Sampson , Botanical and other writings (ref. 55), 32.

Henry to William Thistleton-Dyer, 13 May 1887. Kew Gardens: Chinese and Japanese Letters 151 (604).

For example, Baber E. C. , Travels and researches in Western China: Supplementary papers of the Royal Geographical Society, i (1882); idem, Report by Mr. Baber on the route followed by Mr. Governor's Mission between Talifu and Momein, Parliamentary Papers, China no. 3 (1878); Report by Mr F. S. A. Bourne of a journey in South-Western China, Parliamentary Papers, China no. 1 (1888); Report by Mr. Hosie of a journey through the Provinces of Suu-ch'uan, Yunnan, and Kuei Chou: February 11 to June 14, 1883, Parliamentary Papers, China, no. 2 (1884).

See, for example, Swinhoe Robert , “On the mammals of the Island of Formosa (China)”, Proceedings of the Zoological Society , 1862, 347–65; “The ornithology of Formosa, or Taiwan”, Ibis, v (1863), 198–219, 250–311, 377–435; “On the mammals of Hainan”, Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1870, 224–36.

Swinhoe Robert , “Neau-show”, JNCB, n.s., ii (1865), 39–52.

Möllendorff , “The vertebrata” (ref. 74), 46. See also his “Trouts in China”, China review, vii (July 1878–June 1879), 276–8.

Bretschneider , “Botanicon sinicum” (ref. 10), 87.

Sampson , Botanical and other writings (ref. 55), 31–36; Bretschneider , “Botanicon sinicum” (ref. 10), 92–95.

Newton Alfred , “Abstract of Mr. J. Wolley's researches in Iceland respecting the gare-fowl or the great auk (Alca impennis, Linn.)”, Ibis, iii (1861), 375–99; Grieve Symington , The great auk, or garefowl (Alca impennis, Linn.): Its history, archaeology, and remains (London, 1885), passim.

Farber Paul L. , “The type concept in zoology during the first half of the nineteenth century”, Journal of the history of biology, xi (1976), 93–119.

Hance to Henry , 1 April 1885; 7 June 1885, in National Botanical Gardens (Glasnevin, Ireland): Letters to Henry. (The letters are not numbered.).

School of Oriental and African Studies, London: Bowra Papers, MS. English. 201813, Box 2, no. 7, Bowra's 1863 diary, July 18.

Bretschneider , “Botanicon sinicum” (ref. 10), 19.

Ibid., 67.

Adas Michael , Machines as the measure of men (Ithaca, 1990); Burrow J. W. , Evolution and society: A study in Victorian social theory (Cambridge, 1966), 11–14; Stocking George Jr , Victorian anthropology (New York, 1987), 174–5; Nisbet Robert , Social change and history: Aspects of the Western theory of development (Oxford, 1969), 189–208.

Medhurst W. H. , A dissertation on the theology of the Chinese (Shanghai, 1847); Wright Arthur , “The Chinese language and foreign ideas”, in Studies in Chinese thought, ed. by Wright Arthur (Chicago, 1953), 286–303; Gernet , China and the Christian impact (ref. 7), 238–47.

“The advisability, or the reverse, of endeavouring to convey Western knowledge to the Chinese through the medium of their language”, JNCB, n.s., xxi (1886), 1–21. Some of the opinions resembled to some extent the controversy about education in India earlier in the century. See, e.g., Adas , Machines as the measure of men (ref. 108), 271–92. The uniqueness of the Chinese language, especially its many ideograms, presented new challenges to Western educators in China.

Niranjana Tejaswini , Siting translation: History, post-colonialism, and the colonial context (Berkeley, 1992) discusses some theoretical issues about power and translation.

Bretschneider , “Botanicon sinicum” (ref. 10), 21.

On “trust” in science, see, e.g., Shapin Steven , A social history of truth: Civility and science in seventeenth-century England (Chicago, 1994), esp. 243–66.

Robert Swinhoe to Richard Owen, 18 Feb 1870, Natural History Museum of London: Owen Correspondence, xxv, ff. 69–70.

Owen Richard , “On fossil remains of mammals found in China”, Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London, xxvi (1870), 417–34.

Hance's introductory remarks to Mayers W. F. , “On the introduction of maize into China”, The pharmaceutical journal and transactions, 3rd ser., i (1870–71), 522–5.

Sampson , Botanical and other writings (ref. 55), 17.

Ritvo Harriet , “Zoological nomenclature and the empire of Victorian science”, in Lightman (ed.), Victorian science in context (ref. 4), 334–53.

Fauvel , “Alligators in China” (ref. 89).

On the introduction of exotic animals and plants into China, see Laufer , Sino-Iranica (ref. 68); Adshead S. A. M. , China in world history , 2nd edn (London, 1995), passim; Schafer Edward , The golden peaches of Samarkand: A study of T'ang exotics (Berkeley, 1963); Hu Shiu Ying , “History of the introduction of exotic elements into traditional Chinese medicine”, Journal of the Arnold Arboretum, lxxi (1990), 487–526.

Sampson , Botanical and other writings (ref. 55), 23.

Bretschneider , “Botanicon sinicum” (ref. 10), 66; Faber Ernst , “Contribution to the nomenclature of Chinese plants”, JNCB, xxxviii (1907), 97–164.

Henry Augustine , “Chinese names of plants”, JNCB, n.s., xxii (1887), 233–83.

Henry to Morse H. B. , 17 June 1893, Kew Gardens: A. Henry letters to H. B. Morse, 3–5.

Fauvel , “Alligators in China” (ref. 89), 4.

Ibid., 4–5.

Mayers W. F. , “The mammoth in Chinese records”, China review, vi (July 1877–June 1878), 273–6. The naturalists also obtained fossils by purchasing them from drug stores. The Chinese used them as drugs.

Darwin himself used many examples from Chinese texts to support his arguments in natural history. Jixing Pan , Zhongwai kexue zhi jiao liu (ref. 21), chap. 1.

De Candolle , Origin of cultivated plants (ref. 65), passim.

Fan , “British naturalists in China, 1760–1910” (ref. 37), chaps. 3 and 5.