mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== *^COSMOLOGY AND CONCEPTS OF NATURE IN TRADITIONAL *CHINA* * *^John B. Henderson * ^Louisiana State University -- Baton Rouge The word "cosmology" in modern English usage generally denotes a science devoted to articulating the large-scale properties of the *astronomical* and physical universe. As such, cosmology in our own time is primarily in the domain of astronomers and astrophysicists. The cosmologies of premodern civilizations were by contrast somewhat more "cosmic" in scope and appeal: they applied not just to the arrangement and order of the physical universe or the natural world, but to that of social and historical worlds as well. Their components included not just the objects of physics and astronomy, but items of almost every scale and realm of being, from the architectural to the zoological. Behind most premodern cosmologies, moreover, there lay the assumption that the world was harmonious and proportionate. While the disjunctions and inconsistencies in many premodern cosmologies may seem to contravene this assumption, this situation may reflect the wide scope of cosmologists' ambitions rather than any lack of commitment to the ideal of a well-ordered universe. What type of order did these premodern cosmologists conceive (or perceive) in the universe, if not one of scientific laws and mathematical relationships? For Chinese cosmologists, as well as their counterparts in most other premodern cultures, the key to understanding order in the universe was correlative thinking. In general, correlative thinking draws systematic correspondences among various orders of reality or realms of the cosmos, such as the human body, the body politic, and the heavenly bodies. It assumes that these related orders are homologous, that they correspond with one another in number, in kind, in structure, or in some other basic respect, and that they form a continuum.^(1) <#N_1_> Correlative thinking may assume diverse forms and expressions, such as totemism (in primitive cultures), allegory (in medieval cultures), and to some extent even scientific models (in modern cultures). It also lies in the background of other kinds of thought, including analogical inferences and even analytical thinking, as A. C. Graham has pointed out.^(2) <#N_2_> But it is most fully explicit and highly articulated in the correlative cosmology that flourished in Han *China* and the Hellenistic West, further developed (as well as declined) in medieval times, and came under serious challenge in both *China* and Western Europe during the seventeenth century. In the wake of the Scientific Revolution, correlative cosmology in its explicit and full-bodied form was confined increasingly to the realm of occultism.^(3) <#N_3_> The cosmological correspondences drawn by correlative thinkers vary widely in origin, in type, in complexity, and in social and intellectual function. They may range from simple homologies, such as that between the organs of the human body and the organs of the state, to multidimensional systems of great numerological complexity. It would be difficult to outline all the major types of correlative cosmology in premodern *China* in the brief span of this paper, and even harder to trace their historical origins and development. So I have chosen to concentrate on one of the simplest and most important types in *China* of the late Zhou and Han eras, namely correspondences between the macrocosm, particularly the *astronomical* heavens, and the political (and moral) microcosm of the imperial state.^(4) <#N_4_> One advantage of focusing on this type of correlative cosmology in *China* is that it highlights Chinese views of one aspect of the natural world, the *astronomical* heavens. For there are other types and aspects of correlative cosmology in *China* that have relatively little to do with nature or natural science. As Graham remarks, "the Chinese system of correlations looks altogether more solid in its social than its scientific applications."^(5) <#N_5_> From reading Marcel Granet's classic work, _La pensée chinoise_, one might get the impression that correlative cosmology was already fully formed in classical if not high antiquity, and even that it is "a primordial and quintessential expression of 'the Chinese mind.'"^(6) <#N_6_> A more recent consensus of scholars working in this field is that correlative cosmology was not highly developed or even systematized before the third century B.C., with the _Lüshi chunqiu_ (Master Lü's *Spring and Autumn Annals*) (c. 239 B.C.) being the first extant text to lay out systems of correspondence in great detail. Correlative cosmology reached its high point of development during the Han era, exemplified most fulsomely in such Han compendia as the _Chunqiu fanlu_ (Luxuriant Gems of the *Spring and Autumn Annals*), the _Huainanzi_ ([Book of] the Master of Huainan) (139 B.C.) and the _Bohu tongyi_ (Comprehensive Discussions in White Tiger [Hall]) (A.D. 79). Of course, antecedents of this correlative mode of thought, as well as some of its key terms, may be traced back to earlier texts. The _Zuozhuan_ (Zuo Tradition), for example, presents occasional astrological correlations linking certain celestial configurations with political events. Various poems of the _Shijing_ (Songs Classic) suggest parallels between natural and human images, such as that in Ode 6 (of the Mao recension) between a blooming peach tree and a young bride. The practice of divination, which flourished in *China* from the earliest historical era, may have favored the emergence of correlative cosmology inasmuch as it suggested correspondences between the domain of the spirits and events in the human and natural worlds. But a scattering of astrological prognostications, poetic analogies, and divinatory oracles does not add up to a detailed and systematic account of correspondences between various orders of reality or realms of the cosmos, such as those one finds in the _Chunqiu fanlu_, the _Huainanzi_, and the _Bohu tongyi_. There is always the possibility, of course, that highly developed and formalized systems of correspondence did exist earlier in oral or folk culture, which for some reason were not committed to writing until the last three centuries B.C. Yet the highly scholastic nature of these systems when they do appear, coupled with their close correspondence to the political and intellectual worlds of early imperial *China*, make this scenario rather implausible. Why, then, do highly developed and formalized systems of correspondence emerge in *China* in the last three centuries B.C.? While it would be hard to cover all of the possible reasons or motives within the scope of this brief paper, one or two at least are worthy of a passing explanation. The first and perhaps most universal of these motives was a systematizing impulse that aimed to "make a consistent whole of the ancient traditions and ritual ideas," in the words of Bernhard Karlgren.^(7) <#N_7_> Such an impulse would naturally have waxed strongly in the wake of a great political and social cataclysm, such as occurred in *China* during the final decades of the third century B.C., which cut off the actual celebration or enactment of many of these ancient traditions and ritual ideas. Now confined mostly to the realm of the texts that survived the Qin holocaust, these traditions and ideas were all the more easily abstracted, formalized, fossilized, and decontextualized by syncretists who sought to work up diverse ancient traditions into a systematic whole, to unify the fragmented intellectual and textual worlds just as the Qin and Han dynasties were unifying the political. Thus, Han cosmologists proceeded to coordinate and systematize heterogeneous numerological orders, mythological fragments, and protocosmological terms found in preQin literature, transforming them in the process. The _Bohu tongyi_, for example, meshed two originally unrelated protocosmological series, the yin-yang and five agents (_wuxing_), by pairing fire with the greater yang, water with the greater yin, wood with the lesser yang, metal with the lesser yin, and earth with the state in which the yin and yang are balanced.^(8) <#N_8_> The more complex _najia_ system, also devised in the Han era, correlated the lines of the hexagrams of the _Yijing_ (Changes Classic) with the five agents from the "Great Plan" chapter of the _Shujing_ (Documents Classic), the ten heavenly stems and the twelve earthly branches, the phases of the moon, etc., sometimes resorting to numerological redress to tie in odd elements. Thus, some of these "systems" are more appropriately characterized as "stitched" than as "seamless." As they grew in complexity, becoming more elaborate and artificial, these constructs were increasingly divorced from their original textual bases, as well as from any view of nature suggested by empirical observation. On both counts, they became tempting targets for cosmological critics in late imperial *China*.^(9) <#N_9_> A second motive for the development of correlative cosmology in early imperial *China* was to model and legitimize the new imperial order itself. Unlike the Han systematizers who quarried the remains of Zhou literature to obtain building blocks for correlative systems and who devised systems of different genres, the more politically oriented Han cosmologists focused on the discovery of macro-microcosmic correspondences linking aspects of the larger universe, especially the *astronomical* heavens, with the emerging political or imperial microcosm. To establish these correspondences required more of a focus on the patterns of the natural world, especially the heavens, than on a survey of preQin literature, though the latter was also helpful to the extent that it suggested some of these patterns. PreQin literature, indeed, does contain accounts of macrocosmic entities correlated with a political or moral microcosm. Perhaps the most celebrated of these is the analogy attributed to Confucius in _Lunyu_ (Analects) 2.1: "The rule of virtue can be compared to the Pole Star which commands the homage of the multitude of stars without leaving its place."^(10) <#N_10_> In later texts of the Warring States period, the patterns of heaven and earth are held up as a model for the ruler to emulate. Should the ruler fail to do so, he would suffer the sad fate of the last kings of the Xia and Shang dynasties: "Above they did not follow the patterns of heaven; below they did not take as model the earth; in the middle they did not harmonize with the people."^(11) <#N_11_> The _Lüshi chunqiu_, compiled within two decades of the end of the Warring States era, contains a seasonal almanac that spells out in considerable detail how the ruler should plan the course of his actions so that they might correspond properly to the normal (and normative) sequence of natural phenomena. For example, after listing the various animal, visceral, and musical (etc.) correspondents of the first month of spring, the text gives an account of how the ruler should coordinate his activities in that month to match the defining elements of the cosmological schema, including its coloration: The Son of Heaven shall live in the apartment to the left of the Green Bright Hall. He shall ride in a belled chariot driven by dark green dragon [horses], and bearing green flags. He shall wear green clothes with green jade [pendants]. He shall eat wheat and mutton. His vessels shall be open [in order to represent] a coming forth.^(12) <#N_12_> Failure to observe the proper ordinances, procedures, and prohibitions for the month or season in question, for example by allowing the execution of criminals to take place in the spring, might well lead to climatic catastrophe, such as a serious drought. As Christopher Cullen has pointed out, a comparison of the seasonal almanac of the _Lüshi chunqiu_ with an earlier work of the same genre, the _Xia xiaozheng_ (Lesser Annuary of the Xia), reveals a significant difference: Whereas in the _Xia xiaozheng_ "*astronomical* phenomena are only one category of seasonal indicators among others," in the _Lüshi chunqiu_ "the *astronomical* indicators have won pride of place and are listed first."^(13) <#N_13_> That there was a trend toward the "astronomization" of the macrocosm, in which celestial phenomena overshadowed the terrestrial, is also suggested by some of the Huang-Lao silk manuscripts recovered from Mawangdui, which probably date from the late third or early second centuries B.C. While positing that "human behavior and all human endeavors must be carefully aligned with the greater standards of heaven and earth,"^(14) <#N_14_> the text of the _Jingfa_ (Normative Standards) again gives pride of place to the more regular, stable, and predictable patterns of the heavens, as in the following assertions: The cycles and motions [of Heavenly bodies]: Heaven makes these its Norms. The sun, moon, stars, and planets all have their numerical regularities.^(15) <#N_15_> The four seasons are timely and stable, they do not err, they do not waver.^(16) <#N_16_> The apparent regularity and stability of celestial configurations may help to explain why Sima Qian (c.145-90 B.C.) and other cosmologists of the Former Han era designed a celestial simulacrum for the newly established terrestrial imperial state. In the _Tianguanshu_ (Book of the Celestial Offices) chapter of Sima Qian's _Shiji_ (Historical Records), "the circumpolar area was established as the central imperial palace with star names like emperor, queen, princes, and all kinds of court officials."^(17) <#N_17_> The bureaucratic analogy permeated the whole of the heavens. As Sivin has remarked, in the "Book of the Celestial Offices," each of the visible asterisms is a department staffed by stars. Or to put it another way, "since the state is a little cosmos, the cosmos must be a civil service writ large."^(18) <#N_18_> Astronomy, or at least observation of the heavens, thus served to anchor the rather fragile and fledgling political order of the Han dynasty in a celestial order that seemed to be constant, regular, and even eternal. This celestial order, moreover, furnished a model not only for the structure of the state, but also for the conduct of its ruler, and even for the regulation of relations between ruler and subject. According to the _Chunqiu fanlu_, "punishment [without virtue] cannot be employed to perfect the world, just as yin [without yang] cannot be employed to complete the year."^(19) <#N_19_> A Latter Han cosmological compendium, the _Bohu tongyi_, posits a celestial model for the proper relationship between ruler and subject, pointing out that just as "the sun moves slowly and the moon moves quickly," so "the lord takes his ease while the vassal toils."^(20) <#N_20_> As constant and regular as the movements of the sun, moon, and stars and succession of the four seasons seemed to be, the heavens also occasionally manifested irregularities in the form of such phenomena as comets and meteor showers. These irregularities also had political or moral implications. Specifically, heaven sent forth omens to warn an errant ruler to mend his policies before it was too late. But many if not most of such omens sent forth by "Heaven" actually appeared on the terrestrial (or at least meteorological) plane in the form of such phenomena as storms, plagues, or droughts. Although no Chinese philosopher or cosmologist to my knowledge ever drew an Aristotelian distinction between superlunary and sublunary realms, the heavens, at least through most of the late Warring States and Former Han eras, were by and large a veritable rock of order and regularity in a comparatively unstable cosmos.^(21) <#N_21_> What better model, then, could be found for the the legitimization and design of the new political and moral order of early imperial *China*? And to make sure that the terrestrial kingpins of this new order, particularly the Son of Heaven, coordinated their activities with the regularities of the celestial order, what more worthy enterprise could there be than to devise a calendrical system that would codify these regularities for all time?^(22) <#N_22_> Such a calendar might serve as the ultimate basis for matching the political and ritual microcosm with the heavenly macrocosm. Thus, imperial dynasties throughout premodern Chinese history, beginning with the Han, established and maintained an imperial bureau of astronomy staffed by official astronomers who were charged with surveying the heavens and codifying all its regularities (as well as reporting its irregularities). As official (and some unofficial) astronomers of the Han and later dynasties plied their trade, however, they discovered that celestial patterns and motions were not so uniform and regular as cosmologists cracked them up to be. Their investigations revealed that "the times of consecutive eclipses and major planetary phenomena cannot be predicted with high accuracy by counting off constant intervals," in Nathan Sivin's words.^(23) <#N_23_> Even before this recognition took hold, Sima Qian remarked that the two principal celestial luminaries, the sun and the moon, were anomalous in movement insofar as they accorded with neither heaven nor man.^(24) <#N_24_> In the Latter Han era, the astronomer Jia Kui (A.D. 30-101) established the non-uniformity of lunar motions, that, in modern terms, the moon traverses unequal degrees of angular distance in equal moments of time.^(25) <#N_25_> Even while admitting that lunar and planetary motions were irregular, the "Treatise on Harmonics and Calendrics" of the _Songshu_ (Book of Song) revelled that at least "the sun's movement through the heavens is constant, its advances and retreats proportionate, with no accelerations or decelerations, not [moving to] the outside or inside, corresponding to the lord's virtue."^(26) <#N_26_> But in the sixth century, Zhang Zixin (fl. A.D. 520-560) discovered the non-uniform nature of apparent solar motion, thus ruining this last cosmological consolation for uniformitarianism. This meant that the lengths of the seasons, one of the bulwarks of macro-microcosmic correspondences, were not equal, though it did make it possible to predict eclipses more accurately.^(27) <#N_27_> An irregularity of more immediate concern in constructing a luni-solar calendar was revealed by the failure of various intercalation cycles, such as the famous Rule Cycle (= Metonic Cycle) of seven intercalary months for every nineteen years, to fine tune the solar and lunar cycles over the long run, owing to the mutual incommensurability of the tropical year and the synodic month. This incommensurability also posed a challenge to oversimplified cosmological schemas, such as the _Bohu tongyi's_ attempt to give a cosmological justification for a point of ritual order: because an intercalary month must be inserted once every three years, then a man must remain in mourning for three years following the death of a parent.^(28) <#N_28_> Perhaps the crowning cosmic irregularity discovered by Chinese mathematical astronomers, and the closest approach in preQing *China* to a "Copernican revolution," was the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes, or "annual difference" between the lengths of the tropical and sidereal years. This discovery is traditionally attributed to the fourth-century astronomer, Yu Xi (fl. 307-338), though astronomers as early as the Han era had noted that the winter solstice shifted with respect to the lunar lodges (_xiu_). Yu noted that the sun as observed at the winter solstice (the shortest day) of each new year appeared to have moved gradually backward along the ecliptic against the background of the fixed stars. The sun, in other words, did not appear in exactly the same place in the heavens from one winter solstice to the next. More precisely, the tropical year, the time from one winter solstice to the next, was slightly shorter than the sidereal year, the time it took the sun to return to the same position on the ecliptic with respect to a given star.^(29) <#N_29_> It took several centuries for this discovery to win general acceptance, even among astronomers.^(30) <#N_30_> For even though it made more accurate calculations possible, it also exacted a fearful cosmological price. In the words of E. H. Schafer, it "permanently dislocated the belief in cosmic equilibrium by detaching the calendar [which was based essentially on the tropical year] from the fixed field of stars."^(31) <#N_31_> Yixing (683-727), the great scholar-astronomer of the Tang era, also noted the failure of correspondence between calendar and cosmos that was opened up by the discovery of the annual difference: In ancient calendrical systems, the sun had constant degrees. Its heavenly round corresponded to the completion of the year, thus binding stellar degrees with seasonal periods. This theory seemed to be true and yet was false, and thus over a long period of time there was an increasing discrepancy. Yu Xi sensed this, and make the [distinction between the *astronomical*] heavens as the heavens and the [calendrical] year as the year.^(32) <#N_32_> Although the annual rate of precession was quite slow, amounting to about one degree every seventy years or so, over a period of 15,000 years, the sidereal positions of the winter and summer solstices would be more than reversed, as pointed out in the "Treatise on Astrology" of the _Songshi_ (Song History).^(33) <#N_33_> Besides the various irregularities and nonuniformities of celestial motion, a further difficulty standing in the way of devising a perfect correspondence between calendar and cosmos was human error in measurement and calculation, and a more general human incapacity to fully comprehend the subtleties of celestial movements. Benjamin Schwartz has argued that for the classical cosmologists, "The world is entirely scrutable and thus entirely open to an understanding of its inner connections."^(34) <#N_34_> Wang Xishan (1628-1682), coming near the end of the long development of mathematical astronomy in traditional *China*, affirmed the existence of a disjunction between celestial patterns and human understanding, arguing that "one cannot seek the heavens by way of the heavens, but must examine the heavens by way of human artifice. Thus, the instances in which the two are not in accord are definitely many."^(35) <#N_35_> For example, it was hard to determine the exact times of the solstices and equinoxes by using such manmade artificial measuring devices as the gnomon and the gnomon shadow template. And even when _particular_ measurements and calculations approached precision, "as days add up to make months and months add up to make years, in stacking up the new and the old, there cannot but be minute discrepancies," as Du Yu (228-294) noted in the third century.^(36) <#N_36_> As small discrepancies between calendar and cosmos mounted up, the need for periodic calendar reform became apparent as early as the Latter Han era. As Du Yu explained, "calendrical systems cannot but have anomalies or discrepancies. At first the discrepancies are in minutiae and as yet undetectable, but then build up to become so great that the lunar phases are out of kilter. In that case, one must reform the system to accord with the phenomena."^(37) <#N_37_> More than a thousand years later, the compilers of the "Treatise on Calendrics" in the _Yuanshi_ (Yuan History) concurred that "while the heavens have irregular motions, calendrical systems are made up of fixed methods. Therefore over the long haul, there cannot but be discrepancies [between the two]. When there are discrepancies, there must be a reform."^(38) <#N_38_> Such reforms, which often entailed the recalculation of *astronomical* periods and constants, called into question the numerological derivation of such figures, which implicitly took them to be fixed and exact measures. For example, when the 7/19 intercalation ratio was discovered to be imprecise in the long run, then the cosmological derivation of the "19" by adding the final yin and yang numbers of the _Yijing_, 10 and 9, was no longer tenable. While such periodicities had almost surely been empirically discovered, the drawing of numerological correspondences between them and the figures of the _Yijing_ made it hard to abandon them in the light of _further_ empirical investigation.^(39) <#N_39_> For such abandonment would implicitly challenge the established notion of correspondence between the classic and the cosmos at large. At first, it was rather easy to attribute apparent irregularities in celestial motions, as well as discrepancies between calendar and cosmos, to political miscues that resonated in the heavens. It became less so when the discrepancies turned out to be systematic and cumulative. Partly because of their political uses and attractions, ideas of cosmological correspondence and resonance between the *astronomical* heavens and the imperial state persisted until well into the late imperial period.^(40) <#N_40_> Yet correlative cosmology in general declined after the Han, at least in higher cultures. Although it may have dominated Chinese philosophy during the Han period, it was marginal to Song Neo-Confucianism, as both Graham and Schwartz have remarked.^(41) <#N_41_> It was also quite incidental to later mathematical astronomy in *China*, though correlative cosmological intermezzos punctuate the *astronomical* treatises of later dynastic histories. With the attenuation and marginalization of correlative cosmology in postHan astronomy, do any other "concepts of nature" step in to fill the metaphysical void?^(42) <#N_42_> A new metaphysics of the heavens may be hard to find in the *astronomical* or calendrical treatises of the standard dynastic histories. But there is at least a new sort of epistemology, one that contravenes that of such Han correlative cosmologists as Dong Zhongshu, for whom Heaven's ways were scrutable and transparent,^(43) <#N_43_> and for whom it was possible for humans to devise terrestrial replicas of celestial configurations. Many postHan astronomers, on the contrary, would have been more likely to agree with Wang Xishan's remark that "Celestial movements are profound and subtle, but man's knowledge is shallow and superficial. The more one studies [these movements], the more one knows his inability to enter into them fully and deeply."^(44) <#N_44_> This more modest assessment of man's capacity to bridge the gap between his own cogitations and a greater cosmic reality is more in tune with classical Confucian (and Daoist) thought than it is with that of the Han cosmologists. The heavens, at the end of the night, could be as elusive as was the Confucian Way of _Lunyu_ 9.11: "The more I look up at it, the higher it appears. The more I bore into it the harder it becomes. I see it before me. Suddenly it is behind me."^(45) <#N_45_> This perception of a gap between human cognition and cosmic reality led postHan astronomers to abjure efforts to force fit the latter into a manmade mold, as in the following oft-repeated phrase: "One ought to accord with the heavens in seeking harmonization, and not for the sake of harmonization survey the heavens."^(46) <#N_46_> Some postHan astronomers, however, no longer even invoked such harmonization, recognizing that the heavens marched to the beat of a different drummer, and that this particular drummer's beat could be rather irregular. These astronomers were inclined to describe celestial movements not so much in terms of the harmonies of the world, but with such words as "_cha_" (anomaly, discrepancy) and "_chuan_" (deviate from, run counter to, confused), which are not usually included in lexicons of Chinese philosophical or cosmological terms with the likes of yin-yang and _wuxing_. In scanning the treatises on calendrical astronomy in the standard histories, one is impressed by the frequency of terms denoting some sort of anomaly, irregularity, or disjunction, and by the comparatively rare appearance of some of the old cosmological chestnuts. In the late Ming and early Qing, as mathematical astronomy was finally assimilated into the mainstream of Confucian learning, the language of irregularity and nonuniformity, which was implicitly at odds with correlative cosmology, was raised to a higher metaphysical power. It congealed into a sort of anti-cosmology that recognized, even celebrated, the disharmonies (or at least irregularities) of the world. A simple example of this, which assumes its significance in light of the prominent numerological aspect of correlative cosmology, is Wang Tingxiang's (1474-1544) pointed observation that while there is just one great ultimate (_taiji_), there are two of yin and yang, heaven and earth, male and female, and day and night, three powers (_cai_), namely heaven, earth, and man, four seasons, five agents, and so on. Thus, "the irregularities of things are in the nature of things."^(47) <#N_47_> The eighteenth-century polymath, Jiang Yong (1681-1762), drew more specifically *astronomical* illustrations for the principle that irregularity and differentiation, not similitude and correspondence, were immanent in the structure of the universe and even necessary for the maintenance of cosmic order. If, for example, there was no distinction between equator and ecliptic, if the sun's annual course followed the celestial equator, then there would be no seasons. In that case, "how could [the sun] give birth to the myriad things?"^(48) <#N_48_> Likewise, the general movement of the planets in a direction opposite to the diurnal motion of the heavens illustrates the indispensability of contraries (_ni_ ) for setting off irregularities (_shun_ ). Having no contraries in the cosmos, Jiang speculated, "would be like rivers having no bends and mountains no turns." In such a case, "there would be no place to concentrate the vessels of the earth or to shelter humankind."^(49) <#N_49_> In the end, some natural philosophers of the Qing era so apotheosized such contraries and irregularities in the cosmos, and so repudiated vestiges of correlative cosmology based on ideas of regularity and uniformity that they were rather unsympathetic to a late extension of correlative thought current in seventeenth-century *China*: scientific models. According to Wang Fuzhi (1619-1692), even so simple a calculation as the measurement of the earth's circumference by the latitudinal variation of the equatorial pole above the horizon, based ultimately on the model of the earth's sphericity, could not be trusted. For there were too many irregularities and sources of distortion, such as man's limited vision and the uneven contours of the earth's surface, that precluded accurate calculation of the pole's height at any latitude.^(50) <#N_50_> While Wang's position on this issue may not have been typical in his time, it does suggest that a rejection of correlative cosmology may actually carry over into a suspicion of scientific models, even though correlative cosmology is supposed to be a sort of premodern antithesis to modern science. To those attuned to the disharmonies of the world, scientific models may not be sufficiently disengaged from human artifice to do justice to nature. *NOTES* 1. The Han cosmologist Dong Zhongshu explains that "In what may be numbered, there is correspondence in number; in what may not be numbered, there is correspondence in kind. All are matched and similar, and thus correspond with heaven [forming] a unity." _Chunqiu fanlu_ (Luxuriant Gems of the *Spring and Autumn Annals*) (Taibei: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1966) 13.206 (chap. 56). My translation of this passage is based on that given in Wing-tsit Chan, _A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy_ (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 282. 2. A. C. Graham, _Yin-Yang and the Nature of Correlative Thinking_ (Singapore: The Institute of Asian Philosophies, 1986), p. 2. 3. More respectable modern survivals of correlative cosmology in modern culture appear in such artifacts as Symbolist poetry, program music, gestalt psychology, structuralist anthropology, and in forms of scientific reductionism as well as model transference in the sciences. 4. This generally corresponds to the type of correlative thinking designated by Joseph Needham as the "state analogy." Joseph Needham, _Science and Civilisation in *China*_, vol. 2: _History of Scientific Thought_ (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1969): 294 and 298f. This state analogy, however, was sometimes enmeshed in larger systems of correspondence. As Nathan Sivin has remarked, "In *China*, ideas of Nature, state, and the body were so interdependent that they are best considered a single complex." Nathan Sivin, "State, Cosmos, and Body in the Last Three Centuries B.C.," _Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies_ 55.1 (June 1995): 5. 5. Graham, _Yin-Yang_, p. 66. 6. Benjamin I. Schwartz, _The World of Thought in Ancient *China*_ (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 351. 7. Bernhard Karlgren, "Legends and Cults in Ancient *China*," _Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities_, no. 18 (1946), p. 201. 8. _Bohu tongde lun_ (Discussions of Comprehensive Virtue in White Tiger [Hall]) (Sibu congkan ed.) 3.10a. Cf. Tjan Tjoe Som, _Po Hu T'ung: The Comprehensive Discussions in the White Tiger Hall_, vol. 2: _Translation of Chapters III-XVII, XIX-XXXIX, XLI-XLIII; Fragments_ (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1952; reprint Hyperion Press, 1973): 430 and 440. The earliest occurrences of these terms, yin-yang and wuxing, in preQin texts do not have the cosmological purport that appears so prominently in texts from the Han era. In this case, as in many others, the "attempt to reconcile two conflicting terms or symbols results in a depletion of their original meanings and an increase in their formality and abstractness." S. A. Farmer, _Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486): The Evolution of Traditional Religious and Philosophical Systems, with Text, Translation, and Commentary_ (Tempe: AZ: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1998), p. 75. 9. For an account of early Qing criticisms of some of these correlative systems, see my _Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), chapter 7. 10. I have followed the translation of this passage given in _Confucius; The Analects_, translated with an introduction by D. C. Lau (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1979), p. 63. Ho Peng-yoke, noting this passage, remarks that "The movement of the stars around a fixed North Pole had perhaps impressed the Chinese much more than it had any other ancient civilizations in the world." Ho Peng-yoke, _Li, Qi, and Shu: An Introduction to Science and Civilisation in *China*_ (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1985), p. 12. 11. _Guoyu_ (Speeches of the States) (Sibu beiyao ed.) 3.8a. I have followed the translation of this sentence from the speech of Prince Jin given in James A. Hart, "The Speech of Prince Chin: A Study of Early Chinese Cosmology," in _Explorations in Early Chinese Cosmology_, ed. Henry Rosemont, Jr. (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1984), p. 42. 12. _Lüshi chunqiu_ (Master Lü's *Spring and Autumn Annals*) (Sibu beiyao ed.) 1.1a I have here slightly modified the translation of this passage given in _Sources of Chinese Tradition_, vol. 1, comps. William Theodore deBary, Wing-tsit Chan, and Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), p. 208. 13. Christopher Cullen, _Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient *China*: the 'Zhou bi suan jing'_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 14. Along the same lines, Bo Shuren points out that in contrast to later seasonal almanacs, the _Xia xiaozheng_ does not correlate heavenly stems, rulers, gods, insects, musical tones, colors, numbers, tastes, and foods with the four seasons and twelve months according to a five-agents system. Bo Shuren, _Zhong'guo tianwenxue shi_ (History of Chinese Astronomy) (Taibei: Wenjin chubanshe, 1996), pp. 53 ff. 14. Harold Roth, Sarah Queen, and Nathan Sivin, "Syncretic Visions of State, Society, and Cosmos," in _Sources of Chinese Tradition_, 2d ed., vol. 1, comps. William Theodore deBary and Irene Bloom (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999): 242. 15. _Jingfa_ (Normative Standards), part 5, trans. in ibid., p. 248. 16. _Jingfa_, part 8, trans. in ibid., p. 251. 17. Sun Xiaochun and Jacob Kistemaker, _The Chinese Sky during the Han: Constellating Stars and Society_ (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997), p. 22. 18. Sivin, "State, Cosmos, and Body," p. 23. That the analogy works both ways is illustrated by Mitukuni Yosida's comment that "Administrative posts, official buildings, and palaces in the Han period were named for stars and asterisms to ensure the correspondence of the political order with that of Nature." Mitukuni Yosida, "The Chinese Concept of Nature," in _Chinese Science: Explorations of an Ancient Tradition_, eds. Shigeru Nakayama and Nathan Sivin (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1973), pp. 79-80. 19. _Chunqiu fanlu_ 11.182 (chap. 43). 20. _Bohu tong_ 8.14a. Cf. Tjan, _Po Hu T'ung_, 2:593. Contemplating the variability of such correlations between the human and natural worlds, the modern Chinese literary critic, Qian Zhongshu, remarks ironically that "the doctrines that philosophers derive from nature are completely at odds with each other and have sufficed, in fact, to divide the human world." Qian Zhongshu, _Limited Visions: Essays on Ideas and Letters_, selected and translated by Ronald Egan (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 1998), p. 284. 21. Some later accounts of the _fenye_ (field allocation) astrological system, which paired sectors of the heavens with regions of the earth, did occasionally comment on the apparent changelessness of the former as compared with the changeableness of the latter. See, for example, _JiuTangshu_ (Old Book of Tang) 36, "Tianwenzhi" (Treatise on Astrology), in _Lidai tianwen lüli deng zhi huibian_ (Collected Treatises on Astrology, Harmonics, and Calendrics in the Standard Histories) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1976), 3:673. 22. As Kiyosi Yabuuti points out, "The basic pattern of Chinese astronomy was formulated in most of its essentials during the Former Han dynasty. Kiyosi Yabuuti, "Chinese Astronomy: Development and Limiting Factors," in _Chinese Science_, p. 91. 23. Nathan Sivin, "Cosmos and Computation in Early Chinese Mathematical Astronomy," _T'oung Pao_ 55 (1969): 65. 24. _Shiji_ (Historical Records) 26, "Lizhi" (Treatise on Calendrics), in _Lidai tianwen_, 5:1347. 25. Li Shen, _Zhong'guo gudai zhexue he ziran kexue_ (Ancient Chinese Philosophy and Natural Science) (Beijing: Zhong'guo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1989), pp. 236 ff. 26. _Songshu_ (Book of Song) 12, "Lülizhi" (Treatise on Harmonics and Calendrics) B, in _Lidai tianwen_, 6:1713. 27. Recall the claim, quoted on page 9 above from the _Jingfa_, part 8, that "The four seasons are timely and stable; they do not err, they do not waver." 28. _Bohu tong_ 3.18b. Cf. Tjan, _Po Hu T'ung_, 2:445. As late as the fifth century, Dai Faxing objected to abandoning the Rule Cycle on the grounds of its sagely origins. Li Dongsheng, _Zhong'guo gudai tianwen lifa_ (Ancient Chinese Astronomy and Calendrics) (Beijing: Kexue jishu chubanshe, 1995), p. 126. 29. Christopher Cullen explains the modern view of precession as follows: "Due to the effect of the sun's gravitational pull on the earth's slight equatorial bulge, over a long period it becomes clear that this axis is in fact precessing conically like the axis of a child's top, so that it takes about 23,000 years to return to its original orientation." Cullen, _Astronomy and Mathematics_, p. 7. 30. Some objections to the acceptance of the "annual difference" are given by Dai Faxing in _Songshu_ 13, "Lülizhi" C, in _Lidai tianwen_, 6:1758, 1763, 1764, and 1765. Dai argues that if the annual difference were accepted, "the stars would have no definite stations, the trigrams would have discordant directions, and the correctness of designations would have to be different between olden times and the present" (6:1765). 31. Edward H. Schafer, _Pacing the Void: T'ang Approaches to the Stars_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 14. Henri Maspero also notes the larger cosmological significance of this discovery, remarking that the positing of a distinction between the tropical and sidereal years "separated two things that the Chinese had always believed to be two faces of the same reality, the calendar and astronomy." Henri Maspero, "L'Astronomie dans la Chine ancienne: Histoire des instruments et des découvertes," in _Mélanges posthumes sur les religions et l'histoire de la Chine_, vol. 3: _Etudes historiques_ (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967), p. 34. 32. Yixing, "Riduyi" (Discussion of the Degrees of the Sun), in _XinTangshu_ (New Book of Tang) 27, "Lizhi" (Treatise on Calendrics) 3A, in _Lidai tianwen_, 7:2181. 33. _Songshi_ (Song History) 48, "Tianwenzhi" (Treatise on Astrology) 1, in _Lidai tianwen_, 3:814. 34. Schwartz, _World of Thought_, p. 368. Nathan Sivin, however, detects at least a hint of cosmic indeterminacy in the _Chunqiu fanlu_ attributed to the premier Han cosmologist, Dong Zhongshu. Nathan Sivin, "On the Limits of Empirical Knowledge in the Traditional Chinese Sciences," in _Time, Science, and Society in *China* and the West; The Study of Time V_, eds. J. T. Fraser, N. Lawrence, and F. C. Haber (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1986), p. 156. 35. Wang Xishan, "Li shuo" (Calendrical Theories), in _Chouren zhuan_ (Biographies of Mathematicians and Astronomers), comp. Ruan Yuan, in _Chouren zhuan huibian_ (Collected Editions of Biographies of Mathematicians and Astronomers) (Taibei: Shijie shuju, 1962) 34.429. 36. Du Yu, _Chunqiu changli_ (Long Calendrical System of the Springs and Autumns), in _Jinshu_ (Book of Jin) 18, "Lülizhi" (Treatise on Harmonics and Calendrics) C, in _Lidai tianwen_, 5:1645f. 37. Du Yu, "Changli" (Long Calendar), in note to _XuHanshu_ (Continuation of the Book of Han), "Lülizhi" (Treatise on Harmonics and Calendrics) B, in _Lidai tianwen_, 5:1486. Compare _Jinshu_ 18, "Lülizhi" C, in _Lidai tianwen_, 5:1646. 38. _Yuanshi_ (Yuan History) 52, "Lizhi" (Treatise on Calendrics) 1, in _Lidai tianwen_, 9:3299. Some of these "calendar reforms," of which there were more than fifty in the history of imperial *China*, were rather minor or perfunctory, having greater political than scientific significance. But the ones that were substantive entailed considerably more than a reordering of the days and months, and might include the recalculation of a complete ephemeris for solar, lunar, and even planetary movements. Yabuuti Kiyosi, _Chugoku no tenmon rekiho_ (Chinese Astronomy and Calendrical Science) (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1969), p. 9; Shigeru Nakayama, _A History of Japanese Astronomy: Chinese Background and Western Impact_ (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), pp. 65, 67, and 69. 39. Yabuuti Kiyosi notes that such fixed numerologies heightened the prestige of calendrical astronomy, providing it with metaphysical embellishment. Yabuuti, _Chugoku no tenmon rekiho_, p. 9. 40. On the other hand, there were some significant criticisms in late imperial *China* of the "seasonal almanac" type of correlative system, exemplified in the _Lüshi chunqiu_, which coordinated imperial rituals and political activities with the cosmological schema of the seasons. For a brief account of some such criticisms, see my _Development and Decline_, pp. 191-93. For seventeenth-century criticisms of the _fenye_ system, which linked celestial configurations with political events, see ibid., pp. 214-17. 41. Graham, _Yin-Yang_, p. 15; Schwartz, _World of Thought_, p. 381. 42. According to A. C. Graham, before about 1600 "in the West as in *China*, the choice was between the cosmos of correlative system-building and no cosmos at all." A. C. Graham, _Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient *China*_ (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989), p. 322. 43. Schwartz, _World of Thought_, p. 381. 44. Wang Xishan, "Ceri xiaoji xu" (Preface to a Small Record Surveying the Sun), in _Xiaoan yishu_ (Surviving Works of [Wang] Xiaoan) 4, p. 48a, in _Muxi xuan congshu_ (Collectanea from the Studio of the Wooden Rhinoceros), comp. Li Shengduo, _ce_ 34. 45. I have followed D. C. Lau's tranlation of this passage given in _Confucius; The Analects_, p. 97. 46. Du Yu, quoted in _Yuanshi_ 53, "Lizhi," in _Lidai tianwen_, 9:3358. 47. Wang Tingxiang, _Shenyan_ (Prudent Words), p. 56, in _Wang Tingxiang zhexue xuanji_ (Selected Philosophical Works of Wang Tingxiang) (Taibei: Helo tushu chubanshe, 1974). Such skeptical criticism of the numerological aspects of correlative cosmology was fueled by the elaborate overextension of correlative systems from relatively simple schemas, such as those coordinating the yin-yang with the five agents, into world-embracing designs that incorporated correspondences increasingly far removed from any empirical or common-sensical basis. In their quest for cosmic completeness, correlative cosmologists resembled Aristotle's "nature": they abhorred a vacuum. 48. Jiang Yong, _Shuxue_ (Mathematical Studies) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1936) 1.28-29. 49. Ibid. 1.26. 50. Wang Fuzhi, _Siwenlu, waipian_ (Record of Intellectual Inquiry, Outer Chapters), in _Lizhou Chuanshan wushu_ (Five Books by [Huang] Lizhou and [Wang] Chuanshan) (Taibei: Shijie shuju, 1974), pp. 63-64. In the same essay, Wang presents a more categorical denial of the model of the round earth: "Since it is in some places level, in others steep, in some places recessed and in others convex, then wherein lies its sphericity? . . . Thus from the earth's inclines, irregularities, heights, depths, and vastness, it is clear that it has no definite form" (ibid., p. 63).