The Spreading Of Science And Technology And Westernization Thought In Late Qing Dynasty

As the center of ancient science and technology, China has made extraordinary contributions to human development from Hang, Tang, Song Dynasties to Yuan Dynasty especially famous for its Four Great Inventions in Tang and Song Dynasties. However, with the history developing into modern society, China has been forced into the international society by ships and guns of western power countries. Since the Opium War, China has been invaded by the western powers, which brought about many hardships for Chinese to live through.At that time, England has become the center of science and technology. It looked down upon and rode roughshod over China which fell behind in science and technology. As the rules of scientific and technical communication tell us, information must be transmitted by carriers or energy. Only information with high potential energy can be carried to lower space and may be high in kinetic energy and effect. Underdeveloped countries should learn from the developed countries, which is the undisputed historical logic and has a profound influence on people's historical achievements. Therefore, it is the need of time for China to learn from western science and technology.Groups of knowledgeable talents and famous people took active part in spreading the western science and technology. Some of them were concerned with domestic difficulties and want to find some effective solutions by learning about western advanced science and training the military force. Some advocated being enlightened from the western science and technology because they felt they had little knowledge about science. Among them there were government officials, scholars and even foreign ambassadors and religionists. There were several effective ways of spreading western science with running newspapers and periodicals as the forerunner to spread the western science and technology, translating and publishing western books as the most important mode, spreading western practicality to transfer from up to bottom, establishing schools to be the important position and homecoming students from abroad as the main force.The main drive came from the awakening of crisis consciousness. In that era history called for giants but pygmies came into power. After the first Opium War, we did not grasp the historical opportunity and lost the chance of learning from the westerners. In the society lack of scientific consciousness and attitude, the spreading of science and technology must be done with the outer impact and inner awakening. Thus the enlightenment from the thinkers is necessary. The thinkers made contributions to the society. They criticized the society, corrected the errors and ill tendency in social development, gave warnings and pointed out the right direction towards the healthy development of the society. The thoughts of Wei Yuan had an enlightening function on the spreading of science and technology, which was a process of socialization demanding the widespread recognition and solid social foundation. It should be progressive promotion instead of a leftist revolution. Though the spreading of science and technology came slowly in Late Qing Dynasty, it promoted the sprouting and blossom of the Thought of Westernization.The development of Thoughts of Westernization Movement was derived from the establishment of symbol systems, the tentative attempts in military modernization and the spreading of science and technology. It also promoted the development of science and technology very deeply. Only the society in which the benefits of science as a leverage were understood and accepted can benefit from it.Driven by the instrumental rationality, the modern western science and technology came into China, which was known and understood through long-term and gradual practice. Although this kind of knowledge and understanding was unconscious, it has permeated into various layers of the society. The influence on social thoughts resulting from the spread of science and technology in Late Qing Dynasty is mainly reflected in changes of six concepts. National defense had been upgraded from "implement" to harmonization of "human" and "implement", from passive defense of "defending tenaciously along the coast" to "equal stress on boundary defense and sea defense". And the outlook on development had changed from primary "self-improvement" to "wealth seeking". The influence on the outlook on talents is reflected in the combination of learning west and talents training,, which means changing from traditional style to Chinese-Western integration style. The influence on education is reflected by the theory of "Chinese learning as the primary and western learning as the secondary" starting from the concept of "Tao and implement", which pointed out that both Chinese leaning and western learning are opposite and invertible. In the outlook on value, the traditional value outlook collapsed and the mew one was reconstructed, which had a great influence on "Westernization Movement" and also supplied alternative coordinate systems for following "Wu Xu Reform" and "May 4th New Culture Movement". In the outlook on nature, Copernicus's Heliocentric Theory and Evolution was used to rebut the Confucian thoughts of diehards, which produced public opinion for institutional Reform Movement. The outlook on science had been upgraded form science outlook on implements to total science outlook covering social science and natural science.History declares that underdevelopment leads to backward and humiliation, and the rising of a powerful nation needs strong ability of science creation and efforts of generations. Without spirit interference, the social reform is an idle talk, because the modernization of human is the essential to modernization of nations.