The Rise of Early Modern Science In China, Islam, and the West By Toby Huff Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, 409 + xiv pp.

Abstract

The author has shown great courage in undertaking an endeavor that
has daunted historians of science, intellectual historians, Islamicists, and
Sinologists. Huff utilizes excellent sources and makes insightful hypotheses
in this multidisciplinary work. If the book is not perfect, the failure is
small compared to what he has achieved. Building on this work, other
scholars will be able to sharpen the on-going debate and propose bold
conclusions for years to come.
The Rise of Early Modern Science concentrates on why science "took
off' in the West but not in China or the Islamic world, where it had much
longer histories. By "takeoff," Huff means the explosion of scientific discovery
that flowered in the West, especially during the early seventeenth
century. His basic premise is succinct: "Modem science depends on the
belief that the natural world is a rational and ordered world" and that
"man is a rational creature who is able to understand and accurately
describe the universe." Claiming that such Greek tenets never occurred in
China and noting that the Arabs passed them on to Europe, he enwnerates
how they took hold in the West and facilitated the modem world.
Huff compares the legal systems of the three cultures as institutionalizations
of their social, political, and intellectual experiences. While comparisons
of their legal systems produce interesting results, contrasting their
thought processes, educational systems, and practices of science could
have shed more light on the differences in their utilization of scientific
methodologies. His recourse co legal systems for comparisons in science
is not successful, for law parallels scientific methodology in that both
employ rigor, empiricism, and deduction. But induction, essential for science,
was used in law mainly for purposes of legislation. His comparison
of Islamic law with the West's fails because the former includes every
aspect of life, whereas the latter is more limited to criminal, civil, and corporate
aspects. China's law, on the other hand, is concerned with the social
order.
Huff notes that China concentrated more on the organization of
human society than on the natural environment. Emperors and their minions
opposed searching for "truths" lest the established order be troubled.
China did not codify or institutionalize its laws in ways comparable to
Islam and the West. Given this history, China should be effectively out of ...