墨家与先秦测绘

先秦诸子百家中,儒、道、法、阴阳诸家均视科学技术为末道,或不屑为之,或持明确的排斥态度。惟独墨家表现出一种与众不同的科学精神,重视对自然科学,包括测绘科技的研究和应用技术的探讨。在后期墨家的经典著作《墨经》中,保存了这一学派对包括测绘科技在内的自然科学和应用技术的许多研究成果,在中国科技史乃至世界科技史上占有重要的地位。墨家思想影响了魏晋时期鲁胜、刘徽,宋代沈括等科学家汲取了墨家的科技思想。李约瑟博士预测:"墨家思想所遵循的路线如果继续发展下去,可能已经产生欧几里得式的几何学体系了"。

Mohist and pre-Ch'in surveying and mapping technology

In pre-Ch’in "hundred schools", most of them, such as Confucian, Taoist, Legalist and Yin Yang etc., saw science and technology as last course, they either turned their noses u Pat it or with an explicit exclusive attitude for it. Mohist, only one with unique scientific spirit, stressed natural science such as surveying and mapping technology and its application. In their classical "Mohist Canons", many research achievements were maintained, which take an important role in Chinese as well as world science and technology history. Mohist spirit had deeply affected Lusheng and Liuhui in Wei Jin period and Shenkuo in Song dynasty that derived experience from Mohist scientific thought. Dr. Joseph Needham once predicted that Euclid’s geometry system would have been established if the route followed by Mohist thought could be developed.