西方传教士对中国地理学的影响

西方宗教在传入中国的过程中不可避免地产生了中西文化的碰撞与交流,而地理学是其中比较激烈的部分。西方传教士作为基督教传播的主要媒介,理所当然地在中西文化交流的过程中起到了穿针引线的作用,其中对中国地理学的影响也是相当巨大的。本文结合传教士在中国发展的兴衰过程,相应地对西方传教士对中国地理学的影响的研究分三个时期来进行描述:唐元时期、明末清初时期以及鸦片战争以后。最后,本文用辨证的观点评价了西方传教士对中国地理学的影响:它在促进了中国地理学的发展的同时又造成中国对地理科学认识的误导。

INFLUENCE OF WESTERN MISSIONARIES ON CHINESE GEOGRAPHY

Western missionaries first came into China with the spread of Christianity in the Tang Dynasty, and left the history stage in which they worked as the media of cultural exchange in the late 19th century. Their development changed with the religious policy of Chinese government. Combining analysis in the prosperity and decadence progress of western missionaries, this paper describes the influence of western missionaries no Chinese geography in phases and summaries their most important monographs in geography. The wholes course includes three separate phases: the Tang Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty, the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty and the phase after the Opium War. In the first phase, the dispersion of culture at this time and participating means self-adaptation behaviors to the missionaries. This kind of cultural dispersing had a small scale, and fewer influences on Chinese society. After the distinct of Yuan Dynasty, the same time of the 16th and 17th century and the time of great discovery in geography, the importance of western missionaries reached a climax. Because of the development of western production, these merchandises and trade, missionaries coming into China paid great attention to geography. Almost every one of them had monographs about mapping and geography. These devotions do contribute greatly to breaking the boarder of regions. On the other hand, missionaries introduced Chinese geography to the whole world including the west by communication letters, Chinese maps and other forms. Besides, western missionaries' introduce of their geography richened the geographical knowledges of Chinese scholars greatly and broadened their envision. As a result of Chinese becoming a western colony after the Opium War, missionaries participated in more practices of introducing sciences accompanying changing behavior and mind of China. This is also the result of being behind in sciences and a need of advancing in technologies in our country.At last of this paper, using dialectic method, the author appraised the influence of western missionaries in both positive and negative aspects: on the one hand, they promoted the development of Chinese geography as they introduced western advanced geography into China and made Chinese geography a part of world geography system; on the other hand, as a consequences of their religious aims, they led Chinese to misunderstand geography to a certain degree and led to a less important degree of western geoscience's dispersing in China.