In mediaeval times, the region that led the world in technological{{U}} (1) {{/U}}was China.{{U}} (2) {{/U}}, Europe north and west of the Alps was a backwater that had invented nothing{{U}} (3) {{/U}}except for improved watermills. How did China{{U}} (4) {{/U}}in science and technology to Europe? Two papers by Graeme Lang, rich with broad implications, address this paradox{{U}} (5) {{/U}}structural or ultimate causation.
Lang begins by pointing out that{{U}} (6) {{/U}}scientific inquiry in Europe developed within a{{U}} (7) {{/U}}European institution: autonomous universities where critical inquiry was relatively{{U}} (8) {{/U}}by governmental or religious authority. Between A. D. 1450 and 1650, 90% of Europeans now considered to be{{U}} (9) {{/U}}to science receiver university educations, and half of them held career posts at universities. There was{{U}} (10) {{/U}}in China. Why not?
Historical causation is like an onion, whose concentric layers must be peeled back{{U}} (11) {{/U}}to reveal the ultimate causes at the center. Lang sees the autonomous universities on the onion's outer skin{{U}} (13) {{/U}}springing from an underlying layer of European political fragmentation. Mediaeval Europe was still divided into a thousand independent statelets, whereas China was already unified in 221 B.C. So it proved impossible to suppress critical thinking for long in Europe: a thinker{{U}} (14) {{/U}}in one statelet could (and often did) merely walk into the next. To take just one example, the astronomer Johann Kepler was always able to{{U}} (15) {{/U}}the authorities by moving away.
Technological innovations were as hard to suppress in Europe as was scientific inquiry. Competition between statelets provided a positive{{U}} (16) {{/U}}for them to adopt innovations that might yield military or economic advantages{{U}} (17) {{/U}}. (One such beneficiary was Christopher Columbus, whose schemes for ocean exploration were rebuffed in five states before he received backing from the sixth, Spain. ){{U}} (18) {{/U}}, China's unity meant that the decision of a single emperor could{{U}} (19) {{/U}}over the whole of China—the demise of China's clocks,{{U}} (20) {{/U}}fleets and water powered spinning machines being only the most flagrant instances.