天工開物·自序天工开物·自序

Heaven covers and earth bears up. Things are numbered by the ten thousand, and affairs follow from them, each brought to completion in its own way and none left out. Is this the work of human strength?

Since things and affairs number ten thousand, if we had to be taught each by word of mouth and see each with our own eyes before we knew it, how many could we know? Among the ten thousand affairs and things, those of no use to human life and those of use make up about half each.

There are clever and widely read people in the world whom the crowd looks up to. Yet they have never looked at the blossoms of the jujube and the pear, and they speculate about the duckweed fruit of Chu; they have hardly ever seen a mould for a cooking pot, and they hold forth on the tripod of Ju. They are like painters who love to paint ghosts and goblins and dislike painting dogs and horses. Even if they were as learned as Zichan of Zheng or Zhang Hua of Jin, what would there be to admire?

I am fortunate to be born in an age of enlightened rule at its height. Carts and horses from the south of Yunnan travel straight through to Liaoyang; officials and merchants from the southern mountain borders journey freely to the north of Ji. Within these ten thousand li, what thing or affair is there that one cannot see and hear? Had a scholar been born at the beginning of the Eastern Jin or the end of the Southern Song, the local products of Yan, Qin, Jin and Yu would all have become goods from another country, and furs and hats obtained through border markets would have been as strange to him as the arrows of the Sushen. Or think of the princes and royal children who grow up deep in the palace: while the jade-white rice of the imperial kitchen is fragrant before them, they wish to see a plough; while the brocade robes of the palace are being cut, they try to imagine the loom and the thread. At such a time, to open a picture and look at it is like finding a great treasure.

In recent years I have written a book, called The Works of Heaven and the Inception of Things. Alas for poverty: I wanted to buy rare things to examine and verify, and lacked the means of a rich man of Luoyang; I wanted to gather friends to weigh what was true and what was false, and lacked a hall to receive them. I wrote from my own narrow and rustic knowledge, kept in my heart; how could it be adequate? My friend Mr. Tu Boju is so sincere that his intent moves heaven, and his mind reaches into the principles of things. Wherever there is one good phrase, ancient or modern, or the smallest merit worth taking, he takes it up with diligent and earnest goodwill. Last year my Correct Sounds of Painting was cut for printing through him. Now he has asked again, and taken up this book to carry it on in the same way; this too must be the work of some old affinity. The book is divided into a first and a last part, in the spirit of valuing the five grains and making light of gold and jade. The two chapters on observing the heavens and on music and pitch, whose principles are too fine, I judged were not my business, and I removed them when the book went to the press.

As for the learned men intent on high office: throw it aside on your desks. This book has nothing at all to do with rank or advancement.

Written by Song Yingxing of Fengxin in the first month of summer, in the dingchou year of the Chongzhen reign, in the Hall of Questions of One Who Eats at Home.