The Chinese understanding of living things came from observation of the real world. In order to survive, Chinese learned long ago to make use of whatever they could find, and to take advantage of various natural resources for food, medicine, and everyday needs. Thus, the ancient inhabitants of China started on the path of examining and understanding plants and animals. Biological knowledge in ancient times derived and accumulated from this endless stream of exploration.
Ancient Chinese people greatly valued biological knowledge. They carefully collected, organized and recorded the knowledge. The common way to organize this knowledge was to divide natural phenomena into classes such as grass, wood, bird, beast, fish, insect, etc. Hence the study of biology was formerly known as “the study of birds, beasts, plants, and trees,” i.e. the general biology of today which emerged during the pre-Qin period (times before 221 BCE). The written sources from that era in later dynasties have proven invaluable to modern biology. A substantial amount of information concerning plants can be found in one of the earliest classics, the Shi jing (Classic of songs), written some 2,500 years ago.
In order to recognize and distinguish different living things, ancient people, from early on, paid attention to the shape and form of flora and fauna. The oracle bone script written on Shang dynasty (3000 years ago) oracle bones offered vivid depictions of various living things and their special characteristics. For example, the character for “grass” depicts two leaves on top of a plant. The word “fruit” was written as a tree bearing fruit. The classification of an organism as capable of movement or fixed in place determined whether it was an animal or a plant. In fact, the terms “moving organism” and “implanted organism” can be found as two thousand years ago in the Zhou li (Rites of Zhou). The philosopher Xunzi, who lived during the Warring States period (475–221 BCE), suggested that even though they were both living things, animals occupied a higher rank than plants because they were aware of what was happening and could feel. As for fungi, their spores and mycelia could not be observed by the naked eye, so people believed they were formed by “vital breath” or “germinal essence.” For similar reasons, people also believed that certain organisms could metamorphose into another organism.
The Chinese people recognized early on the relationship between living things and their environment. As early as the Xia dynasty (ca. 2100–ca. 1600 BCE), the Xia Xiaozheng (Lesser Xia calendar), a record of agricultural practices, claims that the relationship between animal migration and seasonal changes had already been noted. For example, it remarked that in the first month (of the Xia calendar), wild geese flew to the north, pheasants flapped their wings and called out, fish came to the water’s surface, hawks left and doves arrived. People noticed how the change of season affected the animals’ reproduction and migration. Through their observation of phenology, they learned to regulate farming.
In ancient times, biological knowledge was acquired empirically. Huangdi neijing (The inner canon of the Yellow Emperor), from the Warring States period, was the first work to describe the way different body parts functioned and regulated biological activities, and to attempt an explanation of illness and bodily changes. People in ancient times also surmised the phenomenon of hereditary traits based on their observations of human and animal offspring. By the time crops were domesticated, people already had an inkling of the laws of heredity. However, a theory of evolution did not emerge until later.
The Chinese people, since ancient times, have accumulated vast knowledge concerning plants, microorganisms, animals and the anatomy and function of body parts through the long term practices of farming, forestry, animal husbandry, fishing, and medicine. This knowledge has formed a valuable part of China’s cultural heritage.
