For although the Chinese civilization, even in the so-called modern inventions, was already old while ours lay still in the cradle, it was to no scientific spirit that its discoveries were due.

Notwithstanding the fact that Cathay was the happy possessor of gunpowder, movable type, and the compass before such things were dreamt of in Europe, she owed them to no knowledge of physics, chemistry, or mechanics.

It was as arts, not as sciences, they were invented.

And it speaks volumes for her civilization that she burnt her powder for fireworks, not for firearms.

To the West alone belongs the credit of manufacturing that article for the sake of killing people instead of merely killing time.
The scientific is not the Far Oriental point of view.