Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

by Peter Watson

As well as having its own renaissance of sorts, Ming China also had its own Inquisition. This grew out of the resumption of the official civil service competitions–the written examination–from 1646 onwards.25 It happened because, in connection with these examinations, a vast number of private academies proliferated. And, since the dynasty kept a strict control over the curriculum for the examinations, they were able to control much of the thought of the people, and to curtail criticism. In the early eighteenth century this eventually led to more direct control and a device which, like its counterpart in the West, included an index of prohibited books: 10,231 titles were on the list at one point and more than 2,300 were actually destroyed. At the same time, action was taken against dissident authors–forced labour, exile, property confiscated, even execution in some cases.