Resumen de Hallerstein and Gruber's scientific heritage
Augustin Hallerstein’s (* 1703 Ljubljana; † 1774 Beijing) role in the Beijing Jesuits’ electrical and vacuum research was not that clear as his publications in astronomic, cartographic, Aurora Borealis, or China demographic research. The Jesuits were not always useful in all aspects but they were also not evil or mean all the time. The same goes for Hallerstein’s younger Slovenian compatriot Gabrijel Gruber’s (* 1740; † 1805) Jesuits in Russia who brought the western education, technology, and science to Petersburg. The Jesuits tried to sell their superior scientific and technological know-how to their hosts as the keys unlocking hosts’ hart and most of all their souls. They especially favored the souls of domestic high society including the Russian or Chinese Emperor because the Jesuits hoped to repeat the Roman Emperor Constantine’s example. General Gruber eventually nearly won Tsar Paul’s soul for the Catholics, but the Chinese Jesuits were never that close.
Hallerstein happened to be among the first to figure out that all tools will never be enough to conquer the Tsar’s soul for Christianity, and therefore somewhat disappointed Hallerstein devoted most of his strength to the science on both opposite ends of Euro-Asia with numerous European Publications. The science Hallerstein offered to the Chinese was not always up-to-date because the Lisbon-Canton ship connection returned his mail only once in two years, which is far the from modern internet capabilities. Hallerstein was extremely proud of his observatory, and didn’t hide it from the visitors. Even the military oriented experiments, which would be today considered as top-secret, were freely published in European scientific journals before French Revolution, and there was no reason for the Jesuits to hide the European knowledge from the Chinese. With the Chinese Jesuits still on board, the Chinese technological gap would not broaden so deep as it did after Hallerstein’s death. With Gruber’s Jesuits still on board, the Russian educational system could have produced even more proWestern literati with Decabrists’ souls to fulfill Peter the Great’s goal of Westernization.
