Wulei xianggan zhi 物類相感志

Wulei xianggan zhi 物類相感志 "The mutual influence between natural elements" is a book on natural phenomena and the human world compiled during the Northern Song period 北宋 (960-1126) by Su Shi 蘇軾 (Su Dongpo 蘇東坡, 1037-1101).

The book of 1 juan is divided into 12 chapters with 448 brief entries. It discusses the human body, clothing, food and drinking, tools and objects, medicine, diseases, living, fruits, vegetables, flowers and bamboos, birds and fishes, and various topics. Rather than exploring the underlying scientific principles of natural phenomena, the book serves as a compilation of folk wisdom and empirical knowledge, reflecting how people in that era understood and navigated the world around them.

In addition to daily life observations, the book also contains rudimentary insights into metallurgy and chemistry, electrostatic attraction in the case of amber, reflecting the level of scientific understanding at the time, including observations as magnetism, chemical reactions of metals, salt and fire.

The authorship of this book has been a subject of debate for centuries. As early as the Song period, some scholars questioned its authenticity, suspecting it to be a pseudonymous work. This scepticism continued into the Yuan period 元 (1279-1368), with Fan Peng 范梈 (1272-1330) explicitly calling the book a forgery.

The text is included in the series Baoyantang miji 寶顏堂秘籍, Tang-Song congshu 唐宋叢書, Shuofu 説郛 and Congshu jicheng chubian 叢書集成初編.

Another version of the book described in the Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 四庫全書總目提要 had a length of 18 juan and was said to have been rearranged or edited by the monk Zanning 贊寧 (919-1101). However, Zanning lived earlier than Su Shi. It seems that this encyclopaedic book was created by booksellers, who used the names of famous persons to promote their sales.