Origins of china

Origins
Although Chinese culture is replete with lists of significant achievements (e.g. Four Great Beauties, Four Great Books of Song, Four Great Classical Novels, Five Classics, Five Elders), the concept of the Four Great Inventions originated with European scholars, and was only later adopted by the Chinese.
Later, Karl Marx also commented that, "Gunpowder, the compass, and the printing press were the three great inventions which ushered in bourgeois society. Gunpowder blew up the knightly class, the compass discovered the world market and founded the colonies, and the printing press was the instrument of Protestantism and the regeneration of science in general; the most powerful lever for creating the intellectual prerequisites."
The modern list of the Four Great Inventions originated in the 19th century with the missionary and Sinologist Joseph Edkins (1823-1905).