Abstract: Ferdinand Verbiest’ s Thorough Inquiry into Physics was a comprehensive record of the intellectual exchange between China and the West during the late Ming and the early Qing. Unfortunately, only fragments of this work have survived. Through an analysis of the conceptual organization, editorial style, and extant remnants, this paper suggests that the book included six major topics: logic, methodology and metaphysics, mathematics, astronomy, measurements, biology and medicine, which were divided into sixty volumes (juan). Among the notable features of this work were its abandonment of the natural theology of Aristotelian philosophy and its integration with Chinese natural sciences ( gezhi), and its total reliance on deductive reasoning. The book reflects the general state of the field of studies, known in the late Ming and the early Qing as“investigating natural phenomena and their principles”.