Lin Po-ting says that one cannot go so far as to say that everyone in the Sung was possessed by the empiricist spirit, but at that time it was certainly a prerequisite for any artist who wanted to set about painting birds. It was this flourishing of research into the nature of birds that gives Sung paintings their degree of rationality when looked at from today's perspective.
林柏亭表示，不敢說所有宋人都具備格物精神，但在當時這是畫家畫鳥之前必須下的首要功夫，研究鳥類天性的風氣極盛，因此今天看來，宋畫表現通常比較「合理」。