Alien Science, Indigenous Thought and Foreign Religion: Reconsidering the Reception of Darwinism in Japan

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Notes

¹ Note on transliteration:

1. Japanese, Chinese and Korean names, when quoted in the text or from the literature written in Japanese, Chinese and Korean, appear in their own order, with family name first.

2. References to Tokugawa authors follow the custom of referring to these writers by their given names. Meiji and later figures are referred to by their family names.

² S. Cross, ‘Prestige and Comfort: The Development of Social Darwinism in Early Meiji Japan, and the Role of Edward Sylvester Morse’, Annals of Science, 53 (1996), 323–44; M. Uenoō , Hakubutsu gakusha retsuden (Biographies of Naturalists) (Tokyo: Yasaka Shobō, 1991).

³ Regarding the reception of Spencer’s thinking and its relationship to the development of Japanese political theory, see D. Howland, ‘Society Reified: Herbert Spencer and Political Theory in Early Meiji Japan’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 42: 1 (2000), 67–86.

⁴ E. Shimao, ‘Darwinism in Japan, 1877–1927’, Annals of Science, 28 (1981), 93–102, at 97.

⁵ See, for example, S. Ueyama , T. Kawakami , and H. Tsukuba , Kagaku no shisō II II (Scientific Thought II) (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 1964); M. Watanabe, The Japanese and Western Science, translated by Otto Theodor Benfey (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990).

⁶ H. Unoura, ‘Samurai Darwinism: Hiroyuki Katō and the Reception of Darwin’s Theory in Modern Japan from the 1880s to the 1900s’, History and Anthropology, 11:2/3 (1999), 235–255, at 239.

⁷ Unoura, ‘Samurai Darwinism’.

⁸ Cross, ‘Prestige and Comfort.

⁹ K.Y[obreve]i , Uchimura Kanzō no Kirisutokyō shisō: shokuzairon to shūmatsuron o chūshin to shite (Uchimura Kanzō’s Thoughts on Christianity: An Analysis Focused on Atonement and Eschatology) (Fukuoka: Kyūshū Daigaku Shuppankai, 2003), 13–14; A History of Japanese Religion, edited by K. Kasahara, translated by P. McCarthy and G. Sekimori (Tokyo: Kosei Pub., 2001), 421–40, 495–524.

¹⁰ O. Sakura, ‘Similarities and Varieties: A Brief Sketch on the Reception of Darwinism and Sociobiology in Japan’, Biology and Philosophy 13:3 (1998), 347–357, at 343.

¹¹ See, for example, J. Farley, ‘The Initial Reactions of French Biologists to Darwin’s Origin of Species’, Journal of the History of Biology, 7:2 (1974), 275–300; L. L. Clark, Social Darwinism in France (University, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1984). M. Hawkins, Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860–1945: Nature as Model and Nature as Threat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), ch. 6. Worthy of note is that Xiaosui Xiao applies a similar approach to examine China’s first encounter with Darwinism. See X. Xiao, ‘China Encounters Darwinism: A Case of Intercultural Rhetoric’, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 81 (1995), 83–99.

¹² J. Howes, Japan’s Modern Prophet: Uchimura Kanzō, 1861–1930 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005).

¹³ For a useful and inspiring introduction and criticism, see S. Nakayama, ‘History of East Asian Science: Needs and Opportunities’, Osiris, 10 (1995), 80–94.

¹⁴ R. Young, ‘Darwinism is Social’, in The Darwinian Heritage, edited by D. Kohn (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), 609–38.

¹⁵ S. Nishimuraō , Bunmei no naka no hakubutsugaku: Seiō to Nihon (Natural History in Civilizations: Western Europe and Japan) (Tokyo: Kinokuniya Shoten, 1999), 190–8.

¹⁶ Nishimuraō, Bunmei no naka no hakubutsugaku, 198–203. See also M. Uenoō , Nihon hakubutsugakushi (The History of Japanese Natural History) (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1973), 117–18; Benjamin Elman, On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550–1900 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 32.

¹⁷ Nishimuraō, Bunmei no naka no hakubutsugaku, 206–212; Uenoō, Nihon hakubutsugakushi, 118–20.

¹⁸ For a useful discussion, see Elman, On Their Own Terms, 3–9; Y. S. Kim, The Natural Philosophy of Chu Hsi (1130–1200) (Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society, 2000).

¹⁹ Uenoō, Nihon hakubutsugakushi, 44–9.

²⁰ Ueno, Hakubutsu gakusha retsuden, 9–11.

²¹ For a related discussion, see Ueno, Nihon hakubutsugakushi, 49–50; Nishimura, Bunmei no naka no hakubutsugaku, 121–9; Ueno, Hakubutsu gakusha retsuden, 2–4; Y. Kimuraō , Edoki no nachurarisuto (Naturalists in the Tokugawa Era) (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1988), 5–10.

²² Ueno, Hakubutsu gakusha retsuden, 16–21; Uenoō, Nihon hakubutsugakushi, 74; Nishimuraō, Bunmei no naka no hakubutsugaku, 129–33.

²³ K. Yasuda , Edo shokoku sanbutsuchō: Niwa Seihaku no hito to shigoto : (Accounts of the Products of Domains in the Tokugawa Era: Niwa Seihaku and His Work) (Tokyo: Shōbunsha, 1987). K. Yashuda , Edo kōki shokoku sanbutsuchō shūsei (Collections of the Accounts of the Products of Domains in the Late Tokugawa Era) (Tokyo: Kagaku Shoin, 1996).

²⁴ Kimura, Edoki no nachurarisuto, 61–78, 79–90; Ueno, Nihon hakubutsugakushi, 74–9; Nishimura, Bunmei no naka no hakubutsugaku, 129–33.

²⁵ M. Shiraiō , Nihon hakubutsugaku nenpyō (The Chronology of Japanese Natural History) (Tokyo: Ōokayama Shoten, 1934), 2, 35–43.

²⁶ Uenoō, Nihon hakubutsugakushi, 49–50; Nishimura, Bunmei no naka no hakubutsugaku, 121–129; Ueno, Hakubutsu gakusha retsuden, 2–4; Kimuraō, Edoki no nachurarisuto, 5–10.

²⁷ W. Muntschick, ‘The Plants That Carry His Name: Kaempfer’s Study of the Japanese Flora’, in The Furthest Goal: Engelbert Kaempfer’s Encounter with Tokugawa Japan, edited by B. M. Bodart‐Bailey and D. Massarella (Folkestone: Japan Library, 1995), 86–90.

²⁸ T. Screech, ‘Editor’s Introduction’, in Japan Extolled and Decried: Carl Peter Thunberg and the Shogun’s Realm, 1775–1796, edited and annotated by T. Screech (New York: Routledge Curzon, 2005), 4–20.

²⁹ For detailed explanations, see M. Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000), 257–93; B. T. Wakabayashi, Anti‐foreignism and Western Learning in Early‐modern Japan: The New Theses of 1825 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1986).

³⁰ For a biographical account of Siebold and his contribution, see A. Kouwenhoven and M. Forrer, Siebold and Japan: His Life and Work, translated by Mark Poysden (Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2000); Y. Ishiyama , Shīboruto: Nihon no shokubutsu ni kaketa shōgai : (Philipp Franz von Siebold: The Life Betted on Plants in Japan) (Tokyo: Ribun Shuppan, 2000), 10–17; Ueno, Hakubutsu gakusha retsuden, 264–70.

³¹ For biographical accounts of Itō Keisuke, see Ueno, Hakubutsu gakusha retsuden, 134–7.

³² Ueno, Hakubutsu gakusha retsuden, 134–7; Nishimura, Bunmei no naka no hakubutsugaku, 503–6.

³³ Y. Udagawa , Shokugaku keigen (The Enlightenment of Botany) (Tokyo, Kōwa: 1980), 13–14.

³⁴ The translation of Meiji Emperor’s words is from B. L. Walker, ‘Meiji Modernization, Scientific Agriculture, and the Destruction of Japan’s Hokkaido Wolf’, Environmental History, 9:2 (2004), 248–274, at 248. This paper provides a vivid case showing how Meiji Japan’s adoption of Western sciences changed Hokkaido’s environment and eventually caused Hokkaido wolf’s extinction.

³⁵ N. Shiina , Nihon hakubutsukan hattatsushi (The History of the Development of Museums in Japan) (Tokyo: Yūzankaku, 1988); M. Yamamoto , Nihon hakurankaishi (The History of the Exhibition in Japan) (Tokyo: Risōsha, 1970). For related historical material, see, for example, Nihon Hakubutsukan. Kyōkai , Waga kuni no kindai hakubutsukan shisetsu hattatsu shiryō no shūsei to sono kenkyū (A Collection and an Analysis of the Materials regarding the Development of the Facilities of Modern Museums in Our Country) (Tokyo: Nihon Hakubutsukan Kyōkai, 1964).

³⁶ Ueno, Hakubutsu gakusha retsuden; Ueno, Nihon hakubutsugakushi, 146.

³⁷ For a relevant discussion, see J. A. Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001), chs 3–4.

³⁸ J. A. Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, chs 3–4.

³⁹ R. Schwantes, ‘Christianity versus Science: A Conflict of Ideas in Meiji Japan’, The Far Eastern Quarterly 12:2 (1953), 123–132, at 124.

⁴⁰ Cit. Cross, ‘Prestige and Comfort’, 332.

⁴¹ Cit. Eikoh, ‘Darwinism in Japan, 1877–1927’, 93–4.

⁴² Cit. Schwantes, ‘Christianity versus Science’, 124.

⁴³ Schwantes, ‘Christianity versus Science’, 125.

⁴⁴ K. Uchimura, Uchimura Kanzō zenshū (16) (16) (Uchimura Kanzō’s Works [16]) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1964), 512. Regarding Uchimura Kanzō’s concept of evolutionary theory and Darwinism, see, for example K. Kimura , ‘Uchimura Kanzō no shizenzō—shinka to ekorozi—kannen wo meguru kōsatsu (The Natural Image of Uchimura Kanzō: An Inquiry into the Conceptions Relevant to Evolution and Ecology)’, in ‘Uchimura Kanzō’ to deatte (Encountering with Uchimura Kanzō), edited by T. Hori and H. Kajiwara (Tokyo: Keisō Shobō, 1996), 56–64; Yi, Uchimura Kanzō no Kirisutokyō shisō, ch. 1; K. Nakazawa , Uchimura Kanzō: shinri no shōnin (Uchimura Kanzō: The Witness of Truth) (Tokyo: Kirisutokyō Yakan Kōza Shuppanbu, 1971), 38–50.

⁴⁵ For relevant discussions, see Yi, Uchimura Kanzō no Kirisutokyō shisō, 22–4; S. Ohara , Uchimura Kanzō no shōgai: Nihonteki Kirisutokyō no sōzō (The Life of Uchimura Kanzō: The Creation of Japanese Christianity) (Kyoto: PHP Kenkyūjo, 1997), 36–47, 106–16; H. Willcock, ‘Traditional Learning, Western Thought, and the Sapporo Agricultural College: A Case Study of Acculturation in Early Meiji Japan’, Modern Asian Studies, 34:4 (2000), 977–1017.

⁴⁶ Ohara, Uchimura Kanzō no shōgai, 117–30. Regarding the life and career of William Clark, one of the earliest and concise descriptions, see D. P. Penhallow, ‘William Smith Clark: His Place as a Scientist and His Relation to the Development of Scientific Agriculture ‘, Science 27:683 (1908), 172–80.

⁴⁷ Yi, Uchimura Kanzō no Kirisutokyō, 22–4; Ohara, Uchimura Kanzō no shōgai, 136–46.

⁴⁸ Regarding the works of Nitobe Inazō, see R. H. Myers and A. Ching, ‘Agricultural Development in Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule’, The Journal of Asian Studies 23:4 (1964), 555–70; H. Chang and R. H. Myers, ‘Japanese Colonial Development Policy in Taiwan, 1895–1906: A Case of Bureaucratic Entrepreneurship’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 22:4 (1963), 433–49.

⁴⁹ For a student who had decided to devote himself to science, the conversion was an excellent rite of passage. In Uchimura’s own words, he left the terrain of superstition thereafter, becoming a real ‘man of science’. K. Uchimuraō, Yo wa ikani shite Kirisuto shinto to narishi ka (How I Became a Christian: Out of My Diary) (Tokyo: Iwanami 1938), 41, 51–2; U. Kanzō, Uchimura Kanzō zenshū (24) (24) (Uchimura Kanzō’s Works [24]) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1963), 384. For related discussions, see H. Dōke , Uchimura Kanzō ron (On Uchimura Kanzōokyo: Chūsekisha, 1992), 16–23; Yi, Uchimura Kanzō no Kirisutokyō shisō, 17–26.

⁵⁰ Dōke, Uchimura Kanzō ron, 30–5.

⁵¹ Uchimura, Uchimura Kanzō zenshū (16), 512; K. Uchimura, Uchimura Kanzō nikki shokan zenshū (5) (5) (The Collection of the Diaries and Correspondences of Uchimura Kanzō [5]) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1964–1965), 26; Uchimura, Yo wa ikani shite Kirisuto shinto to narishi ka, 107. For relevant discussions, see Yi, Uchimura Kanzō no Kirisutokyō shisō, 29–32; Dōke, Uchimura Kanzō ron, 45–50; Kimura , ‘Uchimura Kanzō no shizenzō’, 52–64; Nakazawa, Uchimura Kanzō, 8–9.

⁵² Uchimuraō, Uchimura Kanzō nikki shokan zenshū (5), 167. For related discussions, see Yi, Uchimura Kanzō no Kirisutokyōshisō, 32–4.

⁵³ Nakazawa, Uchimura Kanzō, 16; Ohara, Uchimura Kanzō no shōgai, 669–70.

⁵⁴ K. Uchimuraō, Uchimura Kanzō zenshū. Dai 1–2 . 1–2 (Uchimura Kanzō’s Works [1–2]) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1962), 395–401. See also Yi, Uchimura Kanzō no Kirisutokyō shisō, 27–9; Dōke, Uchimura Kanzō ron, 39–40.

⁵⁵ Nakazawa, Uchimura Kanzō, 44–6; Dōke, Uchimura Kanzō ron, 37; Yi, Uchimura Kanzō no Kirisutokyō shisō, 53–4.

⁵⁶ Yi, Uchimura Kanzō no Kirisutokyō shisō, 53–9; Ohara, Uchimura Kanzō no shōgai, 147–54.

⁵⁷ K. Uchimura, Uchimura Kanzō zenshū (3) (3) (Uchimura Kanzō’s Works [3]) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1962), 83; K. Uchimuraō, Uchimura Kanzō zenshū (24) (24) (Uchimura Kanzō’s Works [24]) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1963), 57. For an excellent and inspiring discussion, see Yi, Uchimura Kanzō no Kirisutokyō shisō, 34–7.

⁵⁸ Uchimura, Yo wa ikani shite Kirisuto shinto to narishi ka, 191–6; K. Uchimura, Uchimura Kanzō shinkō chosaku zenshū (2) (2) (The Collection of Uchimura Kanzō’s Works on Religion) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1962), 134–249. For relevant discussions, see Yi, Uchimura Kanzō no Kirisutokyō shisō, 62–6.

⁵⁹ Uchimura, Uchimura Kanzō nikki shokan zenshū (5), 193. For some excellent relevant discussions, see, Yi, Uchimura Kanzō no Kirisutokyō shisō, ch. 2.

⁶⁰ For a detailed discussion, see, N. Suzuki , Ikkō fukei jiken (The Disrespect Incident in the First Senior High School) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1993).

⁶¹ K. Uchimura, Nihon no sekkyō: Uchimura Kanzō (The Preacher of Japan: Uchimura Kanzō) (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisuto Kyōdan Shuppankyoku, 1994), 100–11; Ohara, Uchimura Kanzō no shōgai, 508–21; N. Suzuki , Uchimura Kanzō to sono jidai: Shiga Shigetaka to no hikaku (Uchimura Kanzō and His Times: A Comparison with Shiga Shigetaka) (Tokyo: Nihon Kirisuto Kyōdan Shuppankyoku, 1975), 153–8; Nakazawa, Uchimura Kanzō, 81–9, 271–2.

⁶² Dōke, Uchimura Kanzō ron, 39–51. Regarding Uchimura’s concept of ecology, see Kimura, ‘Uchimura Kanzō no shizenzō ‘, 67–71.

⁶³ Nakazawa, Uchimura Kanzō, 90–95; Dōke, Uchimura Kanzō ron, 136–55.

⁶⁴ K. Uchimuraō, Uchimura Kanzō zenshū (14) (14) (Uchimura Kanzō’s Works [14]) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1963), 259–265. For relevant discussions, see T. Yanaihara , Uchimura Kanzō to tomo ni (Together with Uchimura Kanzō) (Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1962), 1–8; Kōki, Uchimura Kanzō, 95–103; K. Nakamura , Uchimura Kanzō to Yanaihara Tadao (Uchimura Kanzō and Yanaihara Tadao) (Tokyo: Riburopōto, 1981), 156–63; Dōke, Uchimura Kanzō ron, 32.

⁶⁵ K. Uchimura, Uchimura Kanzō zenshū(23) (23) (Uchimura Kanzō’s Works [23]) (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 1963), 234–6. For relevant discussions, see Nakazawa, Uchimura Kanzō, 104–117; Ohara, Uchimura Kanzō no shōgai, 330–43.

⁶⁶ Yi, Uchimura Kanzō no Kirisutokyō shisō, 115.

⁶⁷ Dōke, Uchimura Kanzō ron, 51–5.

⁶⁸ Walter Kidd’s essay was published on Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute. See W. Kidd, ‘Creation or Evolution’, Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, 32 (1898–1899), 178–205.

⁶⁹ For relevant discussions, see Nakazawa, Uchimura Kanzō, 46–50.

⁷⁰ Nakazawa, Uchimura Kanzō, 56–60.

⁷¹ Nakamura, Uchimura Kanzō to Yanaihara Tadao, ch. IV; S. Townsend, Yanaihara Tadao and Japanese Colonial Policy: Redeeming Empire (Surrey: Curzon, 2000).

⁷² A brief introduction to Imanishi Kinji’s evolutionary theory and ecology can be found in K. Imanishi , A Japanese View of Nature: The World of Living Things, translated by P. J. Asquith (New York: Routledge Curzon, 2002).

⁷³ K. Imanishi , Dāwin ron: Dochaku shisō kara no rejisutansu (On Darwinism: Resistance from Indigenous Thought) (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1977).

⁷⁴ J. Secord, Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000).

⁷⁵ J. Farley, ‘The Initial Reactions of French Biologists to Darwin’s Origin of Species’; Pusey, China and Charles Darwin.

⁷⁶ See, for example, D. Hu, China and Albert Einstein: The Reception of the Physicist and His Theory in China 1917–1979 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005); J. Li and F. Hong, ‘Science as ideology: the rejection and reception of sociobiology in China’, Journal of the History of Biology, 36:3 (2003), 567–78; Sakura, ‘Similarities and Varieties’.

⁷⁷ This paragraph is inspired by Susan Townsend’s discussion. See S. Townsend, Yanaihara Tadao and Japanese Colonial Policy, ch. 2. For a similar approach see, for example, D. Wright, ‘The Translation of Modern Western Science in Nineteenth‐Century China, 1840–1895’, Isis, 89:4 (1998), 653–73; D. Wright, Translating Science: The Transmission of Western Chemistry into Late Imperial China, 1840–1900 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2000).

⁷⁸ R. Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty‐Port China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004). In addition, James Bartholomew’s work, albeit published in the late 1980s, is still a standard work in the history of science in East Asia. One of the best contributions that Bartholomew makes, from my point of view, is his tracing the formation of modern science in Japan to the Tokugawa period. By doing so, he avoids a historiography in which Western science was merely ‘transplanted’ in Japan. See J. Bartholomew, The Formation of Science in Japan: Building a Research Tradition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989).

⁷⁹ Regarding the case of colonial Korea, see V. Tikhonov, ‘Social Darwinism in Korea and its Influence on Early Modern Korean Buddhism’, International Journal of Korean History, 2 (2002), 65–97. Regarding how Japan played the role of facilitating the introduction of Darwinism into China, see Pusey, China and Charles Darwin, 81–176.

⁸⁰ Regarding the overcoming of western modernity and its cultural impacts afterwards, one of the best books in this field is Harry Harootunian’s Overcome by Modernity. See H. Harootunian, Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture, and Community in Interwar Japan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000). A very relevant discussion on Darwinism and modernity in wartime Japan, see A. Thomas, Reconfiguring Modernity, 179–208.