1894. NATURAL SCIENCE IN JAPAN. 189 



among the nations, for her life itself; that once secured, we have no 

 reason to doubt that she will return to her old allegiance, though 

 perhaps in a modified form. The conditions of modern civilisation 

 do not make for such art as was the soul and the saving of old Japan; 

 but there are other subjects for intellectual activity, and among these 

 one of the noblest and one that may well commend itself more and 

 more to the Japanese in the days that are to come, is the search after 

 knowledge for its own sake. 



We may remove from the Japanese the reproach of utilitarianism, 

 but they must retain that of materialism. To a certain extent, 

 however, and certainly so far as it forms a philosophic system, this 

 opposes no serious bar to scientific progress. It is when a man's 

 materialism makes him nothing more than matter-of-fact, when it 

 deprives him of the faculty of imagination, it is then that it impedes 

 his intellectual activity. This is the failing one is said to meet with 

 among the Japanese ; and if the accusation be true, those that 

 understand the true value of the imagination in scientific work will 

 see under what disadvantage their students labour. There are many 

 causes for this defect, partly, as we shall see, the language, partly 

 the long period of stagnation already referred to, but chiefly the 

 influence of the Chinese. To know the cause is however, to foresee 

 the cure, and we may well expect that, under the influence of 

 European education, the weakness will gradually disappear. 



Another characteristic of the Japanese, upon which everyone is 

 agreed, is their extreme handiness and neatness. How valuable 

 this quality is in scientific work, every scientific worker is well aware. 



One should not, perhaps, pass unnoticed here the love of mon- 

 strosities to which so much attention was directed in the first part of 

 the present article. This, however, is too obviously a character 

 common to all under-educated persons and nations for us to regard it 

 as in any way a peculiarity of the Japanese. P. T. Barnum did not 

 make his fortune in Japan. Consequently we do not find that the 

 intelligent Japanese zoologists have devoted any abnormal proportion 

 of their time to the study of teratology. In fact the sole instance 

 that comes to mind, if indeed it be an instance, is Watase's paper on 

 the double-tailed gold-fish. 



Passing from characteristics such as the preceding, which may 

 be noted by any intelligent traveller, we come to a graver charge, 

 which has been brought against the Japanese by those who have 

 had greater faciUties for observation, and longer time for continued 

 study. By many such writers it has been maintained that the 

 Japanese are wanting in philosophic instinct and the kindred intellec- 

 tual faculties. Kaempfer, for instance, ssljs in his Histoyy of Japan, — 

 " Now if we proceed to consider the Japanese, with regard to sciences 

 and the embellishments of our mind. Philosophy perhaps will be 

 . found wanting. The Japanese indeed are not so far enemies to this 

 Science, as to banish the Country those who cultivate it, but they 



