1894- NATURAL SCIENCE IN JAPAN. 21 



tortoises, and carp. In a few cases the number and different kinds 

 of animals give the temple-yard almost the aspect of a zoological 

 garden, and the resemblance is by no means diminished by the light- 

 hearted crowds that pass from cage to cage, feeding the inmates with 

 biscuits and beans. Whatever may be the theological explanation 

 of this, the mere fact argues an initial sympathy with the brute 

 creation, of that peculiar but common kind that manifests affection 

 by imprisoning its object. Primitive and child-like this spirit may be ; 

 but we know it well enough ourselves, and so we have a fellow-feeling 

 for these bright-eyed, brightly-clad little damsels that fly their butter- 

 flies fastened to a long black hair, and these laughing troops of boys 

 that chase the cockchafers with long bamboo poles sticky at the tip. 



More need not be said. The love that these children of nature 

 have for their mother is now abundantly exemplified. But this 

 feeHng, as my friend O. H. Latter has recently reminded us 

 (Natural Science, vol. iii., p. 41), is in no way connected with the 

 scientific spirit. The demand for natural history objects supports 

 more than one shop in Tokyo, itinerant vendors of the same ply a 

 thriving trade, and the travelling raree-show reaps a harvest in every 

 town. But the objects sold and exhibited are such as please 

 children, not men ; they excite curiosity and wonder without 

 conveying knowledge. 



At last, however, the scientific spirit, with other such modern 

 improvements as quick-firing guns and labour disputes, has invaded 

 the land of the rising sun ; and it is the object of this paper partly to 

 trace its gradual growth, partly to show how it flourishes to-day, 

 now that the Japanese nation have cast off the leading-strings that 

 they borrowed for a time from the Western world. 



Just as, in ancient times, Japan received from China and Corea 

 her religion, her literature, her art, and such science as there was to 

 receive, so at the present day she has, for good or ill, adopted almost 

 wholesale the methods and results of our own vaunted civilisation. 

 The modernisation or Europeanisation of Japan has been a purely 

 defensive measure, initiated and carried on by a certain section of 

 the Japanese themselves, and notably by their great statesmen, 

 the Counts Ito and Inouye. But the actual working out of the 

 scheme has of necessity been placed till recently in the hands of 

 foreigners employed by the Japanese Government. In this develop- 

 ment two great races, the Anglo-Saxon and the Germanic, have 

 played prominent parts, and in the particular parts they have 

 played the respective genii of these two races have conspicuously 

 asserted themselves. The English-speakers have, as usual, devoted 

 themselves to the more practical and obviously utilitarian side of 

 life, embelHshed, as usual, by the attempt to impose on an alien 

 people their own particular religious opinions. To them are due 

 the railways and the College of Engineering, the Navy and the Mint, 

 the Press and the Prayer Book. The Germans, on the other hand, 



