ZOOLOGY IN JAPAN. IO3 



Coming to more modern times, for two hundred and fifty years 

 immediately preceding 1868, the country was in such profound 

 peace that learning, the arts, and all peaceful industries were 

 developed with remarkable vigour, and social refinement attained 

 a degree which, to say the least, we must pronounce remarkable. 

 I have not time to explain the severe discipline gone through, and 

 the high degree of scholarship attained by, our savants in those 

 days, but I may quote again from my paper in regard to the Natural 

 History studies : — "Apart from that innate love of Nature and the 

 natural which was ever showing itself in poetry and other arts, the 

 study of natural products was always pursued, ostensibly with the 

 purpose of collecting materia incdica, or of discovering things that 

 might be used as food in case of a famine, or of identifying objects 

 mentioned in the Confucian classic, 'Shi-King.' But it is not 

 difficult to perceive that naturalists looked in reality beyond these 

 simple or utilitarian ends, and investigated animals and plants for 

 their own sake, although the principal aim of their researches seems 

 to have been the comparatively barren one of establishing a 

 relationship between Japanese products and those described in 

 various Chinese works on Natural History. Frequent were the 

 excursions and expeditions undertaken with the view of collecting 

 natural objects, among which plants were especial favourites, and 

 all parts of the country seem to have been tolerably well explored 

 in this way. Numerous were the treatises on Natural History, 

 published or unpublished. Many of these were encyclopaedic in 

 their comprehensiveness and size, such as ' Shobutsu Riiisan', by 

 Inao Jakusui (1000 parts, early in the eighteenth century), and 

 ' Honzo Kdmokit Keinio' by Ono Razan (48 parts, 1803). The 

 last-named naturalist was so famous for his extensive knowledge, 

 that we are told his pupils were nearly one thousand in number. 

 My colleague, Prof Matsumura, in his book on the enumeration 

 of Japanese plant-names, gives 306 titles of Japanese works on 

 botany compiled previously to 1868. Many of the Natural History 

 volumes had beautiful, coloured illustrations, which serve their 

 purpose even at the present day. Natural History displays were of 

 common occurrence, when naturalists came together with their 

 treasures, and showed them to one another and to the public. Of 

 these the exhibitions given by Hiraga Gennai in the middle of the 

 eighteenth century were perhaps the most celebrated. The present 

 Botanic Garden of the Imperial University was established in 1681, 

 and was long renowned as the "(9 Yaku En'' (Garden of Medicinal 

 Plants). The mastery of the Dutch language by a few earnest 

 physicians in the middle of the eighteenth century has always 

 seemed to me one of the greatest triumphs ever achieved by patient 

 scholarship. Originally undertaken with the purpose of ascertaining 

 something about Western medicine, their efforts soon exerted an 

 influence on all branches of learning. The whole rich treasury 

 of Western civilization became suddenly accessible through the 



