XII. Physical Sciences in Japan. 



From the time of the first contact with the Occident 

 until the time of the Meiji Restoration. 



By 



Ayao KuwAKi, D. Sc, 



Professor of Physics, Kyushu Imperial University. 



The first occasion of Ja})an's contact with the West was the 

 arrival of some Portuguese merchant ships at a small island to the 

 sonth of Kyushn in the fifth decade of the sixteenth century. The 

 intercourse of Japan with Europe was thus opened at a time when 

 the country was in the midst of constant internal wars and disturhances. 

 With the dawn of the seventeenth century, the people began to enjoy 

 peace wliile the policy of seclusion was pursued until the fall of the 

 Tokugawa Shogunate at the Restoration of Meiji. These circumstances 

 were not calculated to be beneficial to the importation to this country 

 of the sciences which were being developed in Europe during the period. 

 In spite of adverse circumstances, however, the fact that research interest 

 in scientific knowledge was active among the people is clearly to be 

 noted by the works and translations published during this time. In 

 the following sketch, the development of physics and astronomy only 

 will be touched upon. 



The interval of the three hundred years in question can be divided 

 into three periods, namely : the first period of about one hundred years 

 comprising the first arrival of the Portuguese ships in 1543, the first 

 arrival of the Christian Missionaries, the prohibition of Christianity, 

 and finally the absolute prohibition of the importation of all the 

 European books in 1630. The second period included the years of the 

 strict enforcement of absolute seclusion, this period ending in 1720 

 when foreign books on subjects other than religious were relieved of 

 the ofiScal ban. The third period comprised the time of flourishing of 

 the so-called ''Dutch learning" culminating in the complete abolishment 

 of the policy of seclusion at the Restoration of Meiji in 1868. 



