PHYSICAL SCIENCES liV JAPAN. 245 



and the second period was ushered in. This was the flourishing period 

 of the Takugawa Shogunate during which the policy of seclusion was 

 stringently adhered to. In 1634, there were some European Christians 

 shipwrecked off the coast of the province of Chikuzen in Kyushu. 

 One of them was found to possess a book on astronomy which was sent 

 by the Governor of the province to the mayor of Nagasaki who asked 

 Chi'istovao Ferreira to translate it into Japanese. Ferreira was 

 a Portuguese naturalized in Japan and then living in Nagasaki. His 

 original manuscript in the Japanese language, written in Roman letters, 

 was the very first book of European astronomy ever produced in Japan, 

 but it has not been preserved. About ten years later, this book was 

 transliterated into the Japanese characters by Mukai G-ensho, a scholar 

 of Chinese, with the collaboration of Nishi, an interpreter. This 

 revised version with Mukai's critical commentary was entitled 

 '•Kenkon Bensetsu" meaning '-An Exi)lanation of Heaven and Earth." 

 It was never printed but had a certain degree of circulation in 

 the form of manuscript copies. The original of this book was based 

 on the Aristotelian theory of the four elements while the critical 

 commentary was based on Chinese theory of -'positive" and '-'negative" 

 and the "five elements" in juxtaposition with the astronomical theory. 

 It is said, however, that the scholars of that age believed the original 

 argument rather than the critical commentary on it. 



About this time, there lived Hayashi Kichiycmon who learned 

 astronomy from the Portuguese and ^Spaniards in Nagasaki. Among 

 the pupils of Hayashi, were Kobayashi Kentei and others. Kobayashi 

 wrote some books and taught pupils. They were the first Japanese 

 scholars who served to spread the knowledge of European astronomy, 

 though it seems there were certain others vvlio had earlier learned 

 European navigation, with astronomy as its accompaniment. 



There was a family in Kyoto whose hereditary office was tlie 

 compiling of the calendar. This calendar was b.ised ou the Chinese 

 calendar of the Tang dynasty, then already eight or nine hundred yeai-s 

 old, and the difference between the calendar atid observed facts was 

 very great. Some people made their own observations with sun dials 

 and others studied more recent Chinese calendars while still others, like 

 Kobayaslii above spoken of, learned the Europ<'an art of calendar 

 making. The arrangements for the re\'ision of tlie calendar grew; moi-e 

 and more persistent. At last, in 1685, the revision was accomplished 

 by Shibukawa iShunkai who was a scholar of Chinese calendology. 



