April 30, 1903] 



NA TURE 



611 



This took place just 135 years before the advent of the 

 Portuguese deserters Herr Haas describes as the first Euro- 

 peans reaching Japan ; and if so, what were these " Nam- 

 bans " of the years 1407-8, the first instance, so far as 

 I know, of the name in the Japanese records of this sort? 



In the same review, the writer, talking about Xavier's 

 labours, says : — 



" What would be interesting and instructive to know 

 would be what the Japanese, especially the Buddhists and 

 Confucianist scholars, thought of his doctrines. No hint 

 has come down to us- perhaps they took no thought of a 

 strange religion that seemed of no importance." 



As he expresses it at the same time, Xavier's stay was 

 tco short to qualify him to make his dogmatic teaching 

 in its utmost expression ; but one must not conclude thereby 

 that in the same century Japan was totally destitute of 

 the native scholars of repute taking interest in the subject 

 of Christianity. Thus we read in a eulogy on Master 

 Seigwa (1561-1619), the greatest of all Confucianists of that 

 age, that he was thoroughly learned net only in all Japanese 

 and Chinese literatures, but, moreover, " as well in the 

 boi ks of the Buddhists in India as in the doctrines of 

 Jesus Christ of the South Barbarians " (Octa, " Ichiwa 

 Ichigen," ed. 1885, torn, xix, fol. 19, b). 



,\s the native documents and treatises of any concern to 

 Christianity were well-nigh annihilated under the most 

 rigcrous inquisitions, which were mainly incurred by the 

 so-called South Barbarians intermeddling with the political 

 affairs of the country, and which that religion continued to 

 undergo during the two centuries of the Tokugawa Sh6- 

 gunacv, practically no hint has come down to us of what 

 the native scholars thought about it before the persecution 

 began. From what are left dispersed in their works, how- 

 ever, we may be fair in judging that most of the intelligent 

 Japanese, then and directly after, descried in the tenets and 

 rituals of Roman Catholicism nothing but an especial form 

 of Buddhism. To the Europeans, Nobunaga's dictum on 

 its toleration is well known — " While there exist so many 

 sect- already, why do we not let this sect stand? " Kuma- 

 zawa Ryokai (1619-91), the renowned Confucianist re- 

 former in politics, calls the creed simply Southern Buddhism, 

 i.e. Buddhism of the South Barbarians. Later, Arai 

 Hakuseki (1657-1725), after repeatedly giving ear to the 

 Roman missionary, J. B. Sidoti, is said to have remarked 

 upon the subject, " His doctrine is as absurd as Buddhism, 

 they differing from one another only in the points of their 

 terminology " (Amenomori's " Adversaria," ed. 1892, vol. x. 

 p. 86). Parallel to these, I remember I have read in a 

 letter of Xavier's contained in Ramusio's " Yiaggi e Navia- 

 tioni " a passage implying his recognition of some Christian 

 essence in the Buddhist dogmas then current in Japan. 



As I recollect there was in a back number of Nature a 

 certain though very brief reference to a Life of J. B. Sidoti, 

 it will be apropos of this letter to give a few facts relating 

 to him, which, I think, are not so well known now among 

 Christians as they ought to be. Arai Hakuseki, men- 

 tioned above, was a man of singular parts, extensively 

 erudite, notorious in poetry even in China, very active in 

 politics of the court at Yedo, and nowadays nobody denies 

 him the honour of the first introducer of the western science 

 into the Land of the Rising Sun. This innovation, how- 

 ever, was simplv the result of his official interviews with 

 that devoted but unfortunate missionary in 1709 a.d. 

 Sidoti professes to have made himself adept in the Japanese 

 language at Rome, but after all his acquirements appear to 

 have been too limited to make him speak freely in it. So 

 Hakuseki made every effort in his brain to secure from him 

 accurate information on subjects of the regions, then per- 

 fectly unknown to the Japanese, through a Dutchman's 

 interpretation, observing on the difficulties of the task at 

 the outset, " Still is it reasonable to suppose that all this 

 stranger's words are nothing but a shrike's shrieks? " The 

 results of these conversations were the two works " Choice 

 Reviews of a Foreigner's Tales " and " A Memoir on 

 the Western Ocean," which formed the principal cause of 

 the eighth Sh6gun's edict to tolerate the reading of the 

 European books pertaining to science and arts, the sine qua 

 iiou of their wholesale importation in these present days. 

 That all the conduct of Sidoti greatly affected Japanese 

 minds, in spite of their hatred of his creed, is borne out 

 by a letter he wrote in a prison, whereby he petitioned the 



authority to chain him tightly in cold winter nights, in 

 order to let the miserable watchmen about him enjoy 

 their sleep at ease (see Oota, op. cit.). Immediately after 

 Hakuseki 's remark on his religion quoted above, this pas- 

 sage follows : — " But his personality was so uncommon 

 that it makes me ever unable to forget him ! " And it 

 will be greatly gratifying and edifying to the modern 

 Christians to reflect upon how powerful the unparalleled 

 morality of this single, forlorn missionary was after his 

 death, in effecting the reopening of the doors, which his 

 nominal brethren, the very worthy "South Barbarians," 

 had caused the Japanese to shut against themselves. In 

 fact, Yuasa's " Miscellany from a Literary Society " tells us, 

 " Hakuseki used to say all Sidoti 's deportments convinced 

 him in the belief that even the Five Yirtues 1 of our Sage 

 were no more than what that missionary daily carried him- 

 self with " ; an unexampled encomium uttered on a Christian 

 l>\ the followers of the great Chinese philosopher ! 



KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. 

 Mount Nachi, Kii, Japan, March 10. 



Sir O Lodge and the Conservation of Energy. 



The utterances of many men of science as to the doctrine 

 . I the conservation of energy betray a tendency to ex- 

 aggerate the importance of the position of this principle 

 in the general scheme of physical science. It appears some- 

 i! nes to be forgotten that the principle of energy, if applied 

 to even the simplest dynamical system which is possessed 

 of more than one degree of freedom, is, taken by itself, 

 whollv insufficient for the determination of the motion of 

 such system. Although the principle has been of inestim- 

 able value as regulative of the relations between the 

 different forms of molar, molecular, and corpuscular energy 

 which the state of our knowledge compels us to distinguish, 

 it is nevertheless true that in an ultimate dynamical 

 formulation of physical phenomena, the principle of energy 

 descends to the rank of being one integral only of the 

 dynamical equations of a system, a knowledge of the other 

 integrals being indispensable for the complete determination 

 of the motions of the system. 



This tendency to exaggeration is illustrated in a very 

 striking manner in the interesting paper by Sir O. Lodge 

 on " Interaction between the Mental and the Material 

 Aspects of Things " (see Nature, April 23, p. 595). Sir 

 O. Lodge, in discussing the question whether the assump- 

 tion of a direct action of life upon matter is consistent with 

 physical laws, advances the theory that, although life can- 

 not generate mechanical energy, it can exert guiding 

 mechanical forces which do no work on matter. Sir O. 

 Lodge appears to think that by restricting the action of 

 the psychical on the physical in this way, he has suggested 

 a compromise which ought to satisfy the supporters of 

 naturalism whilst it at the same time leaves sufficient 

 play for the action of the psychical. 



The really fundamental issue between the advocates of 

 thorough-going naturalism and their opponents is at bottom 

 the following : — Can the human body, or the physical world 

 including living organisms, be rightly regarded as theo- 

 retically completely representable as a dynamical system, in 

 such a manner that the whole of the motions of the system 

 are completelv determinate in accordance with the laws of 

 dynamics? Is the physical a complete system without 

 taking account of any action on it arising from the 

 psychical, or is it, on the other hand, necessary to suppose 

 that an action of the psychical on the physical exists, with- 

 out which the actual motions of the physical cannot be 

 completely determined? If the latter question be answered 

 affirmatively, then it makes no difference in principle 

 whether such action of the psychical does work, or whether 

 it can be represented by the introduction into the dynamical 

 system of ex hypothesi unknown frictionless constraints; 

 in either case the laws of physics, regarded as a sufficient 

 system for the determination of alt motions, fall to the 

 ground. 



Sir O. Lodge's contention " that the fundamental laws 



1 Mildness, Faithfulness. Self-Respect, Respect to Others, and Com- 

 plaisance. When asked about Confucius's character, Tsze-Kung, the most 

 eloquent of all his disciples, enumerated these as its five components. In 

 the eighteenth century there was a Confucianist master in Japan who 

 opined it wise to substitute in the temples the five letters signifying them 

 written on scrolls for the images of the philosopher. See the "Analects of 

 Confucius " and the " Kwagetsu Shinshi. " 



NO. 1748, VOL. 67] 



