INTRODUCTORY. 



The duty of introducing the present modest publication to our 

 fellow workers of other lands, and of explaining its aim and scope, 

 having fallen on me, I feel that I can do this in no better way than 

 by offering a brief retrospect of the progress of our science in 

 Japan. 



Until within a comparatively recent time, Japan was a sealed 

 book to Europe. The name of our country stood in the West as 

 the symbol of things strange, remote and antipodal. In the minds 

 of Europeans, Japan has never been associated with science, except 

 as an object of investigation ; and, if I mistake not, they would find 

 something almost incongruous in the idea of contributions to the 

 progress of modern science from Japanese sources. But if such a con- 

 ception exists, it rests, I verily believe, on entirely unjust grounds. 

 A slight acquaintance with the history of Japan would enable any 

 one to see without much difficulty that a high degree of culture was 

 attained at an early age in our land, and that there has ever been 

 abroad a spirit of earnest study among our people. It would take 

 me too far away from my immediate object to do any thing more 

 than mention the existence of those masterpieces in literature and 

 art which were produced in the period extending from tlv sev 'iith to 



