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Rangaku and WesternizationAuthor(s): Marius B. JansenSource: Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 18, No. 4, Special Issue: Edo Culture and Its Modern Legacy(1984), pp. 541-553Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/312333 .
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Modern
sian
Studies,
8,
4
(I984),
PP.
541-553.
Printed
n Great
Britain.
Rangaku
and
Westernization
MARIUS B.
JANSEN
Princeton
University
THE
continuities
between
the
study
of
the
West
through
Dutch
in
TokugawaJapan
and
the
program
of
modernization in
the
Meiji
period
seem
self
evident.
The
influence of
Holland
through
Deshima
became
the focus
of
the life
work
of Itazawa
Takeo and
others
well
before
the
war, and it received detailed discussion from Charles Boxer in 1936.
Nevertheless
issues of
the
importance
and
influence
of
Tokugawa
rangaku
ontinue to
be
debated,
and
that
debate
greatly
enriches our
feel
for
Japanese
society
then and
now.
Rangaku
was one
of
the
products
of a
Tokugawa
seclusion
system
that
made it
difficult
and
intriguing
to
secure
knowledge
of
the
Western
world.
Seclusion
heightened
awareness
ofJapan's
position
on the
edge
of
two
world
orders
and it
made
for
nervousness
as
well as
curiosity.
In
some
sense
the
very
consciousness
of
the
system
came
rather
late
and,
as
Ronald
Toby points
out,
was
a
product
of the
Dutch
influence.
The
word
sakoku
was
coined
by
Shizuki
Tadao in
180I
when
he
was
ordered
to
translate
Kaempfer's
defense of the
system
by
the
authorities.'
It is
important
to
note with
Toby
that the
seclusion
system
was far
from
total.
In
fact,
limiting
the
apertures
from
which
the
West
could
be
observed
probably
had the
effect
of
attracting
viewers to
those
apertures
and
sharpening
their
focus.
The visits
of
the
Dutch
provided
structured
access
to the
import
of
books and
information.
Even
Kaempfer,
writing
at a time when interest in the West was minimal, could see 'scarce any
other
purpose'
in
the
Dutch
presence
'but that
the
Japanese might
be
by
their
means
informed
of
what
passes
in
other
parts
of
the
world.'
The
Dutch
were
obliged
to
submit
regular
reports
(filsetsugaki)
about
the
outside
world.
In
examining
these
one
realizes how
imperfect
and
1
Ronald
P.
Toby,
'Reopening the
Question
of
Sakoku:
Diplomacy in
the
Legitimiza-
tion of
the
Tokugawa Bakufu',
Journal of
Japanese
Studies
3:
2
(Summer
1977),
p. 323.
Kaempfer's
conclusion
was
thatJapan's
peace
and
prosperity
must
persuade
its
citizens
'That
their
Country
was
never in a
happier
condition than
it now
is,
governed
by
an
arbitrary Monarch, shut up, and kept from all Commerce and Communication with
foreign
nations.'
Kaempfer's
History of
Japan
(tr.
J.
G.
Scheuchzer,
Glasgow,
19o6),
Vol.
III,
p.
336.
oo26-749X/84/o70o8-090205.oo
?
1984
Cambridge
University
Press.
541
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542
MARIUS B.
JANSEN
inadequate
their contents
were.
Particularly
where
Holland itself
was
concerned,
the
self
interest of
the
reporters
made for
dishonesty
and
distortions.
Thus
the
American
and French
Revolutions
and
the
Napoleonic
invasion of
Holland were
reported
belatedly
in the
hope
of
concealing
the fact
that Deshima
authorities were
having
to.charter
American
ships.2
Where
the self interest of the
Hollanders was
not
concerned,
however,
and as
the
Japanese began
to
develop
additional
sources with
which to
check these
reports,Jfisetsugaki
ncreased
in
value.
Nevertheless it can
be
said that this sort of
consistent,
structured
access
to
knowledge,
and the
willingness
to take note of their
information,
provided
a
striking
contrast to the state
of
contemporary
affairs in
Korea
and China. Korea, despite formal diplomatic relations with Japan and
China,
was
truly
closed,
and
China,
while not
formally
closed at
all,
was
made so
by
the indifference of
its
elite.
In
some
respects
Holland
was
an
ideal
bridge
to
the
West for
Tokugawa
Japan;
small
enough
to be
unthreatening,
and central
enough
to serve as
funnel for
European
learning,
most of
which
was
speedily
translated into
Dutch. The
Nagasaki post
also made
the East
India
Company
an
attractive
opportunity
for
remarkable
Europeans-
Kaempfer, Thunberg,
von
Siebold--who
wished
to learn
aboutJapan.
One can
deplore
with Donald
Keene the lack
of intellectual
curiosity
on
the
part
of
many
of the
Hollanders,
but
one must
note their
service
in
providing
the
channel for
so much of
quality
in
the
reports
of
surgeons
and
occasional
chief
factors.3
The facts
and
chronology
of
the
spread
of
rangaku
are
not
in
dispute,
and
its
relationship
to
the broader
stream of
Tokugawa
intellectual
life
becomes
more clear
with the
development
of
scholarship
in
Japan.
Techniques
and
knowledge
transmitted in
the
sixteenth
and seven-
teenth centuries were used throughout the century that followed, and
that
contribution
remained an
integral
part
of
Tokugawa
medical
knowledge.
A
large-scale
import
of books
from China
included
much
of
scientific
importance,
and the
flow
increased
in
value after
Yoshimune's
relaxation
of
regulations
in
I720.
Dissections
brought
awareness of
the
2
Sat6
Shasuke,
rYgakushi
no
kenkyu
(Tokyo:
Chfi6
K6ron,
I980), pp.
146-8.
The
French
Revolution
was
reported,
though
most
inadequately,
in
1794.
American
independence
became
known
only
in
1808 when
Doeffwas
interrogated
after
the
Phaeton
incident,
and when
it
became
important
for the
Dutch to
separate
themselves from
any
association with
England.
Fisetsugaki
never clarified
these
problems.
Honda
and
others
took the
American
ships
for
English.
For
the
fusetsugaki,
Iwao
Sei'ichi
(ed.),
Oran
fusetsugaki
shisei
(Tokyo,
Nichiran
gakkai,
Vol.
2,
1979),
PP.
98ff.
3
Donald
Keene,
The
Japanese
Discoveryof
Europe
(Stanford:
Stanford
University
Press,
1969),
PP.
7-8.
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'RANGAKU'
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543
inadequacy
of Chinese
anatomical
lore before the
celebrated
day
when
Sugita Gempaku
and his friends stood
watching
at
Kotsugahara
in
177I,
though
the earlier cases
did
not lead to a determination to work
from
experiment
and
observation
in the future.
Sugita
himself
was
influenced
by Ogyii
Sorai's
discussion of
military strategy,
with its
emphasis
on the need to allow for the
topography
of the battlefield.
'Sorai',
he
wrote,
'writes that true warfare is
very
different from what
so-called masters of the art
of
war teach us.
Topography
may
be
hilly
or
flat,
and armies
may
be
strong
or weak. One cannot make identical
cut-and-dried
preparation
that will be
right
for
all
times and
all
places..
.'.4
Received wisdom was to be checked
against
experience
and
observation, and by that test Tafel Anatomia proved its superiority.
There followed the famous translation
exercise,
and
many
more
by
many
others.
By
the
time
Sugita completed
his
Rangaku kotohajime
n
1815
he
could observe that
'Today rangaku
s
very
widespread.
Some
people
study
it
earnestly,
and
the uneducated
talk
about
it
thoughtlessly
and with
exaggeration.'"
Its
products,
he
thought,
could
be
compared
with the vast
corpus
of Chinese
learning
that had
required
much
longer
and more official
sponsorship
for transmission. Yet
even
Sugita
was
willing
to
grant
that
'Chinese studies
prepared
our mind.' One can take
all this as reminder
of
the
need
to
consider
rangaku
as a
branch
of,
and not
a
departure
from,
the
broad stream
of
Tokugawa
intellectual
activity.
But the difficulties created
by
the
Tokugawa system
for the
orderly
development
of
rangaku
were real
enough.
One
major problem
derived
from the
difficulty
of communication between
separate
and
largely
isolated communities. At
Nagasaki
the
guild
of
official
interpreters
that
was set
up
to service the
trade
with
Deshima
was
headed
by
four senior
interpreters (oppertolken)
who,
with
assistants,
apprentices,
and students
supervised a community of many more. Kaempfer reported 'no less than
one hundred and
fifty persons'
in
Genroku
times;
Tsurumi
counts
fifty-two interpreters (divided
into three
ranks)
in
Bunsei when Takano
Choei
came to
Nagasaki,
and Fukuchi
Gen'ichir5
gives
one hundred
and
forty
in
late
Tokugawa days.6
These
people
had whatever access the
4
Sugita,
'Keiei
yawa,'
in Korin
sosho
(rev.
edn,
Tokyo,
Shibunkaku,
1971),
p.
io6,
quoted
and discussed in
Sat6
Sh6suke, rYgaku
kenkyijosetsu
(Tokyo:
Iwanami shoten
1964),
p.
60. Sun
Tzu,
as William
Atwell has
pointed
out
to
me,
had said the
same
thing
a
good
deal
earlier.
5
Sugita, 'Rangaku
kotohajime,'
in
Haga
T6ru
(ed.),
Nihon
no
meich6,
Vol.
22:
Sugita
Gempaku,
Hiraga
Gennai,
Shiba
Kbkan
(Tokyo:
Chfi6 K6ron,
I97i),
p. I3I.
6
Tadashi
Yoshida,
'The
Rangaku
of
Shizuki
Tadao: The Introduction of Western
Science
in
TokugawaJapan,' unpub.
Ph.D.
Dissertation
(Princeton
University,
1974),
p.
66;
also Tsurumi
Shunsuke,
Tanaki
ChJei
(Tokyo:
Asahi,
I975),
p.
90.
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544
MARIUS
B.
JANSEN
authorities
permitted
to the
resident
Dutch,
who
might
or
might
not
include
someone
of
intellectual
quality
and interest. No
group
as
concentrated
could be found
elsewhere
in
Japan,
and it is
understand-
able that for
the last
century
of
Tokugawa
rule
'study
abroad'
in
Nagasaki
posed
an
inviting
and
exciting
opportunity
for
those
who
could
manage
to do it. At
Edo there was
a
smaller and
more
varied
community
of
medical
specialists.
For them
opportunity
for
first-hand
contact with
Hollanders could
come
only
when
a
Deshima
party
arrived
on
sankin-k6tai,
something
that
took
place
annually
from
1633
to
1764,
biennially
until
179o,
and
every
four
years
between then
and
1850,
the
last
trip,
for a
total of
i
6
times.7 Even those
fortunate
enough
to be
present at one of the question and answer sessions held with the Dutch in
Edo found it difficult
to
receive attention. In
I794
Otsuki
Gentaku,
unable to
pose
his
question,
noted that he
would
have
to
wait
four
years
for
his next chance.
Communication
between the
two
groups
of
specialists
was
also
difficult.
Some
time
in
the
I780s
the
Nagasaki
interpreter,
Shizuki
Tadao
(i758-i
8o6),
wrote Otsuki Gentaku
that
a
servant of his
had
just
been
conscripted
as coolie for a
daimyo procession
to
Edo,
and
so
he
was
taking
advantage
of
this
to
write
to ask him
for
'any
book
you
have
there
that
describes
stimulating
and
interesting
theories of
physics
or
astronomy,
whether in
Chinese
or a
Western
language.
I
would
particularly
like to
see a
mathematics
book on
logarithms you
said
you
were
writing
....
Lexicographical
difficulties
were also severe
and
put
a
premium
on
access to
friendly
and
expert
counsel.
A
translation
of
a
dictionary
was
completed only
in
I796.
Later versions
of this
('Halma')
dictionary,
finished in
1833,
were
not
published
until
i855.
Thus
for
the entire
pre-Perry era rangakusha had to work with borrowed or copied
dictionaries.
Nevertheless the
intellectual
curiosity
and
enthusiasm that
one
sees
in
Shizuki
and
Otsuki
could and did
overcome such
difficulties.
In
fact,
it
sometimes seems
that
the
very
difficulty
of the
endeavor
added
zest
to
the
challenge
for its
practitioners.
Political
repression
proved
more difficult
to
overcome,
and
this
was
certain to
follow
as
soon as
rangaku
moved
beyond
medicine
and
science
to
discussions
of
national
policy
based
upon
a
knowledge
of
world
affairs.
The
'reforms'
associated with
regimes
headed
by
Matsudaira
Sadanobu
7
Although
Sat6,
in
r6gakushi
kenkyi~josetsu,
p. o109,
gives
it
as
once in five
years
after
Kansei,
it
is
clear
from
Hendrik
Doeff,
Herinneringen
uit
Japan
(Haarlem,
1853),
PP.
71,
132,
and
146,
that
the
Dutch went in
I802, 1806,
and
I8Io.
s
Yoshida,
'Shizuki',
p. 201.
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'RANGAKU'
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545
and Mizuno
Tadakuni made the
I790s
and
I830s
danger
points
for
specialists
in
Western
learning
and
helped
to
deflect
most of
them into
silence
and
apathy
or to
coopt
them for
government
service. Hirakawa
Sukehiro
points
out
that while
Sugita
Gempaku
was drawn
to
rangaku
after
reading
Sorai on
strategy,
Sugita's
successors were forced back into
strategy
for warfare
by
a
regime
determined to
prevent
private
expressions
of
opinion
on
public
matters.9
There are
relatively
few
examples
of
public punishment,
but
they
surely
served to
discourage many
men.
In
1792
the
bakufu
destroyed
the
blocks of
his
book and
arrested
Hayashi
Shihei for
having
published
a
book that
dealt
with
affairs of state
by advocating
readiness for
danger
from Russia. Hayashi was silenced and rusticated, and he died the
following year.
His
unhappy
end
may
be
taken to
signal
the difficulties
that
attended the
broadening
of
language
and translation
studies to
consideration of the
problem posed
by
the 'West'
for
Japan.
Scholars
distinguish thisyJgaku
from the narrower
rangaku
of translation
exercises.
Deshima
remained
central
and Dutch remained the
primary
medium,
though
it
was no
longer
the
exclusive
language.
For
Hayashi
and for
Honda
Toshiaki,
who
wisely
refrained
from
publishing
his
views,
Russia was the
danger.
The
Napoleonic
era
brought
a new consciousness
of
change
in
the Atlantic
world. Awareness
that
different
(American) ships
were
servicing
Deshima led to
intensi-
fied
interrogation
of
Hendrik
Doeff
and the
realization that
France had
occupied
Holland
and
that America had broken
away
from
England.
Reading
in
world
geographies
revealed an
English-Russian
alliance.
Rezanov
appeared
at
Nagasaki
in
1804
and
had
his
request
for
trade
rejected;
Russian
marauders
ravaged
several
northern
coasts,
and in
18o8
the Phaeton
startled the
defenders of
Nagasaki.
Soon
developments
near Canton made coast defense an urgent issue. Western learning
moved
beyond
the realm
of
specialists,
and its fruits
began
to
concern
men
in
positions
of
responsibility.
Matsudaira
Sadanobu had
begun
this
when he
began
to collect
Dutch
books about
1792;
such
books
in
the
wrong
hands
might
do
harm,
he
noted;
they
'should
not be allowed to
pass
in
large
quantities
into the
hands of
irresponsible
people,
but it is
desirable,
on the other
hand,
to
have
them
deposited
in a
government
library.'
The
upshot
of
this
tendency
to control
and
coopt
was a
government
translation
bureau
which
was set
up
in
the
Bureau of
Astronomy
in
18I1.
Its first
charge
was
to translate
large
portions
ofa
1778-86
edition of a Dutch
translation of
9
Hirakawa
Sukehiro,
'Japan's
Turn
to the
West,'
forthcoming
in
CambridgeHistory
of
Japan,
Vol.
V.
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546
MARIUS
B.
JANSEN
Noel Chomel's
Dictionnaire
Oeconomique,
n
encyclopedia
that
appeared
on Bakufu order lists
repeatedly
thereafter.
By
the time the
work
was
discontinued
in
1846,
135Japanese
volumes had been
produced. Sugita
Gempaku's
grandson,
Seikei
(1
817-59),
was
among
those hired for
this
task.
10
In
contrast
to
Seikei,
who
stayed
within
bounds,
other
scholars
experienced
the
dangers
of
private
dabbling
in
matters
of
public
policy.
The arrest
ofrangakusha
n
1828
for
transmission of a
map
ofJapan
to
von
Siebold,
and the
purge
of
Watanabe Kazan
and his
friends in
the
Bansha
no
goku
affair of
1839,
showed
the
sensitivity
of the Bakufu
to
possible
subversion. The
ease
with
which
charges
of treason
could be
made
surely
served to discourage casual political inquiry and discussion. Even after
the
appearance
of
Commodore
Perry
made it
impossible
to
extinguish
political
discussion,
private
violence on
the
part
of
anti-foreign
zealots
served
to enforce
caution and
quiet
on
scholars
who feared
being
tarred
with
the
'foreign'
brush.
Fukuzawa
Yukichi's
account of the
dangers
he
sensed
everywhere,
from
barber
chair to
darkened
streets,
is
familiar.
Sakuma
Sh6zan
and
Yokoi
Sh6nan
met
worse fates.
Unquestionably, patterns
ofcooption, repression,
and terror
silenced
and
frustrated
most
specialists.
One
gets
some sense of it in
the
story
Otsuki
Nyoden
tells about
Sugita
Seikei. He writes that
Seikei
learned
about
vrijheit
(freedom)
as an
inalienable
right
to
independence
of
thought
and
spirit
from
his
reading
in
Dutch
and
English,
but when
he heard
that
Takahashi,
Watanabe,
Takano,
Takashima
and
others
had
been
seized for
spreading
foreign
ideas
he feared
that he
too
was
inviting
trouble. He held
himself
in
check
and
was
very
careful
not to let it
slip
from
his
mouth. The
only
way
he
could
find solace for
the
heaviness of his
spirit
was
through
drink,
but
when he
was
drunk
he
was
unable to
keep
from
shouting
'Vrijheit '"
Even
so,
Seikei
went
on
to serve in
the
Bansho
Shirabesho.
So,
too,
with
Sugita Gempaku's
fifth
son
and
successor,
Rikkei
(1787-1846),
and his
adopted
son,
Genzui
(1818-89),
granted
the
status
of
Jusha
for
his
service
in
Bansho
Shirabesho
and
Kaiseijo,
who
became a
distinguished
private
physician
and
hospital
administrator
in
the
Meiji
period.12
1o
Sadanobu
quotation
from
Keene,
Japanese
Discovery
of
Europe, pp.
75-6.
For
the
Chomel
enterprise,
Marius
B.
Jansen,
'New
Materials for
the
Intellectual
History
of
Nineteenth
CenturyJapan,'
Harvard
Journal of
Asiatic
Studies:
20,
3-4
(December
I1957),
p.
575-
"1
Quoted by Sat5 Shosuke, rTgakushi,p. 200,
from
Otsuki's
rTgakushi
nempy5.
wasaki
Haruko
first
called
this
example
to
my
attention.
12
Sugita
biographies
in
Daijimmeijiten
(Tokyo, 1942, III,
p. 458.)
In
early
Meiji
Sugita
Genzui
and
his son
Takeshi
mixed
easily
in
foreign
circles in
Tokyo.
See
Clara's
Diary:
An
American Girl in
Meiji
Japan
(Tokyo, Kodansha,
I979), passim.
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'RANGAKU'
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547
While
government
service
may
have been distasteful to
some,
it
also
provided
access to
sources and
learning
they
would otherwise have had
difficulty finding. By
late
Tokugawa
the
official
collections,
especially
that of the Bansho
Shirabesho,
were
surely
the best
accessible,
with full
access to works on
medicine,
mathematics,
physics,
and
geography
and
world
affairs
as well as
large
concentrations on
military
technology.
Kat5
Hiroyuki
wrote that after he entered the Bansho
Shirabesho
'I
found other
books,
books not available to
anyone
else. When I
looked
into them
I
found
them
very
interesting;
for the first time
I
saw books
about
things
like
philosophy, sociology,
morals,
politics,
and law .
..
in
view of
that
my
ideas
began
to
change...
.'13
Nishi
Amane,
sent to
Leiden in
1862
on Bakufu service, lost no time indicating to his advisor
Professor Hoffmann that in
addition to
the course
in
law 'I
hope
to learn
those
subjects
within
the realm of
philosophy.' Christianity
was
prohibited
in
Japan,
he went
on,
but he believed
that it
differed 'from
those
things
advocated
by
Descartes,
Locke,
Hegel,
and
Kant,
so
I
hope
to
study
them too. This
work
is
probably
difficult, but,
in
my
opinion,
there are not a few
points
in
the
study
of
these
subjects
which
will serve
to
advance our
civilization....14
All this seems clear
enough.
But it leaves
room for
a
lively controversy
in
Japanese
scholarship
over the
significance
of Dutch and Western
learning.15
It is a
controversy
that
has
roots
in
Japan's
modern
history,
and it will
continue for
many years
to
come.
Were
rangaku
and
yagaku
harbingers
of freedom and
rationality
and
agents
of
modernization? Some scholars
have taken
strong
affirmative
positions
in
response
to this
question,
emphasizing
the
'enlightenment'
aspects
of
the
writings
and careers of well-known
representatives
of
Western
learning.
Takahashi
Shin'ichi,
in the
1964
Iwanami
kiea
series
and in his earlier 1igakuron, argues the case so directly that the section
headings
of
the
Iwanami
essay convey
his
message:
The Growth
of
an
Anti-feudal World
View; Rationalism;
Human
Equality;
Transcending
Views
(of
foreigners)
as
Barbarians and
Heretics;
International
Amity.
Unfortunately
it
often
requires
selective
quotation
and
forced
interpre-
13
Quoted
in
Numata
Jir6,
Bakumatsu
yJgaku
shi
(Tokyo,
T6ei
Shoten,
1952),
PP.
198-9.
For
the
holdings,
List
of
Foreign
Books Collectedunder he
Shogunate
Regime
(Tokyo,
Nichiran
Shiry6
Kenkyfikai,
I957),
p.
96.
14
Thomas
R.
Havens,
Nishi
Amane and Modern
Japanese Thought (Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1970), p. 50.
'5
The
paragraphs
that
follow
owe a
great
deal to
rewarding
debate with Bob
Tadashi
Wakabayashi
of
Princeton
University,
who
develops
his
own
argument
in
his
unpublished
dissertation 'Aizawa Seishisai's
Shinron and Western
Learning:
I781-1828'
(1982).
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548
MARIUS
B.
JANSEN
tation
to make
contemporary
liberals of late
Tokugawa figures,
and
these
attributions
emphasize only
a
very
long-term
thrust of
Western
learning.
In a
suspicious
and
partisan
environment
it was
just
as
common
and
perhaps
more
frequent
to
compensate
for
specialization
in
yogaku by
emphasizing
the
need to know
the
West in
order to realize
the
danger
it
posed.
The
exclusively
favorable
emphases
of some
have
inevitably
encour-
aged
equally negative
evaluations
by
others.
For
It5
Tazabur6
and
Numata
Jir6
Hayashi
Shihei,
Honda
Rimmei,
Shiba
K~kan,
and
Hiraga
Gennai,
who are at
the center of the
Takahashi
analysis,
were
dabblers on the
fringes
of
a
movement in its
early stages
and irritants
to
the sober specialists whose work they exploited in their books. The real
professionals,
they argue,
relied
upon
the
sponsorship
and
research
assistance of the
feudal
authorities
during
last half
century
of
Tokugawa
rule. Far from
harboring
anti-feudal
thought,
they
served
to
strengthen
feudal rule
through
the
technology they
made
available,
and if
they
were
more realistic in their
assessment of
national
dangers
it
was
not
in
any
sense from an
espousal
of
human
equality
or
foreign
virtues. Their
ideological
bed-rock
was
that of the Confucian
society
in
which
they
were born
and
bred.
Numata's views are
moderated
somewhat
by
Sat6
Shasuke. Sat5
sees the Kansei
Period as a
turning
point.
Thereafter,
he
argues,
scholarship
came
under the
control
of the
Bakufu,
and
professional
specialists
took
care to avoid the
non-specialist
generalizers
who
had
come so
close to
getting
them all in
trouble.
Essentially,
however,
his
modification affects
periodization
more than
interpreta-
tion.16
This
discussion is
not
without its
interest,
and
those
participating
in
it
have
produced
important
material
in
the course
of
seeking
evidence
for
the positions they take. Nevertheless it seems anachronistic and
mistaken
in
its
assumptions,
and one senses
that its
roots lie
in
the
need to
explain
other,
more
recent
phases
of
Japanese
history
by
identifying
roots
of
revolt or
repression.
The
discussion is
surely
anachronistic in
its
projection
backward
into
Tokougawa
times
of
attitudes
of
a
'moder-
nism'
laden with
values
like
peace
and
equality,
and it is
mistaken
in
its
assumption
that
specialization
in
the
study
of
a
tradition
should
by
rights
produce
adherence to
the values
of that
tradition.
For
some
the
specialists
in
Western
learning
should
have
been,
broadly
speaking,
'liberal.'
If
they
were
not,
a
political
or social
reason must be
found.
To
explain
them
one
can
focus on the
unhappy
fate
of
a
Hayashi
Shihei,
16
See
the
summary
of
this
debate in
Tazaki
Tetsur6,
'Y~gakuron
saik6sei
shiron,'
Shis5,
1979,
November,
pp.
48-72.
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'RANGAKU'
AND
WESTERNIZATION
549
silenced
and
disconsolate in his
condemnation,
instead of
on the
alarming picture
of a
Western
danger
that he
presented
to his
readers,
or
on the
sorry
end
of Takahashi
Kageyasu, guilty
of
giving
Siebold
his
map ofJapan,
who
died
during interrogation
and
was
pickled
in
salt to
preserve
him for the
ultimate sentence of
execution,
instead of
on the fact
that it was also he
who
proposed
the famous
1825
edict
ordering
that
foreign ships
be
repulsed
on
sight (muninen
uchiharai
rei).
The
rangakusha
were
obviously
men of their
generation
and
society.
Awareness of the
technological
capabilities
of Western countries
might
in
rare cases
produce
favorable
opinions
of
Westerners,
but,
more often
it
produced
alarm. Small
wonder
that
feudal authorities
found such
scholars useful. In Tokugawa society traditions offiliation also made for
a
guild
consciousness
among
scholars that
operated
to
confine
and
channel
their
contacts
and
opinions.
A
Shiba
Karan,
who
popularized
other
people's
scholarship
and free-lanced
in
many
fields,
must have
seemed to set a
dubious
example
for
scholars
working
in a
context of
conservative
apprehension
in
the first
part
of
the nineteenth
century.
Rangaku
could also
serve
narrowly
nationalistic
purposes
in
the
hands of
eclectic writers like
Hirata
Atsutane."7
The historian
who marshals
evidence for
approbation
or
reprobation
risks
losing sight
of
his
major
aim,
which is
to
try
to
see the
past
as
contemporaries
saw
it,
in
order to
throw
light
on their dilemmas
and decisions.
What, then,
can one
propose
as the
principal
significance
of
rangaku
and
its
continuities with
modern
Japan?
The
rangakusha
produced
a
great
deal of
writing,
and
Sugita
Gempaku
was
justifiably proud
of his
work in
sparking
an
age
of translation. Yet
comparatively
little of that
writing
circulated
among
the
general public,
and
much of
it,
particu-
larly
impressive
scientific contributions like those of Shizuki
Tadao,
went almost unnoticed until it was inundated by the full flood of
Western
learning
that followed
the
opening
of the
country.
More
important
than
the actual
product,
I
believe,
was the
attitude
and mind-set that
produced
rangaku.
Even for those to
whom Dutch
studies
represented
an
esoteric
delight,
rangaku
brought
a
delight
in
the
new,
the
different,
and the difficult. It was
new,
for
it was
based
on the
transmission of a
changing body
of
knowledge,
one that
was also
in
process
of
growth
in
the West. It was
different,
in that it
was farthest
removed from the
classical
knowledge
of
the
China-centered world.
And
it
was
difficult,
difficult
beyond
the
imagination
of
students
who
have
access to
instruction,
teaching
tools,
and dictionaries.
Sugita
is
probably
17
Discussed
by
Keene,
Japanese
Discovery
of
Europe,pp.
I56f.
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550
MARIUS B.
JANSEN
guilty
of
exaggeration
in his
Rangaku kotohajime,
but the
triumph
of his
tone and
the satisfaction
with which he
reviews
his
time--'When
I think
back,
it is almost
fifty years
since some of
us
old men set out to
foster this
learning'-conveys
something
of the zest for
discovery
that accom-
panied
the
decision
he
and
his
friends made to look
beyond
the
world of
Chinese
patterns
and
postulates.
For
many
that
decision
involved a
conscious abandonment of the
Chinese
thought
world.
In
his
1775
dialogue, Kyli
no
gen,
Sugita's
interlocutor
protests:
Korea
and
Ryfikyufi
re
not
China,
but at least
they
receivedthe
teachings
of
the
same
sages.
But
this
medical
learning you
teach comes from
countries on
the
northwest frontierof the
world,
9000
rifromChina. Their
language
is
different,
and they know nothing about the sages. They are the most distant of even the
barbarian
countries;
what
possible
good
can that
learning
do
us?
Sugita's
response
was
that China was
only
one
country,
and under
barbarian rule
at
that.'8
On the other
hand,
some scholars
managed
to retain an
affirmation of
Chinese values and
portrayed
their research as an extension
of
good
Confucian
practice
in
the
investigation
of
principles.
Western
strength
could
be
explained
as a
product
of the
progress
of butsuri
no
gaku.19 For
them a more
universal
investigation
of
principles, superior
to the
restrictions observed
in
the
past,
constituted
an
advance
in
learning
and
science. In either
case,
scholars were
transcending
traditional
limitations.
Whether one
thought
Westerners
good
or
evil,
friendly
or
dangerous,
their work deserved
attention. Even Sadanobu had said as
much;
'There
is
profit
to be derived
from them.' Medical
learning
was of
immediate
use and
application,
and
the
same was
true
of much else. It
was all an
extension
ofjitsugaku.
Coastal defense and
armament,
like
medicine,
were also forms ofjitsugaku. And clearly they were best studied when
subsidized
by government.
It was natural to
see
the
Western
advance
with
trepidation
and
fear. Even
so,
a
realistic
appraisal
of
Western
strength
operated
to
discourage
suicidal resistance
to that
advance and
to work for a
longer-range
response
to it.
Watanabe Kazan
pointed
out
that
Europe
was
poorly
placed,
and that its
principal
countries were
cold, remote,
and
poorly
endowed when
compared
with the
benign
climate
Japan enjoyed.
Nevertheless
they
had achieved
wealth
and
power through
the
application
of
knowledge
of the
principles
of
matter,
18
I
have
discussed this
in
Japan
and Its
World: Two
Centuriesof
Change
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
I980),
pp.
24-39.
'9
Sat6, YTgakushi,
p. 153,
with
reference to
(Watanabe)
Kazan.
Sh6zan,
as
Sat6
points
out,
held
even
more
tenaciously
to a
Chinese
cosmological
focus.
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'RANGAKU AND
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55I
which had
made
enormous
strides
in recent
times. To
argue
thatJapan
should take
that course was
by
no means to
admire the
West,
but it
was
more
rational. At points elements of universalism could also enter to
dilute
the
parochial
concern
for
country.
Kazan saw each
of
the
five
great
faiths
(Christianity,
Buddhism, Islam,
Judaism,
Confucianism)
as
having originated
in
Asia,
having
produced
its
sages
there,
and
equally
worthy
of
respect.
Under such
conditions the Sinic
tradition
could
never
loom as
large
again.20
As the
consciousness of
danger grew
steadily
in the
nineteenth
century,
scholarship
became less
individual,
less
free,
and
more
structured than
it had been in
Sugita's
days.
Yet
it
grew
astonishingly
in
amount. rYgakuprovided a form of self realization and social mobility
for
the able.
Sugita
Gempaku's
disciples
numbered
IO4,
and
they
were
from
thirty-eight
provinces.
The interlude of
relaxation
during
which
Siebold was
in
Nagasaki
found
him
lecturing
to
56
students.
During
that
stay
Siebold,
like
many Meiji
foreign
teachers,
had his
students
write
essays
in
Dutch about
Japan
as
the
basis for his
own
publications.
Thirty-nine
of these
survive.
He
himself drew
up
testimonial
'diplomas'
for
his students
certifying
to
their
proficiency
in
the
subjects
of his
instruction.
At the
time
of
the
crackdown
occasioned
by the discovery
that
he
had been
given
a
map,
23
of his
students were
taken into
custody.21
These numbers were
eclipsed
in
the famous Osaka
school of
Ogata
Koan
(1810-63)
which
opened
in
1838.
Extant
records
begin
in
I844
and
record a total of
637
students,
and it is
reasonable
to estimate
that
over one
thousand
pupils passed through
its
gates.
They
included
Omura
Masujir5,
Hashimoto
Sanai,
Mitsukuri
Shfihei,
and
of course
Fukuzawa
Yukichi,
whose
autobiographical
account of
his student
days
remains
a
classic
source.22
In short, there was a steady spread and diffusion of study and
knowledge
of the
West,
despite
the curbs of
fear and
force. That
diffusion
made for
ever
increasing
awareness of
the
utility
of
Western
science and
technology.
By
the
185os
Western
medical
training
was a
standard
part
of
medical
training.
It is
true
that more
and more of
this
scholarship
was
directed
toward
the
fields
of
medicine
and
defense. Neither
specialization
is
commonly
associated with
political
liberalism. But each
is
characterized
by
concern
for
practicality
and
efficiency.
Concern
for
defense
preparation
and
20
Discussed in
ibid.,
pp.
I59-60o.
21
Tsurumi,
Takano
Chiei,
p.
67.
22
Ban
Tadayasu,
Teki'uku
o
meguru
hitobito:
rangaku
no
nagare
(Osaka,
S6gensha,
1978),
p. 89.
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552
MARIUS B.
JANSEN
adequacy brought
with it
ideas about social
organization.
In
response
to
military technology,
samurai levies were
supplemented
with
non-
samurai units in
many
parts
of
Japan,
and in
the
Bakufu
military
reforms of the
I86os
changes
were set
in
motion that
would
have
changed
political
relationships
drastically
if
they
had
been allowed
to
continue,
even if
there had not been a
political
overturn.23
The
distinction
between defense
specialization
and
modernization
which
is
implicit
in
arguments
that
rangaku
was abortive
because
it
was
deflected
into
government
service
seems
badly
mistaken.
It
is
useful, however,
to
note
Sat5
Shasuke's distinction
between
Western
learning 'specialists'
and
'enthusiasts,'
or
yogakusha
and
yagakukei. The former supplied, the latter consumed; yogaku became
relevant to
political problems
when
people
like
Watanabe
Kazan,
Sakuma Shazan
and Yokoi
Sh6nan
worked it
into their
framework
of
political thought.
The
differing degree
of
rationality
and
realism
contained
in
the
responses
of
Watanabe Kazan
and of
Takano
Ch5ei,
who
translated for
him,
with
regard
to the
Morrison
ncident
is
notable,
and
provides
a
useful
warning
against confusing
scholar
specialists
with
socio-political generalists.24
An
interplay
between official and
private,
and reform
and
reinforce-
ment of
government,
can be seen in case after case in mid-nineteenth-
century
Japan.
Fukuzawa Yukichi
began
in
government
service and
ended a
private
individual.
His
education in
rangaku
began
in
the
Ogata
academy.
Upon
his arrival in
the
newly
opened
port
he
discovered that
he
had learned
the
wrong
language.
In answer
to Omura
Masujir5's
argument
that
the Dutch
translated
everything,
Fukuzawa
replied,
'that's one side
of the
argument.
But do
you
think
the
Dutch will
translate
everything?
The
other
day
I went
to
Yokohama
and
what
happened? I couldn't speak with the foreigners or read the signs of the
shops
at all.
Dutch
alone is not
enough.
English
is
going
to be
necessary.'25
The
voyage
to the
United States
with
the
i860
mission
surely
closed
the
argument
for
Fukuzawa.
Practical
experience,
and a
second
trip,
produced
the material
that
gave
Japan
in
SeiyJ-jfio,
the
fullest
and
friendliest
account
of the
West
yet
available.
But
Fukuzawa
23
Conrad
Totman,
The
Collapse
of the
Tokugawa
Bakufu,
1862-1868
(Honolulu:
University
of
Hawaii
Press,
I980),
describes
these reforms.
24
Sat6,
YTgakushi,p.
166.
25
Autobiography
ofFukuzawa
Yukichi tr. Eiichi Kiyooka) (Tokyo, Hokuseido, 1948), p.
Io9.
Clara's
Diary,
however,
leaves
room for
doubt about
his
ability
to
'speak
with
foreigners'
in
1879:
'Mr
Fukuzawa has a
comical
way
of
speaking, using
English
and
Japanese
in
the
utmost
confusion
....
For
example,
speaking
of
the
Governor: "Mr.
Kuriyama
is
hont5
ni
kind
man,
keredomo
he is
tais6
busy
kono
setsu,
yes?"'
p.
221.
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'RANGAKU'
AND WESTERNIZATION
553
was also in
Bakufu
employ,
alarmed
by
the violence of
anti-government
jii
sentiment,
and
wrote a memorandum
advocating
Bakufu reliance on
French
help against
its internal enemies. His
Meiji
career as
private
educator and
his criticism of
Bakufu retainers like Katsu and Enomoto
who entered service for the new
government,
show that that
advocacy
of
'modern' individualism was reinforced
by lingering
'feudal'
loyalty.
Nishi
Amane's
path
was different. His orientation
began
with Sorai
philosophy,
to
which was
added
an
overlay
of Chu
Hsi
Confucianism.
There followed medical and Dutch
training, including study
with
Sugita
Seikei,
before he
gave
up
his fief commission and
entered Bakufu
employ. Study
of
English began
in
I856,
and a
stay
at Leiden came in
1862.
Nishi's last assignment under the Bakufu was to draw up a sort of
constitution for
the
last
shogun.
Temporary despair
at what seemed the
victory
of
anti-foreign
elements
in
the Restoration
change
was resolved
by employment
for the new
regime,
in which he became an
organization
man for
Yamagata
Aritomo.
Rangaku
thus
served
as a
bridge
between the world
of
Tokugawa
and
Meiji thought
and action.
Though
its
products
were less
important
than
that
passage, they
served to
prepare
the
travellers for access
to,
and
utilization
of,
the
range
of
choices on the farther
shore,
and once
the
shore was reached the
bridge
was
expendable. Study
of Dutch
gave way
to that of
English,
French,
and German.
Even before Nishi and Tsuda
had reached
Leiden
in
I862,
Matsuki
Koan (Terajima Munenori)
showed what the future would
bring
in a
letter
designed
to
keep
them
from
going.
Holland,
he had
discovered,
was a
pleasant
but
rather
unimportant
little
country
whose citizens
preferred
to read their
books
in
French and German.
'I
must
honestly say
that
the
country
is so small
and
insignificant
as to startle
one,'
he
wrote,
'In all
things
Holland,
when compared with England, France, and Germany, is about one
hundredth of what
they
are.'26
A
century
after
Sugita Gempaku
and his
friends had
struggled
to understand the Dutch of
Tafel
Anatomia,
Netherlands
diplomats
were
communicating
with the
Meiji government
in
English. Rangaku
was a
thing
of the
past.
26
Quoted
from Ihi
nyuk5
roku
(Tokyo:
Nihon
Shiseki
Ky6kai,
193 I, I, pp. 244-50)
in
Jansen,
'New
Materials,'
p. 596.