Rangaku and Westernization Author(s): Marius B. Jansen Reviewed work(s): Source: Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 18, No.

4, Special Issue: Edo Culture and Its Modern Legacy (1984), pp. 541-553 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/312333 . Accessed: 09/11/2011 03:54
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Modern Asian Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

Modern Asian Studies, i8, 4 (I984), PP.541-553. Printedin GreatBritain.

Rangaku and Westernization

MARIUS B. JANSEN PrincetonUniversity
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 rangakucontinue to be debated, and that debate greatly enriches our feel for Japanese society then and now. Rangakuwas 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 sakokuwas 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 Legitimization 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'sHistory of Japan (tr. J. G. Scheuchzer, Glasgow, 19o6), Vol. III, p. 336.

oo26-749X/84/o70o8-090205.oo

? 1984 Cambridge University Press.

541

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,Jfisetsugakiincreased 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 EuropeansKaempfer, 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 rangakuare 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 seventeenth 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.

'RANGAKU'

AND

WESTERNIZATION

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 kotohajimein 1815 he could observe that 'Today rangakuis 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 rangakuas 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 rangakuwere 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 who, with assistants, apprentices, and students interpreters (oppertolken) 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.

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 understandable 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 16 i 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 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 Thus for the entire i855. era had to work with borrowed or copied rangakusha pre-Perry 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 rangakumoved 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, Herinneringenuit Japan (Haarlem, 1853), PP. 71, 132, and 146, that the Dutch went in I802, 1806, and I8Io. s Yoshida, 'Shizuki', p. 201.

were writing ....

'RANGAKU'

AND

WESTERNIZATION

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 rangakuof 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 intensified 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 Phaetonstartled 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 18 I1. 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 Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. V.

546

MARIUS

B. JANSEN

Noel Chomel's Dictionnaire Oeconomique, an 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 ofrangakushain 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,' HarvardJournal of Asiatic Studies:20, 3-4 (December I1957), p. 575"1 Quoted by Sat5 Shosuke, rTgakushi,p. 200, from Otsuki's rTgakushinempy5.Iwasaki 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 AmericanGirl in Meiji Japan (Tokyo, Kodansha, I979), passim.

'RANGAKU'

AND

WESTERNIZATION

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 rangakuand 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 interpre13 Quoted in Numata Jir6, BakumatsuyJgaku shi (Tokyo, T6ei Shoten, 1952), PP. 198-9. For the holdings, List of Foreign Books Collectedunderthe ShogunateRegime (Tokyo, Nichiran Shiry6 Kenkyfikai, I957), p. 96. 14 Thomas R. Havens, Nishi Amaneand ModernJapanese 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).

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 encouraged 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 interpretation.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 'modernism' 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.

'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 (muninenuchiharairei). The rangakushawere 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. Rangakucould 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 rangakushaproduced 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, particularly 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, rangakubrought 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.

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 accompanied 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 are not China, but at least they received the teachings of the same sages. But this medical learning you teach comes from countries on the northwestfrontierof the world, 9000 ri from China. 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.

'RANGAKU

AND

WESTERNIZATION

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'ukuo meguruhitobito: rangakuno nagare (Osaka, S6gensha, 1978), p. 89.

552

MARIUS

B. JANSEN

adequacy brought with it ideas about social organization. In response to military technology, samurai levies were supplemented with nonsamurai 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 rangakuwas 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 Morrisonincident 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 reinforcement of government, can be seen in case after case in mid-nineteenthcentury Japan. Fukuzawa Yukichi began in government service and ended a private individual. His education in rangakubegan 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 Yukichi(tr. Eiichi Kiyooka) (Tokyo, Hokuseido, 1948), p. ofFukuzawa 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. he is tais6 busy kono setsu, yes?"' p. 221. Kuriyama is hont5 ni kind man, keredomo

'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. Rangakuthus 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 nyuk5roku (Tokyo: Nihon Shiseki Ky6kai, 193 I, I, pp. Jansen, 'New Materials,' p. 596.
244-50)

in