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Herbert Spencer in Early Meiji Japan1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

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Extract

Spencer has been called the most widely read and possibly the most in fluential Western social and political thinker in Japan during the 1880's. Between 1877 and 1900, at least thirty-two translations and one critical study of Spencer's works were published, besides many articles in journals and magazines. The writings of John Stuart Mill ranked next in popularity. Other Western thinkers—such as Rousseau, Montesquieu, Guizot, Haeckel, T. H. Huxley, Darwin, Bentham, and Bagehot—received much less public attention.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1954

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References

3 Hayakichi, Shimoide, Meiji shakai shisō kenkyū (Studies in Meiji social thought), (Tokyo: Asano Shoten, 1932) 3440.Google Scholar

4 Hofstadter, Richard, Social Darwinism in American Thought, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1944), 3036.Google Scholar

5 Quoted in Ghent, William, Our Benevolent Feudalism, (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1902) 29.Google Scholar

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7 This analysis is suggested by Shimizu Ikutarō, who contends that Spencerian social theory was interpreted during the early Meiji period in two contradictory ways: i.e., it was used by the liberals as a cardinal principle of the various liberal movements on the one hand, and by the conservatives as a theoretical justification of governmental control over those movements. See Shimizu, , Nihon bunka keitai ron (Patterns of Japanese culture), (Tokyo: Tōzai Bunko, 1934)Google Scholar, especially chapters I and II.

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14 Quoted in Shimoide, , op. cit., 46Google Scholar. Oishi' translation was published in 1883. In all about ten different translations of Representative Government were published.

15 Taisuke, Itagaki, Jiyūtō shi (History of the Liberal Party), (Tokyo: Gosharō, 1910) 621.Google Scholar

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20 This preface was written in a poetic style which won considerable public approval. Quoted in Shimoide, , op. cit., 363364.Google Scholar

21 Nagao, Ariga, Shakaigaku (Sociology) (Tokyo: Tōyōkan Shoten) 1 (revised edition, 1883) 491.Google Scholar

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24 Ibid., 383–384.

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26 Ibid., 229.

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