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The Penetration of the Copernican Theory into Feudal Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Bolesław Szcześniak
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Extract

Western science began to penetrate to the Far East at the end of the sixteenth century, along with the Christian faith spread by Portuguese Jesuits.

Astrology was important in both China and Japan. It included not only a limited knowledge of astronomy, but some philosophy and logic. The advent of astronomical knowledge as understood in Europe was the beginning of a new kind of science, which did not affect the East's traditional view of the universe; although at first information from Europe about medicine, physics, and astronomy reached the Far East along with the doctrines of Christianity, as a means of attracting converts to what the Chinese termed a new philosophy of life. An early propagator of Western civilization in China was the Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1553–1610), who taught medicine and astrology together with the principles of Catholicism. Another Jesuit, Francis Xavier, advised his superiors to send a mission consisting not only of the devout but also of the cultured.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 76 , Issue 1-2 , April 1944 , pp. 52 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1944

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References

page 53 note 1 See Wakan-sansai-zue part “Ten”, Edo, 1706.

page 53 note 2 See also Szczesniak, B.: “Notes on the development of Astronomy in the Far East,” in Polish Learning and Science, 01, 1943Google Scholar.

page 54 note 1 See editio Amstelodami 1683, p. 413

page 54 note 2 See Smith and Mikami, p. 141, and Endo Dai-nihon-sugaku-shi, T. (History of Japanese Mathematics), Tokyo, 1896, chap, xviii, p. 18Google Scholar. For the study of the influence of Dutch books on mathematical science in Japan, see Cpt. Boxer, C. R. T., Jan. Companie in Japan 1600–1817, pp. xiv–xv, Hague, 1936Google Scholar.

page 55 note 1 How the Japanese used the Dutch Books Imported from Holland (in the Nieuw. Arch, voor Wiskunde, vol. vii, 1905–1906, Amsterdam)Google Scholar. See also Harzer, P., Die exacten Wissenschaflen in alien Japan (Jahresberioht der deautsohen Mathematiker, Vereinigung Bd. 14, heft 6, 905); also Mikami, Y., Zur Frage abendlandischer Einflusse auf die japanische Mathematik am Ende des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts, Bibliotheca Mathematica, Bd. vii, 3, heft 4.

page 55 note 2 See Boxer, , Jan. Compagnie, p. 53: Yoshimune may have acquired this taste from the celebrated Arai Hakuseki who displayed some interest in European astronomy and other sciences, as a result of his examination of Fr. Sidotti thereonGoogle Scholar.

page 56 note 1 First French ed., Paris, 1711.

page 57 note 1 See Smith, D. E., and Mikami, Y., History of Japanese Mathematics, p. 154 (Chicago, 1914)Google Scholar.

page 58 note 1 Vide DrAyamo, Kuwaki, “Western Sciences in the later Tokugawa Period,” p. 51, in Cultural Nippon, vol. ix, No. 2. 1941Google Scholar.