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Herbert Spencer in Early Meiji Japan1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Michio Nagai
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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.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , November 1954 , pp. 55 - 64
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) 34–40.Google Scholar

4 Hofstadter, Richard, Social Darwinism in American Thought, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1944), 30–36.Google Scholar

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

6 George, Henry, A Perplexed Philosopher, (New York: Charles L. Webster and Co., 1892) 164.Google Scholar

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.

8 Barker, Ernest, Political Thought in England, (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1915) 85–132.Google Scholar

9 Shimizu, , op. cit., 41–58.Google Scholar

10 Duncan, David, Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer, (London: Williams & Norgate, 1911) 319.Google Scholar

11 Ibid.

12 Ike, Nobutaka, The Beginnings of Political Democracy in Japan, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1950) 43.Google Scholar

13 Gorō, Hani, Meiji isbin (The Meiji Restoration), (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1946) 161–162Google Scholar. The quotation is from “The Declaration of the People for the Proposal of the Establishment of a Diet.”

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

16 Shimoide, , op. cit., 58.Google Scholar

17 Ike, op. cit., 103–104.Google Scholar

18 Tadashi, Fukutake, Shakaigaku no gendaiteki kadai (Contemporary problems of sociology), (Tokyo: Nihon Hyōron Sha, 1948) Chapter VIGoogle Scholar. Also see Research in Japanese Social Relations, Interim Technical Report No. 3, “The Japanese Labor Boss System,” (I. Ishino and J. W. Bennett), Ohio State University, 1952.Google Scholar

19 Hiroyuki, Katō, Hiroyuki jiden (The Autobiography of Hiroyuki) (Tokyo: The Committee for Prof. H. Katō's 80th Birthday Celebration, 1915) 47.Google Scholar

20 This preface was written in a poetic style which won considerable public approval. Quoted in Shimoide, , op. cit., 363–364.Google Scholar

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

22 Spencer, Herbert, The Principles of Sociology (third edition), (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1925) 605–610.Google Scholar

23 Ariga, , op. cit., 3 (revised edition, 1885) 281–282.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., 383–384.

25 Hiroyuki, Katō, Dōtoku hōritsu shinka no ri (The theory of evolution of morals and laws), (Tokyo: Hakubunkan, 1900) 226.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., 229.

27 Dewey, John, Human Nature and Conduct, An Introduction to Social Psychology, (New York: The Modern Library, 1930) 297–298.Google Scholar

28 Emil, and Lederer, Emy, Japan in Transition, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938) 184.Google Scholar