著者

西川 治

出版者

The Association of Japanese Geographers

雑誌

地理学評論 Ser. A (ISSN:00167444)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.62, no.11, pp.765-775, 1989

被引用文献数

1

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It is the purpose of the present address to focus on the enlightening role of geography in the several decades preceding to the French Revolution, to caution ourselves against some faults which many geographers tend to have, to propose several global projects with which geographers in very diversified fields should deal in close cooperation, and finally to suggest the necessity of integrating the many branches of geography into a new system of "Ecumenology" that would include the discipline of Geopacifics.<br> At the beginning of this year the long continued Showa period came to an end in Japan and the new era of "Heisei" started; coincidentally, this year is the two hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution.<br> The historical meaning of the Revolution and its profound effects on the modernization of societies are being discussed and reconsidered by various scholars also in Japan. As a geographer I feel it necessary to awaken them an interest in the role of geography at the time of the Enlightenment. As I am, however, not a specialist in this subject, I must confine myself to the mention of two relevant articles: "Voltaire und die Geographie im Zeitalter der Aufklärung" (Weinert, 1949), and "Die Geographie in der "Encyclopédie" (Dörflinger, 1976). In addition, however, I would like to give some information on the similar effect of geography on the thought and attitude of edified leaders in the Edo period. After the middle of the 16th Century world maps and other geographic materials were brought bit by bit into Japan, from Europe directly or through China. Because the country was kept strictly in seclusion during most of the Edo period, educated people desired eagerly to acquire new information about the world through the narrow window of the Dutch Trading House at Nagasaki. The information they were able to obtain resulted in a substantial change in the world view of the intellectuals and the identification of their country. European astronomy and geography became indispensable parts of culture along with traditional learning in Japanese classics, Confucianism and Buddism. They reformed their appraisal of their own country in the light of world maps and geographic descriptions, as I have written in several papers, guided by the excellent book "Geography in early modern Japan" (Tsujita, 1971).<br> I have not enough space to introduce such works; however, it is worth remarking that many enlightened scholars expressed their geopolitical opinions in various essays. For instance, such opinion leaders as NISHIKAWA Joken (1648-1724), HONDA Toshiaki (1743-1820) and SATO Nobuhiro (1769-1850) proved in comparison with foreign countries that Japan was a big and very fertile country and had enough potential to develop into a leading country if Japan could take advantage of the same trading benefits enjoyed by European countries. It is also interesting to recall such words as those of the prophetic writer HAYASHI Shihei (1738-1793): "Exceedingly important is geography ! Those officers engaged in the government who have no geographic knowledge are bound to fail both in times of war and of peace."<br> The second point of my address is to point out some unfavorable habits into which many geographers, especially younger ones, are liable to fall.<br> The first of them is the capricious character already criticized by Prof. W. Bunge (1973) as follows: "Instead of an accumulation of concepts, what we witness and endure in geography are purges... Environmentalism was decimated by quantification which in turn is threatened by the geography of the human condition. This is exceptionalism among the sciences."