The Religion of the West versus the Science of the West: The Evolution Controversy in Late Nineteenth Century Japan

Abstract

1859, the year when the first Protestant missionaries arrived in Japan, was also the year in which Darwin’s Origin of Species was first published in Britain. By the mid-1870s, when the first groups of Protestant converts were appearing in Japan, Darwin’s theory of evolution had become the focus of an anguished and sometimes heated debate over the relationship between Christianity and science in both Europe and the United States. While some prominent Christian scientists and theologians had accepted the theory either in the original form or with modifications, others had rejected it. Journalistic reporting of the debate, including the activities of that ardent pro-Darwinist Thomas Huxley, had encouraged the idea of an eternal war between the forces of enlightened — or blasphemous — science, and those of reactionary — or revealed — religion.’ The purpose of this chapter is to examine how this mythic controversy developed when it reached Meiji Japan, and in particular to look at its effect on Japanese Protestants.