Abstract
Results of our surveys and research show that most of the scholars of Rangaku (Dutch Studies) and Kokugaku (national studies) in the latter half of Japan's Edo era (1615-1868) gained an awareness of nature in Western science by compromise and fusion based on their traditional Japanese awareness of nature. It is clear that that process took a completely different course from that of receiving difficult and abstract concepts by high-velocity imitation to understand modern scientific theories such as thermal motion during the Meiji era (1868-1912). The points of similarity and points common in the everyday, experiential understanding of nature were recognized no matter whether that understanding was Eastern or Western and compromise and assimilation could be accepted on the basis of that understanding. However, there were logical inconsistencies for acceptance through compromise and assimilation of modern Western scientific concepts such as the theory of thermal motion and modern dynamics, which were based on an awareness totally different from the conventional awareness of nature that existed in Japan during the Edo era. Thus, it is logical that the only way to receive these in the Meiji era would be through wholesale imitation. We could say that in the Japanese thinking of the Meiji era, "imitation was the source of creativity." Therefore, there is major significance of the dialectical development of imitation and creativity from the Meiji era to the process of Japanese modernization.
