Aware that I am laying myself open to the charge of wild generalization, I would venture to say that people can be divided into two types: those that collect things and those who do not. Needless to say, I belong to the former category. That is why I cannot understand the feelings of people who do not form attachments to things, who throw them away without a second thought. Perhaps they think, "we're living in an age where there's too much of everything, so let's throw away as much as we can." Swept along by this tide, society has long been driven by aimless consumption. But I wonder if there might somewhere be an "anti-throwing away" movement that swims against the tide, declaring that collecting is the natural duty of al|human beings.

Those who subscribe to my opinion will immediately understand how irksome the following questions are to those who like collecting: "You say you're a collector, but what exactly do you collect ?"or "What on earth is the point of collecting things ?" These are the kind of questions we collectors tend to get asked. They stem from the general conviction that there must be a proper reason for collecting. In fact, most people are enslaved by the utilitarian or economic mindset that assumes that all human behavior must have a purpose, but this wrong-headed view causes considerable pain to the collector. Collecting is a natural disposition that some of us acquire from childhood: it has no particular aim and no underlying reason or common sense.

Somewhere deep in the psychology of the collector is the feeling that his imagined universe is the whole world and a consequent lack of concern about what other people do or think. Pablo Picasso, who throughout his life showed no interest in the work of others, would pick up strange objects he came across, such as splinters of wood or pebbles, and put them in his pocket. Later he often incorporated these objects in brilliant collages, but we should not assume that he collected them for this purpose. Such an interest in or attachment to things cannot be explained by half-baked logic or necessity.

Sometimes we come across things purely by chance, take a liking to them and then start wanting other things. Collecting naturally becomes a habit, but this is not enough to label it as a "collecting mania. "For it to develop into a mania, one must have the capacity to imagine a whole world containing all the collected objects, whether they be stamps, insects or clocks, organized in order and by example. This may be characterized as an ability to take in a bird's eye view of the unlimited expansion of the objects that can be collected. Of course, this ability cannot be acquired overnight and requires, above all, profound and extensive knowledge. The collector must be fully acquainted with the depth and breadth of his chosen field, know precisely where the deficiencies in his collection lie, and strive to surmount them. The perfect world is realized when all the objects that can be collected are within his grasp. The collector who recognizes that his very raison d'etre lies in his efforts to advance one step further towards this unattainable goal can be justifiably called a "collecting maniac".

For someone afflicted with this collecting mania, a museum is a very congenial environment. In a museum, we can enjoy our collecting habit to our heart's content without fear of censure. What is more,it does not seem at all unreasonable, even from the perspective of "common sense" for a museum to contain things that could elsewhere only be viewed as garbage.

In this environment, everyone seems to agree that collecting has deep significance and no-one will think of asking why. To this and any other question about the purpose of collecting, one can simply reply "because it's a museum" and that would be the end of it. The vague image of a museum as a huge repository containing everything has happily taken root among the general public, and it will not do to make fun of it on the grounds that it "does not reflect reality." indeed, this "amateurish" approach -the archaic image of the 　

museum as a "microcosmos" - is how it was originally conceived, and its disappearance is one of the reasons why museums have ceased to function effectively both from the social and academic view points.

The museum began as a "receptacle" to contain the chaoic harvest that arose from the combination of wealth and the collecting habit. First of all, objects were collected. Then 'they were arranged appropriate place, for which purpose a system of storage was conceived. Finally, a comprehensive explanation, or cosmographia was constructed in order to give meaning to the microcosmic world thus created. Transforming chaos into cosmos, the museum was a space that presented this cosmographia through the exhibition of its collection of objects. It is only since early modern times that museum collections has come to be carefully chosen in accordance with modern value systems and theories of classification. This transition is apparent in the differences between the Etimologiae written by the medieval Latin church father, Saint Isidore of Seville, and De reliqujs animalibus by Ulisse Aldrovandi. While the former conprehensively recorded the whole of creation from a Christian standpoint, the latter divided the animal animal kingdom into indects, fish, reptiles, quadrupeds etc., attempting to classify them in terms of systems and categories. Today we view this latter approach, the exclusion of the "odd man out," as being more scientific and affirm its "modernity."

Whether they are defined in terms of groups or categories, scholars have since modern times become increasingly intolerant of objects that cannot be included in their system of classification, i.e. the "marginalia" whose existence was so vital in the middle ages. This specialization of knowledge and technology gained momentum from period to period until even the museum, which had been the womb of sciece since ancient times, underwent the specialization of collections into nature, history, ethnology, art and so on. This trend accelerated further in the twentieth century. At museums specializing in art, for example, collections were divided according to regions, periods, "isms," and artists. Today such specialization is so popular that one rarely sees a museum that can be described as "comprehensive" or "general." lt has thus become very diff1cult for the museum to function as a receptacle connotingthe world as a whole, and the imagination essential for the creation of a collection is in palpable decline. Of course, this problem is not confined to museums: the same environment surrounds academic research. At universities, the specialization of knowledge has progressed so far that it has become all but impossible to view the whole world from a comprehensive perspective. Indeed, even the theories that should underpin such an argument are on the verge of disintegration. This elimination of objects that cannot be of immediate assistance demonstrates that the modern intellect has lost the broadmindedness that tolerates things in their current state and the wide perspective of viewing the world as a whole.

This is also very apparent in the attitude of academic specialists towards research materials. Why do they collect them and what do they collect ?Their answer to these questions certainly sounds very impressive:because they have scientific significance. They will tell you, for example, that a huge collection is necessary to systematically explain the origin of a certain species by assembling, identifying, recording and classifying the relevant animal or plant specimens. Perhaps so, but of course this is how a naturalist working on the classification of species would justify it. Researchers who claim to be doing advanced research would also stress the need for research materials, citing the examples of biotechnology or genetics, which are developing far beyond the boundaries of classical empirical research.At any rate,all academic specialists would undoubtedly agree that specimens and research materials are collected for specific research objectives and for no other reason.ln other words, this purposiveness in the name of science has become the raison d'etre of collection.

This characteristic argument of scientists may sound convincing, but is it really so? Doesn't it in effect remove the right to adopt an open-minded viewpoint, to view a certain object freely from various angles? When a rank amateur like me looks at a medical specimen or a part of an animal or plant, I am interested not so much in its identity as in the shape or constitution of the thing itself. In this respect, the eagle-eyed Picasso was no different. Before thinking to ask what an object actually was, he no doubt observed its shape and judged its quality. Of course there is nothing better than specialized knowledge and erudition, since they enhance the joy of becoming familiar with and coming in contact with things. Unfortunately, however, academic specialization gives rise to a narrow perspective, which prevents the specialist from appreciating all but a few of an object's many intrinsic merits. This foolish contradiction is quite likely to occur,and indeed such misgivings are now turning into reality.

This is especially the case in spheres where everything is reduced to data. The intellectualist approach of reading the label before looking at the specimen has become habitual among many researchers. But how would an amateur look at a dusty old specimen in the storage room of a museum? One can imagine him being lost for words at first, but after taking a deep breath he might have an intuitive feeling about the object as a whole from that decide whether he likes it or not. Of course, not a few people might be turned off just by its dirtiness. In other words, we look at things in various ways and are therefore capable of viewing a specimen from various angles and criteria. Even if we happen to have specialist knowledge, it is just one of these various perspectives and nothing more. The opinion that the academic perspective is superior to the spontaneous viewpoint of the amateur ismerely the specialist's arrogance. That being the case, isn't the "academic" approach quite suspicious and limited ? Surely we must look at things freely and give full play to our broadmindedness and generosity of spirit. The specialists who brandish their academic expertise often only see things with one eye and tend to forget the pleasures of looking at the world with both eyes.

I once wrote about the "splendid garbage" on the campus of the University of Tokyo that can be seen hardly anywhere else and reveals the past, present and future of the academic world. I was referring to the furniture and equipment such as old desks, chairs and specimen racks that are unhesitating|y thrown away just because there is no place to put them. Abandoned together with these are teaching materials,samples and other materials used at the university for education and research. For the same reason, equipment used in experiments and pilot models are simply labeled "useless" and added to the mountains of garbage, which sometimes even contain scientific specimens, all abandoned because they no longer serve any research or reference purpose. The complete absence of any data about the origin or history of these specimens, such as a label or a register, tells us that they are now viewed simply as useless garbage. But we must not make light of garbage, for it represents the products of an age, serves as an indicator of the environment, and reflects the way of life and thinking of those who throw it away. The garbage disgorged from university departments is a reflection of the education and research being conducted and the values of the people who work there. At the risk of exaggeration, I would describe the mountains of garbage on the university campus as a mirror of the current state of education and research.

The argument as to what constitutes garbage is ready a debate about values. People apply different yardsticks when evaluating things. While one fellow might consider a piece of "garbage" splendid, another would immediately throw it away. This is not a matter of one being right and the other wrong. It springs from the different ways in which we look at things. As someone who has long worked in the humanities, particularly in the field of history, I find it hard to accept the attitude of scientific researchers who only consider specimens significant if they furnish a "meaningful" data. We might consider, for instance, what kind of evidence academic fields that deal with history take into account. How many of physical products of human history can be identified with real precision in terms of their period and origins ? Even if the data have been lost, these objects clearly provide clues about the way of life, thinking and techniques of people in a certain period. This "academic waste" in fact provide us with vital information concerning the specialist knowledge, industrial techniques, and human sensibilities of the people who produced or collected them. Consigning things to the academic waste-basket simply because they are anonymous or obscure cannot and should not be done. The "academic logic" that seeks to dispose of historical legacies as useless objects is turning places of learning and research into monotonous and featureless spaces.

ln fact, the dominant intellectual attitude prior to modern times was the exact opposite of this scholarship-based purposiveness. The Wunderkammer that were all the rage among the princes and aristocrats of Europe from the sixteenth century were a completely different world from theories of purposiveness in the modern sense. This architecturally enclosed space was a microcosmos that was surprisingly inclusive of all aspects of the outside world. It contained erything almost everything you could think of, from outstanding works of ancient art to rare natural objects and fake items of dubious origin. Even the dirt and dust that had accumulated on these objects through the ages was viewed as an essential element of their constitueionF The thoroughness and broardmindedness of this all-inclusive approach determined the value of the collection as a whole. This type of "receptacle" was so multi-dimentional in its elements, so comprehensive in its methods and so diverse in its meanings that there was no more abundant source of riches or knowledge. The Wunderkammer of Emperor Rudolf ll of Bohernia, for example, was built on the basis of the pseudo-sciences of kabballst mysticism and alchemy to display the Emperor's wealth and power. It was literally a microcosmos of the whole universe, whose private ownership served as a metaphor for the Emperor's domination of the whole world. Similarly, the Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher, realized a Wunderkammerin the form of a book, which was taken as proof that the author had the imagination and insight to comprehend the whole universe and the divine providence underlying its creation.

Modern science is guilty of consigning the microcosmos and the microcosmographia providing its theoretical support to the garbage heap of history. One of the pioneers of this process was the eighteenth-century Swedish botanist and physician Carl von Linne. Linne cerated a claassification system whereby any unknown species that was discovered could be classified accrding to predetermined order. This system came to be seen as a universal method that recognized and put in order everything under the sun. This was followed by the great French Encyclopedie, the monumental work of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment spirit. Under the direction of Diderot, its aim was to compile all the knowlege scattered throughout the world and provied a "schetch map" of this knowledge. It Exhaustively recorded every item of scholarly learning and artisanic skill acquired by mankind according to a classification system first adovocated by Francis Bacon. The expansive illustrations that served to realize this objective were carefully designed to guide the reader's eye from the whole to the parts. This systematic method of grasping the world widely took root with the advent of modern society and a clear barrier was raised between the wonders of nature and the phenomena of culture, a division that has continued unabated in the field of academic research to the present day. Believing in the absolute certainty of science, modern man has put too much faith in its efficacy and, in the process, lost something irreplaceable. We have forgotten how to express the whole world symbolical|y and allegorically as a microcosmos.

Perhaps the only person who can fill this gap is the artist. Since science is obliged to be logical and empirical, it is quite restricted as a form of intellectual activity. In this respect art is free. Unlike science, is not obliged to seek the truth, nor is it compelled to tell it. In Occident, artists attempting to go beyond the boundaries of science have begun to attract attention in recent years. These artists focus on the spaces of the museum and the research laboratory themselves, and on the old scientific specimens kept in them. This interest of contemporary artists in the possibilities of utilizing such scientific legacies is quite understandable.For them,these objects are the rare " ready-mades"left just as they are within modern society, providing excellent materials for the creation of installations. What is more, scientific specimens are rich in variety and interesting to look at, and therefore serve better as visual stimuli than the artifacts familiar to viewers. Another distinctive feature of scientific specimens is that they have a record of identification. This historical and scientific identity has been established on the basis of universal concepts and is essentially open to any interpretation. lt is a very interesting paradox that artists have adopted the method of using such objects to express their world view. Through this encounter between the "fictional" narratology and "real" scientific specimens, a composite world of-fiction and reality should emerge.

Having witnessed at first hand the current world of academic research that, while brandishing its "specialized" and "scientific" assets, has lost its imagination and is heading down a blind alley, I have come to realize the value of the freedom to take a simple-minded interest in all things,regardless of whether they come under the headings of "art"or "science."