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MACMILLAN'S STANDARD LIBRARY 
 
JAPAN 
 
 AN ATTEMPT AT INTERPRETATION 
 
 BY 
 
 LAFCADIO HEARN 
 
 Honorary Member of the Japan Society, London ; formerly Lecturer in the 
 
 Imperial University of Tokyo (i8g6-ig<>3) , and Fourteen 
 
 Years a Resident of Japan 
 
 " Perhaps all very marked national 
 characters can be traced back to a 
 time of rigid and pervading disci- 
 pline." — Walter Bagehot. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
Copyright, 1904, 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1904. Reprinted 
 November, twice, 1904 , December twice, 1904; January, April, August, 
 October, 1905 ; February, 1906. 
 
 vl.lLlfJ 
 
 J. S. Cashing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co, 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGB 
 
 I. Difficulties i 
 
 II. Strangeness and Charm 7 
 
 III. The Ancient Cult 25 
 
 IV. The Religion of the Home 39 
 
 V. The Japanese Family 63 - 
 
 VI. The Communal Cult 91- 
 
 VII. Developments of Shinto 119 
 
 VIII. Worship and Purification 147 
 
 IX. The Rule of the Dead 173 
 
 X. The Introduction of Buddhism 201 
 
 XI. The Higher Buddhism 227 
 
 XII. The Social Organization 251- 
 
 XIII. The Rise of the Military Power .... 283 
 
 XIV. The Religion of Loyalty 309 
 
 XV. The Jesuit Peril 331 
 
 XVI. Feudal Integration 373 
 
 XVII. The Shinto Revival ....... 399 
 
 XVIII. Survivals 415 
 
 XIX. Modern Restraints 431 
 
 XX. Official Education 457 
 
 XXI. Industrial Danger 483 
 
 XXII. Reflections 499 
 
 Bibliographical Notes 527 
 
 Index 529 
 
 v 
 
Difficulties 
 
Difficulties 
 
 A THOUSAND books have been written 
 about Japan ; but among these, — setting 
 aside artistic publications and works of a 
 purely special character, — the really precious vol- 
 umes will be found to number scarcely a score. 
 This fact is due to the immense difficulty of per- 
 ceiving and comprehending what underlies the 
 surface of Japanese life. No work fully inter- 
 preting that life, — no work picturing Japan within 
 and without, historically and socially, psychologi- 
 cally and ethically, — can be written for at least 
 another fifty years. So vast and intricate the 
 subject that the united labour of a generation of 
 scholars could not exhaust it, and so difficult that 
 the number of scholars willing to devote their 
 time to it must always be small. Even among 
 the Japanese themselves, no scientific knowledge 
 of their own history is yet possible ; because the 
 means of obtaining that knowledge have not yet 
 been prepared, — though mountains of material 
 have been collected. The want of, any good his- 
 tory upon a modern plan is but one of many 
 discouraging wants. Data for the study of sociol- 
 
 3 
 
4 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 ogy are still inaccessible to the Western investi- 
 gator. The early state of the family and the 
 clan ; the history of the differentiation of classes ; 
 the history of the differentiation of political from 
 religious law; the history of restraints, and of 
 their influence upon custom ; the history of regu- 
 lative and cooperative conditions in the develop- 
 ment of industry ; the history of ethics and 
 jesthetics, — all these and many other matters 
 remain obscure. 
 
 This essay of mine can serve in one direction 
 only as a contribution to the Western knowledge 
 of Japan. But this direction is not one of the least 
 important. Hitherto the subject of Japanese re- 
 ligion has been written of chiefly by the sworn 
 enemies of that religion : by others it has been; 
 almost entirely ignored. Yet while it continues to 
 be ignored and misrepresented, no real knowledge 
 of Japan is possible. Any true comprehension of 
 social conditions requires more than a superficial 
 acquaintance with religious conditions. Even the 
 industrial history of a people cannot be understood 
 without some knowledge of those religious tradi- 
 tions and customs which regulate industrial life 
 during the earlier stages of its development. . . . 
 Or take the subject of art. Art in Japan is so 
 intimately associated with religion that any attempt 
 to study it without extensive knowledge of the 
 
DIFFICULTIES 5 
 
 beliefs which it reflects, were mere waste of time. 
 By art I do not mean only painting and sculpture, 
 but every kind of decoration, and most kinds of 
 pictorial representation, — the image on a boy's 
 kite or a girl's battledore, not less than the design 
 upon a lacquered casket or enamelled vase, — the 
 figures upon a workman's towel not less than the 
 pattern of the girdle of a princess, — the shape of 
 the paper-dog or the wooden rattle bought for a 
 baby, not less than the forms of those colossal 
 Ni-O who guard the gateways of Buddhist tem- 
 ples. . . . And surely there can never be any 
 just estimate made of Japanese literature, until a 
 study of that literature shall have been made by 
 some scholar, not only able to understand Japanese 
 beliefs, but able also to sympathize with them to 
 at least the same extent that our great humanists 
 can sympathize with the religion of Euripides, of 
 Pindar, and of Theocritus. Let us ask ourselves 
 how much of English or French or German or 
 Italian literature could be fully understood without 
 the slightest knowledge of the ancient and modern 
 religions of the Occident. I do not refer to dis- 
 tinctly religious creators, — to poets like Milton or 
 Dante, — but only to the fact that even one of 
 Shakespeare's plays must remain incomprehensible 
 to a person knowing nothing either of Christian 
 beliefs or of the beliefs which preceded them. The 
 real mastery of any European tongue is impossible 
 
6 DIFFICULTIES 
 
 without a knowledge of European religion. The 
 language of even the unlettered is full of religious 
 meaning : the proverbs and household-phrases of 
 the poor, the songs of the street, the speech of the 
 workshop, — all are infused with significations un- 
 imaginable by any one ignorant of the faith of the 
 people. Nobody knows this better than a man 
 who has passed many years in trying to teach Eng- 
 lish in Japan, to pupils whose faith is utterly unlike 
 our own, and whose ethics have been shaped by a 
 totally different social experience. 
 
Strangeness and Charm 
 
Strangeness and Charm 
 
 THE majority of the first impressions of Japan 
 recorded by travellers are pleasurable im- 
 pressions. Indeed, there must be some- 
 thing lacking, or something very harsh, in the 
 nature to which Japan can make no emotional 
 appeal. The appeal itself is the clue to a problem ; 
 and that problem is the character of a race and of 
 its civilization. 
 
 My own first impressions of Japan, — Japan as 
 seen in the white sunshine of a perfect spring day, 
 — had doubtless much in common with the average 
 of such experiences. I remember especially the won- 
 der and the delight of the vision. The wonder and 
 the delight have never passed away : they are often 
 revived for me even now, by some chance happen- 
 ing, after fourteen years of sojourn. But the reason 
 of these feelings was difficult to learn, — or at least 
 to guess ; for I cannot yet claim to know much 
 about Japan. . . . Long ago the best and dearest 
 Japanese friend I ever had said to me, a little before 
 his death : " When you find, in four or five years 
 more, that you cannot understand the Japanese at 
 
io STRANGENESS AND CHARM 
 
 all, then you will begin to know something about 
 them." After having realized the truth of my 
 friend's prediction, — after having discovered that 
 I cannot understand the Japanese at all, — 'I feel 
 better qualified to attempt this essay. 
 
 As first perceived, the outward strangeness of 
 things in Japan produces (in certain minds, at least) 
 a queer thrill impossible to describe, — a feeling of 
 weirdness which comes to us only with the percep- 
 tion of the totally unfamiliar. You find yourself 
 moving through queer small streets full of odd 
 small people, wearing robes and sandals of extraor- 
 dinary shapes ; and you can scarcely distinguish the 
 sexes at sight. The houses are constructed and 
 furnished in ways alien to all your experience ; and 
 you are astonished to find that you cannot conceive 
 the use or meaning of numberless things on display 
 in the shops. Food-stuffs of unimaginable deriva- 
 tion ; utensils of enigmatic forms ; emblems incom- 
 prehensible of some mysterious belief; strange 
 masks and toys that commemorate legends of gods 
 or demons ; odd figures, too, of the gods themselves, 
 with monstrous ears and smiling faces, — all these 
 you may perceive as you wander about ; though you 
 must also notice telegraph-poles and type-writers, 
 electric lamps and sewing machines. Everywhere 
 on signs and hangings, and on the backs of people 
 passing by, you will observe wonderful Chinese 
 
STRANGENESS AND CHARM n 
 
 characters ; and the wizardry of all these texts makes 
 the dominant tone of the spectacle. 
 
 Further acquaintance with this fantastic world will 
 in nowise diminish the sense of strangeness evoked 
 by the first vision of it. You will soon observe that 
 even the physical actions of the people are unfamiliar, 
 — that their work is done in ways the opposite of 
 Western ways. Tools are of surprising shapes, and 
 are handled after surprising methods : the black- 
 smith squats at his anvil, wielding a hammer such 
 as no Western smith could use without long prac- 
 tice ; the carpenter pulls, instead of pushing, his 
 extraordinary plane and saw. Always the left is the 
 right side, and the right side the wrong ; and keys 
 must be turned, to open or close a lock, in what we 
 are accustomed to think the wrong direction. Mr. 
 Percival Lowell has truthfully observed that the 
 Japanese speak backwards, read backwards, write 
 backwards, — and that this is " only the abc of their 
 contrariety." For the habit of writing backwards 
 there are obvious evolutional reasons ; and the re- 
 quirements of Japanese calligraphy sufficiently explain 
 why the artist pushes his brush or pencil instead of 
 pulling it. But why, instead of putting the thread 
 through the eye of the needle, should the Japanese 
 maiden slip the eye of the needle over the point of 
 the thread ? Perhaps the most remarkable, out of a 
 hundred possible examples of antipodal action, is 
 furnished by the Japanese art of fencing. The 
 
12 STRANGENESS AND CHARM 
 
 swordsman, delivering his blow with both hands, 
 does not pull the blade towards him in the moment 
 of striking, but pushes it from him. He uses it, 
 indeed, as other Asiatics do, not on the principle of 
 the wedge, but of the saw ; yet there is a pushing mo- 
 tion where we should expect a pulling motion in the 
 stroke. . . . These and other forms of unfamiliar 
 action are strange enough to suggest the notion of a 
 humanity even physically as little related to us as 
 might be the population of another planet, — the 
 notion of some anatomical unlikeness. No such 
 unlikeness, however, appears to exist ; and all this 
 oppositeness probably implies, not so much the out- 
 come of a human experience entirely independent 
 of Aryan experience, as the outcome of an experience 
 evolutionally younger than our own. 
 
 Yet that experience has been one of no mean 
 order. Its manifestations do not merely startle : 
 they also delight. The delicate perfection of work- 
 manship, the light strength and grace of objects, the 
 power manifest to obtain the best results with the 
 least material, the achieving of mechanical ends by 
 the simplest possible means, the comprehension of 
 irregularity as aesthetic value, the shapeliness and 
 perfect taste of everything, the sense displayed of 
 harmony in tints or colours, — all this must con- 
 vince you at once that our Occident has much to 
 learn from this remote civilization, not only in 
 matters of art and taste, but in matters likewise of 
 
STRANGENESS AND CHARM 13 
 
 economy and utility. It is no barbarian fancy that 
 appeals to you in those amazing porcelains, those 
 astonishing embroideries, those wonders of lacquer 
 and ivory and bronze, which educate imagination in 
 unfamiliar ways. No : these are the products of a 
 civilization which became, within its own limits, so 
 exquisite that none but an artist is capable of judg- 
 ing its manufactures, — a civilization that can be 
 termed imperfect only by those who would also term 
 imperfect the Greek civilization of three thousand 
 years ago. 
 
 But the underlying strangeness of this world, — 
 the psychological strangeness, — is much more start- 
 ling than the visible and superficial. You begin to 
 suspect the range of it after having discovered that 
 no adult Occidental can perfectly master the lan- 
 guage. East and West the fundamental parts of 
 human nature — the emotional bases of it — are 
 much the same : the mental difference between 
 a Japanese and a European child is mainly potential. 
 But with growth the difference rapidly develops and 
 widens, till it becomes, in adult life, inexpressible. 
 The whole of the Japanese mental superstructure 
 evolves into forms having nothing in common with 
 Western psychological development : the expression 
 of thought becomes regulated, and the expression 
 of emotion inhibited in ways that bewilder and 
 astound. The ideas of this people are not our 
 
i 4 STRANGENESS AND CHARM 
 
 ideas ; their sentiments are not our sentiments ; 
 their ethical life represents for us regions of thought 
 and emotion yet unexplored, or perhaps long for- 
 gotten. Any one of their ordinary phrases, trans- 
 lated into Western speech, niakes hopeless nonsense ; 
 and the literal rendering into Japanese of the sim- 
 plest English sentence would scarcely be compre- 
 hended by any Japanese who had never studied a 
 European tongue. Could you learn all the words 
 in a Japanese dictionary, your acquisition would not 
 help you in the least to make yourself understood 
 in speaking, unless you had learned also to think 
 like a Japanese, — that is to say, to think backwards, 
 to think upside-down and inside-out, to think in 
 directions totally foreign to Aryan habit. Experi- 
 ence in the acquisition of European languages can 
 help you to learn Japanese about as much as it 
 could help you to acquire the. language spoken by 
 the inhabitants of Mars. To be able to use the 
 Japanese tongue as a Japanese uses it, one would 
 need to be born again, and to have one's mind com- 
 pletely reconstructed, from the foundation upwards. 
 It is possible that a person of European parentage, 
 born in Japan, and accustomed from infancy to use 
 the vernacular, might retain in after-life that instinc- 
 tive knowledge which could alone enable him to 
 adapt his mental relations to the relations of any 
 Japanese environment. There is actually an Eng- 
 lishman named Black, born in Japan, whose profi- 
 
STRANGENESS AND CHARM 15 
 
 ciency in the language is proved by the fact that he 
 is able to earn a fair income as a professional story- 
 teller (hanashika). But this is an extraordinary case. 
 . . . As for the literary language, I need only ob- 
 serve that to make acquaintance with it requires very 
 much more than a knowledge of several thousand 
 Chinese characters. It is safe to say that no Occi- 
 dental can undertake to render at sight any literary 
 text laid before him — indeed the number of native 
 scholars able to do so is very small ; — and although 
 the learning displayed in this direction by various 
 Europeans may justly compel our admiration, the 
 work of none could have been given to the world 
 without Japanese help. 
 
 But as the outward strangeness of Japan proves 
 to be full of beauty, so the inward strangeness ap- 
 pears to have its charm, — an ethical charm reflected 
 in the common life of the people. The attractive 
 aspects of that life do not indeed imply, to the 
 ordinary observer, a psychological differentiation 
 measurable by scores of centuries : only a scientific 
 mind, like that of Mr. Percival Lowell, immediately 
 perceives the problem presented. The less gifted 
 stranger, if naturally sympathetic, is merely pleased 
 and puzzled, and tries to explain, by his own ex- 
 perience of happy life on the other side of the world, 
 the social conditions that charm him. Let us sup- 
 pose that he has the good fortune of being able to 
 
1 6 STRANGENESS AND CHARM 
 
 live for six months or a year in some old-fashioned 
 town of the interior. From the beginning of this 
 sojourn he can scarcely fail to be impressed by the 
 apparent kindliness and joyousness of the existence 
 about him. In the relations of the people to each 
 other, as well as in all their relations to himself, 
 he will find a constant amenity, a tact, a good-nature 
 such as he will elsewhere have met with only in the 
 friendship of exclusive circles. Everybody greets 
 everybody with happy looks and pleasant words ; 
 faces are always smiling ; the commonest incidents 
 of everyday life are transfigured by a courtesy at 
 once so artless and so faultless that it appears to 
 spring directly from the heart, without any teaching. 
 Under all circumstances a certain outward cheerful- 
 ness never fails : no matter what troubles may come, 
 — storm or fire, flood or earthquake, — the laughter 
 of greeting voices, the brigfit smile and graceful 
 bow, the kindly inquiry and the wish to please, con- 
 tinue to make existence beautiful. Religion brings 
 no gloom into this sunshine : before the Buddhas 
 and the gods folk smile as they pray ; the temple- 
 courts are playgrounds for the children ; and within 
 the enclosure of the great public shrines — which 
 are places of festivity rather than of solemnity — 
 dancing-platforms are erected. Family existence 
 would seem to be everywhere characterized by 
 gentleness : there is no visible quarrelling, no loud 
 harshness, no tears and reproaches. Cruelty, even 
 
STRANGENESS AND CHARM 17 
 
 to animals, appears to be unknown : one sees farmers, 
 coming to town, trudging patiently beside their 
 horses or oxen, aiding their dumb companions to 
 bear the burden, and using no whips or goads. 
 Drivers or pullers of carts will turn out of their way, 
 under the most provoking circumstances, rather than 
 overrun a lazy dog or a stupid chicken. . . . For 
 no inconsiderable time one may live in the midst of 
 appearances like these, and perceive nothing to spoil 
 the pleasure of the experience. 
 
 Of course the conditions of which I speak are 
 now passing away ; but they are still to be found in 
 the remoter districts. I have lived in districts 
 where no case of theft had occurred for hundreds of 
 years, — where the newly-built prisons of Meiji 
 remained empty and useless, — where the people 
 left their doors unfastened by night as well as by 
 day. These facts are familiar to every Japanese. 
 In such a district, you might recognize that the 
 kindness shown to you, as a stranger, is the conse- 
 quence of official command ; but how explain the 
 goodness of the people to each other ? When you 
 discover no harshness, no rudeness, no dishonesty, 
 no breaking of laws, and learn that this social con- 
 dition has been the same for centuries, you are 
 tempted to believe that you have entered into the 
 domain of a morally superior humanity. All this 
 soft urbanity, impeccable honesty, ingenuous kind- 
 liness of speech and act, you might naturally inter- 
 
1 8 STRANGENESS AND CHARM 
 
 pret as conduct directed by perfect goodness of 
 heart. And the simplicity that delights you is no 
 simplicity of barbarism. Here every one has been 
 taught ; every one knows how to write and speak 
 beautifully, how to compose poetry, how to behave 
 politely ; there is everywhere cleanliness and good 
 taste ; interiors are bright and pure ; the daily use 
 of the hot bath is universal. How refuse to be 
 charmed by a civilization in which every relation 
 appears to be governed by altruism, every action 
 directed by duty, and every object shaped by art ? 
 You cannot help being delighted by such conditions, 
 or feeling indignant at hearing them denounced as 
 " heathen." And according to the degree of altru- 
 ism within yourself, these good folk will be able, 
 without any apparent effort, to make you happy. 
 The mere sensation of the milieu is a placid happi- 
 ness : it ■ is like the sensation of a dream in which 
 people greet us exactly as we like to be greeted, and 
 say to us all that we like to hear, and do for us all 
 that we wish to have done, — people moving sound- 
 lessly through spaces of perfect repose, all bathed in 
 vapoury light. Yes — for no little time these fairy- 
 folk can give you all the soft bliss of sleep. But 
 sooner or later, if you dwell long with them, your 
 contentment will prove to have much in common 
 with the happiness of dreams. You will never for- 
 get the dream, — never ; but it will lift at last, like 
 those vapours of spring which lend preternatural 
 
STRANGENESS AND CHARM 19 
 
 loveliness to a Japanese landscape in the forenoon 
 of radiant days. Really you are happy because you 
 have entered bodily into Fairyland, — into a world 
 that is not, and never could be your own. You have 
 been transported out of your own century — over 
 spaces enormous of perished time — into an era for- 
 gotten, into a vanished age, — back to something an- 
 cient as Egypt or Nineveh. That is the secret of the 
 strangeness and beauty of things, — the secret of 
 the thrill they give, — the secret of the elfish charm 
 of the people and their ways. Fortunate mortal ! 
 the tide of Time has turned for you ! But remem- 
 ber that here all is enchantment, — that you have 
 fallen under the spell of the dead, — that the lights 
 and the colours and the voices must fade away at 
 last into emptiness and silence. 
 
 $ $ % $ * 
 
 Some of us, at least, have often wished that it 
 were possible to live for a season in the beautiful 
 vanished world of Greek culture. Inspired by our 
 first acquaintance with the charm of Greek art and 
 thought, this wish comes to us even before we are 
 capable of imagining the true conditions of the an- 
 tique civilization. If the wish could be realized, we 
 should certainly find it impossible to accommodate 
 ourselves to those conditions, — not so much be- 
 cause of the difficulty of learning the environment, 
 as because of the much greater difficulty of feeling 
 just as people used to feel some thirty centuries 
 
20 STRANGENESS AND CHARM 
 
 ago. In spite of all that has been done for Greek 
 studies since the Renaissance, we are still unable to 
 understand many aspects of the old Greek life : no 
 modern mind can really feel, for example, those 
 sentiments and emotions to which the great tragedy 
 of CEdipus made appeal. Nevertheless we are much 
 in advance of our forefathers of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, as regards the knowledge of Greek civilization. 
 In the time of the French revolution, it was thought 
 possible to reestablish in France the conditions of a 
 Greek republic, and to educate children according 
 to the system of Sparta. To-day we are well aware 
 that no mind developed by modern civilization 
 could find happiness under any of those socialistic 
 despotisms which existed in all the cities of the an- 
 cient world before the Roman conquest. We could 
 no more mingle with the old Greek life, if it were 
 resurrected for us, — no more become a part of it, 
 — than we could change our mental identities. But 
 how much would we not give for the delight of 
 beholding it, — for the joy of attending one festi- 
 val in Corinth, or of witnessing the Pan-Hellenic 
 games ? . . . 
 
 And yet, to witness the revival of some per- 
 ished Greek civilization, — to walk about the very 
 Crotona of Pythagoras, — to wander ' through the 
 Syracuse of Theocritus, — were not any more of 
 a privilege than is the opportunity actually afforded 
 us to study Japanese life. Indeed, from the evolu- 
 
STRANGENESS AND CHARM 21 
 
 tional point of view, it were less of a privilege, — 
 since Japan offers us the living spectacle of condi- 
 tions older, and psychologically much farther away 
 from us, than those of any Greek period with which 
 art and literature have made us closely acquainted. 
 
 The reader scarcely needs to be reminded that a 
 civilization less evolved than our own, and intel- 
 lectually remote from us, is not on that account to 
 be regarded as necessarily inferior in all respects. 
 Hellenic civilization at its best represented an early 
 stage of sociological evolution ; yet the arts which it 
 developed still furnish our supreme and unapproach- 
 able ideals of beauty. So, too, this much more ar- 
 chaic civilization of Old Japan attained an average 
 of aesthetic and moral culture well worthy of our 
 wonder and praise. Only a shallow mind — a very 
 shallow mind — will pronounce the best of that cul- 
 ture inferior. But Japanese civilization is peculiar 
 to a degree for which there is perhaps no Western 
 parallel, since it offers us the spectacle of many suc- 
 cessive layers of alien culture superimposed above 
 the simple indigenous basis, and forming a very 
 bewilderment of complexity. Most of this alien 
 culture is Chinese, and bears but an indirect relation 
 to the real subject of these studies. The peculiar 
 and surprising fact is that, in spite of all superim- 
 position, the original character of the people and 
 of their society should still remain recognizable. 
 
22 STRANGENESS AND CHARM 
 
 The wonder of Japan is not to be sought in the 
 countless borrowings with which she has clothed 
 herself, — much as a princess of the olden time 
 would don twelve ceremonial robes, of divers col- 
 ours and qualities, folded one upon the other so as 
 to show their many-tinted edges at throat and 
 sleeves and skirt; — no, the real wonder is the 
 Wearer. For the interest of the costume is much 
 less in its beauty of form and tint than in its signifi- 
 cance as idea, — as representing something of the 
 mind that devised or adopted it. And the supreme 
 interest of the old Japanese civilization lies in what 
 it expresses of the race-character, — that character 
 which yet remains essentially unchanged by all the 
 changes of Meiji. 
 
 " Suggests " were perhaps a better word than 
 " expresses," for this race-character is rather to be 
 divined than recognized. Our comprehension of 
 it might be helped by some definite knowledge of 
 origins ; but such knowledge we do not yet possess. 
 Ethnologists are agreed that the Japanese race has 
 been formed by a mingling of peoples, and that the 
 dominant element is Mongolian ; but this dominant 
 element is represented in two very different types, 
 — one slender and almost feminine of aspect ; the 
 other, squat and powerful. Chinese and Korean 
 elements are known to exist in the populations of 
 certain districts ; and there appears to have been 
 a large infusion of Aino blood. Whether there be 
 
STRANGENESS AND CHARM 23 
 
 any Malay or Polynesian element also has not been 
 decided. Thus much only can be safely affirmed, 
 — that the race, like all good races, is a mixed one ; 
 and that the peoples who originally united to form 
 it have been so blended together as to develop, 
 under long social discipline, a tolerably uniform type 
 of character. This character, though immediately 
 recognizable in some of its aspects, presents us with 
 many enigmas that are very difficult to explain. 
 
 Nevertheless, to understand it better has become 
 a matter of importance. Japan has entered into the 
 world's competitive struggle ; and the worth of any 
 people in that struggle depends upon character quite 
 as much as upon force. We can learn something 
 about Japanese character if we are able to ascertain 
 the nature of the conditions which shaped it, — the 
 great general facts of the moral experience of the 
 race. And these facts we should find expressed or 
 suggested in the history of the national beliefs, and 
 in the history of those social institutions derived 
 from and developed by religion. 
 
The Ancient Cult 
 
The Ancient Cult 
 
 THE real religion of Japan, the religion still 
 professed in one form or other, by the entire 
 nation, is that cult which has been the foun- 
 dation of all civilized religion, and of all civilized 
 society, — Ancestor-worship. In the course of thou- 
 sands of years this original cult has undergone modi- 
 fications, and has assumed various shapes ; but 
 everywhere in Japan its fundamental character re- 
 mains unchanged. Without including the different 
 Buddhist forms of ancestor-worship, we find three 
 distinct rites of purely Japanese origin, subsequently 
 modified to some degree by Chinese influence and 
 ceremonial. These Japanese forms of the cult are 
 all classed together under the name of "Shinto," 
 which signifies, " The Way of the Gods." It is 
 not an ancient term; and it was first adopted only 
 to distinguish the native religion, or " Way " from 
 the foreign religion of Buddhism called " Butsudo," 
 or " The Way of the Buddha." The three forms of 
 the ShintS worship of ancestors are the Domestic 
 Cult, the Communal Cult, and the State Cult; — 
 or, in other words, the worship of family an- 
 cestors, the worship of clan or tribal ancestors, 
 
 27 
 
28 THE ANCIENT CULT 
 
 and the worship of imperial ancestors. The first is 
 the religion of the home ; the second is the religion 
 of the local divinity, or tutelar god ; the third is the 
 national religion. There are various other forms of 
 Shint5 worship ; but they need not be considered 
 for the present. 
 
 Of the three forms of ancestor-worship above 
 mentioned, the family-cult is the first in evolutional 
 order, — the others being later developments. But, 
 in speaking of the family-cult as the oldest, I do 
 not mean the home-religion as it exists to-day; — 
 neither do I mean by " family " anything corre- 
 sponding to the term " household." The Japanese 
 family in early times meant very much more than 
 " household " : it might include a hundred or a 
 thousand households : it was something like the 
 Greek yo»os or the Roman gens, — the patriarchal 
 family in the largest sense of the term. In pre- 
 historic Japan the domestic cult of the house- 
 ancestor probably did not exist ; — the family-rites 
 would appear to have been performed only at the 
 burial-place. But the later domestic cult, having 
 been developed out of the primal family-rite, in- 
 directly represents the most ancient form of the 
 religion, and should therefore be considered first in 
 any study of Japanese social evolution. 
 
 The evolutional history of ancestor-worship has 
 been very much the same in all countries ; and that 
 
THE ANCIENT CULT 29 
 
 of the Japanese cult offers remarkable evidence in 
 support of Herbert Spencer's exposition of the law 
 of religious development. To comprehend this 
 general law, we must, however, go back to the 
 origin of religious beliefs. One should bear in 
 mind that, from a sociological point of view, it is no 
 more correct to speak of the existing ancestor-cult 
 in Japan as " primitive," than it would be to speak 
 of the domestic cult of the Athenians in the time 
 of Pericles as " primitive." No persistent form of 
 ancestor-worship is primitive ; and every established 
 domestic cult has been developed out of some irregu- 
 lar and non-domestic family-cult, which, again, must 
 have grown out of still more ancient funeral-rites. 
 
 Our knowledge of ancestor-worship, as regards 
 the early European civilizations, cannot be said to 
 extend to the primitive form of the cult. In the 
 case of the Greeks and the Romans, our knowledge 
 of the subject dates from a period at which a domes- 
 tic religion had long been established ; and we have 
 documentary evidence as to the character of that 
 religion. But of the earlier cult that must have 
 preceded the home-worship, we have little testi- 
 mony ; and we can surmise its nature only by study 
 of the natural history of ancestor-worship among 
 peoples not yet arrived at a state of civilization. 
 The true domestic cult begins with a settled civili- 
 zation. Now when the Japanese race first estab- 
 lished itself in Japan, it does not appear to have 
 
3 o THE ANCIENT CULT 
 
 brought with it any civilization of the kind which 
 we would call settled, nor any well-developed ances- 
 tor-cult. The cult certainly existed ; but its ceremo- 
 nies would seem to have been irregularly performed 
 at graves only. The domestic cult proper may not 
 have been established until about the eighth cen- 
 tury, when the spirit-tablet is supposed to have 
 been introduced from China. The earliest ancestor- 
 cult, as we shall presently see, was developed out 
 of the primitive funeral-rites and propitiatory cere- 
 monies. 
 
 The existing family religion is therefore a com- 
 paratively modern development ; but it is at least as 
 old as the true civilization of the country, and it 
 conserves beliefs and ideas which are indubitably 
 primitive, as well as ideas and beliefs derived from 
 these. Before treating further of the cult itself, it 
 will be necessary to consider some of these older 
 beliefs. 
 
 The earliest ancestor-worship, — " the root of all 
 religions," as Herbert Spencer calls it, — was prob- 
 ably coeval with the earliest definite belief in ghosts. 
 As soon as men were able to conceive the idea of a 
 shadowy inner self, or double, so soon, doubtless, 
 the propitiatory cult of spirits began. But this 
 earliest ghost-worship must have long preceded that 
 period of mental development in which men first 
 became capable of forming abstract ideas. The 
 
THE ANCIENT CULT 31 
 
 primitive ancestor-worshippers could not have formed 
 the notion of a supreme deity ; and all evidence ex- 
 isting as to the first forms of their worship tends to 
 show that there primarily existed no difference what- 
 ever between the conception of ghosts and the con- 
 ception of gods. There were, consequently, no 
 definite beliefs in any future state of reward or of 
 punishment, — no ideas of any heaven or hell. Even 
 the notion of a shadowy underworld, or Hades, was 
 of much later evolution. At first the dead were 
 thought of only as dwelling in the tombs provided 
 for them, — whence they could issue, from time to 
 time, to visit their former habitations, or to make 
 apparition in the dreams of the living. Their real 
 world was the place of burial, — the grave, the tumu- 
 lus. Afterwards there slowly developed the idea of 
 an underworld, connected in some mysterious way 
 with the place of sepulture. Only at a much later 
 time did this dim underworld of imagination expand 
 and divide into regions of ghostly bliss and woe. . . . 
 It is a noteworthy fact that Japanese mythology 
 never evolved the ideas of an Elysium or a Tartarus, 
 — never developed the notion of a heaven or a 
 hell. Even to this day Shinto belief represents the 
 pre-Homeric stage of imagination as regards the 
 supernatural. 
 
 Among the Indo-European races likewise there 
 appeared to have been at first no difference between 
 gods and ghosts, nor any ranking of gods as greater 
 
32 THE ANCIENT CULT 
 
 and lesser. These distinctions were gradually devel- 
 oped. " The spirits of the dead," says Mr. Spencer, 
 " forming, in a primitive tribe, an ideal group the 
 members of which are but little distinguished from 
 one another, will grow more and more distinguished ; 
 
 — and as societies advance, and as traditions, local 
 and general, accumulate and complicate, these once 
 similar human souls, acquiring in the popular mind 
 differences of character and importance, will diverge 
 
 — until their original community of nature becomes 
 scarcely recognizable." So in antique Europe, and 
 so in the Far East, were the greater gods of nations 
 evolved from ghost-cults ; but those ethics of ances- 
 tor-worship which shaped alike the earliest societies 
 of West and East, date from a period before the 
 time of the greater gods, — from the period when 
 all the dead were supposed to become gods, with 
 no distinction of rank. 
 
 No more than the primitive ancestor-worshippers 
 of Aryan race did the early Japanese think of their 
 dead as ascending to some extra-mundane region 
 of light and bliss, or as descending into some realm 
 of torment. They thought of their dead as still 
 inhabiting this world, or at least as maintaining with 
 it a constant communication. Their earliest sacred 
 records do, indeed, make mention of an underworld, 
 where mysterious Thunder-gods and evil goblins 
 dwelt in corruption ; but this vague world of the 
 dead communicated with the world of the living ; 
 
THE ANCIENT CULT 33 
 
 and the spirit there, though in some sort attached 
 to its decaying envelope, could still receive upon 
 earth the homage and the offerings of men. Be- 
 fore the advent of Buddhism, there was no idea of 
 a heaven or a hell. The ghosts of the departed 
 were thought of as constant presences, needing pro- 
 pitiation, and able in some way to share the pleasures 
 and the pains of the living. They required food 
 and drink and light ; and in return for these, they 
 could confer benefits. Their bodies had melted 
 into earth ; but their spirit-power still lingered in 
 the upper world, thrilled its substance, moved in 
 its winds and waters. By death they had ac- 
 quired mysterious force ; — they had become " su- 
 perior ones," Kami, gods. 
 
 That is to say, gods in the oldest Greek and 
 Roman sense. Be it observed that there were no 
 moral distinctions, East or West, in this deification. 
 "All the dead become gods," wrote the great 
 ShintS commentator, Hirata. So likewise, in the 
 thought of the early Greeks and even of the later 
 Romans, all the dead became gods. M. de Cou- 
 langes observes, in La Cit'e Antique : — " This kind 
 of apotheosis was not the privilege of the great 
 alone : no distinction was made. ... It was not 
 even necessary to have been a virtuous man : the 
 wicked man became a god as well as the good 
 man, — only that in this after-existence, he retained 
 the evil inclinations of his former life." Such also 
 
34 THE ANCIENT CULT 
 
 was the case in Shinto belief: the good man be- 
 came a beneficent divinity, the bad man an evil 
 deity, — but all alike became Kami. " And since 
 there are bad as well as good gods," wrote Motowori, 
 " it is necessary to propitiate them with offerings 
 of agreeable food, playing the harp, blowing the 
 flute, singing and dancing and whatever is likely 
 to put them in a good humour." The Latins 
 called the maleficent ghosts of the dead, Larvae, 
 and called the beneficent or harmless ghosts, Lares, 
 or Manes, or Genii, according to Apuleius. But 
 all alike were gods, — dii-manes ; and Cicero ad- 
 monished his readers to render to all dii-manes the 
 rightful worship : " They are men," he declared,. 
 " who have departed from this life ; — consider 
 them divine beings. . . ." 
 
 In Shint5, as in old Greek belief, to die was to 
 enter into the possession of superhuman power, — 
 to become capable of conferring benefit or of inflict- 
 ing misfortune by supernatural means. . . . But 
 yesterday, such or such a man was a common toiler, 
 a person of no importance; — to-day, being dead, 
 he becomes a divine power, and his children pray 
 to him for the prosperity of their undertakings. 
 Thus also we find the personages of Greek tragedy, 
 such as Alcestis, suddenly transformed into divini- 
 ties by death, and addressed in the language of wor- 
 ship or prayer. But, in despite of their supernatural 
 
THE ANCIENT CULT 35 
 
 power, the dead are still dependent upon the living 
 for happiness. Though viewless, save in dreams, they 
 need earthly nourishment and homage, — food and 
 drink, and the reverence of their descendants. Each 
 ghost must rely for such comfort upon its living kin- 
 dred; — only through the devotion of that kindred 
 can it ever find repose. Each ghost must have shel- 
 ter, — a fitting tomb ; — each must have offerings. 
 While honourably sheltered and properly nourished 
 the spirit is pleased, and will aid in maintaining the 
 good-fortune of its propitiators. But if refused the 
 sepulchral home, the funeral rites, the offerings of 
 food and fire and drink, the spirit will suffer from 
 hunger and cold and thirst, and, becoming angered, 
 will act malevolently and contrive misfortune for 
 those by whom it has been neglected. . . . Such 
 were the ideas of the old Greeks regarding the dead ; 
 and such were the ideas of the old Japanese. 
 
 Although the religion of ghosts was once the 
 rehVion of our own forefathers — whether of North- 
 ern or Southern Europe, — and although practices 
 derived from it, such as the custom of decorating 
 graves with flowers, persist to-day among our most 
 advanced communities, — our modes of thought 
 have so changed under the influences of modern 
 civilization that it is difficult for us to imagine how 
 people could ever have supposed that the happiness 
 of the dead depended upon material food. But it 
 
36 THE ANCIENT CULT 
 
 is probable that the real belief in ancient European 
 societies was much like the belief as it exists in mod- 
 ern Japan. The dead are not supposed to consume 
 the substance of the food, but only to absorb the 
 invisible essence of it. In the early period of ances- 
 tor-worship the food-offerings were large ; later on 
 they were made smaller and smaller as the idea grew 
 up that the spirits required but little sustenance of 
 even the most vapoury kind. But, however small 
 the offerings, it was essential that they should be 
 made regularly. Upon these shadowy repasts de- 
 pended the well-being of the dead ; and upon the 
 well-being of the dead depended the fortunes of the 
 living. Neither could dispense with the help of 
 the other : the visible and the invisible worlds were 
 forever united by bonds innumerable of mutual 
 necessity ; and no single relation of that union 
 could be broken without the direst consequences. 
 
 The history of all religious sacrifices can be traced 
 back to this ancient custom of offerings made to 
 ghosts; and the whole Indo-Aryan race had at one 
 time no other religion than this religion of spirits. 
 In fact, every advanced human society has, at some 
 period of its history, passed through the stage of 
 ancestor-worship ; but it is to the Far East that we 
 must look to-day in order to find the cult coexisting 
 with an elaborate civilization. Now the Japanese 
 ancestor-cult — though representing the beliefs of a 
 
THE ANCIENT CULT 37 
 
 non-Aryan people, and offering in the history of 
 its development various interesting peculiarities — 
 still embodies much that is characteristic of ancestor- 
 worship in generai. There survive in it especially 
 these three beliefs, which underlie all forms of per- 
 sistent ancestor-worship in all climes and countries: — - 
 
 I. — The dead remain in this world, — haunting 
 their tombs, and also their former homes, and shar- 
 ing invisibly in the life of their living descendants ; — 
 
 II. — All the dead become gods, in the sense of 
 acquiring supernatural power ; but they retain the 
 characters which distinguished them during life ; — 
 
 III. — The happiness of the dead depends upon 
 the respectful service rendered them by the living ; 
 and the happiness of the living depends upon the 
 fulfilment of pious duty to the dead. 
 
 To these very early beliefs may be added the fol- 
 lowing, probably of later development, which at one 
 time must have exercised immense influence : — 
 
 IV. — Every event in the world, good or evil, — 
 fair seasons or plentiful harvests, — flood and famine, 
 — tempest and tidal-wave and earthquake, — is the 
 work of the dead. 
 
 V. — All human actions, good or bad, are con- 
 trolled by the dead. 
 
 The first three beliefs survive from the dawn of 
 civilization, or before it, — from the time in which 
 
38 THE ANCIENT CULT 
 
 the dead were the only gods, without distinctions 
 of power. The latter two would seem rather of the 
 period in which a true mythology — an enormous 
 polytheism — had been developed out of the primi- 
 tive ghost- worship. There is nothing simple in 
 these beliefs : they are awful, tremendous beliefs ; 
 and before Buddhism helped to dissipate them, their 
 pressure upon the mind of a people dwelling in a 
 land of cataclysms, must have been like an endless 
 weight of nightmare. But the elder beliefs, in soft- 
 eaied form, are yet a fundamental part of the exist- 
 ing cult. Though Japanese ancestor-worship has 
 undergone many modifications in the past two thou- 
 sand years, these modifications have not transformed 
 its essential character in relation to conduct ; and the 
 whole framework of society rests upon it, as on a 
 moral foundation. The history of Japan is really 
 the history of her religion. No single fact in this 
 connection is more significant than the fact that, the 
 ancient Japanese term for government — matsuri-goto 
 — signifies literally "matters of worship." Later 
 on we shall find that not only government, but 
 almost everything in Japanese society, derives 
 directly or indirectly from this ancestor-cult; and 
 that in all matters the dead, rather than the living, 
 have been the rulers of the nation and the shapers 
 of its destinies. 
 
The Religion of the Home 
 
The Religion of the Home 
 
 THREE stages of ancestor-worship are to be 
 distinguished in the general course of reli- 
 gious and social evolution ; and each of 
 these finds illustration in the history of Japanese 
 society. The first stage is that which exists before 
 the establishment of a settled civilization, when 
 there is yet no national ruler, and when the unit 
 of society is the great patriarchal family, with its 
 elders or war-chiefs for lords. Under these condi- 
 tions, the spirits of the family-ancestors only are 
 worshipped ; — each family propitiating its own 
 dead, and recognizing no other form of worship. 
 As the patriarchal families, later on, become grouped 
 into tribal clans, there grows up the custom of 
 tribal sacrifice to the spirits of the clan-rulers ; — 
 this cult being superadded to the family-cult, 
 and marking the second stage of ancestor-worship. 
 Finally, with the union of all the clans or tribes under 
 one supreme head, there is developed the custom 
 of propitiating the spirits of national rulers. This 
 third form of the cult becomes the obligatory reli- 
 
 41 
 
42 THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 
 
 gion of the country ; but it does not replace either 
 of the preceding cults : the three continue to exist 
 together. 
 
 Though, in the present state of our knowledge, 
 the evolution in Japan of these three stages of 
 ancestor-worship is but faintly traceable, we can 
 divine tolerably well, from various records, how 
 the permanent forms of the cult were first developed 
 out of the earlier funeral-rites. Between the ancient 
 Japanese funeral customs and those of antique 
 Europe, there was a vast difference, — a difference 
 indicating, as regards Japan, a far more primitive 
 social condition. In Greece and in Italy it was 
 an early custom to bury the family dead within the 
 limits of the family estate ; and the Greek and 
 Roman laws of property grew out of this practice. 
 Sometimes the dead were buried close to the house. 
 The author of La Cit'e Antique cites, among other 
 ancient texts bearing upon the subject, an interesting 
 invocation from the tragedy of Helen, by Euripi- 
 des : — " All hail ! my father's tomb ! I buried 
 thee, Proteus, at the place where men pass out, that 
 I might often greet thee ; and so, even as I go out 
 and in, I, thy son Theoclymenus, call upon thee, 
 father ! . . ." But in ancient Japan, men fled 
 from the neighbourhood of death. It was long 
 the custom to abandon, either temporarily, or per- 
 manently, the house in which a death occurred; 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 43 
 
 arid we can scarcely suppose that, at any time, it 
 was thought desirable to bury the dead close 
 to the habitation of the surviving members of the 
 household. Son e Japanese authorities declare that 
 in the very earliest ages there was no burial, and 
 that corpses were merely conveyed to desolate places, 
 and there abandoned to wild creatures. Be this as 
 it may, we have documentary evidence, of an unmis- 
 takable sort, concerning the early funeral-rites as 
 they existed when the custom of burying had be- 
 come established, — rites weird and strange, and 
 having nothing in common with the practices of 
 settled civilization. There is reason to believe that 
 the family-dwelling was at first permanently, not 
 temporarily, abandoned to the dead ; and in view 
 of the fact "that the dwelling was a wooden hut of 
 very simple structure, there is nothing improbable 
 in the supposition. At all events the corpse was 
 left for a certain period, called the period of mourn- 
 ing, either in the abandoned house where the death 
 occurredi or in a shelter especially built for the 
 purpose ; and, during the mourning period, offer- 
 ings of food and drink were set before the dead, 
 and ceremonies performed without the house. One 
 of these ceremonies consisted in the recital of poems 
 in praise of the dead, — which poems were called 
 shinobigoto. There was music also of flutes and 
 drums, and dancing ; and at night a fire was kept 
 burning before the house. After all this had been 
 
44 THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 
 
 done for the fixed period of mourning — eight days, 
 according to some authorities, fourteen according 
 to others — the corpse was interred. It is probable 
 that the deserted house may thereafter have become 
 an ancestral temple, or ghost-house, — prototype of 
 the Shinto miya. 
 
 At an early time, — though when we do not 
 know, — it certainly became the custom to erect a 
 moya, or " mourning-house " in the event of a 
 death ; and the rites were performed at the mourn- 
 ing-house prior to the interment. The manner of 
 burial was very simple : there were yet no tombs in 
 the literal meaning of the term, and no tombstones. 
 Only a mound was thrown up over the grave ; and 
 the size of the mound varied according to the rank 
 of the dead. 
 
 The custom of deserting the house in which a 
 death took place would accord with the theory of 
 a nomadic ancestry for the Japanese people : it was 
 a practice totally incompatible with a settled civili- 
 zation like that of the early Greeks and Romans, 
 whose customs in regard to burial presuppose small 
 landholdings in permanent occupation. But there 
 may have been, even in early times, some exceptions 
 to general custom — exceptions made by necessity. 
 To-day, in various parts of the country, and perhaps 
 more particularly in districts remote from temples, 
 it is the custom for farmers to bury their dead upon 
 their own lands. 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 45 
 
 — At regular intervals after burial, ceremonies 
 were performed at the graves ; and food and drink 
 were then served to the spirits. When the spirit- 
 tablet had been introduced from China, and a true 
 domestic cult established, the practice of making 
 offerings at the place of burial was not discontin- 
 ued. It survives to the present time, — both in the 
 Shinto and the Buddhist rite ; and every spring an 
 Imperial messenger presents at the tomb of the 
 Emperor Jimmu, the same offerings of birds and 
 fish and seaweed, rice and rice-wine, which were 
 made to the spirit of the Founder of the Empire 
 twenty-five hundred years ago. But before the 
 period of Chinese influence the family would seem 
 to have worshipped its dead only before the mortu- 
 ary house, or at the grave ; and the spirits were yet 
 supposed to dwell especially in their tombs, with 
 access to some mysterious subterranean world. 
 They were supposed to need other things besides 
 nourishment ; and it was customary to place in the 
 grave various articles for their ghostly use, — a 
 sword, for example, in the case of a warrior ; a 
 mirror in the case of a woman, — together with 
 certain objects, especially prized during life, — such 
 as objects of precious metal, and polished stones or 
 gems. ... At this stage of ancestor-worship, when 
 the spirits are supposed to require shadowy service 
 of a sort corresponding to that exacted during their 
 life-time in the body, we should expect to hear of 
 
46 THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 
 
 human sacrifices as well as of animal sacrifices. At 
 the funerals of great personages such sacrifices were 
 common. Owing to beliefs of which all knowledge 
 has been lost, these sacrifices assumed a character 
 much more cruel than that of the immolations of the 
 Greek Homeric epoch. The human victims 1 were 
 buried up to the neck in a circle about the grave, 
 and thus left to perish under the beaks of birds and 
 the teeth of wild beasts. The term applied to this 
 form of immolation, — hitogaki, or "human hedge," 
 — implies a considerable number of victims in each 
 case. This custom was abolished, by the Emperor 
 Suinin, about nineteen hundred years ago ; and the 
 Nihongi declares that it was then an ancient custom. 
 Being grieved by the crying of the victims interred 
 in the funeral mound erected over the grave of his 
 brother, Yamato-hiko-no-mikoto, the Emperor is 
 recorded to have said: " It is a very painful thing 
 to force those whom one has loved in life to follow 
 one in death. Though it be an ancient custom, 
 why follow it, if it is bad ? From this time forward 
 take counsel to put a stop to the following of the 
 dead." Nomi-no-Sukune, a court-noble — now 
 apotheosized as the patron of wrestlers — then sug- 
 gested the substitution of earthen images of men and 
 horses for the living victims ; and his suggestion was 
 approved. The hitogaki was thus abolished ; but 
 compulsory as well as voluntary following of the 
 
 1 How the horses and other animals were sacrificed, does not clearly appear. 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 47 
 
 dead certainly continued for many hundred years 
 after, since we find the Emperor Kotoku issuing an 
 edict on the subject in the year 646 a.d. : — 
 
 " When a man dies, there have been cases of people 
 sacrificing themselves by strangulation, or of strangling 
 others by way of sacrifice, or of compelling the dead man's 
 horse to be sacrificed, or of burying valuables in the grave 
 in honour of the dead, or of cutting off the hair and stab- 
 bing the thighs and [in that condition] pronouncing a eulogy 
 on the dead. Let all such old customs be entirely discon- 
 tinued." — Nihongi ; Aston's translation. 
 
 As regarded compulsory sacrifice and popular cus- 
 tom, this edict may have had the immediate effect 
 desired ; but voluntary human sacrifices were not 
 definitively suppressed. With the rise of the mili- 
 tary power there gradually came into existence an- 
 other custom of juris hi, or following one's lord in 
 death, — suicide by the sword. It is said to have 
 begun about 1333, when the last of the H6J5 re- 
 gents, Takatoki, performed suicide, and a number 
 of his retainers took their own lives by harakiri, in 
 order to follow their master. It may be doubted 
 whether this incident really established the practice. 
 . But by the sixteenth century junshi had certainly' 
 become an honoured custom among the samurai. 
 Loyal retainers esteemed it a duty to kill themselves 
 after the death of their lord, in order to attend upon 
 him during his ghostly journey. A thousand years 
 
48 THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 
 
 of Buddhist teaching had not therefore sufficed to 
 eradicate all primitive notions of sacrificial duty. 
 The practice continued into the time of the Toku- 
 gawa shogunate, when Iyeyasu made laws to check 
 it. These laws were rigidly applied, — the entire 
 family of the suicide being held responsible for a case 
 of junshi : yet the custom cannot be said to have 
 become extinct until considerably after the beginning 
 of the era of Meiji. Even during my own time 
 there have been survivals, — some of a very touch- 
 ing kind : suicides performed in hope of being able 
 to serve or aid the spirit of master or husband or 
 parent in the invisible world. Perhaps the strangest 
 case was that of a boy fourteen years old, who killed 
 himself in order to wait upon the spirit of a child, 
 his master's little son. 
 
 The peculiar character of the early human sacri- 
 fices at graves, the character of the funeral-rir.es> the 
 abandonment of the house in which death had oc- 
 curred, — all prove that the early ancestor-worship 
 was of a decidedly primitive kind. This is suggested 
 also by the peculiar Shinto horror of death as pollu- 
 tion : even at this day to attend a funeral, — unless 
 the funeral be conducted after the Shinto rite, — is 
 religious defilement. The ancient legend of Izanagi's 
 descent to the nether world, in search of his lost 
 spouse, illustrates the terrible beliefs that once ex- 
 isted as to goblin-powers presiding over decay. 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 49 
 
 Between the horror of death as corruption, and the 
 apotheosis of the ghost, there is nothing incongru- 
 ous : we must understand the apotheosis itself as a 
 propitiation. This earliest Way of the Gods was 
 a religion of perpetual fear. Not ordinary homes 
 only were deserted after a death : even the Emperors, 
 during many centuries, were wont to change their 
 capital after the death of a predecessor. But, gradu- 
 ally, out of the primal funeral-rites, a higher cult 
 was evolved. The mourning-house, or moya, be- 
 came transformed into the Shinto temple, which still 
 retains the shape of the primitive hut. Then under 
 Chinese influence, the ancestral cult became estab- 
 lished in the home ; and Buddhism at a later day 
 maintained this domestic cult. By degrees the 
 household religion became a religion of tenderness 
 as well as of duty, and changed and softened the 
 thoughts of men about their dead. As early as the 
 eighth century, ancestor-worship appears to have 
 developed the three principal forms under which it 
 still exists ; and thereafter the family-cult began to 
 assume a character which offers many resemblances 
 to the domestic religion of the old European civili- 
 zations. 
 
 Let us now glance at the existing forms of this 
 domestic cult, — the universal religion of Japan. 
 In every home there is a shrine devoted to it. If 
 the family profess only the Shinto belief, this shrine, 
 
50 THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 
 
 or mitamaya 1 (" august-spirit-dwelling "), — tiny 
 model of a Shinto temple, — is placed upon a shelf 
 fixed against the wall of some inner chamber, at a 
 height of about six feet from the floor. Such a shelf 
 is called Mitama-San-no-tana, or " Shelf of the 
 august spirits." In the shrine are placed thin 
 tablets of white wood, inscribed with the names of 
 the household dead. Such tablets are called by 
 a name signifying " spirit-substitutes " {mitama- 
 shiro), or by a probably older name signifying 
 " spirit-sticks." ... If the family worships its an- 
 cestors according to the Buddhist rite, the mortuary 
 tablets are placed in the Buddhist household-shrine,, 
 or Butsudan, which usually occupies the upper shelf 
 of an alcove in one of the inner apartments. Bud- 
 dhist mortuary-tablets (with some exceptions) are 
 called thai, — a term signifying " soul-commemo- 
 ration." They are lacquered and gilded, usually 
 having a carved lotos-flower as pedestal ; and they 
 do not, as a rule, bear the real, but only the religious; 
 and posthumous name of the dead. 
 
 Now it is important to observe that, in either 
 cult, the mortuary tablet actually suggests a minia- 
 ture tombstone — which is a fact of some evolutional 
 interest, though the evolution itself should be Chi- 
 nese rather than Japanese. The plain gravestones 
 in Shinto cemeteries resemble in form the simple 
 
 1 It is more popularly termed miya, " august house," — a name given also to the 
 ordinary Shinto temples. 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE HOME sr 
 
 wooden ghost-sticks, or spirit-sticks ; while the 
 Buddhist monuments in the old-fashioned Buddhist 
 graveyards are shaped like the thai, of which the 
 form is slightly varied to indicate sex and age, which 
 is also the case with the tombstone. 
 
 The number of mortuary tablets in a household 
 shrine does not generally exceed five or six, — only 
 grandparents and parents and the recently dead being 
 thus represented; but the name of remoter ances- 
 tors are inscribed upon scrolls, which are kept in 
 the But sudan or the mitamaya. 
 
 Whatever be the family rite, prayers are repeated 
 and offerings are placed before the ancestral tablets 
 every day. The nature of the offerings and the 
 character of the prayers depend upon the religion 
 of the household ; but the essential duties of the 
 cult are everywhere the same. These duties are 
 not to be neglected under any circumstances : their 
 performance in these times is usually intrusted to 
 the elders, or to the women of the household. 1 
 
 1 Not, however, upon any public occasion, — such as a gathering of relatives at 
 the home for a religious anniversary : at such times the rites are performed by the 
 head of the household. 
 
 Speaking of the ancient custom (once prevalent in every Japanese household, 
 and still observed in Shinto homes) of making offerings to the deities of the cooking 
 range and of food, Sir Ernest Satow observes : " The rites in honour of these gods 
 were at first performed by the head of the household ; but in after-times the duty 
 came to be delegated to the women of the family " {Ancient Japanese Rituals). 
 We may infer that in regard to the ancestral rites likewise, the same transfer of 
 duties occurred at an early time, for obvious reasons of convenience. When the 
 duty devolves upon the elders of the family — grandfather and grandmother — it is 
 usually the grandmother who attends to the offerings. In the Greek and Roman 
 
52 THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 
 
 There is no long ceremony, no imperative _rule 
 about prayers, nothing solemn : the food-offerings 
 are selected out of the family cooking ; the mur- 
 mured or whispered invocations are short and few. 
 But, trifling as the rites may seem, their perform- 
 ance must never be overlooked. Not to make the 
 offerings is a possibility undreamed of: so long as 
 the family exists they must be made. 
 
 To describe the details of the domestic rite would 
 require much space, — not because they are compli- 
 cated in themselves, but because they are of a sort 
 unfamiliar to Western experience, and vary accord- 
 ing to the sect of the family. But to consider the 
 details will not be necessary : the important matter 
 is to consider the religion and its beliefs in relation 
 to conduct and character. It should be recognized 
 that no religion is more sincere, no faith more touch- 
 ing than this domestic worship, which regards the 
 dead as continuing to form a part of the household 
 life, and needing still the affection and the respect 
 of their children and kindred. Originating in those 
 dim ages when fear was stronger than love, — when 
 the wish to please the ghosts of the departed must 
 have been chiefly inspired by dread of their anger, — 
 the cult at last developed into a religion of affection ; 
 and this it yet remains. The belief that the dead 
 
 household the performance of the domestic rites appears to have been obligatory 
 upon the head of the household ; but we know that the women took part ha 
 them. 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 53 
 
 need affection, that to neglect them is a cruelty, that 
 their happiness depends upon duty, is a belief that 
 has almost cast out the primitive fear of their dis- 
 pleasure. They are not thought of as dead : they 
 are believed to remain among those who loved them. 
 Unseen they guard the home, and watch over the 
 welfare of its inmates : they hover nightly in the 
 glow of the shrine-lamp ; and the stirring of its 
 flame is the motion of them. They dwell mostly 
 within their lettered tablets ; — sometimes they can 
 animate a tablet, — change it into the substance of a 
 human body, and return in that body to active life, 
 in order to succour and console. From their shrine 
 they observe and hear what happens in the house ; 
 they share the family joys and sorrows ; they delight 
 in the voices and the warmth of the life about them. 
 They want affection ; but the morning and the even- 
 ing greetings of the family are enough to make them 
 happy. They require nourishment ; but the vapour 
 of food contents them. They are exacting only as 
 regards the daily fulfilment of duty. They were 
 the givers of life, the givers of wealth, the makers 
 and teachers of the present : they represent the past 
 of the race, and all its sacrifices ; — whatever the liv- 
 ing possess is from them. Yet how little do they 
 require in return ! Scarcely more than to be thanked, 
 as the founders and guardians of the home, in sim- 
 ple words like these : " For aid received, by day and 
 by night, accept, August Ones, our reverential grati- 
 
54 THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 
 
 tude." ... To forget or neglect them, to treat them 
 with rude indifference, is the proof of an evil heart; 
 to cause them shame by ill-conduct, to disgrace their 
 name by bad actions, is the supreme crime. They 
 represent the moral experience of the race : whoso- 
 ever denies that experience denies them also, and 
 falls to the level of the beast, or below it. They 
 represent the unwritten law, the traditions of the 
 commune, the duties of all to all : whosoever offends 
 against these, sins against the dead. And, finally, 
 they represent the mystery of the invisible : to 
 Shinto belief, at least, they are gods. 
 
 It is to be remembered, of course, that the Japan- 
 ese word for gods, Kami, does not imply, any more 
 than did the old Latin term, dii-manes, ideas like 
 those which have become associated with the modern 
 notion of divinity. The Japanese term might be 
 more closely rendered by some such expression as 
 " the Superiors," " the Higher Ones " ; and it was 
 formerly applied to living rulers as well as to deities 
 and ghosts. But it implies considerably more than 
 the idea of a disembodied spirit ; for, according to 
 old Shinto teaching the dead became world-rulers. 
 They were the cause of all natural events, — of 
 winds, rains, and tides, of buddings and ripenings, 
 of growth and decay, of everything desirable or 
 dreadful. They formed a kind of subtler element, 
 — an ancestral aether, — universally extending and 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 55 
 
 unceasingly operating. Their powers, when united 
 for any purpose, were resistless ; and in time of 
 national peril they were invoked en masse for aid 
 against the foe. . . . Thus, to the eyes of faith, 
 behind each family ghost there extended the meas- 
 ureless shadowy power of countless Kami ; and the 
 sense of duty to the ancestor was deepened by dim 
 awe of the forces controlling the world, — the whole 
 invisible Vast. To primitive Shinto conception the 
 universe was filled with ghosts ; — to later Shinto 
 conception the ghostly condition was not limited by 
 place or time, even in the case of individual spirits. 
 " Although," wrote Hirata, " the home of the spirits 
 is in the Spirit-house, they are equally present 
 wherever they are worshipped, — being gods, and 
 therefore ubiquitous." 
 
 The Buddhist dead are not called gods, but Bud- 
 dhas (Hotokf), — which term, of course, expresses a 
 pious hope, rather than a faith. The belief is that 
 they are only on their way to some higher state of 
 existence ; and they should not be invoked or wor- 
 shipped after the manner of the Shinto gods: prayers 
 should be said for them, not, as a rule, to them. 1 
 But the vast majority of Japanese Buddhists are 
 also followers of Shint5 ; and the two faiths, though 
 seemingly incongruous, have long been reconciled 
 in the popular mind. The Buddhist doctrine has 
 
 1 Certain Buddhist rituals prove exceptions to this teaching. 
 
56 THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 
 
 therefore modified the ideas attaching to the cult 
 much less deeply than might be supposed. 
 
 In all patriarchal societies with a settled civiliza- 
 tion, there is evolved, out of the worship of ances- 
 tors, a Religion of Filial Piety. Filial piety still 
 remains the supreme virtue among civilized peoples 
 possessing an ancestor-cult. ... By filial piety 
 must not be understood, however, what is commonly 
 signified by the English term, — the devotion of 
 children to parents. We must understand the word 
 "piety" rather in its classic meaning, as the pietas of 
 the early Romans, — that is to say, as the religious 
 sense of household duty. Reverence for the dead, 
 as well as the sentiment of duty towards the living ; 
 the affection of children to parents, and the affection 
 of parents to children ; the mutual duties of husband 
 and wife ; the duties likewise of sons-in-law and 
 daughters-in-law to the family as a body ; the duties 
 of servant to master, and of master to dependent, 
 — all these were included under the term. The 
 family itself was a religion ; the ancestral home a 
 temple. And so we find the family and the home 
 to be in Japan, even at the present day. Filial 
 piety in Japan does not mean only the duty of 
 children to parents and grandparents : it means still 
 more, the cult of the ancestors, reverential service 
 to the dead, the gratitude of the present to the 
 past, and the conduct of the individual in relation 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 57 
 
 to the entire household. Hirata therefore declared 
 that all virtues derived from the worship of ances- 
 tors ; and his wprds, as translated by Sir Ernest 
 Satow, deserve particular attention : — 
 
 " It is the duty of a subject to be diligent in wor- 
 shipping his ancestors, whose minister he shduld consider 
 himself to be. The custom of adoption arose from the 
 natural desire of having some one to perform sacrifices ; 
 and this desire ought not to be rendered of no avail by neg- 
 lect. Devotion to the memory of ancestors is the main- 
 spring of all virtues. No one who discharges his duty to 
 them will ever be disrespectful to the gods or to his living 
 parents. Such a man also will be faithful to his prince, 
 loyal to his friends, and kind and gentle to his wife and 
 children. For the essence of this devotion is indeed filial 
 piety." 
 
 From the sociologist's point of view, Hirata is 
 right : it is unquestionably true that the whole sys-' 
 tern of Far-Eastern ethics derives from the religion 
 of the household. By aid of that cult have been 
 evolved all ideas of duty to the living as well as to 
 the dead, — the sentiment of reverence, the sentiment 
 of loyalty, the spirit of self-sacrifice, and the spirit 
 of patriotism. What filial piety signifies as a re- 
 ligious force can best be imagined from the fact that 
 you can buy life in the East — that it has its price 
 in the market. This religion is the religion of China, 
 and of countries adjacent ; and life is for sale in 
 China. It was the filial piety of China that rendered 
 
58 THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 
 
 possible the completion of the Panama railroad, 
 where to strike the soil was to liberate death, — 
 where the land devoured labourers by the thousand, 
 until white and black labour could no more be pro- 
 cured in quantity sufficient for the work. But labour 
 could be obtained from China — any amount of 
 labour — at the cost of life ; and the cost was paid ; 
 and multitudes of men came from the East to toil 
 and die, in order that the price of their lives might 
 be sent to their families. ... I have no doubt 
 that, were the sacrifice imperatively demanded, life 
 could be as readily bought in Japan, — though not, 
 perhaps, so cheaply. Where this religion prevails, 
 the individual is ready to give his life, in a majority 
 of cases, for the family, the home, the ancestors. 
 And the filial piety impelling such sacrifice becomes, 
 by extension, the loyalty that will sacrifice even the 
 family itself for the sake of the lord, — or, by yet 
 further extension, the loyalty that prays, like Kusu- 
 noki Masashige, for seven successive lives to lay 
 down on behalf of the sovereign. Out of filial piety 
 indeed has been developed the whole moral power 
 that protects the state, — the power also that has 
 seldom failed to impose the rightful restraints upon 
 official despotism whenever that despotism grew 
 dangerous to the common weal. 
 
 Probably the filial piety that centred about the 
 domestic altars of the ancient West differed in little 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 59 
 
 from that which yet rules the most eastern East. 
 But we miss in Japan the Aryan hearth, the family 
 altar with its perpetual fire. The Japanese home- 
 religion represents, apparently, a much earlier stage 
 of the cult than that which existed within historic 
 time among the Greeks and Romans. The home- 
 stead in Old Japan was hot a stable institution like 
 the Greek or the Roman home ; the custom of 
 burying the family dead upon the family estate 
 never became general ; the dwelling itself never 
 assumed a substantial and lasting character. It could 
 not be literally said of the Japanese warrior, as of 
 the Roman, that he fought fro aris et focis. There 
 was neither altar nor sacred fire : the place of these 
 was taken by the spirit-shelf or shrine, with its tiny 
 lamp, kindled afresh each evening ; and, in early 
 times, there were no Japanese images of divinities. 
 For Lares and Penates there were only the mortu- 
 ary-tablets of the ancestors, and certain little tablets 
 bearing names of other gods — tutelar gods. . . . 
 The presence of these frail wooden objects still 
 makes the home ; and they may be, of course, trans- 
 ported anywhere. 
 
 To apprehend the full meaning of ancestor-wor- 
 ship as a family religion, a living faith, is now diffi- 
 cult for the Western mind. We are able to imagine 
 only in the vaguest way how our Aryan forefathers 
 felt and thought about their dead. But in the 
 
60 THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 
 
 living beliefs of Japan we find much to suggest 
 the nature of the old Greek piety. Each mem- 
 ber of the family supposes himself, or herself, 
 under perpetual ghostly surveillance. Spirit-eyes 
 are watching every act ; spirit-ears are listening 
 to every word. Thoughts too, not less than 
 deeds, are visible to the gaze of the dead : the 
 heart must be pure, the mind must be under 
 control, within the presence of the spirits. Prob- 
 ably the influence of such beliefs, uninterruptedly 
 exerted upon conduct during thousands of years, 
 did much to form the charming side of Japanese 
 character. Yet there is nothing stern or solemn 
 in this home-religion to-day, — nothing of that rigid 
 and unvarying discipline supposed by Fustel de 
 Coulanges to have especially characterized the 
 Roman cult. It is a religion rather of gratitude 
 and tenderness ; the dead being served by the 
 household as if they were actually present in the 
 body. ... I fancy that if we were able to enter 
 for a moment into the vanished life of some old 
 Greek city, we should find the domestic religion 
 there not less cheerful than the Japanese home-cult 
 remains to-day. I imagine that Greek children, 
 three tnousand years ago, must have watched, like 
 the Japanese children of to-day, for a chance to steal 
 some of the good things offered to the ghosts of the 
 ancestors ; and I fancy that Greek parents must 
 have chidden quite as gently as Japanese parents 
 
THE RELIGION OF THE HOME 61 
 
 chide in this era of Meiji, — mingling reproof with 
 instruction, and hinting of weird possibilities. 1 
 
 1 Food presented to the dead may afterwards be eaten by the elders of the house- 
 hold, or given to pilgrims ; but it is said that if children eat of it, they will grow up 
 with feeble memories, and incapable of becoming scholars. 
 
The Japanese Family 
 
The Japanese Family 
 
 THE great general idea, the fundamental idea, 
 underlying every persistent ancestor-worship, 
 is that the welfare of the living depends 
 upon the welfare of the dead. Under the influence 
 of this idea, and of the cult based upon it, were 
 developed the early organization of the family, the 
 laws regarding property and succession, the whole 
 structure, in short, of ancient society, — whether in 
 the Western or the Eastern world. 
 
 But before considering how the social structure 
 in old Japan was shaped by the ancestral cult, let 
 me again remind the reader that there were at first 
 no other gods than the dead. Even when Japanese 
 ancestor-worship evolved a mythology, its gods 
 were only transfigured ghosts, — and this is the 
 history of all mythology. The ideas of heaven 
 and hell did not exist among the primitive Japanese, 
 nor any notion of metempsychosis. The Buddhist 
 doctrine of rebirth — a late borrowing — was totally 
 inconsistent with the archaic Japanese beliefs, and 
 required an elaborate metaphysical system to sup- 
 port it. But we may suppose the early ideas of 
 the Japanese about the dead to have been much 
 
 F 65 
 
66 THE JAPANESE FAMILY 
 
 like those of the Greeks of the pre-Homeric era. 
 There was an underground world to which spirits 
 descended ; but they were supposed to haunt by- 
 preference their own graves, or their "ghost-houses." 
 Only by slow degrees did the notion of their power 
 of ubiquity become evolved. But even then they 
 were thought to be particularly attached to their 
 tombs, shrines, and homesteads. Hirata wrote, 
 in the early part of the nineteenth century : " The 
 spirits of the dead continue to exist in the unseen 
 world which is everywhere about us ; and they all 
 become gods of varying character and degrees of 
 influence. Some reside in temples built in their 
 honour ; others hover near their tombs ; and they 
 continue to render service to their prince, parents, 
 wives, and children, as when in the body." Evi- 
 dently " the unseen world " was thought to be in 
 some sort a duplicate of the visible world, and de- 
 pendent upon the help of the living for its prosperity. 
 The dead and the living were mutually dependent. 
 The all-important necessity for the ghost was sacri- 
 ficial worship ; the all-important necessity for the 
 man was to provide for the future cult of his own 
 spirit ; and to die without assurance of a cult was 
 the supreme calamity. . . . Remembering these 
 facts we can understand better the organization of 
 the patriarchal family, — shaped to maintain and 
 to provide for the cult of its dead, any neglect of 
 which cult was believed to involve misfortune. 
 
THE JAPANESE FAMILY 67 
 
 The reader is doubtless aware that in the old 
 Aryan family the bond of union was not the bond 
 of affection, but a bond of religion, to which natural 
 affection was altogether subordinate. This condi- 
 tion characterizes the patriarchal family wherever 
 ancestor-worship exists. Now the Japanese family, 
 like the ancient Greek or Roman family, was a reli- 
 gious society in the strictest sense of the term ; and 
 a religious society it yet remains. Its organization 
 was primarily shaped in accordance with the require- 
 ments of ancestor-worship ; its later imported doc- 
 trines of filial piety had been already developed in 
 China to meet the needs of an older and similar 
 religion. We might expect to find in the structure, 
 the laws, and the customs of the Japanese family 
 many points of likeness to the structure and the 
 traditional laws of the old Aryan household, — 
 because the law of sociological evolution admits of 
 only minor exceptions. And many such points of 
 likeness are obvious. The materials for a serious 
 comparative study have not yet been collected : very 
 much remains to be learned regarding the past his- 
 tory of the Japanese family. But, along certain 
 general lines, the resemblances between domestic 
 institutions in ancient Europe and domestic institu- 
 tions in the Far East can be clearly established. 
 
 Alike in the early European and in the old Jap- 
 anese civilization it was believed that the prosperity 
 
68 THE JAPANESE FAMILY 
 
 of the family depended upon the exact fulfilment 
 of the duties of the ancestral cult ; and, to a consid- 
 erable degree, this belief rules the life of the Japan- 
 ese family to-day. It is still thought- that the good 
 fortune of the household depends on the observance 
 of its cult, and that the greatest possible calamity is 
 to die without leaving a male heir to perform the 
 rites and to make the offerings. The paramount 
 duty of filial piety among the early Greeks and 
 Romans was to provide for the perpetuation of the 
 family cult; and celibacy was therefore generally for- 
 bidden, — the obligation to marry being enforced by 
 opinion where not enforced by legislation. Among 
 the free classes of Old Japan, marriage was also, as 
 a general rule, obligatory in the case of a male heir : 
 otherwise, where celibacy was not condemned by 
 law, it was condemned by custom. To die without 
 offspring was, in the case of a younger son, chiefly 
 a personal misfortune ; to die without leaving a male 
 heir, in the case of an elder son and successor, was 
 *a crime against the ancestors, — the cult being thereby 
 threatened with extinction. No excuse existed for 
 remaining childless : the family law in Japan, pre- 
 cisely as in ancient Europe, having amply provided 
 against such a contingency. In case that a wife 
 proved barren, she might be divorced. In case that 
 there were reasons for not divorcing her, a concubine 
 might be taken for the purpose of obtaining an heir. 
 Furthermore, every family representative was privi- 
 
THE JAPANESE FAMILY 69 
 
 leged to adopt an heir. An unworthy son, again, 
 might be disinherited, and another young man 
 adopted in his place. Finally, in case that a man 
 had daughters but no son, the succession and the 
 continuance of the cult could be assured by adopt- 
 ing a husband for the eldest daughter. 
 
 But, as in the antique European family, daughters 
 could not inherit : descent being in the male line, 
 it was necessary to have a male heir. In old Jap- 
 anese belief, as in old Greek and Roman belief, the 
 father, not the mother, was the life-giver ; the crea- 
 tive principle was masculine ; the duty of maintaining 
 the cult rested with the man, not with the woman. 1 
 
 The woman shared the cult ; but she could not 
 maintain it. Besides, the daughters of the family, 
 being destined, as a general rule, to marry into other 
 households, could bear only a temporary relation to 
 the home-cult. It was necessary that the religion 
 of the wife should be the religion of the husband ; 
 and the Japanese, like the Greek woman, on marry- 
 ing into another household, necessarily became at- 
 tached to the cult of her husband's family. For 
 this reason especially the females in the patriarchal 
 
 1 Wherever, among ancestor-worshipping races, descent is in the male line, the 
 cult follows the male line. But the reader is doubtless aware that a still more primi- 
 tive form of society than the patriarchal — the matriarchal — is supposed to have 
 had its ancestor-worship. Mr. Spencer observes : " What has happened when 
 descent in the female line obtains, is not clear. I have met with no statement 
 showing that, in societies characterized by this usage, the duty of administering to 
 the double of the dead man devolved on one of his children rather than on others. ' ' 
 — Principles of Sociology, Vol. Ill, \ 601. 
 
70 THE JAPANESE FAMILY 
 
 family are not equal to the males ; the sister cannot 
 rank with the brother. It is true that the Japanese 
 daughter, like the Greek daughter, could remain 
 attached to her own family even after marriage, pro- 
 viding that a husband were adopted for her, — that 
 . is to say, taken into the family as a son. But even 
 in this case, she could only share in the cult, which it 
 then became the duty of the adopted husband to 
 maintain. 
 
 The constitution of the patriarchal family every- 
 where derives from its ancestral cult ; and before 
 considering the subjects of marriage and adoption 
 in Japan, it will be necessary to say something about 
 the ancient family-organization. The ancient family 
 was called uji, — a word said to have originally 
 signified the same thing as the modern term uchi, 
 " interior," or " household," but certainly used from 
 very early times in the sense of " name " — clan- 
 name especially. There were two kinds of uji : the 
 o-uji, or great families, and the ko-uji, or lesser 
 families, — either term signifying a large body of 
 persons united by kinship, and by the cult of a 
 common ancestor. The o-uji corresponded in some 
 degree to the Greek yeVos or the Roman gens : the 
 ko-uji were its branches, and subordinate to it. The 
 unit of society was the uji. Each o-uji, with its 
 dependent ko-uji, represented something like a 
 phratry or curia; and all the larger groups mak- 
 
THE JAPANESE FAMILY 71 
 
 ing up the primitive Japanese society were but 
 multiplications of the uji, — whether we call them 
 clans, tribes, or hordes. With the advent of a 
 settled civilization, the greater groups necessarily 
 divided and subdivided ; but the smallest subdivision 
 still retained its primal organization. Even the 
 modern Japanese family partly retains that organiza- 
 tion. It does not mean only a household: it means 
 rather what the Greek or Roman family became 
 after the dissolution of the gens. With ourselves 
 the family has been disintegrated: when we talk 
 of a man's family, we mean his wife and children. 
 But the Japanese family is still a large group. As 
 marriages take place early, it may consist, even as 
 a household, of great-grandparents, grandparents, 
 parents, and children — sons and daughters of sev- 
 eral generations ; but it commonly extends much 
 beyond the limits of one household. In early times 
 it might constitute the entire population of a village 
 or town ; and there are still in Japan large com- 
 munities of persons all bearing the same family 
 name. In some districts it was formerly the cus- 
 tom to keep all the children, as far as possible, 
 within the original family group — husbands being 
 adopted for all the daughters. The group might 
 thus consist of sixty or more persons, dwelling under 
 the same roof; and the houses were of course con- 
 structed, by successive extension, so as to meet the 
 requirement. (I am mentioning these curious facts 
 
72 THE JAPANESE FAMILY 
 
 only by way of illustration.) But the greater uji, 
 after the race had settled down, rapidly multiplied ; 
 and although there are said to be house-com- 
 munities still in some remote districts of the 
 country, the primal patriarchal groups must have 
 been broken up almost everywhere at some very 
 early period. Thereafter the main cult of the uji 
 did not cease to be the cult also of its sub-divi- 
 sions : all members of the original gens continued 
 to worship the common ancestor, or uji-no-kami, 
 " the god of the uji." By degrees the ghost-house 
 of the uji-no-kami became transformed into the 
 modern Shinto parish-temple ; and the ancestral 
 spirit became the local tutelar god, whose modern 
 appellation, ujigami, is but a shortened form of his 
 ancient title, uji-no-kami. Meanwhile, after the gen- 
 eral establishment of the domestic cult, each separate 
 household maintained the special cult of its own 
 dead, in addition to the communal cult. This 
 religious condition still continues. The family 
 may include several households ; but each house- 
 hold maintains the cult of its dead. And the family- 
 group, whether large or small, preserves its ancient 
 constitution and character ; it is still a religious 
 society, exacting obedience, on the part of all its 
 members, to traditional custom. 
 
 So much having been explained, the customs 
 regarding marriage and adoption, in their relation 
 
THE JAPANESE FAMILY 73 
 
 to the family hierarchy, can be clearly understood. 
 But a word first regarding this hierarchy, as it exists 
 to-day. Theoretically the power of the head of the 
 family is still supreme in the household. All must 
 obey the head. Furthermore the females must 
 obey the males — the wives, the husbands ; and the 
 younger members of the family are subject to the 
 elder members. The children must not only obey 
 the parents and grandparents, but must observe 
 among themselves the domestic law of seniority : 
 thus the younger brother should obey the elder 
 brother, and the younger sister the elder sister. 
 The rule of precedence is enforced gently, and is 
 cheerfully obeyed even in small matters : for ex- 
 ample, at meal-time, the elder boy is served first, 
 the second son next, and so on, — an exception 
 being made in the case of a very young child, who 
 is not obliged to wait. This custom accounts for 
 an amusing popular term often applied in jest to 
 a second son, " Master Cold- Rice " (Hiam'eshi-San) ; 
 as the second son, having to wait until both infants 
 and elders have been served, is not likely to find his 
 portion desirably hot when it reaches him. . . . 
 Legally, the family can have but one responsible 
 head. It may be the grandfather, the father, or the 
 eldest son ; and it is generally the eldest son, be- 
 cause according to a custom of Chinese origin, the 
 old folks usually resign their active authority as soon 
 as the eldest son is able to take charge of affairs. 
 
74 THE JAPANESE FAMILY 
 
 The subordination of young to old, and of females 
 to males, — in fact the whole existing constitution 
 of the family, — suggests a great deal in regard to 
 the probably stricter organization of the patriarchal 
 family, whose chief was at once ruler and priest, with 
 almost unlimited powers. The organization was 
 primarily, and still remains, religious : the marital 
 bond did not constitute the family ; and the relation 
 of the parent to the household depended upon his 
 or her relation to the family as a religious body. 
 To-day also, the girl adopted into a household as 
 wife ranks only as an adopted child : marriage signi- 
 fies adoption. She is called " flower-daughter " 
 {hana-yome). In like manner, and for the same 
 reasons, the young man received into a household 
 as a husband of one of the daughters, ranks merely 
 as an adopted son. The adopted bride or bride- 
 groom is necessarily subject to the elders, and may 
 be dismissed by their decision. As for the adopted 
 husband, his position is both delicate and difficult, 
 — as an old Japanese proverb bears witness : 
 Konuka san-go ar'eba, mukoyoshi to naruna ("While 
 you have even three go 1 of rice-bran left, do not be- 
 come a son-in-law "). Jacob does not have to wait 
 for Rachel : he is given to Rachel on demand ; and 
 his service then begins. And after twice seven 
 years of service, Jacob may be sent away. In that 
 event his children do not any more belong to him, 
 
 1 A go is something more than a pint. 
 
THE JAPANESE FAMILY 75 
 
 but to the family. His adoption may have had 
 nothing to do with affection ; and his dismissal may 
 have nothing to do with misconduct. Such matters, 
 however they may be settled in law, are really de- 
 cided by family interests — interests relating to the 
 maintenance of the house and of its cult. 1 
 
 It should not be forgotten that, although a 
 daughter-in-law or a son-in-law could in former 
 times be dismissed almost at will, the question of 
 marriage in the old Japanese family was a matter 
 of religious importance, — marriage being one of 
 the chief duties of filial piety. This was also the 
 case in the early Greek and Roman family ; and the 
 marriage ceremony was performed, as it is now per- 
 formed in Japan, not at a temple, but in the home. 
 It was a rite of the family religion, — the rite by 
 which the bride was adopted into the cult in the 
 supposed presence of the ancestral spirits. Among 
 the primitive Japanese there was probably no cor- 
 responding ceremony ; but after the establishment 
 of the domestic cult, the marriage ceremony became 
 a religious rite, and this it still remains. Ordinary 
 marriages are not, however, performed before the 
 household shrine or in front of the ancestral tablets,, 
 except under certain circumstances. The rule, as 
 regards such ordinary marriages, seems to be that 
 
 1 Recent legislation has been in favour of the mukoyoihi ; but, as a rule, the law 
 is seldom resorted to except by men dismissed from the family for misconduct, and 
 anxious to make profit by the dismissal. 
 
76 THE JAPANESE FAMILY 
 
 if the parents of the bridegroom are yet alive, this 
 is not done ; but if they are dead, then the bride- 
 groom leads his bride before their mortuary tablets, 
 where she makes obeisance. Among the nobility, 
 in former times at least, the marriage ceremony 
 appears to have been more distinctly religious, — 
 judging from the following curious relation in the 
 book Shorei-Hikki, or " Record of Ceremonies " 1 : 
 " At the weddings of the great, the bridal-chamber 
 is composed of three rooms thrown into one \by 
 removal of the sliding-screens ordinarily separating 
 them], and newly decorated. . . . The shrine for 
 the image of the family-god is placed upon a shelf 
 adjoining the sleeping-place." It is noteworthy 
 also that Imperial marriages are always officially 
 announced to the ancestors ; and that the marriage 
 of the heir-apparent, or other male offspring of the 
 Imperial house, is performed before the Kashiko- 
 dokoro, or imperial temple of the ancestors, which 
 stands within the palace-grounds. 2 As a general 
 rule it would appear that the evolution of the mar- 
 riage-ceremony in Japan chiefly followed Chinese 
 precedent; and in the Chinese patriarchal family 
 the ceremony is in its own way quite as much of 
 a religious rite as the early Greek or Roman mar- 
 riage. And though the relation of the Japanese 
 
 1 The translation is Mr. Mitford's. There are no " images ' * of the family- 
 god, and I suppose that the family's Shinto-shrine is meant, with its ancestral 
 tablets. 
 
 3 This was the case at the marriage of the present Crown-Prince. 
 
THE JAPANESE FAMILY 77 
 
 rite to the family cult is less marked, it becomes 
 sufficiently clear upon investigation. The alternate 
 drinking of rice-wine, by bridegroom and bride, from 
 the same vessels, corresponds, in a sort to the Roman 
 confarreatio. By the wedding-rite the bride is adopted 
 into the family religion. She is adopted not only 
 by the living but by the dead ; she must there- 
 after revere the ancestors of her husband as her own 
 ancestors ; and should there be no elders in the 
 household, it will become her duty to make the 
 offerings, as representative of her husband. With 
 the cult of her own family she has nothing more to 
 do ; and the funeral ceremonies performed upon her 
 departure from the parental roof, — the solemn 
 sweeping-out of the house-rooms, the lighting of 
 the death-fire before the gate, — are significant of 
 this religious separation. 
 
 Speaking of the Greek and Roman marriage, 
 M. de Coulanges observes : " Une telle religion ne 
 pouvait pas admettre la polygamie." As relating to 
 the highly developed domestic cult of those com- 
 munities considered by the author of La Cit'e Antique, 
 his statement will scarcely be called in question. 
 But as regards ancestor-worship in general, it would 
 be incorrect ; since polygamy or polygyny, and 
 polyandry may coexist with ruder forms of ancestor- 
 worship. The Western-Aryan societies, in the 
 epoch studied by M. de Coulanges, were practically 
 
78 THE JAPANESE FAMILY 
 
 monogamic. The ancient Japanese society wav 
 polygynous ; and polygyny persisted, after the estab- 
 lishment of the domestic cult. In early times, the 
 marital relation itself would seem to have been in- 
 definite. No distinction was made between the wife 
 and the concubines : " they were classed together as 
 * women.' " x Probably under Chinese influence the 
 distinction was afterwards sharply drawn ; and with 
 the progress of civilization, the general tendency 
 was towards monogamy, although the ruling classes 
 remained polygynous. In the 54th article of Iye- 
 yasu's legacy, this phase of the social condition is 
 clearly expressed, — a condition which prevailed down 
 to the present era : — 
 
 " The position a wife holds towards a concubine is the 
 same as that of a lord to his vassal. The Emperor has 
 twelve imperial concubines. The princes may have eight 
 concubines. Officers of the highest class may have five 
 mistresses. A Samurai may have two handmaids. All 
 below this are ordinary married men." 
 
 This would suggest that concubinage had long 
 (been (with some possible exceptions) an exclusive 
 privilege ; and that it should have persisted down to 
 the period of the abolition of the daimiates and of 
 the military class, is sufficiently explained by the 
 militant character of the ancient society. 2 Though 
 
 1 Satow. : The Revival of Pure Sbintau. 
 
 2 See especially Herbert Spencer's chapter, " The Family," in Vol. I, PrincU 
 f let of Sociology, \ 3 1 5. 
 
THE JAPANESE FAMILY 79 
 
 it is untrue that domestic ancestor-worship cannot 
 coexist with polygamy or polygyny (Mr. Spencer's 
 term is the most inclusive), it is at least true that 
 such worship is favoured by the monogamic relation, 
 and tends therefore to establish it, — since monog- 
 amy insures to the family succession a stability that 
 no other relation can offer. We may say that, al- 
 though the old Japanese society was not mono- 
 gamic, the natural tendency was towards monogamy, 
 as the condition best according with the religion 
 of the family, and with the moral feeling of the 
 masses. 
 
 Once that the domestic ancestor-cult had become 
 universally established, the question of marriage, as 
 a duty of filial pity, could not be judiciously left 
 to the will of the young people themselves. It was 
 a matter to be decided by the family, not by the 
 children ; for mutual inclination could not be suf- 
 fered to interfere with the requirements of the house- 
 hold religion. It was not a question of affection, 
 but of religious duty ; and to think otherwise was 
 impious. Affection might and ought to spring up 
 from the relation. But any affection powerful enough 
 to endanger the cohesion of the family would be 
 condemned. A wife might therefore be divorced 
 because her husband had become too much attached 
 to her ; an adopted husband might be divorced be- 
 cause of his power to exercise, through affection, too 
 
80 THE JAPANESE FAMILY 
 
 great an influence upon the daughter of the house. 
 Other causes would probably be found for the 
 divorce in either case — but they would not be 
 difficult to find. 
 
 For the same reason that connubial affection could 
 be tolerated only within limits, the natural rights of 
 parenthood (as we understand them) were necessarily 
 restricted in the old Japanese household. Marriage 
 being for the purpose of obtaining heirs to perpetu- 
 ate the cult, the children were regarded as belonging 
 to the family rather than to the father and mother. 
 Hence, in case of divorcing the son's wife, or the 
 adopted son-in-law, — or of disinheriting the married 
 son, — the children would be retained by the family. 
 For the natural right of the young parents was con- 
 sidered subordinate to the religious rights of the 
 house. In opposition to those rights, no other 
 rights could be tolerated. Practically, of course, 
 according to more or less fortunate circumstances, 
 the individual might enjoy freedom under the pater- 
 nal roof; but theoretically and legally there was no 
 freedom in the old Japanese family for any member 
 of it, — not excepting even its acknowledged chief, 
 whose responsibilities were great. Every person, 
 from the youngest child up to the grandfather, was 
 subject to somebody else ; and every act of domestic 
 life was regulated by traditional custom. 
 
 Like the Greek or Roman father, the patriarch 
 of the Japanese family appears to have had in early 
 
THE JAPANESE FAMILY 81 
 
 times powers of life and death over all the members 
 of the household. In the ruder ages the father 
 might either kill or sell his children ; and afterwards, 
 among the ruling classes his powers remained almost 
 unlimited until modern times. Allowing for cer- 
 tain local exceptions, explicable by tradition, or class- 
 exceptions, explicable by conditions of servitude, it 
 may be said that originally the Japanese pater- 
 familias was at once ruler, priest, and magistrate 
 within the family. He could compel his children 
 to marry or forbid them to marry ; he could dis- 
 inherit or repudiate them ; he could ordain the pro- 
 fession or calling which they were to follow ; and 
 his power extended to all members of the family, 
 and to the household dependents. At different 
 epochs limits were placed to the exercise of this 
 power, in the case of the ordinary people; but in 
 the military class, the patria potestas was almost un- 
 restricted. In its extreme form, the paternal power 
 controlled everything, — the right to life and liberty, 
 
 — the right to marry, or to keep the wife or husband 
 already espoused, — the right to one's own children, 
 
 — the right to hold property, — the right to hold 
 office, — the right to choose or follow an occupation. 
 The family was a despotism. 
 
 It should not be forgotten, however, that the 
 absolutism prevailing in the patriarchal family has 
 its justification in a religious belief, — in the convic- 
 tion that everything should be sacrificed for the sake 
 
82 THE JAPANESE FAMILY 
 
 of the cult, and every member of the family should 
 be ready to give up even life, if necessary, to assure 
 the perpetuity of the succession. Remembering 
 this, it becomes easy to understand why, even in 
 communities otherwise advanced in civilization, it 
 should have seemed right that a father could kill or 
 sell his children. The crime of a son might result 
 in the extinction of a cult through the ruin of the 
 family, — especially in a militant society like that 
 of Japan, where the entire family was held respon- 
 sible for the acts of each of its members, so that a 
 capital offence would involve the penalty of death 
 on the whole of the household, including the chil- 
 dren. Again, the sale of a daughter, in time of ex- 
 treme need, might save a house from ruin ; and filial 
 piety exacted submission to such sacrifice for the 
 sake of the cult. 
 
 As in the Aryan family, 1 property descended by 
 right of primogeniture from father to. son ; the 
 eldest-born, even in cases where the other property 
 was to be divided among the children, always inherit- 
 ing the homestead. The homestead property was, 
 however, family property ; and it passed to the eldest 
 son as representative, not as individual. Generally 
 speaking, sons could not hold property,' without the 
 father's consent, during such time as he retained his 
 
 1 The laws of succession in Old Japan differed considerably according to class, 
 place, and era ; the entire subject has not yet been fully treated ; and only a few 
 safe general statements can be ventured at the present time. 
 
THE JAPANESE FAMILY 83 
 
 headship. As a rule, — to which there were various 
 exceptions, — a daughter could not inherit; and in 
 the case of an only daughter, for whom a husband 
 had been adopted, the homestead property would 
 pass to the adopted husband, because (until within 
 recent times) a woman could not become the head 
 of a family. This was the case also in the Western 
 Aryan household, in ancestor-worshipping times. 
 
 To modern thinking, the position of woman in 
 the old Japanese family appears to have been the 
 reverse of happy. As a child she was subject, not 
 only to the elders, but to all the male adults of 
 the household. Adopted into another household as 
 wife, she merely passed into a similar state of sub- 
 jection, unalleviated by the affection which parental 
 and fraternal ties assured her in the ancestral home. 
 Her retention in the family of her husband did not 
 depend upon his affection, but upon the will of the 
 majority, and especially of the elders. Divorced, 
 she could not claim her children : they belonged to 
 the family of the husband. In any event her duties 
 as wife were more trying than those of a hired ser- 
 vant. Only in old age could she hope to exercise 
 some authority; but even in old age she was under 
 tutelage — throughout her entire life she was in tute- 
 lage. " A woman can have no house of her own 
 in the Three Universes," declared an old Japanese 
 proverb. Neither could she have a cult of her own : 
 there was no special cult for the women of a family 
 
84 THE JAPANESE FAMILY 
 
 — no ancestral rite distinct from that of the husband. 
 And the higher the rank of the family into which 
 she entered by marriage, the more difficult would be 
 her position. For a woman of the aristocratic class 
 no freedom existed: she could not even pass beyond 
 her own gate except in a palanquin (kago) or under 
 escort ; and her existence as a wife was likely to 
 be embittered by the presence of concubines in the 
 house. 
 
 Such was the patriarchal family in old times ; yet 
 it is probable that conditions were really better than 
 the laws and the customs would suggest. The race 
 is a joyous and kindly one ; and it discovered, long 
 centuries ago„many ways of smoothing the difficul- 
 ties of life, and of modifying the harsher exactions 
 of law and custom. The great powers of the family- 
 head were probably but seldom exercised in cruel 
 directions. He might have legal rights of the most 
 formidable character; but these were required by 
 reason of his responsibilities, and were not likely 
 to be used against communal judgment. It must 
 be remembered that the individual was not legally 
 considered in former times : the family only was 
 recognized ; and the head of it legally existed only 
 as representative. If he erred, the whole family 
 was liable to suffer the penalty of his error. Fur- 
 thermore, every extreme exercise of his authority 
 involved proportionate responsibilities. He could 
 
THE JAPANESE FAMILY 85 
 
 divorce his wife, or compel his son to divorce the 
 adopted daughter-in-law ; but in either case he 
 would have to account for this action to the family 
 of the divorced ; and the divorce-right, especially 
 in the samurai class, was greatly restrained by the 
 fear of family resentment ; the unjust dismissal of a 
 wife being counted as an insult to her kindred. He 
 might disinherit an only son; but in that event he 
 would be obliged to adopt a kinsman. He might 
 kill or sell either son or daughter; but unless he 
 belonged to some abject class, he would have to 
 justify- his action to the community. 1 He might be 
 reckless in his management of the family property; 
 but in that case an appeal to communal authority 
 was possible, and the appeal might result in his 
 deposition. So far as we are able to judge from the 
 remains of old Japanese law which have been studied, 
 it would seem to have been the general rule that the 
 family-head could not sell or alienate the estate. 
 Though the family-rule was despotic, it was the 
 rule of a body rather than of a chief; the family- 
 head really exercising authority in the name of the 
 rest. ... In this sense, the family still remains 
 a despotism ; but the powers of its legal head are 
 now checked, from within as well as from without, 
 
 1 Samurai fathers might kill a daughter convicted of unchastity, or kill a son 
 guilty of any action calculated to disgrace the family name. But they would not 
 sell a child. The sale of daughters was practised only by the abject classes, or by 
 families of other castes reduced to desperate extremities. A girl might, however, 
 tell herself for the sake of her family. 
 
86 THE JAPANESE FAMILY 
 
 by later custom. The acts of adoption, disinherit- 
 ance, marriage, or divorce, are decided usually by 
 general consent ; and the decision of the household 
 and kindred is required in the taking of any impor- 
 tant step to the disadvantage of the individual. 
 
 Of course the old family-organization had certain 
 advantages which largely compensated the individual 
 for his state of subjection. It was a society of 
 mutual help ; and it was not less powerful to give 
 aid, than to enforce obedience. Every member 
 could do something to assist another member in 
 case of need : each had a right to the protection of 
 all. This remains true of the family to-day. In a 
 well-conducted household, where every act is per- 
 formed according to the old forms of courtesy and 
 kindness, — where no harsh word is ever spoken, 
 — where the young look up to the aged with affec- 
 tionate respect, — where those whom years have inca- 
 pacitated for more active duty, take upon themselves 
 the care of the children, and render priceless service 
 in teaching and training, — an ideal condition has 
 been realized. The daily life of such a home, — in 
 which the endeavour of each is to make existence 
 as pleasant as possible for all, — in which the bond 
 of union is really love and gratitude, — represents 
 religion in the best and purest sense ; and the place 
 is holy. . . . 
 
 It remains to speak of the dependants in the 
 
THE JAPANESE FAMILY 87 
 
 ancient family. Though the fact has not yet been 
 fully established, it is probable that the first do- 
 mestics were slaves or serfs ; and the condition of 
 servants in later times, — especially of those in 
 families of the ruling classes, — was much like that 
 of slaves in the early Greek and Roman families. 
 Though necessarily treated as inferiors, they were 
 regarded as members of the household : they were 
 trusted familiars, permitted to share in the pleasures 
 of the family, and to be present at most of its 
 reunions. They could legally be dealt with harshly ; 
 but there is little doubt that, as a rule, they were 
 treated kindly, — absolute loyalty being expected 
 from them. The best indication of their status in 
 past times is furnished by yet surviving customs. 
 Though the power of the family over the servant 
 no longer exists in law or in fact, the pleasant fea- 
 tures of the old relation continue ; and they are of 
 no little interest. The family takes a sincere in- 
 terest in the welfare of its domestics, — almost such 
 interest as would be shown in the case of poorer 
 kindred. Formerly the family furnishing servants 
 to a household of higher rank, stood to the latter 
 in the relation of vassal to liege-lord ; and between 
 the two there existed a real bond of loyalty and 
 kindliness. The occupation of servant was then 
 hereditary ; children were trained for the duty 
 from an early age. After the man-servant or maid- 
 servant had arrived at a certain age, permission to 
 
88 THE JAPANESE FAMILY 
 
 marry was accorded ; and the relation of service 
 then ceased, but not the bond of loyalty. The 
 children of the married servants would be sent, 
 when old enough, to work in the house of the 
 master, and would leave it only when the time also 
 came for them to marry. Relations of this kind 
 still exist between certain aristocratic families and 
 former vassal-families, and conserve some charming 
 traditions and customs of hereditary service, un- 
 changed for hundreds of years. 
 
 In feudal times, of course, the bond between 
 master and servant was of the most serious kind ; 
 the latter being expected, in case of need, to sac- 
 rifice life and all else for the sake of the master or 
 of the master's household. This also was the loy- 
 alty demanded of the Greek and Roman domestic, 
 — before there had yet come into existence that 
 inhuman form of servitude which reduced the toiler 
 to the condition of a beast of burden ; and the 
 relation was partly a religious one. There does not 
 seem to have been in ancient Japan any custom cor- 
 responding to that, described by M. de Coulanges, 
 of adopting the Greek or Roman servant into the 
 household cult. But as the Japanese vassal-families 
 furnishing domestics were, as vassals, necessarily 
 attached to the clan-cult of their lord, the relation 
 of the servant to the family was to some extent a 
 religious bond. 
 
THE JAPANESE FAMILY 8g 
 
 The reader will be able to understand, from the 
 facts of this chapter, to what extent the individual 
 was sacrificed to the family, as a religious body. 
 From servant to master — up through all degrees 
 of the household hierarchy — the law of duty was 
 the same : obedience absolute to custom and tradi- 
 tion. The ancestral oik permitted no individual 
 freedom : nobody could live according to his or her 
 pleasure ; every one had to live according to rule. 
 The individual did not even have a legal existence ; 
 — the family was the unit of society. Even its pa- 
 triarch existed in law as representative only, — 
 responsible both to the living and the dead. His 
 public responsibility, however, was not determined 
 merely by civil law. It was determined by another 
 religious bond, — that of the ancestral cult of the 
 clan or tribe ; and this public form of ancestor- 
 worship was even more exacting than the religion 
 of the home. 
 
The Communal Cult 
 
The Communal Cult 
 
 AS by the religion of the household each indi- 
 vidual was ruled in every action of domestic 
 life, so, by the religion of the village or dis- 
 trict the family was ruled in all its relations to the 
 outer world. Like the religion of the home, the 
 religion of the commune was ancestor-worship. 
 What the household shrine represented to the 
 family, the Shint5 parish-temple represented to 
 the community ; and the deity there worshipped 
 as tutelar god was called Ujigami, the god of the 
 Uji, which term originally signified the patriarchal 
 family or gens, as well as the family name. 
 
 Some obscurity still attaches to the question of 
 the original relation of the community to the Uji- 
 god. Hirata declares the god of the Uji to have 
 been the common ancestor of the clan-family, — the 
 ghost of the first patriarch ; and this opinion (allow- 
 ing for sundry exceptions) is almost certainly correct. 
 But it is difficult to decide whether the Uji-ko, or 
 " children of the family " (as ShintS parishioners are 
 still termed) at first included only the descendants of 
 the clan-ancestor, or also the whole of the inhabit- 
 
 93 
 
94 THE COMMUNAL CULT 
 
 ants of the district ruled by the clan. It is certainly 
 not true at the present time that the tutelar deity of 
 each Japanese district represents the common ances- 
 tor of its inhabitants, — though, to this general rule, 
 there might be found exception in some of the 
 remoter provinces. Most probably the god of the 
 Uji was first worshipped by the people of the district 
 rather as the spirit of a former ruler, or the patron- 
 god of a ruling family, than as the spirit of a com- 
 mon ancestor. It has been tolerably well proved 
 that the bulk of the Japanese people were in a 
 state of servitude from before the beginning of the 
 historic period, and so remained until within com- 
 paratively recent times. The subject-classes may 
 not have had at first a cult of their own : their 
 religion would most likely have been that of their 
 masters. In later times the vassal was certainly 
 attached to the cult of the lord. But it is difficult 
 as yet to venture any general statement as to the 
 earliest phase of the communal cult in Japan ; for 
 the history of the Japanese nation is not that of a 
 single people of one blood, but a history of many 
 clan-groups, of different origin, gradually brought 
 together to form one huge patriarchal society. 
 
 However, it is quite safe to assume, with the 
 best native authorities, that the Ujigami were origi- 
 nally clan-deities, and that they were usually, 
 though not invariably, worshipped as clan-ancestors. 
 
THE COMMUNAL CULT 95 
 
 Some Ujigami belong to the historic period. The 
 war god Hachiman, for example, — to whom parish- 
 temples are dedicated in almost every large city, — 
 is the apotheosized spirit of the Emperor Ojin, 
 patron of the famed Minamoto clan. This is an 
 example of Ujigami worship in which the clan-god is 
 not an ancestor. But in many instances the Uji- 
 gami is really the ancestor of an Uji ; as in the 
 case of the great deity of Kasuga, from whom the 
 Fujiwara clan claimed descent. ' Altogether there 
 were in ancient Japan, after the beginning of the 
 historic era, 11 82 clans, great and small; and these 
 appear to have established the same number of cults. 
 We find, as might be expected, that the temples 
 now called Ujigami — which is to say, Shinto parish- 
 temples in general — are always dedicated to' a par- 
 ticular class of divinities, and never dedicated to 
 certain other gods. Also, it is significant that in 
 every large town there are Shinto temples dedicated 
 to the same Uji-gods, — proving the transfer of com- 
 munal worship from its place of origin. Thus the 
 Izumo worshipper of Kasuga-Sama can find in 
 Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo, parish-temples dedicated to 
 his patron : the Kyushu worshipper of Hachiman- 
 Sama can place himself under the protection of the 
 same deity in Musashi quite as well as in Higo or 
 Bungo. Another fact worth observing is that the 
 Ujigami temple is not necessarily the most important 
 Shinto temple in the parish : it is the parish-temple, 
 
96 THE COMMUNAL CULT 
 
 and important to the communal worship ; but it may 
 be outranked and overshadowed by some adjacent 
 temple dedicated to higher Shinto gods. Thus in 
 Kitzuki of Izumo, for example, the great Izumo 
 temple is not the Ujigami, — not the parish-temple ; 
 the local cult is maintained at a much smaller 
 temple. . . . Of the higher cults I shall speak 
 further on ; for the present let us consider only the 
 communal cult, in its relation to communal life. 
 From the social conditions represented by the wor- 
 ship of the Ujigami to-day, much can be inferred as 
 to its influence in past times. 
 
 Almost every Japanese village has its Ujigami ; 
 and each district of every large town or city also has 
 its Ujigami. The worship of the tutelar deity is 
 maintained by the whole body of parishioners, — 
 the Ujiko, or children of the tutelar god. Every 
 such parish-temple has its holy days, when all Ujiko 
 are expected to visit the temple, and when, as a 
 matter of fact, every household sends at least one 
 representative to the Ujigami. There are great 
 festival-days and ordinary festival-days ; there are 
 processions, music, dancing, and whatever in the 
 way of popular amusement can serve to make 
 the occasion attractive. The people of adjacent 
 districts vie with each other in rendering their 
 respective temple-festivals (matsuri) enjoyable : every 
 household contributes according to its means. 
 
THE COMMUNAL CULT 97 
 
 The Shinto parish-temple has an intimate relation 
 to the life of the community as a body, and also to 
 the individual existence of every Ujiko. As a baby 
 he or she is taken to the Ujigami — • (at the expira- 
 tion of thirty-one days after birth if a boy, or thirty- 
 three days after birth if a girl) — and placed under 
 the protection of the god, in whose supposed pres- 
 ence the little one's name is recorded. Thereafter 
 the child is regularly taken to the temple on holy 
 days, and of course to all the big festivals, which are 
 made delightful to young fancy by the display of 
 toys on sale in temporary booths, and by the amus- 
 ing spectacles to be witnessed in the temple grounds, 
 — artists forming pictures on the pavement with 
 coloured sands, — sweetmeat-sellers moulding ani- 
 mals and monsters out of sugar-paste, — conjurors 
 and tumblers exhibiting their skill. . . . Later, when 
 the child becomes strong enough to run about, the 
 temple gardens and groves serve for a playground. 
 School-life does not separate the Ujiko from the Uji- 
 gami (unless the family should permanently leave the 
 district) ; the visits to the temple are still continued as 
 a duty. Grown-up and married, the Ujiko regularly 
 visits the guardian-god, accompanied by wife or hus- 
 band, and brings the children to pay obeisance. IX 
 obliged to make a long journey, or to quit the district 
 forever, the Ujiko pays a farewell visit to the Ujigami, 
 as well as to the tombs of the family ancestors ; and 
 on returning to one's native place after prolonged 
 
98 THE COMMUNAL CULT 
 
 absence, the first visit is to the god. ... I have 
 more than once been touched by the spectacle of 
 soldiers at prayer before lonesome little temples in 
 country places, — soldiers but just returned from 
 Korea, China, or Formosa : their first thought on 
 reaching home was to utter their thanks to the god 
 of their childhood, whom they believed to have 
 guarded them in the hour of battle and the season 
 of pestilence. 
 
 The best authority on the local customs and laws 
 of Old Japan, John Henry Wigmore, remarks that 
 the Shinto cult had few relations with local adminis- 
 tration. In his opinion the Ujigami were the deified 
 ancestors of certain noble families of early times ; 
 and their temples continued to be in the patronage 
 of those families. The office of the Shinto priest, 
 or\" god-master " (kctnnushi) was, and still is, heredi- 
 tary ; and, as a rule, any kannushi can trace back his 
 descent from the family of which the Ujigami was 
 originally the patron-god. But the Shinto priests, 
 with some few exceptions, were neither magistrates 
 nor administrators ; and Professor Wigmore thinks 
 that this may have been " due to the lack of 
 administrative organization within the cult itself." 1 
 
 1 The vague character of the Shinto hierarchy is probably best explained by 
 Mr. Spencer in Chapter VIII of the third volume of Principles of Sociology : 
 " The establishment of an ecclesiastical organization separate from the political 
 organization, but akin to it in its structure, appears to be largely determined by the 
 rise of a decided distinction in thought between the affairs of this world and those of 
 
THE COMMUNAL CULT 99 
 
 This would be an adequate explanation. But in 
 spite of the fact that they exercised no civil function, 
 I believe it can be shown that Shinto priests had, 
 and still have, powers above the law. Their rela- 
 tion to the community was of an extremely im- 
 portant kind ; their authority was only religious ; 
 but it was heavy and irresistible. 
 
 To understand this, we must remember that the 
 Shinto priest represented the religious sentiment of 
 his district. The social bond of each community 
 was identical with the religious bond, — the cult of 
 the local tutelar god. It was to the Ujigami that 
 prayers were made for success in all communal un- 
 dertakings, for protection against sickness, for the 
 triumph of the lord in time of war, for succour in 
 the season of famine or epidemic. The Ujigami 
 was the giver of all good things, — the special helper 
 and guardian of the people. That this belief still 
 prevails may be verified by any one who studies the 
 peasant-life of Japan. It is not to the Buddhas 
 that the farmer prays for bountiful harvests, or for 
 rain in time of drought ; it is not to the Buddhas 
 
 a supposed other world. Where the two are conceived as existing in continuity, or 
 as intimately related, the organizations appropriate to their respective administrations 
 remain either identical or imperfectly distinguished. ... If the Chinese are 
 remarkable for the complete absence of a priestly caste, it is because, along with 
 their universal and active ancestor-worship, they have preserved that inclusion of 
 the duties of priest in the duties of ruler, which ancestor-worship in its simple form 
 shows us." Mr. Spencer remarks in the same paragraph on the fact that in 
 ancient Japan " religion and government were the same." A distinct Shinto 
 hierarchy was therefore never evolved. 
 
ioo THE COMMUNAL CULT 
 
 that thanks are rendered for a plentiful rice-crop — 
 but to the ancient local god. And the cult of the 
 Ujigami embodies the moral experience of the com- 
 munity, — represents all its cherished traditions and 
 customs, its unwritten laws of conduct, its sentiment 
 of duty. . . . Now just as an offence against the 
 ethics of the family must, in such a society, be re- 
 garded as an impiety towards the family-ancestor, 
 so any breach of custom in the village or district 
 must be considered as an act of disrespect to its' 
 Ujigami. The prosperity of the family depends, 
 it is thought, upon the observance of filial piety, 
 which is identified with obedience to the traditional 
 rules of household conduct ; and, in like manner, 
 the prosperity of the commune is supposed to de- 
 pend upon the observance of ancestral custom, — 
 upon obedience to those unwritten laws of the dis- 
 trict, which are taught to all from the time of their 
 childhood. Customs are identified with morals. 
 Any offence against the customs of the settlement 
 is an offence against the gods who protect it, and 
 therefore a menace to the public weal. The exist- 
 ence of the community is endangered by the crime 
 of any of its members : every member is therefore 
 held accountable by the community for his conduct. 
 Every action must conform to the traditional usages 
 of the Ujiko : independent exceptional conduct is a 
 public offence. 
 
 What the obligations of the individual to the 
 
THE COMMUNAL CULT 101 
 
 community signified in ancient times may therefore 
 be imagined. He had certainly no more right to 
 himself than had the Greek citizen three thou- 
 sand years ago, — probably not so much. To-day, 
 though laws have been greatly changed, he is prac- 
 tically in much the same condition. The mere idea 
 of the right to do as one pleases (within such limits 
 as are imposed on conduct by English and Ameri- 
 can societies, for example) could not enter into his 
 mind. Such freedom, if explained to him, he would 
 probably consider as a condition morally compar- 
 able to that of birds and beasts. Among ourselves, 
 the social regulations for ordinary people chiefly 
 settle what must not be done. But what one must 
 not do in Japan — though representing a very wide 
 range of prohibition — means much less than half of 
 the common obligation : what one must do, is still 
 more necessary to learn. . . . Let us briefly con- 
 sider the restraints which custom places upon the 
 liberty of the individual. 
 
 First of all, be it observed that the communal 
 will reinforces the will of the household, — compels 
 the observance of filial piety. Even the conduct of 
 a boy, who has passed the age of childhood, is regu- 
 lated not only by the family, but by the public. 
 He must obey the household ; and he must also 
 obey public opinion in regard to his domestic rela- 
 tions. Any marked act of disrespect, inconsistent 
 
102 THE COMMUNAL CULT 
 
 with filial piety, would be judged and rebuked by 
 all. When old enough to begin work or study, a 
 lad's daily conduct is observed and criticised ; and 
 at the age when the household law first tightens 
 about him, he also commences to feel t'ne pressure 
 of common opinion. On coming of age, he has to 
 marry ; and the idea of permitting him to choose a 
 wife for himself is quite out of the question : he is 
 expected to accept the companion selected for him. 
 But should reasons be found for humouring him in 
 the event of an irresistible aversion, then he must 
 wait until another choice has been made by the 
 family. The community would not tolerate insub- 
 ordination in such matters : one example of filial 
 revolt would constitute too dangerous a precedent. 
 When the young man at last becomes the head of a 
 household, and responsible for the conduct of its 
 members, he is still constrained by public sentiment 
 to accept advice in his direction of domestic affairs. 
 He is not free to follow his own judgment, in cer- 
 tain contingencies. For example, he is bound by 
 custom to furnish help to relatives ; and he is obliged 
 to accept arbitration in the event of trouble with 
 them. He is not permitted to think of his own 
 wife and children only, — such conduct would be 
 deemed intolerably selfish : he must be able to act, 
 to outward seeming at least, as if uninfluenced by 
 paternal or marital affection in his public conduct. 
 Even supposing that, later in life, he should be 
 
THE COMMUNAL CULT 103 
 
 appointed to the position of village or district head- 
 man, his right of action and judgment would be under 
 just as much restriction as before. Indeed, the 
 range of his personal freedom actually decreases 
 in proportion to his ascent in the social scale. 
 Nominally he may rule as headman : practically his 
 authority is only lent to him by the commune, 
 and it will remain to him just so long as the com- 
 mune pleases. For he is elected to enforce the pub- 
 lic will, not to impose his own, — to serve the 
 common interests, not to serve his own, — to main- 
 tain and confirm custom, not to break with it. 
 Thus, though appointed chief, he is only the pub- 
 lic servant, and the least free man in his native place. 
 Various documents translated and published by 
 Professor Wigmore, in his " Notes on Land Tenure 
 and Local Institutions in Old Japan," give a start- 
 ling idea of the minute regulation of communal life 
 in country-districts during the period of the Toku- 
 jawa Shoguns. Much of the regulation was certainly 
 imposed by higher authority ; but it is likely that 
 a considerable portion of the rules represented old 
 local custom. Such documents were called Kumi-cho 
 or "Kumi ^enactments ": they established the rules 
 
 1 Down to the close of the feudal period, the mass of the population throughout 
 the country, in the great cities as well as in the villages, was administratively ordered 
 by groups of families, or rather of households, called Kumi, or " companies. " The 
 general number of households in a Kumi was five ; but there were in some provinces 
 Kumi consisting of six, and of ten, households. The heads of the households 
 composing a Kumi elected one of their number as chief, — who became the respon- 
 
104 THE COMMUNAL CULT 
 
 of conduct to be observed by all the members of a 
 village-community, and their social interest is very 
 great. By personal inquiry I have learned that in 
 various parts of the country, rules much like those 
 recorded in the Kumi-cho, are still enforced by village 
 custom. I select a few examples from Professor 
 Wigmore's translation : — 
 
 " If there be any of our number who are unkind to 
 parents, or neglectful or disobedient, we will not conceal 
 it or condone it, but will report it. . . ." 
 
 "We shall require children to respect their parents, 
 servants to obey their masters, husbands and wives and 
 brothers and sisters to live together in harmony, and the 
 younger people to revere and to cherish their elders. . . . 
 Each kumi [group of five households] shall carefully watch 
 over the conduct of its members, so as to prevent wrong- 
 doing." 
 
 "If any member of a kumi,, whether farmer, merchant, 
 or artizan, is lazy, and does not attend properly to his 
 business, the ban-gasbira [chief officer] will advise him, 
 warn him, and lead him into better ways. If the person 
 does not listen to this advice, and becomes angry and 
 obstinate, he is to be reported to the tosbiyori [village 
 elder]. ..." 
 
 "When men who are quarrelsome and who like to 
 
 sible representative of all the members of the Kumi. The origin and history of the 
 Kumi-sy&em is obscure : a similar system exists in China and in Korea. (Professor 
 Wigmore's reasons for doubting that the Japanese ^Tawz-system had a military origin, 
 appear to be cogent.) Certainly the system greatly facilitated administration. To 
 superior authority the Kumi was responsible, not the single household. 
 
THE COMMUNAL CULT 105 
 
 indulge in late hours away from home will not listen to 
 admonition, we will report them. If any other kumi 
 neglects to do this, it will be part of our duty to do it 
 for them. . . ." 
 
 " All those who quarrel with their relatives, and refuse 
 to listen to their good advice, or disobey their parents, or 
 are unkind to their fellow-villagers, shall be reported [to 
 the village officers] . . . ." 
 
 " Dancing, wrestling, and other public shows shall be 
 forbidden. Singing and dancing-girls and prostitutes shall 
 not be allowed to remain a single night in the mura 
 [village] ." 
 
 " Quarrels among the people shall be forbidden. In 
 case of dispute the matter shall be reported. If this 
 is not done, all parties shall be indiscriminately pun- 
 ished. ; . ." 
 
 " Speaking disgraceful things of another man, or publicly 
 posting him as a bad man, even if he is so, is forbidden." 
 
 " Filial piety and faithful service to a master should be 
 a matter of course ; but when there is any one who is 
 especially faithful and diligent in these things, we promise 
 to report him . . . for recommendation to the govern- 
 ment. . . ." 
 
 " As members of a kuml we will cultivate friendly feel- 
 ing even more than with our relatives, and will promote 
 each other's happiness,'as well as share each other's griefs. 
 If there is an unprincipled or lawless person in a kumi, we 
 will all share the responsibility for him." ' 
 
 1 "Notes on Land Tenure and Local Institutions in Old Japan " ( Transactions 
 Asiatic Society of J 'apart, Vol. XIX, Part I). I have chosen the quotations from 
 different kumi-cbo, and arranged them illustratively. 
 
io6 THE COMMUNAL CULT 
 
 The above are samples of the moral regulations 
 only : there were even more minute regulations 
 about other duties, — for instance : — 
 
 " When a fire occurs, the people shall immediately hasten 
 to the spot, each bringing a bucketful of water, and shall 
 endeavour, under direction of the officers, to put the fire 
 out. . . . Those who absent themselves shall be deemed 
 culpable. 
 
 " When a stranger comes to reside here, enquiries shall 
 be made as to the mura whence he came, and a surety shall 
 be furnished by him. . . . No traveller shall lodge, even 
 for a single night, in a house other than a public inn. 
 
 " News of robberies and night attacks shall be given by 
 the ringing of bells or otherwise ; and all who hear shall 
 join in pursuit, until the offender is taken. Any one wil- 
 fully refraining, shall, on investigation, be punished." 
 
 From these same Kumi-cho, it appears that no one 
 could leave his village even for a single night, with- 
 out permission, — or take service elsewhere, or marry 
 in another province, or. settle in another place. Pun- 
 ishments were severe, — a terrible flogging being 
 the common mode of chastisement by the higher 
 authority. . . . To-day, there are no such punish- 
 ments ; and, legally, a man can go where he pleases. 
 But as a matter of fact he can nowhere do as he 
 pleases ; for individual liberty is still largely restricted 
 by the survival of communal sentiment and old- 
 fashioned custom. In any country community' it 
 would be unwise to proclaim such a doctrine as that 
 
THE COMMUNAL CULT 107 
 
 a man has the right to employ his leisure and his 
 means as he may think proper. No man's time or 
 money- or effort can be considered exclusively his 
 own, — nor even the body that his ghost inhabits. 
 His right to live in the community rests solely upon 
 his willingness to serve the community ; and who- 
 ever may need his help or sympathy has the privi- 
 lege of demanding it. That " a man's house is his 
 castle " cannot be asserted in Japan — except in the 
 case of some high potentate. No ordinary person 
 can shut his door to lock out the rest of the world. 
 Everybody's house must be open to visitors: to 
 close its gates by day would be regarded as an insult 
 to the community, — sickness affording no excuse. 
 Only persons in very great authority have the right 
 of making themselves inaccessible. And to displease 
 the community in which one lives, — especially if 
 the community be a rural one, — is a serious matter. 
 When a community is displeased, it acts as an in- 
 dividual. It may consist of five hundred, a thou- 
 sand, or several thousand persons ; but the thinking 
 of all is the thinking of one. By a single serious 
 mistake a man may find himself suddenly placed in 
 solitary opposition to the common will, — isolated, 
 and most effectively ostracized. The silence and 
 the softness of the hostility only render it all the 
 more alarming. This is the ordinary form of pun- 
 ishment for a grave offence against custom : violence 
 is rare, and when resorted to is intended (except in 
 
108 THE COMMUNAL CULT 
 
 some extraordinary cases presently to be noticed) as 
 a mere correction, the punishment of a blunder. In 
 certain rough communities, blunders endangering 
 life are immediately punished by physical chastise- 
 ment, — not in anger, but on traditional principle. 
 Once I witnessed at a fishing-settlement, a chastise- 
 ment of this kind. Men were killing tunny in the 
 surf; the work was bloody and dangerous; and in 
 the midst of the excitement, one of the' fishermen 
 struck his killing-spike into the head of a boy. 
 Everybody knew that it was a pure accident ; but 
 accidents involving danger to life are rudely dealt 
 with, and this blunderer was instantly knocked 
 senseless by the men nearest him, — then dragged out 
 of the surf and flung down on the sand to recover 
 himself as best he might. No word was said about 
 the matter; and the killing went on as before. Young 
 fishermen, I am told, are roughly handled by their 
 fellows on board a ship, in the case of any error 
 involving risk to the vessel. But, as I have already 
 observed, only stupidity is punished in this fashion ; 
 and ostracism is much more dreaded than violence. 
 There is, indeed, only one yet heavier punishment 
 than ostracism — namely, banishment, either for a 
 term of years or for life. 
 
 Banishment must in old feudal times have been 
 a very serious penalty ; it is a serious penalty even 
 to-day, under the new order of things. In former 
 years the man expelled from his native place by the 
 
THE COMMUNAL CULT 109 
 
 communal will — cast out from his home, his clan, 
 his occupation — found himself face to face with 
 misery absolute. In another community there would 
 be no place for him, unless he happened to have 
 relatives there ; and these would be obliged to con- 
 sult with the local authorities, and also with the 
 officials of the fugitive's native place, before ven- 
 turing to harbour him. No stranger was suffered 
 to settle in another district than his own without 
 official permission. Old documents are extant which 
 record the punishments inflicted upon households 
 for having given shelter to a stranger under pretence 
 of relationship. A banished man was homeless 
 and friendless. He might be a skilled craftsman ; 
 but the right to exercise his craft depended upon 
 the consent of the guild representing that craft in 
 the place to which he might go ; and banished men 
 were not received by the guilds. He might try to 
 become a servant; but the commune in which he 
 sought refuge would question the right of any 
 master to employ a fugitive and a stranger. His 
 religious connexions could not serve him in the 
 least : the code of communal life was decided not 
 by Buddhist, but by Shinto ethics. Since the gods 
 of his birthplace had cast him out, and the gods of 
 any other locality had nothing to do with his original 
 cult, there was no religious help for him. Besides, 
 the mere fact of his being a refugee was itself proof 
 that he must have offended against his own cult. 
 
no THE COMMUNAL CULT 
 
 In any event no stranger could look for sympathy 
 among strangers. Even now to take a wife from 
 another province is condemned by local opinion 
 (it was forbidden in feudal times): one is still ex- 
 pected to live, work, and marry in the place where 
 one has been born, — though, in certain cases, and 
 with the public approval of one's own people, adop- 
 tion into another community is tolerated. Under 
 the feudal system there was incomparably less like- 
 lihood of sympathy for the stranger ; and banish- 
 ment signified hunger, solitude, and privation 
 unspeakable. For be it remembered that the legal 
 existence of the individual, at that period, ceased 
 entirely outside of his relation to the family and 
 to the commune. Everybody lived and worked for 
 some household ; every household for some clan ; 
 outside of the household, and the related aggregate 
 of households, there was no life to be lived — ex- 
 cept the life of criminals, beggars, and pariahs. 
 Save with official permission, one could not even 
 become a Buddhist monk. The very outcasts — 
 such as the Eta classes — formed self-governing 
 communities, with traditions of their own, and 
 would not voluntarily accept strangers. So the 
 banished man was most often doomed to become 
 a hinin, — one of that wretched class of wandering 
 pariahs who were officially termed " not-men," and 
 lived by beggary, or by the exercise of some vulgar 
 profession, such as that of ambulant musician or 
 
THE COMMUNAL CULT in 
 
 mountebank. In more ancient days a banished 
 man could have sold himself into slavery ; but even 
 this poor privilege seems to have been withdrawn 
 during the Tokugawa era. 
 
 We can scarcely imagine to-day the conditions of 
 such banishment : to find a Western parallel we must 
 go back to ancient Greek and Roman times long 
 preceding the Empire. Banishment then signified 
 religious excommunication, and practically expulsion 
 from all civilized society, — since there yet existed 
 no idea of human brotherhood, no conception of any 
 claim upon kindness except the claim of kinship. 
 The stranger was everywhere the enemy. Now in 
 Japan, as in the Greek city of old time, the religion 
 of the tutelar god has always been the religion of a 
 group only, the cult of a community : it never became 
 even the religion of a province. The higher cults, 
 on the other hand, did not concern themselves with 
 the individual : his religion was only of the house- 
 hold and of the village or district; the cults of 
 other households and districts were entirely distinct ; 
 one could belong to them only by adoption, and 
 strangers, as a rule, were not adopted. Without a 
 household or a clan-cult, the individual was morally 
 and socially dead ; for other cults and clans excluded 
 him. When cast out by the domestic cult that regu- 
 lated his private life, and by the local cult that or- 
 dered his life in relation to the community, he simply 
 ceased to exist in relation to human society. 
 
ii2 THE COMMUNAL CULT 
 
 How small were the chances in past times for 
 personality to develop and assert itself may be 
 imagined from the foregoing facts. The individual 
 was completely and pitilessly sacrificed to the com- 
 munity. Even now the only safe rule of conduct 
 in a Japanese settlement is to act in all things ac- 
 cording to local custom ; for the slightest divergence 
 from rule will be observed with disfavour. Privacy 
 does not exist ; nothing can be hidden ; everybody's 
 vices or virtues are known to everybody else. Un- 
 usual behaviour is judged as a departure from the 
 traditional standard of conduct ; all oddities are con- 
 demned as departures from custom ; and tradition 
 and custom still have the force of religious obliga- 
 tions. Indeed, they really are religious and obliga- 
 tory, not only by reason of their origin, but by 
 reason of their relation also to the public cult, which 
 signifies the worship of the past. 
 
 It is therefore easy to understand why Shinto 
 never had a written code of morals, and why its 
 greatest scholars have declared that a moral code 
 is unnecessary. In that stage of religious evolution 
 which ancestor-worship represents, there can be no 
 distinction between religion and ethics, nor between 
 ethics and custom. Government and religion are 
 the same ; custom and law are identified. The 
 ethics of Shinto were all included in conformity to 
 custom. The traditional rules of the household, 
 the traditional laws of the commune — these were 
 
THE COMMUNAL CULT 113 
 
 the morals of ShintS : to obey them was religion ; 
 to disobey them, impiety. . . . And, after all, the 
 true significance of any religious code, written or 
 unwritten, lies in its expression of social duty, its 
 doctrine of the right and wrong of conduct, its em- 
 bodiment of a people's moral experience. Really 
 the difference between any modern ideal of conduct, 
 such as the English, and the patriarchal ideal, such 
 as that of the early Greeks or of the Japanese, would 
 be found on examination to consist' mainly in the 
 minute extension of the older conception to all 
 details of individual life. Assuredly the religion 
 of Shint5 needed no written commandment : it was 
 taught to everybody from childhood by precept and 
 example, and any person of ordinary intelligence 
 could learn it. When a religion is capable of ren- 
 dering it dangerous for anybody to act outside of 
 rules, • the framing of a code would be obviously 
 superfluous. We ourselves have no written code 
 of conduct as regards the higher social life, the 
 exclusive circles of civilized existence, which are not 
 ruled merely by the Ten Commandments. The 
 knowledge of what to do in those zones, and of how 
 to do it, can come only by training, by experience, 
 by observation, and by the intuitive recognition of 
 the reason of things. 
 
 And now to return to the question of the authority 
 of the Shint5 priest as representative of communal 
 
ii4 THE COMMUNAL CULT 
 
 sentiment, — an authority which I believe to have 
 been always very great. . . . Striking proof that 
 the punishments inflicted by a community upon its 
 erring members were originally inflicted in the name 
 of the tutelar god is furnished by the fact that mani- 
 festations of communal displeasure still assume, in 
 various country districts, a religious character. I 
 have witnessed such manifestations, and I am assured 
 that they still occur in most of the provinces. But 
 it is in remote country-towns or isolated villages, 
 where traditions have remained almost unchanged, 
 that one can best observe these survivals of antique 
 custom. In such places the conduct of every resi- 
 dent is closely watched and rigidly judged by all the 
 rest. Little, however, is said about misdemeanours 
 of a minor sort until the time of the great local 
 Shinto festival, — the annual festival of the tutelar 
 god. It is then that the community gives its warn- 
 ings or inflicts its penalties : this at least in the case 
 of conduct offensive to local ethics. The god, on 
 the occasion of this festival, is supposed to visit the 
 dwellings of his Ujiko ; and his portable shrine, — a 
 weighty structure borne by thirty or forty men, — 
 is carried through the principal streets. The bearers 
 are supposed to act according to the will of the god, 
 — to go whithersoever his divine spirit directs 
 them. ... I may describe the incidents of the 
 procession as I saw it in a seacoast village, not once, 
 but several times. 
 
THE COMMUNAL CULT 115 
 
 Before the procession a band of young men ad- 
 vance, leaping and wildly dancing in circles : these 
 young men clear the way ; and it is unsafe to pass 
 near them, for they whirl about as if moved by 
 frenzy. . . . When I first saw such a band of 
 dancers, I could imagine myself watching some old 
 Dionysiac revel ; — their furious gyrations certainly 
 realized Greek accounts of the antique sacred frenzy. 
 There were, indeed, no Greek heads ; but the 
 bronzed lithe figures, naked save for loin-cloth and 
 sandals, and most sculpturesquely muscled, might 
 well have inspired some vase-design of dancing 
 fauns. After these god-possessed dancers — whose 
 passage swept the streets clear, scattering the crowd 
 to right and left — came the virgin priestess, white- 
 robed and veiled, riding upon a horse, and followed 
 by several mounted priests in white garments and 
 high black caps of ceremony. Behind them ad- 
 vanced the ponderous shrine, swaying above the 
 heads of its bearers like a junk in a storm. Scores 
 of brawny arms were pushing it to the right ; other 
 scores were pushing it to the left : behind and before, 
 also, there was furious pulling and pushing ; and the 
 roar of voices uttering invocations made it impossible 
 to hear anything else. By immemorial custom the 
 upper stories of all the dwellings had been tightly 
 closed : woe to the Peeping Tom who should be 
 detected, on such a day, in the impious act of looking 
 down upon the god ! . . . 
 
n6 THE COMMUNAL CULT 
 
 Now the shrine-bearers, as I have said, are sup- 
 posed to be moved by the spirit of the god — 
 (probably by his Rough Spirit; for the Shinto god 
 is multiple) ; and all this pushing and pulling and 
 swaying signifies only the deity's inspection of the 
 dwellings on either hand. He is looking about to 
 see whether the hearts of his worshippers are pure, 
 and is deciding whether it will be necessary to give 
 a warning, or to inflict a penalty. His bearers will 
 carry him whithersoever he chooses to go — through 
 solid walls if necessary. If the shrine strike against 
 any house, — even against an awning only, — that is 
 a sign that the god is not pleased with the dwellers 
 in that house. If the shrine breaks part of the 
 house, that is a serious warning. But it may hap- 
 pen that the god wills to enter a house, — breaking 
 his way. Then woe to the inmates, unless they 
 flee at once through the back-door ; and the wild 
 procession, thundering in, will wreck and rend and 
 smash and splinter everything on the premises be- 
 fore the god consents to proceed upon his round. 
 
 Upon enquiring into the reasons of two wreck- 
 ings of which I witnessed the results, I learned 
 enough to assure me that from the communal point 
 of view, both aggressions were morally justifiable. 
 In one case a fraud had been practised ; in the 
 other, help had been refused to the family of a 
 drowned resident. Thus one offence had been 
 legal ; the other only moral. A country commu- 
 
THE COMMUNAL CULT 117 
 
 nity will not hand over its delinquents to the police 
 except in case of incendiarism, murder, theft, or 
 other serious crime. It has a horror of law, and 
 never invokes it when the matter can be settled by 
 any other means. This was the rule also in ancient 
 times, and the feudal government encouraged its 
 maintenance. But when the tutelar deity has been 
 displeased, he insists upon the punishment or dis- 
 grace of the offender ; and the offender's entire 
 family, as by feudal custom, is held responsible. 
 The victim can invoke the new law, if he dares, and 
 bring the wreckers of his home into court, and 
 recover damages, for the modern police-courts are 
 not ruled by Shinto. But only a very rash man 
 will invoke the new law against the communal judg- 
 ment, for that action in itself would be condemned 
 as a gross breach of custom. The community is 
 always ready, through its council, to do justice in 
 cases where innocence can be proved. But if a man 
 really v guilty of the faults charged to his account 
 should try to avenge himself by appeal to a non- 
 religious law, then it were well for him to remove 
 himself and his family, as soon as possible there- 
 after, to some far-away place. 
 
 We have seen that, in Old Japan, the life of the 
 individual was under two kinds of religious control. 
 All his acts were regulated according to the tradi- 
 tions either of the domestic or of the communal 
 
n8 THE COMMUNAL CULT 
 
 cult ; and these conditions probably began with the 
 establishment of a settled civilization. We have 
 also seen that the communal religion took upon 
 itself to enforce the observance of the household 
 religion. The fact will not seem strange if we 
 , remember that the underlying idea in either cult was 
 the same, — the idea that the welfare of the living 
 depended upon the welfare of the dead. Neglect 
 of the household rite would provoke, it was be- 
 lieved, the malevolence of the spirits ; and their 
 malevolence might bring about some public mis- 
 fortune. The. ghosts of the ancestors controlled 
 nature ; — fire and flood, pestilence and famine were 
 at their" disposal, as means of vengeance. One act 
 of impiety in a village might, therefore, bring about 
 misfortune to all. And the community considered 
 itself responsible to the dead for the maintenance of 
 filial piety in every home. 
 
Developments of Shinto 
 
Developments of Shinto 
 
 THE teaching of Herbert Spencer that the 
 greater gods of a people — those figuring in 
 popular imagination as creators, or as partic- 
 ularly directing certain elemental forces — represent 
 a later development of ancestor-worship, is gener- 
 ally accepted to-day. Ancestral ghosts, considered 
 as more or less alike in the time when primitive 
 society had not yet developed class distinctions of 
 any important character, subsequently become dif- 
 ferentiated, as the society itself differentiates, into 
 greater and lesser. Eventually the worship of some 
 one ancestral spirit, or group of spirits, overshadows 
 that of all the rest ; and a supreme deity, or group 
 of supreme deities, becomes evolved. But the dif- 
 ferentiations of the ancestor-cult must be understood 
 to proceed in a great variety of directions. Particu- 
 lar ancestors of families engaged in hereditary occu- 
 pations may develop into tutelar deities presiding 
 over those occupations — patron gods of crafts and 
 guilds. Out of other ancestral cults, through vari- 
 ous processes of mental association, may be evolved 
 the worship of deities of strength, of health, of long 
 life, of particular products, of particular localities. 
 
122 DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 
 
 When more light shall have been thrown upon the 
 question of Japanese origins, it will probably be 
 found that many of the lesser tutelar or patron gods 
 now worshipped in the country were originally the 
 gods of Chinese or Korean craftsmen ; but I think 
 that Japanese mythology, as a whole, will prove to 
 offer few important exceptions to the evolutional 
 law. Indeed, Shinto presents us with a mytho- 
 logical hierarchy of which the development can be 
 satisfactorily explained by that law alone. 
 
 Besides the Ujigami, there are myriads of supe- 
 rior and of inferior deities. There are the primal 
 deities, of whom only the names are mentioned, — 
 apparitions of the period of chaos ; and there are 
 the gods of creation, who gave shape to the land. 
 There are the gods of earth and sky, and the gods 
 of the sun and moon. Also there are gods, beyond 
 counting, supposed to preside over all things good 
 or evil in human life, — birth and marriage and 
 death, riches and poverty, strength and disease. . . . 
 It can scarcely be supposed that all this mythology 
 was developed out of the old ancestor-cult in Japan 
 itself: more probably its evolution began on the 
 Asiatic continent. But the evolution of the national 
 cult — that form of Shinto which became the 
 state religion — seems to have been Japanese, in 
 the strict meaning of the word. This cult is the 
 worship of the gods from whom the emperors claim 
 descent, — the worship of the "imperial ancestors.' 
 
DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 123 
 
 It appears that the early emperors of Japan — the 
 " heavenly sovereigns," as they are called in the old 
 records — were not emperors at all in the true 
 meaning of the term, and did not even exercise 
 universal authority. They were only the chiefs of 
 the most powerful clan, or Uji, and their special 
 ancestor-cult had probably in that time no dominant 
 influence. But eventually, when the chiefs of this 
 great clan really became supreme rulers of the land, 
 their clan-cult spread everywhere, and overshad- 
 owed, without abolishing, all the other cults. Then 
 arose the national mythology. 
 
 We therefore see that the course of Japanese 
 ancestor-worship, like that of Aryan ancestor-wor- 
 ship, exhibits those three successive stages of devel- 
 opment before mentioned. It may be assumed that 
 on coming from the continent to their present island- 
 home, the race brought with them a rude form of 
 ancestor-worship, consisting of little more than rites 
 and sacrifices performed at the graves of the dead. 
 When the land had been portioned out among the 
 various clans, each of which had its own ancestor- 
 cult, all the people of the district belonging to any 
 particular clan ( would eventually adopt the religion 
 of the clan ancestor; and thus arose the thousand, 
 cults of the Ujigami. Still later, the special cult of 
 the most powerful clan developed into a national 
 religion, — the worship of the goddess of the sun, 
 
i2 4 DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 
 
 from whom the supreme ruler claimed descent. 
 Then, under Chinese influence, the domestic form 
 of ancestor-worship was established in lieu of the 
 primitive family-cult : thereafter offerings and pray- 
 ers were made regularly in the home, where the 
 ancestral tablets represented the tombs of the family 
 dead. But offerings were still made, on special 
 occasions, at the graves ; and the three Shinto forms 
 of the cult, together with later forms of Buddhist 
 introduction, continued to exist ; and they rule the 
 life of the nation to-day. 
 
 It was the cult of the supreme ruler that first 
 gave to the people a written account of traditional 
 beliefs. The mythology of the reigning house fur- 
 nished the scriptures of Shinto, and established ideas 
 linking together all the existing forms of ancestor- 
 worship. All Shint5 traditions were by these writ- 
 ings blended into one mythological history, — ex- 
 plained upon the basis of one legend. The whole 
 mythology is contained in two books, of which 
 English translations have been made. The oldest 
 is entitled Ko-ji-ki, or " Records of Ancient Mat- 
 ters " ; and it is supposed to have been compiled in 
 the year 71a a.d. The other and much larger work 
 is called Nihongi, "Chronicles of Nihon [Japan]," 
 and dates from about 720 a.d. Both works profess 
 to be histories; but a large portion of them is myth- 
 ological, and either begins with a story of. creation. 
 
DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 125 
 
 They were compiled, mostly, from oral tradition we 
 are told, by imperial order. It is said that a yet 
 earlier work, dating from the seventh century, may 
 have been drawn upon ; but this has been lost. No 
 great antiquity can, therefore, be claimed for the 
 texts as they stand ; but they contain traditions 
 which must be very much older, — possibly thou- 
 sands of years older. The Ko-ji-ki is said to have 
 been written from the dictation of an old man of 
 marvellous memory ; and the Shinto theologian 
 Hirata would have us believe that traditions thus 
 preserved are especially trustworthy. "It is prob- 
 able," he wrote, " that those ancient traditions, pre- 
 served for us by exercise of memory, have for that 
 very reason come down to us in greater detail than 
 if they had been recorded in documents. Besides, 
 men must have had much stronger memories in the 
 days before they acquired the habit of trusting to 
 written characters for facts which they wished to 
 remember, — as is shown at the present time in the 
 case of the illiterate, who have to depend on memory 
 alone." We must smile at Hirata's good faith in 
 the changelessness of oral tradition ; but I believe 
 that folk-lorists would discover in the character of 
 the older myths, intrinsic evidence of immense an- 
 tiquity. Chinese influence is discernible in both 
 works ; yet certain parts have a particular quality 
 not to be found, I imagine, in anything Chinese, — 
 a primeval artlessness, a weirdness, and a strangeness 
 
126 DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 
 
 having nothing in common with other mythical lit- 
 erature. For example, we have, in the story of 
 Izanagi, the world-maker, visiting the shades to 
 recall his dead spouse, a myth that seems to be 
 purely Japanese. The archaic naivete of the recital 
 must impress anybody who studies the literal trans- 
 lation. I shall present only the substance of the 
 legend, which has been recorded in a number of 
 different versions : * — 
 
 When the time came for the Fire-god, Kagu- 
 Tsuchi, to be born, his mother, Izanami-no-Mikoto, 
 was burnt, and suffered change, and departed. 
 Then Izanagi-no-Mikoto was wroth and said, " Oh ! 
 that I should have given my loved younger sister 
 in exchange for a single child ! " He crawled at 
 her head and he crawled at her feet, weeping and 
 lamenting ; and the tears which he shed fell down 
 and became a deity. . . . Thereafter Izanagi-no- 
 Mikoto went after Izanami-no-Mikoto into the 
 Land of Yomi, the world of the dead. Then Iza- 
 nami-no-Mikoto, appearing still as she was when 
 alive, lifted the curtain of the palace (of the dead), 
 and came forth to meet him ; and they talked to- 
 gether. And Izanagi-no-Mikoto said to her : " I 
 have come because I sorrowed for thee, my lovely 
 younger sister. O my lovely younger sister, the 
 lands that I and thou were making together are not 
 
 1 See for these different versions Aston' s translation of the Nihongi, Vol I. 
 
DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 127 
 
 yet finished ; therefore come back ! " Then Iza- 
 nami-no-Mikoto made answer, saying, " My august 
 lord and husband, lamentable it is that thou didst 
 not come sooner, — for now I have eaten of the 
 cooking-range of Yomi. Nevertheless, as I am 
 thus delightfully honoured by thine entry here, my 
 lovely elder brother, I wish to return with thee to 
 the living world. Now I go to discuss the matter 
 with the gods of Yomi. Wait thou here, and look 
 not upon me." So having spoken, she went back ; 
 and Izanagi waited for her. But she tarried so long 
 within that he became impatient. Then, taking 
 the wooden comb that he wore in the left bunch of 
 his hair, he broke off a tooth from one end of the 
 comb and lighted it, and went in to look for Iza- 
 nami-no-Mikoto. But he saw her lying swollen and 
 festering among worms ; and eight kinds of Thun- 
 der-Gods sat upon her. . . . And Izanagi, being 
 overawed by that sight, would have fled away ; but 
 Izanami rose up, crying : " Thou hast put me to 
 shame ! Why didst thou not observe that which I 
 charged thee ? . . . Thou hast seen my nakedness ; 
 now I will see thine!" And she bade the Ugly 
 Females of Yomi to follow after him, and slay him ; 
 and the eight Thunders also pursued him, and 
 Izanami herself pursued him. . . . Then Izanagi- 
 no-Mikoto drew his sword, and flourished it behind 
 him as he ran. But they followed close upon him. 
 He took off his black headdress and flung it down ; 
 
128 DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 
 
 and it became changed into grapes ; and while the 
 Ugly Ones were eating the grapes, he gained upon 
 them. But they followed quickly ; and he then 
 took his comb and cast it down, and it became 
 changed into bamboo sprouts ; and while the Ugly 
 Ones were devouring the sprouts, he fled on until 
 he reached the mouth of Yomi. Then taking a 
 rock which it would have required the strength of 
 a thousand men to lift, he blocked therewith the 
 entrance as Izanami came up. And standing be- 
 hind the rock, he began to pronounce the words 
 of divorce. Then, from the other side of the rock, 
 Izanami cried out to him, " My dear lord and 
 master, if thou dost so, in one day will I strangle 
 to death a thousand of thy people ! " And Izanagi- 
 no-Mikoto answered her, saying, " My beloved 
 younger sister, if thou dost so, I will cause in one 
 day to be born fifteen hundred. . . ." But the 
 deity Kukuri-hime-no-Kami then came, and spake 
 to Izanami some word which she seemed to approve, 
 and thereafter she vanished away. . . . 
 
 The strange mingling of pathos with nightmare- 
 terror in this myth, of which I have not ventured to 
 present all the startling naivete, sufficiently proves its 
 primitive character. It is a dream that some one 
 really dreamed, — one of those bad dreams in which 
 the figure of a person beloved becomes horribly 
 transformed ; and it has a particular interest as 
 
DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 129 
 
 expressing that fear of death and of the dead 
 informing all primitive ancestor-worship. The 
 whole pathos and weirdness of the myth, the 
 vague monstrosity of the fancies, the formal use of 
 terms of endearment in the moment of uttermost 
 loathing and fear, — all impress one as unmistakably 
 Japanese. Several other myths scarcely less remark- 
 able are to be found in the Ko-ji-ki and Nihongi ; 
 but they are mingled with legends of so light and 
 graceful a kind that it is scarcely possible to believe 
 these latter to have been imagined by the same race. 
 The story of the magical jewels and the visit to the 
 sea-god's palace, for example, in the second book of 
 the Nihongi, sounds oddly like an Indian fairy-tale ; 
 and it is not unlikely that the Ko-ji-ki and Nihongi 
 both contain myths derived from various alien 
 sources. At all events their mythical chapters pre- 
 sent us with some curious problems which yet 
 remain unsolved. Otherwise the books are dull 
 reading, in spite of the light which they shed upon 
 ancient customs and beliefs ; and, generally speak- 
 ing, Japanese mythology is unattractive. But to 
 dwell here upon the mythology, at any length, is 
 unnecessary ; for its relation to Shinto can be 
 summed up in the space of a single brief para- 
 graph : — 
 
 In the beginning neither force nor form was mani- 
 fest ; and the world was a shapeless mass that floated 
 
130 DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 
 
 Jike a jelly-fish upon water. Then, in some way — 
 we are not told how — earth and heaven became 
 separated ; dim gods appeared and disappeared ; 
 and at last there came into existence a male and a 
 female deity, who gave birth and shape to things. 
 By this pair, Izanagi and Izanami, were produced 
 the islands of Japan, and the generations of the 
 gods, and the deities of the Sun and Moon. The 
 descendants of these creating deities, and of the gods 
 whom they brought into being, were the eight thou- 
 sand (or eighty thousand) myriads of gods wor- 
 shipped by Shinto. Some went to dwell in the 
 blue Plain of High Heaven ; others remained on 
 earth and became the ancestors of the Japanese 
 race. 
 
 Such is the mythology of the Ko-ji-ki and the 
 Nihongi, stated in the briefest possible way. At 
 first it appears that there were two classes of gods 
 recognized : Celestial and Terrestrial ; and the old 
 Shinto rituals (norito) maintain this distinction. But 
 it is a curious fact that the celestial gods of this 
 mythology do not represent celestial forces ; and 
 that the gods who are really identified with celestial 
 phenomena are classed as terrestrial gods, — having 
 been born or " produced " upon earth. The Sun 
 and Moon, for example, are said to have been born 
 in Japan, — though afterwards placed in heaven ; 
 the Sun-goddess, Ama-terasu-no-oho-Kami, having 
 been produced from the left eye of Izanagi, and the 
 
DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 131 
 
 Moon-god, Tsulci-yomi-no-Mikoto, having been 
 produced from the right eye of Izanagi when, after 
 his visit to the under-world, he washed himself at the 
 mouth of a river in the island of Tsukushi. The 
 Shinto scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- 
 turies established some order in this chaos of fancies 
 by denying all distinction between the Celestial and 
 Terrestrial gods, except as regarded the accident of 
 birth. They also denied the old distinction between 
 the so-called Age of the Gods (Kami-yo), and the 
 subsequent period of the Emperors. It was true, 
 they said, that the early rulers of Japan were gods ; 
 but so were also the later rulers. The whole 
 Imperial line, the " Sun's Succession," represented 
 one unbroken descent from the Goddess of the Sun. 
 Hirata wrote : " There exists no hard and fast line 
 between the Age of the Gods and the present age ; 
 and there exists no justification whatever for drawing 
 one, as the Nihongi does." Of course this position 
 involved the doctrine of a divine descent for the 
 whole race, — inasmuch as, according to the old 
 mythology, the first Japanese were all descendants 
 of gods, — and that doctrine Hirata boldly accepted. 
 All the Japanese, he averred, were of divine origin, 
 and for that reason superior to the people of all other 
 countries. He even held that their divine descent 
 could be proved without difficulty. These are his 
 words : " The descendants of the gods who accom- 
 panied Ninigi-no-Mikoto [grandson of the Sun-god- 
 
132 DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 
 
 dess, and supposed founder of the Imperial house,~\ — as 
 well as the offspring of the successive Mikados, who 
 entered the ranks of the subjects of the Mikados, 
 with the names of Taira, Minamoto, and so forth, — 
 have gradually increased and multiplied. Although 
 numbers of Japanese cannot state with certainty from 
 what gods they are descended, all of them have tribal 
 names {kaban'e), which were originally bestowed on 
 them by the Mikados ; and those who make it their 
 province to study genealogies can tell from a man's 
 ordinary surname, who his remotest ancestor must 
 have been." All the Japanese were gods in this 
 sense ; and their country was properly called the 
 Land of the Gods, — Shinkoku or Kami-no-kuni. 
 Are we to understand Hirata literally ? I think 
 so — but we must remember that there existed in 
 feudal times large classes of people, outside of the 
 classes officially recognized as forming the nation, 
 who were not counted as Japanese, nor even as 
 human beings : these were pariahs, and reckoned 
 as little better than animals. Hirata probably 
 referred to the four great classes only — samurai, 
 farmers, artizans, and merchants. But even in that 
 case what are we to think of his ascription of divin- 
 ity to the race, in view of the moral and physical 
 feebleness of human nature ? The moral side of the 
 question is answered by the Shinto theory of evil 
 deities, " gods of crookedness," who were alleged to 
 have " originated from the impurities contracted by 
 
DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 133 
 
 Izanagi during his visit to the under-world." As 
 for the physical weakness of men, that is explained 
 by a legend of Ninigi-no-Mikoto, divine founder 
 of the imperial house. The Goddess of Long Life, 
 Iha-naga-hime (Rock-long-princess), was sent to him 
 for wife ; but he rejected her because of her ugli- 
 ness ; and that unwise proceeding brought about 
 " the present shortness of the lives of men." Most 
 mythologies ascribe vast duration to the lives of early 
 patriarchs or rulers : the farther we go back into 
 mythological history, the longer-lived are the sover- 
 eigns. To this general rule Japanese mythology pre- 
 sents no exception. The son of Ninigi-no-Mikoto is 
 said to have lived five hundred and eighty years at 
 his palace of Takachiho ; but that, remarks Hirata, 
 " was a short life compared with the lives of those 
 who lived before him." Thereafter men's bodies 
 declined in force ; life gradually became shorter and 
 shorter ; yet in spite of all degeneration the Japan- 
 ese still show traces of their divine origin. After 
 death they enter into a higher divine condition, 
 without, however, abandoning this world. . . . Such 
 were Hirata's views. Accepting the Shint5 theory 
 of origins, this ascription of divinity to human nature 
 proves less inconsistent than it appears at first sight ; 
 and the modern Shintoist may discover a germ of 
 scientific truth in the doctrine which traces back the 
 beginnings of life to the Sun. 
 
134 DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 
 
 More than any other Japanese writer, Hirata has 
 enabled us to understand the hierarchy of Shinto 
 mythology, — corresponding closely, as we might 
 have expected, to the ancient ordination of Japanese 
 society. In the lowermost ranks are the spirits of 
 common people, worshipped only at the household 
 shrine or at graves. Above these are the gentile 
 gods or Ujigami, — ghosts of old rulers now wor- 
 shipped as tutelar gods. All Ujigami, Hirata tells 
 us, are under the control of the Great God of Izumo, 
 — Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami, — and, " acting as his 
 agents, they rule the fortunes of human beings be- 
 fore their birth, during their life, and after their 
 death." This means that the ordinary ghosts obey, 
 in the world invisible, the commands of the clan- 
 gods or tutelar deities ; that the conditions of com- 
 munal worship during life continue after death. 
 The following extract from Hirata will be found of 
 interest, — not only as showing the supposed rela- 
 tion of the individual to the Ujigami, but also as 
 suggesting how the act of abandoning one's birth- 
 place was formerly judged by common opinion: — 
 
 " When a person removes his residence, his original 
 Ujigami has to make arrangements with the Ujigami of the 
 place whither he transfers his abode. On such occasions 
 it is proper to take leave of the old god, and to pay a visit 
 to the temple of the new god as soon as possible after 
 coming within his jurisdiction. The apparent reasons 
 which a man imagines to have induced him to change his 
 
DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 135 
 
 abode may be many ; but the real reasons cannot be otherwise 
 than that either he has offended his Ujigami, and is therefore 
 expelled, or that the Ujigami of another place has negotiated his 
 transfer. . . ." 1 
 
 It would thus appear that every person was sup- 
 posed to be the subject, servant, or retainer of some 
 Ujigami, both during life and after death. 
 
 There were, of course, various grades of these 
 clan-gods, just as there were various grades of living 
 rulers, lords of the soil. Above ordinary Ujigami 
 ranked the deities worshipped in the chief Shinto 
 temples of the various provinces, which temples 
 were termed Ichi-no-miya, or temples of the first 
 grade. These deities appear to have been in many 
 cases spirits of princes or greater daimyo, formerly 
 ruling extensive districts ; but all were not of this 
 category. Among them were deities of elements or 
 elemental forces, — Wind, Fire, and Sea, — deities 
 also of longevity, of destiny, and of harvests, — clan- 
 gods, perhaps, originally, though their real history 
 had been long forgotten. But above all other 
 Shinto divinities ranked the gods of the Imperial 
 Cult, — the supposed ancestors of the Mikados. 
 
 Of the higher forms of Shinto worship, that of 
 the imperial ancestors proper is the most important, 
 being the State cult; but it is not the oldest. 
 There are two supreme cults : that of the Sun-god- 
 
 1 Translated by Satow. The italics are mine. 
 
136 DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 
 
 dess, represented by the famous shrines of Ise ; and 
 the Izumo cult, represented by the great temple of 
 Kitzuki. This Izumo temple is the centre of the 
 more ancient cult. It is dedicated to Oho-kuni- 
 nushi-no-Kami, first ruler of the Province of the 
 Gods, and offspring of the brother of the Sun-god- 
 dess. Dispossessed of his realm in favour of the 
 founder of the imperial dynasty, Oho-kuni-nushi- 
 no-Kami became the ruler of the Unseen World, 
 — that is to say the World of Ghosts. Unto his 
 shadowy dominion the spirits of all men proceed 
 after death ; and he rules over all of the Ujigami. 
 We may therefore term him the Emperor of the 
 Dead. "You cannot hope," Hirata says, " to live 
 more than a hundred years, under the most favour- 
 able circumstances ; but as you will go to the Un- 
 seen Realm of Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami after death, 
 and be subject to him, learn betimes to bow down 
 before him." . . . That weird fancy expressed in 
 the wonderful fragment by Coleridge, " The Wan- 
 derings of Cain," would therefore seem to have 
 actually formed an article of ancient Shinto faith : 
 " The Lord is God of the living only : the dead have 
 another God." . . . 
 
 The God of the Living in Old Japan was, of 
 course, the Mikado, — the deity incarnate, Arahito- 
 gami, — and his palace was the national sanctuary, 
 the Holy of Holies. Within the precincts of that 
 
DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 137 
 
 palace was the Kashiko-Dokoro (" Place of Awe "), 
 the private shrine of the Imperial Ancestors, where 
 only the court could worship, — the public form of 
 the same cult being maintained at Ise. But the 
 Imperial House worshipped also by deputy (and 
 still so worships) both at Kitzuki and Ise, and like- 
 wise at various other great sanctuaries. Formerly a 
 great number of temples were maintained, or partly 
 maintained, from the imperial revenues. All Shint5 
 temples of importance used to be classed as greater 
 and lesser shrines. There were 304 of the first 
 rank, and 2828 of the second rank. But multi- 
 tudes of temples were not included in this official 
 classification, and depended upon local support. 
 The recorded total of Shinto shrines to-day is 
 upwards of 195,000. 
 
 We have thus — without counting the great 
 Izumo .cult of Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami — four 
 classes of ancestor-worship : the domestic religion, 
 the religion of the Ujigami, the worship at the chief 
 shrines \Ichi-no-miya\ of the several provinces, and 
 the national cult at Ise. All these cults are now 
 linked together by tradition ; and the devout Shin- 
 toist worships the divinities of all, collectively, in 
 his daily morning prayer. Occasionally he visits 
 the chief shrine of his province ; and he makes a 
 pilgrimage to Ise if he can. Every Japanese is 
 expected to visit the shrines of Ise once in his life- 
 
138 DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 
 
 time, or to send thither a deputy. Inhabitants of 
 remote districts are not all able, of course, to make 
 the pilgrimage ; but there is no village which does 
 not, at certain intervals, send pilgrims either to 
 Kitzuki or to Ise on behalf of the community, — 
 the expense of such representation being defrayed 
 by local subscription. And, furthermore, every 
 Japanese can worship the supreme divinities of 
 Shinto in his own house, where upon a " god-shelf" 
 (Kamidand) are tablets inscribed with the assurance 
 of their divine protection, — holy charms obtained 
 from the priests of Ise or of Kitzuki. In the case 
 of the Ise cult, such tablets are commonly made 
 from the wood of the holy shrines themselves, which, 
 according to primal custom, must be rebuilt every 
 twenty years, — the timber of the demolished struc- 
 tures being then cut into tablets for distribution 
 throughout the country. 
 
 Another development of ancestor-worship — the 
 cult of gods presiding over crafts and callings — 
 deserves special study. Unfortunately we are as 
 yet little informed upon the subject. Anciently this 
 worship must have been more definitely ordered 
 and maintained than it is now. Occupations were 
 hereditary ; artizans were grouped into guilds — 
 perhaps we might even say castes; — and each guild 
 or caste then probably had its patron-deity. In 
 some cases the craft-gods may have been ancestors 
 
DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 139 
 
 of Japanese craftsmen ; in other cases they were 
 perhaps of Korean or Chinese origin, — ancestral 
 gods of immigrant artizans, who brought their cults 
 with them to Japan. Not much is known about 
 them. But it is tolerably safe to assume that most, 
 if not all of the guilds, were at one time religiously 
 organized, and that apprentices were adopted not 
 only in a craft, but into a cult. There were corpo- 
 rations of weavers, potters, carpenters, arrow-makers, 
 bow-makers, smiths, boat-builders, and other trades- 
 men ; and the past religious organization of these is 
 suggested by the fact that certain occupations assume 
 a religious character even to-day. For example, the 
 carpenter still builds according to Shinto tradition : 
 he dons a priestly costume at a certain stage of the 
 work, performs rites, and chants invocations, and 
 places the new house under the protection of the 
 • gods. But the occupation of the swordsmith was in 
 old days the most sacred of crafts : he worked in 
 priestly garb, and practised Shinto rites of purifica- 
 tion while engaged in the making of a good blade. 
 Before his smithy was then suspended the sacred 
 rope of rice-straw (shimt-nawa), which is the oldest 
 symbol of Shinto : none even of his family might 
 enter there, or speak to him ; and he ate only of 
 food cooked with holy fire. 
 
 The 195,000 shrines of Shinto represent, how- 
 ever, more than clan-cults or guild-cults or national- 
 
140 DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 
 
 cults. . . . Many are dedicated to different spirits 
 of the same god ; for Shinto holds that the spirit 
 of either a man or a god may divide itself into 
 several spirits, each with a different character. Such 
 separated spirits are called waka-mi-tama (" august- 
 divided-spirits "). Thus the spirit of the Goddess 
 of Food, Toyo-uke-bime, separated itself into the 
 God of Trees, Kukunochi-no-Kami, and into the 
 Goddess of Grasses, Kayanu-hime-no-Kami. Gods 
 and men were supposed to have also a Rough 
 Spirit and a Gentle Spirit ; and Hirata remarks that 
 the Rough Spirit of Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami was 
 worshipped at one temple, and his Gentle Spirit at 
 another. 1 . . . Also we have to remember that 
 great numbers of Ujigami temples are dedicated to 
 the same divinity. These duplications or multipli- 
 cations are again offset by the fact that in some of 
 the principal temples a multitude of different deities 
 are enshrined. Thus the number of Shinto temples 
 in actual existence affords no indication whatever of 
 the actual number of gods worshipped, nor of the 
 variety of their cults. Almost every deity men- 
 tioned in the Ko-ji-ki or Nihongi has a shrine some- 
 where ; and hundreds of others — including many 
 later apotheoses — have their temples. Numbers 
 of temples have been dedicated, for example, to 
 
 1 Even men had the Rough and the Gentle Spirit ; but a god had three distinct 
 spirits, — the Rough, the Gentle, and the Bestowing, — respectively termed Ara- 
 mi-tama, Nigi-mi-tama, and Saki-mi-lama. — [See Satow's Revival of Pure 
 Sbintau.~\ 
 
DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 141 
 
 historical personages, — to spirits of great ministers, 
 captains, rulers, scholars, heroes, and statesmen. 
 The famous minister of the Empress Jingo, Take- 
 no-uji-no-Sukune, — who served under six succes- 
 sive sovereigns, and lived to the age of three 
 hundred years, — is now invoked in many a temple 
 as a giver of long life and great wisdom. The spirit 
 of Sugiwara-no-Michizane, once minister to the 
 Emperor Daigo, is worshipped as the god of callig- 
 raphy, under the name of Tenjin, or Temmangu : 
 children everywhere offer to him the first examples 
 of their handwriting, and deposit in receptacles, 
 placed before his shrine, their worn-out writing- 
 brushes. The Soga brothers, victims and heroes 
 of a famous twelfth-century tragedy, have become 
 gods to whom people pray for the maintenance of 
 fraternal harmony. Kato Kiyomasa, the determined 
 enemy of Jesuit Christianity, and Hideyoshi's 
 greatest captain, has been apotheosized both by 
 Buddhism and by Shinto. Iyeyasu is worshipped 
 under the appellation of Toshogu. In fact most of 
 the great men of Japanese history have had temples 
 erected to them ; and the spirits of the daimyo were, 
 in former years, regularly worshipped by the sub- 
 jects of their descendants and successors. 
 
 Besides temples to deities presiding over indus- 
 tries and agriculture, — or deities especially invoked 
 by the peasants, such as the goddess of silkworms, 
 
142 DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 
 
 the goddess of rice, the gods of wind and weather, 
 — there are to be found in almost every part of 
 the country what I may call propitiatory temples. 
 These latter Shinto shrines have been erected by 
 way of compensation to spirits of persons who suf- 
 fered great injustice or misfortune. In these cases 
 the worship assumes a very curious character, the 
 worshipper always appealing for protection against 
 the same kind of calamity or trouble as that from 
 which the apotheosized person suffered during life. 
 In Izumo, for example, I found a temple dedicated 
 to the spirit of a woman, once a prince's favourite. 
 She had been driven to suicide by the intrigues of 
 jealous rivals. The story is that she had very beau- 
 tiful hair ; but it was not quite black, and her ene- 
 mies used to reproach her with its color. Now 
 mothers having children with brownish hair pray to 
 her that the brown may be changed to black ; and 
 offerings are made to her of tresses of hair and 
 Tokyo coloured prints, for it is still remembered 
 that she was fond of such prints. In the same 
 province there is a shrine erected to the spirit of a 
 young wife, who pined away for grief at the absence 
 of her lord. She used to climb a hill to watch for 
 his return, and the shrine was built upon the place 
 where she waited ; and wives pray there to her for 
 the safe return of absent husbands. . . . An almost 
 similar kind of propitiatory worship is practised in 
 cemeteries. Public pity seeks to apotheosize those 
 
DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 143 
 
 urged to suicide by cruelty, or those executed for 
 offences which, although legally criminal, were in- 
 spired by patriotic or other motives commanding 
 sympathy. Before their graves offerings are laid and 
 prayers are murmured. Spirits of unhappy lovers 
 are commonly invoked by young people who suffer 
 from the same cause. . . . And, among other forms 
 of propitiatory worship I must mention the old cus- 
 tom of erecting small shrines to spirits of animals, 
 — chiefly domestic animals, — either in recognition 
 of dumb service rendered and ill-rewarded, or as a 
 compensation for pain unjustly inflicted. 
 
 Yet another class of tutelar divinities remains 
 to be noticed, — those who dwell within or about 
 the houses of men. Some are mentioned in the 
 old mythology, and are probably developments 
 of Japanese ancestor-worship ; some are of alien 
 origin ; some do not appear to have any tem- 
 ples ; and some represent little more than what 
 is called Animism. This class of divinities cor- 
 responds rather to the Roman dii genitales than 
 to the Greek Sai/xoves. Suijin-Sama, the God of 
 Wells ; Kojin, the God of the Cooking-range (in 
 almost every kitchen there is either a tiny shrine for 
 him,, or a written charm bearing his name) ; the gods 
 of the Cauldron and Saucepan, Kudo-no-Kami and 
 Kobe-no-Kami (anciently called Okitsuhiko and 
 Okitsuhime) ; the Master of Ponds, Ike-no-Nushi, 
 
144 DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 
 
 supposed to make apparition in the form of a 
 serpent ; the Goddess of the Rice-pot, O-Kama- 
 Sama; the Gods of the Latrina, who first taught 
 men how to fertilize their fields (these are commonly- 
 represented by little figures of paper, having the 
 forms of a man and a woman, but faceless) ; the 
 Gods of Wood and Fire and Metal ; the Gods like- 
 wise of Gardens, Fields, Scarecrows, Bridges, Hills, 
 Woods, and Streams ; and also the Spirits of Trees 
 (for Japanese mythology has its dryads) : most of 
 • these are undoubtedly of Shinto. On the other 
 hand, we find the roads under the protection of 
 Buddhist deities chiefly. I have not. been able to 
 learn anything regarding gods of boundaries, — ter- 
 mes, as the Latins called them ; and one sees only 
 images of the Buddhas at the limits of village terri- 
 tories. But in almost every garden, on the north 
 side, there is a little Shinto shrine, facing what is 
 called the Ki-Mon, or " Demon-Gate," — that is to 
 say, the direction from which, according to Chinese 
 teaching, all evils come ; and these little shrines, 
 dedicated to various Shinto deities, are supposed to 
 protect the home from evil spirits. The belief in 
 the Ki-Mon is obviously a Chinese importation. 
 
 One may doubt, however, if Chinese influence 
 alone developed the belief that every part of <a 
 house, — every beam of it, — and every domestic 
 utensil has its invisible guardian. Considering this 
 belief, it is not surprising that the building of a 
 
DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 145 
 
 house — unless the house be in foreign style — is 
 still a religious act, and that the functions of a 
 master-builder include those of a priest. 
 
 This brings us to the subject of Animism. (I 
 doubt whether any evolutionist of the contemporary 
 school holds to the old-fashioned notion that ani- 
 mism preceded ancestor-worship, — a theory in- 
 volving the assumption that belief in the spirits of 
 inanimate objects was evolved before the idea of a 
 human ghost had yet been developed.) In Japan it 
 is now as difficult to draw the line between animistic 
 beliefs and the lowest forms of Shinto, as to establish 
 a demarcation between the vegetable and the animal 
 worlds ; but the earliest Shinto literature gives no 
 evidence of such a developed animism as that now 
 existing. Probably the development was gradual, 
 and largely influenced by Chinese beliefs. Still, we 
 read in the Ko-ji-ki of "evil gods who glittered like 
 fireflies or were disorderly as mayflies," and of 
 " demons who made rocks, and stumps of trees, 
 and the foam of the green waters to speak," — 
 showing that animistic or fetichistic notions were 
 prevalent to some extent before the period of Chi- 
 nese influence. And it is significant that where 
 animism is associated with persistent worship (as in 
 the matter of the reverence paid to strangely shaped 
 stones or trees), the form of the worship is, in most 
 cases, Shinto. Before such objects there is usually 
 
146 DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO 
 
 to be seen the model of a Shint5 gateway, — torn. . . . 
 With the development of animism, under Chinese 
 and Korean influence, the man of Old Japan found 
 himself truly in a world of spirits and demons. 
 They spoke to him in the sound of tides and of 
 cataracts, in the moaning of wind and the whispers 
 of leafage, in the crying of birds, and the trilling 
 of insects, in all the voices of nature. For him all 
 visible motion — whether of waves or grasses or 
 shifting mist or drifting cloud — was ghostly ; and 
 the never moving rocks — nay, the very stones by 
 the wayside — were informed with viewless and 
 awful being. 
 
Worship and Purification 
 
Worship and Purification 
 
 WE have seen that, in Old Japan, the world 
 of the living was everywhere ruled by the 
 world of the dead, — that the individual, 
 at every moment of his existence, was under ghostly 
 supervision. In his home he was watched by the 
 spirits of his fathers ; without it, he was ruled by 
 the god of his district. All about him, and above 
 him, and beneath him were invisible powers of life 
 and death. In his conception of nature all things 
 were ordered by the dead, — light and darkness, 
 weather and season, winds and tides, mist and rain, 
 growth and decay, sickness and health. The view- 
 less atmosphere was a phantom-sea, an ocean of 
 ghost ; the soil that he tilled was pervaded by spirit- 
 essence ; the trees were haunted and holy ; even 
 the rocks and the stones were infused with conscious 
 life. . . . How might he discharge his duty to the 
 infinite concourse of the invisible ? 
 
 Few scholars could remember the names of all 
 the greater gods, not to speak of the lesser ; and no 
 mortal could have found time to address those 
 greater gods by their respective names in \his daily 
 
 149 
 
150 WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 
 
 prayer. The later Shinto teachers proposed to 
 simplify the duties of the faith by prescribing one 
 brief daily prayer to the gods in general, and special 
 prayers to a few gods in particular ; and in thus 
 doing they were most likely confirming a custom 
 already established by necessity. Hirata wrote : 
 " As the number of the gods who possess different 
 functions is very great, it will be convenient to 
 worship by name the most important only, and 
 to include the rest in a general petition." He pre- 
 scribed ten prayers for persons having time to 
 repeat them, but lightened the duty for busy folk, 
 
 — observing : " Persons whose daily affairs are 
 so multitudinous that they have not time to go 
 through all the prayers, may content themselves 
 with adoring (i) the residence of the Emperor, (2) 
 the domestic god-shelf, — kamidana, (3) the spirits 
 of their ancestors, (4) their local patron-god, — 
 Ujigami, (5) the deity of their particular calling." 
 He advised that the following prayer should be 
 daily repeated before the " god-shelf" : — 
 
 " Reverently adoring the great god of the two palaces 
 of Ise in the first place, — the eight hundred myriads of 
 celestial gods, — the eight hundred myriads of terrestrial 
 gods, — the fifteen hundred myriads of gods to whom are 
 consecrated the great and small temples in all provinces, all 
 islands, and all' places of the Great Land of Eight Islands, 
 
 — the fifteen hundred myriads of gods whom they cause to 
 serve them, and the gods of branch-palaces and branch- 
 
WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 151 
 
 temples, — and Sohodo-no-Kami 1 whom I have invited to 
 the shrine set up on this divine shelf, and to whom I offer 
 praises day by day, — I pray with awe that they will deign 
 to correct the unwilling faults which, heard and seen by 
 them, I have committed ; and that, blessing and favour- 
 ing me according to the powers which they severally wield, 
 they will cause me to follow the divine example, and to 
 perform good works in the Way." 2 
 
 This text is interesting as an example of what 
 Shinto's greatest expounder thought a Shinto prayer 
 should be ; and, excepting the reference to So-ho- 
 do-no-Kami, the substance of it is that of the morn- 
 ing prayer still repeated in Japanese households. 
 But the modern prayer is very much shorter. . . . 
 In Izumo, the oldest Shinto province, the customary 
 morning worship offers perhaps the best example of 
 the ancient rules of devotion. Immediately upon 
 rising, the worshipper performs his ablutions ; and 
 after having washed his face and rinsed his mouth, 
 he turns to the sun, claps his hands, and with bowed 
 head reverently utters the simple greeting: "Hail 
 to thee this day, August One ! " In thus adoring 
 the sun he is also fulfilling his duty as a subject, — 
 paying obeisance to the Imperial Ancestor. . . , 
 The act is performed out of doors, not kneeling, 
 but standing ; and the spectacle of this simple wor- 
 ship is impressive. I can now see in memory, — 
 
 1 Sohodo-no-Kami is the god of scarecrows, — protector of the fields. 
 
 2 Translated by Satow. 
 
152 WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 
 
 just as plainly as I saw with my eyes many years 
 ago, off the wild Old coast, — the naked figure of a 
 young fisherman erect at the prow of his boat, clap- 
 ping his hands in salutation to the rising sun, whose 
 ruddy glow transformed him into a statue of bronze. 
 Also I retain a vivid memory of pilgrim-figures 
 poised upon the topmost crags of the summit of 
 Fuji, clapping their hands in prayer, with faces to 
 the East. ... Perhaps ten thousand — twenty 
 thousand — years ago all humanity so worshipped 
 the Lord of Day. . . . 
 
 After having saluted the sun, the worshipper 
 returns to his house, to pray before the Kamidana 
 and before the tablets of the ancestors. Kneeling, 
 he invokes the great gods of Ise or of Izumo, the 
 gods of the chief temples of his province, the god 
 of his parish-temple also (Ujigami), and finally all 
 the myriads of the deities, of Shinto. These prayers 
 are not said aloud. The ancestors are thanked for 
 the foundation of the home ; the higher deities are 
 invoked for aid and protection. . . . As for the 
 custom of bowing in the direction of the Emperor's 
 palace, I am not able to say to what extent it sur- 
 vives in the remoter districts ; but I have often seen 
 the reverence performed. Once, too, I saw rever- 
 ence done immediately in front of the gates of the 
 palace in Tokyo by country-folk on a visit to the 
 capital. They knew me, because I had often 
 sojourned in their village ; and on reaching Tokyo 
 
WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 153 
 
 tney sought me out, and found me. I took them 
 to the palace ; and before the main entrance they 
 removed their hats, and bowed, and clapped their 
 hands, — just as they would have done when salut- 
 ing the gods or the rising sun, — and this with a 
 simple and dignified reverence that touched me not 
 a little. 
 
 The duties of morning worship, which include 
 the placing of offerings before the tablets, are not 
 the only duties of the domestic cult. In a Shinto 
 household, where the ancestors and the higher gods 
 are separately worshipped, the ancestral shrine may 
 be said to correspond with the Roman lararium ; 
 while the " god-shelf," with its taima or o-nusa (sym- 
 bols of those higher gods especially revered by the 
 family), may be compared with the place accorded 
 by Latin custom to the worship of the Penates. 
 Both Shinto cults have their particular feast-days ; 
 and, in the case of the ancestor-cult, the feast-days 
 are occasions of religious assembly, — when the 
 relatives of the family should gather to celebrate 
 the domestic rite. . . . The Shintoist must also 
 take part in the celebration of the festivals of the 
 Ujigami, and must at least aid in the celebration of 
 the nine great national holidays related to the national 
 cult ; these nine, out of a total eleven, being occa- 
 sions of imperial ancestor-worship. 
 
 The nature of the public rites varied according to 
 
154 WORSHIP -AND PURIFICATION 
 
 the rank of the gods. Offerings and prayers were 
 made to all ; but the greater deities were worshipped 
 with exceeding ceremony. To-day the offerings 
 usually consist of food and rice-wine, together with 
 symbolic articles representing the costlier gifts of 
 woven stuffs presented by ancient custom. The 
 _ceremonies include processions, music, singing, and 
 dancing. At the very small shrines there are few 
 ceremonies, — only offerings of food are presented. 
 But at the great temples there are hierarchies of 
 priests and priestesses (miko) — usually daughters 
 of priests ; and the ceremonies are elaborate and 
 solemn. It is particularly at the temples of Ise 
 (where, down to the fourteenth century the high- 
 priestess was a daughter of emperors), or at the 
 great temple of Izumo, that the archaic character 
 of the ceremonial can be studied to most advantage. 
 There, in spite of the passage of that huge wave 
 of Buddhism, which for a period almost submerged 
 the more ancient faith, all things remain as they 
 were a score of centuries ago ; — Time, in those 
 haunted precincts, would seem to have slept, as 
 in the enchanted palaces of fairy-tale. The mere 
 shapes of the buildings, weird and tall, startle by 
 their unfamiliarity. Within, all is severely plain 
 and pure : there are no images, no ornaments, no 
 i symbols visible — except those strange paper-cut- 
 tings (go/iei), suspended to upright rods, which are 
 symbols of offerings and also tokens of the view- 
 
WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 155 
 
 less. By the number of them in the sanctuary, you 
 know the number of the deities to whom the place 
 is consecrate. There is nothing imposing but the 
 space, the silence, and the suggestion of the past. 
 The innermost shrine is veiled : it contains, perhaps, 
 a mirror of bronze, an ancient sword, or other ob- 
 ject enclosed in multiple wrappings : that is all. 
 For this faith, older than icons, needs no images : 
 its gods are ghosts ; and the void stillness of its 
 shrines compels more awe than tangible representa- 
 tion could inspire. Very strange, to Western eyes 
 at least, are the rites, the forms of the worship, the 
 shapes of sacred objects. Not by any modern 
 method must the sacred fire be lighted, — the fire 
 that cooks the food of the gods : it can be kindled 
 only in the most ancient of ways, with a wooden 
 fire-drill. The chief priests are robed in the sacred 
 colour, — white, — and wear headdresses of a shape 
 no longer seen elsewhere : high caps of the kind 
 formerly worn by lords and princes. Their assist- 
 ants wear various colours, according to grade ; and 
 the faces of none are completely shaven ; — some 
 wear full beards, others the mustache only. The 
 actions and attitudes of these hierophants are digni- 
 fied, yet archaic, in a degree difficult to describe. 
 Each movement is regulated by tradition ; and to 
 perform well the functions of a Kannushi, a long 
 disciplinary preparation is necessary. The office is 
 hereditary ; the training begins in boyhood ; and 
 
156 WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 
 
 the impassive deportment eventually acquired is 
 really a wonderful thing. Officiating, the Kannushi 
 seems rather a statue than a man, — an image moved 
 by invisible strings ; — and, like the gods, he never 
 winks. Not at least observably. . . . Once, dur- 
 ing a great Shinto procession, several Japanese 
 friends, and I myself, undertook to watch a young 
 priest on horseback, in order to see how long he 
 could keep from winking ; and none of us were able 
 to detect the slightest movement of eyes or eyelids, 
 notwithstanding that the priest's horse became res- 
 tive during the time that we were watching. 
 
 The principal incidents of the festival ceremonies 
 within the great temples are the presentation of the 
 offerings, the repetition of the ritual, and the danc- 
 ing of the priestesses. Each of these perform- 
 ances retains a special character rigidly fixed by 
 tradition. The food-offerings are served upon 
 archaic vessels of unglazed pottery (red earthen- 
 ware mostly) : boiled rice pressed into cones of the 
 form of a sugar-loaf, various preparations of fish 
 and of edible sea-weed, fruits and fowls, rice-wine 
 presented in jars of immemorial shape. These 
 offerings are carried into the temple upon white 
 wooden trays of curious form, and laid upon white 
 wooden tables of equally curious form; — the faces 
 of the bearers being covered, below the eyes, with 
 sheets jof white paper, in order that their breath may 
 
WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 157 
 
 not contaminate the food of the gods ; and the trays, 
 for like reason, must be borne at arms' length. . . . 
 In ancient times the offerings would seem to have 
 included things much more costly than food, — if 
 we may credit the testimony of what are probably 
 the oldest documents extant in the Japanese tongue, 
 the Shinto rituals, or norito. 1 The following excerpt 
 from Satow's translation of the ritual prayer to the 
 Wind-gods of Tatsuta is interesting, not only as a 
 fine example of the language of the norito, but also 
 as indicating the character of the great ceremonies in 
 early ages, and the nature of the offerings : — 
 
 " As the great offerings set up for the Youth-god, I set 
 up various sorts of offerings : for Clothes, bright cloth, 
 glittering cloth, soft cloth, and coarse cloth, — and the five 
 kinds of things, a mantlet, a spear, a horse furnished with 
 a saddle ; — for the Maiden-god I set up various sorts of 
 offerings — providing Clothes, a golden thread-box, a golden 
 tatari, a golden skein-holder, bright cloth, glittering cloth, 
 soft cloth, and coarse cloth, and the five kinds of things, a 
 horse furnished with a saddle ; — as to Liquor, I raise high 
 the beer-jars, fill and range-in-a-row the bellies of the beer- 
 jars ; soft grain and coarse grain ; — as to things which 
 dwell in the hills, things soft of hair and things coarse of 
 hair ; — as to things which grow in the great field-plain, 
 sweet herbs and bitter herbs ; — as to things which dwell in 
 the blue sea-plain, things broad of fin and things narrow 
 of fin — down to the weeds of the offing and weeds of the 
 
 1 Several have been translated by Satow, whose opinion of their antiquity is here 
 cited : and translations have also been made into German. 
 
158 WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 
 
 shore. And if the sovran gods will take these great offer- 
 ings which I set up, — piling them up like a range of hills, 
 — peacefully in their hearts, as peaceful offerings and satis- 
 factory offerings ; and if the sovran gods, deigning not 
 to visit the things produced by the great People of the 
 region under heaven with bad winds and rough waters, will 
 ripen and bless them, — I will at the autumn service set up 
 the first fruits, raising high the beer-jars, filling and rang- 
 ing-in-rows the bellies of the beer-jars, — and drawing 
 them hither in juice and in ear, in many hundred rice- 
 plants and a thousand rice-plants. And for this purpose 
 the princes and councillors and all the functionaries, the 
 servants of the six farms of the country of Yamato — 
 even to the males and females of them — have all come 
 and assembled in the fourth month of this year, and, plung- 
 ing down the root of the neck cormorant-wise in the presence 
 of the sovran gods, fulfil their praise as the Sun of to-day 
 rises in glory." . . . 
 
 The offerings are no longer piled up " like a 
 range of hills," nor do they include " all things 
 dwelling in the mountains and in the sea " ; but the 
 imposing ritual remains, and the ceremony is always 
 impressive. Not the least interesting part of it is 
 the sacred dance. While the gods are supposed to 
 be partaking of the food and wine set out before 
 their shrines, the girl-priestesses, robed in crimson 
 and white, move gracefully to the sound of drums 
 and flutes, — waving fans, or shaking bunches of tiny 
 bells ss they circle about the sanctuary. According 
 to our Western notions, the performance of the 
 
WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 159 
 
 miko could scarcely be called dancing ; but it is a 
 graceful spectacle, and very curious, — for every 
 step and attitude is regulated by traditions of un- 
 known antiquity. As for the plaintive music, no 
 Western ear can discern in it anything resembling a 
 real melody ; but the gods should find delight in it, 
 because it is certainly performed for them to-day 
 exactly as it used to be performed twenty centuries 
 ago. 
 
 I speak of the ceremonies especially as I have 
 witnessed them in Izumo : they vary somewhat 
 according to cult and province. At the shrines of 
 Ise, Kasuga, Kompira, and several others which I 
 visited, the ordinary priestesses are children ; and 
 when they have reached the nubile age, they retire 
 from the service. At Kitzuki the priestesses are 
 grown-up women : their office is hereditary ; and 
 they are permitted to retain it even after marriage. 
 
 Formerly the Miko was more than a mere offi- 
 ciant : the songs which she is still obliged to learn 
 indicate that she was originally offered to the gods 
 as a bride. Even yet her touch is holy; the 
 grain sown by her hand is blessed. At some time 
 in the past she seems to have been also a pytho- 
 ness : the spirits of the gods possessed her and 
 spoke through her lips. All the poetry of this 
 most ancient of religions centres in the figure of its 
 little Vestal, — child-bride of ghosts, — as she flutters, 
 
1 60 WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 
 
 like some wonderful white-and-crimson butterfly, 
 before the shrine of the Invisible. Even in these 
 years of change, when she must go to the public 
 school, she continues to represent all that is delight- 
 ful in Japanese girlhood ; for her special home- 
 training keeps her reverent, innocent, dainty in all 
 her little ways, and worthy to remain the pet of 
 the gods. 
 
 The history of the higher forms of ancestor- 
 worship in other countries would lead us to suppose 
 that the public ceremonies of the Shinto-cult must 
 include some rite of purification. As a matter of 
 fact, the most important of all Shinto ceremonies is 
 the ceremony of purification, — o-harai, as it is called, 
 which term signifies the casting-out or expulsion 
 of evils. ... In ancient Athens a corresponding 
 ceremony took place every year; in Rome, every 
 four years. The o-harai is performed twice every 
 year, — in the sixth month and the twelfth month 
 by the ancient calendar. It used to be not less 
 obligatory than the Roman lustration ; and the idea 
 behind the obligation was the same as that which 
 inspired the Roman laws on the subject. ... So 
 long as men believe that the welfare of the living 
 depends upon the will of the dead, — that all 
 happenings in the world are ordered by spirits of 
 different characters, evil as well as good, — that 
 every bad action lends additional power to the view- 
 
WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 161 
 
 less forces of destruction, and therefore endangers 
 the public prosperity, — so long will the necessity 
 of a public purification remain an article of common 
 faith. The presence in any community of even one 
 person who has offended the gods, consciously or 
 unwillingly, is a public misfortune, a public peril. 
 Yet it is not possible for all men to live so well as 
 never to vex the gods by thought, word, or deed, 
 — through passion or ignorance or carelessness. 
 " Every one," declares Hirata, " is certain to com- 
 mit accidental offences, however careful he may 
 be. . . . Evil acts and words are of two kinds : 
 those of which we are conscious, and those of which 
 we are not conscious. ... It is better to assume 
 that we have committed such unconscious offences." 
 Now it should be remembered that for the man of 
 Old Japan, — as for the Greek or the Roman citizen 
 of early times, — religion consisted chiefly in the 
 exact observance of multitudinous custom'; and that 
 it was therefore difficult to know whether, in per- 
 forming the duties of the several cults, one had not 
 inadvertently displeased the Unseen. As a means 
 of maintaining and assuring the religious purity of 
 the people, periodical lustration was consequently 
 deemed indispensable. 
 
 From the earliest period Shinto exacted scrupu- 
 lous cleanliness — indeed, we might say that it 
 regarded physical impurity as identical with moral 
 impurity, and intolerable to the gods. It has 
 
i62 WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 
 
 always been, and still remains, a religion* of ablu- 
 tions. The Japanese love of cleanliness — indi- 
 cated by the universal practice of daily bathing, and 
 by the irreproachable condition of their homes — 
 has been maintained, and was probably initiated, by 
 their religion. Spotless cleanliness being required 
 by the rites of ancestor-worship, — in the temple, 
 in the person of the officiant, and in the home, — 
 this rule of purity was naturally extended by degrees 
 to all the conditions of existence. And besides the 
 great periodical ceremonies of purification, a multi- 
 tude of minor lustrations were exacted by the cult. 
 This was the case also, it will be remembered, in the 
 early Greek and Roman civilizations : the citizen 
 had to submit to purification upon almost every im- 
 portant occasion of existence. There were lustra- 
 tions indispensable at birth, marriage, and death ; 
 lustrations on the eve of battle ; lustrations, at regular 
 periods, of the dwelling, estate, district, or city. And, 
 as in Japan, no one could approach a temple without 
 a preliminary washing of hands. But ancient ShintS 
 exacted more than the Greek or the Roman cult : 
 it required the erection of special houses for birth, 
 — " parturition-houses " ; special houses for the 
 consummation of marriage, — " nuptial huts " ; and 
 special buildings for the dead, — " mourning-houses." 
 Formerly women were obliged during the period of 
 menstruation, as well as during the time of confine- 
 ment, to live apart. These harsher archaic customs 
 
WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 163 
 
 have almost disappeared, except in one or two 
 remote districts, and in the case of certain priestly 
 families ; but the general rules as to purification, 
 and as to the times and circumstances forbidding 
 approach to holy places, are still everywhere obeyed. 
 Purity of heart is not less insisted upon than 
 physical purity ; and the great rite of lustration, 
 performed every six months, is of course a moral 
 purification. It is, performed not only at the great 
 temples, and at all the Ujigami, but likewise in 
 every home. 1 
 
 The modern domestic form of the harai is very 
 simple. Each Shinto parish-temple furnishes to all 
 its Ujiko, or parishioners, small paper-cuttings called 
 hitogata ( fC mankind-shapes "), representing figures 
 of men, women, and children as in silhouette, — 
 only that the paper is white, and folded curiously. 
 Each household receives a number of hitogata cor- 
 responding to the number of its members, — " men- 
 shapes " for the men and boys, " women-shapes " 
 
 1 On the kamidana, "or god-shelf," there it usually placed a kind of oblong 
 paper-box containing fragments of the wands used by the priests of Ise at the great 
 national purification-ceremony, or o-barai. This box is commonly called by the 
 name of the ceremony, o-barai, or "august purification," and is inscribed with 
 the names of the great gods of Ise. The presence of 'this object is supposed to pro- 
 tect the home ; but it should be replaced by a new o-barai at the expiration of six 
 months 5 for the virtue of the charm is supposed to last only during the interval 
 between two official purifications. This distribution to thousands of homes of frag- 
 ments of the wands, used to "drive away evils " at the time of the Ise lustration, 
 represents of course the supposed extension of the high-priest's protection to those 
 homes until the time of the next o-barai. 
 
164 WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 
 
 for the women and girls. Each person in the house 
 touches his head, face, limbs, and body with one 
 of these hitogata ; repeating the while a Shinto invo- 
 cation, and praying that any misfortune or sickness 
 incurred by reason of offences involuntarily com- 
 mitted against the gods (for in Shinto belief sickness 
 and misfortune are divine punishments) may be mer- 
 cifully taken away. Upon each hitogata is then 
 written the age and sex (not the name) of the per- 
 son for whom it was furnished ; and when this has 
 been done, all are returned to the parish-temple, and 
 there burnt, with rites of purification. Thus the 
 community is "lustrated" every six months. 
 
 In the old Greek and Latin cities lustration was 
 accompanied with registration. The attendance of 
 every citizen at the -ceremony was held to be so nec- 
 essary that one who wilfully failed to attend might 
 be whipped and sold as a slave. Non-attendance 
 involved loss of civic rights. It would seem that in 
 Old Japan also every member of a community was 
 obliged to be present at the rite ; but I have not 
 been able to learn whether any registration was made 
 upon such occasions. Probably it would have been 
 superfluous : the Japanese individual was not offi- 
 cially recognized ; the family-group alone was 
 responsible, and the attendance of the several mem- 
 bers would have been assured by the responsibility 
 of the group. The use of the hitogata, on which 
 the name is not written, but only the sex and age 
 
WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 165 
 
 of the worshipper, is probably modern, and of 
 Chinese origin. Official registration existed, even in 
 early times ; but it appears to have had no particu- 
 lar relation to the o-harai ; and the registers were 
 kept, it seems, not by the Shinto, but by the Bud- 
 dhist parish-priests. ... In concluding these re- 
 marks about the o-harai, I need scarcely add that 
 special rites were performed in cases of accidental 
 religious defilement, and that any person judged to 
 have sinned against the rules of the public cult had 
 to submit to ceremonial purification. 
 
 Closely related by origin to the rites of purifica- 
 tion are sundry ascetic practices of Shinto. It is not 
 an essentially ascetic religion : it offers flesh and 
 wine to its gods ; and it prescribes only such forms 
 of self-denial as ancient custom and decency require. 
 Nevertheless, some of its votaries perform extraor- 
 dinary austerities on special occasions, — austerities 
 which always include much cold-water bathing. It 
 is not uncommon for the very fervent worshipper 
 to invoke the gods as he stands naked under the 
 ice-cold rush of a cataract in midwinter. . . . But 
 the most curious phase of this Shinto asceticism is 
 represented by a custom still prevalent in remote 
 districts. According to this custom a community 
 yearly appoints one of its citizens to devote himself 
 wholly to the gods on behalf of the rest. During 
 the term of his consecration, this communal repre- 
 
166 WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 
 
 sentative must separate from his family, must not 
 approach women, must avoid all places of amuse- 
 ment, must eat only food cooked with sacred fire, 
 must abstain from wine, must bathe in fresh cold 
 water several times a day, must repeat particular 
 prayers at certain hours, and must keep vigil upon 
 certain nights. When he has performed these 
 duties of abstinence and purification for the specified 
 time, he becomes religiously free ; and another man 
 is then elected to take his place. The prosperity 
 of the settlement is supposed to depend upon the 
 exact observance by its representative of the duties 
 prescribed : should any public misfortune occur, he 
 would be suspected of having broken his vows. 
 Anciently, in the case of a common misfortune, the 
 representative was put to death. In the little town 
 of Mionoseki, where I first learned of this custom, 
 the communal representative is called ichi-nen- 
 gannusKi (" one-year god-master ") ; and his full 
 term of vicarious atonement is twelve months. I 
 was told that elders are usually appointed for this 
 duty,, — young men very seldom. In ancient times 
 such a communal representative was called by a name 
 signifying "abstainer." References to the custom 
 have been found in Chinese notices of Japan dat- 
 ing from a time before the beginning of Japanese 
 authentic history. 
 
 Every persistent form of ancestor-worship has its 
 
WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 167 
 
 system or systems of divination ; and Shinto exem- 
 plifies the general law. Whether divination ever 
 obtained in ancient Japan the official importance 
 which it assumed among the Greeks and the Romans 
 is at present doubtful. But long before the intro- 
 duction of Chinese astrology, magic, and fortune- 
 telling, the Japanese practised various kinds of 
 divination, as is proved by their ancient poetry, 
 their records, and their rituals. We find mention 
 also of official diviners, attached to the great cults. 
 There was divination by bones, by birds, by rice, 
 by barley-gruel, by footprints, by rods planted in 
 the ground, and by listening in public ways to the 
 speech of people passing by. Nearly all — probably 
 all — of these old methods of divination are still in 
 popular use. But the earliest form of official divina- 
 tion was performed by scorching the shoulder-blade 
 of a deer, or other animal, and observing the cracks 
 produced by the heat. 1 Tortoise-shells were after- 
 wards used for the same purpose. Diviners were 
 especially attached, it appears, to the imperial palace ; 
 and Motowori, writing in the latter half of the eigh- 
 teenth century, speaks of divination as still being, in 
 that epoch, a part of the imperial function. "To 
 
 1 Concerning this form of divination, Satow remarks that it was practised by the 
 Mongols in the time of Genghis Khan, and is still practised by the Khirghiz 
 Tartars, — facts of strong interest in view of the probable origin of the early 
 Japanese tribes. 
 
 For instances of ancient official divination see Aston's translation of the Nibmgi, 
 Vol. I, pp. 157, 189, 227, 229, 237. 
 
168 WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 
 
 the end of time," he said, " the Mikado is the child 
 of the Sun-goddess. His mind is in perfect har- 
 mony of thought and feeling with hers. He does 
 not seek out new inventions ; but he rules in 
 accordance with precedents which date from the 
 Age of the Gods ; and if he is ever in doubt, he 
 has recourse to divination, which reveals to him the 
 mind of the great goddess." 
 
 Within historic times at least, divination would 
 not seem to have been much used in warfare, — 
 certainly not to the extent that it was used by the 
 Greek and Roman armies. The greatest Japanese 
 captains, — such as Hideyoshi and Nobunaga — 
 were decidedly irreverent as to omens. Probably 
 the Japanese, at an early period of their long mili- 
 tary history, learned by experience that the general 
 who conducts his campaign according to omens 
 must always be at a hopeless disadvantage in deal- 
 ing with a skilful enemy who cares nothing about 
 omens. 
 
 Among the ancient popular forms of divination 
 which still survive, the most commonly practised 
 in households is divination by dry rice. For the 
 public, Chinese divination is still in great favour ; 
 but it is interesting to observe that the Japanese 
 fortune-teller invariably invokes the Shinto gods 
 before consulting his Chinese books, and maintains 
 a Shinto shrine in his reception-room. 
 
WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 109 
 
 We have seen that the developments of ancestor- 
 worship in Japan present remarkable analogies with 
 the developments of ancestor-worship in ancient 
 Europe, — especially in regard to the public cult, 
 with its obligatory rites of purification. 
 
 But Shinto seems nevertheless to represent con- 
 ditions of ancestor-worship less developed than 
 those which we are accustomed to associate with 
 early Greek and Roman life ; and the coercion 
 which it exercised appears to have been propor- 
 tionally more rigid. The existence of the individ- 
 ual worshipper was ordered not merely in relation 
 to the family and the community, but even in rela- 
 tion to inanimate things. Whatever his occu- 
 pation might be, some god presided over it; 
 whatever tools he might use, they had to be used 
 in such manner as tradition prescribed for all ad- 
 mitted to the craft-cult. It was necessary that the 
 carpenter should so perform his work as to honour 
 the deity of carpenters, — that the smith should 
 fulfil his daily task so as to honour the god of the 
 bellows, — that the farmer should never fail in 
 respect to the earth-god, and the food-god, and the 
 scare-crow god, and the spirits of the trees about his 
 habitation. Even the domestic utensils were sacred : 
 the servant could not dare to forget the presence 
 of the deities of the cooking-range, the hearth, the 
 cauldron, the brazier, — or the supreme necessity of 
 keeping the fire pure. The professions, not less 
 
i/o WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 
 
 than the trades, were under divine patronage : the 
 physician, the teacher, the artist — each had his 
 religious duties to observe, his special traditions to 
 obey. The scholar, for example, could not dare to 
 treat his writing-implements with disrespect, or put 
 written paper to vulgar uses : such conduct would 
 offend the god of calligraphy. Nor were women 
 ruled less religiously than men in their various 
 occupations : the spinners and weaving-maidens 
 were bound to revere the Weaving-goddess and the 
 Goddess of Silkworms ; the sewing-girl was taught 
 to respect her needles ; and in all homes there was 
 observed a certain holiday upon which offerings 
 were made to the Spirits of Needles. In Samurai 
 families the warrior was commanded to consider his 
 armour and his weapons as holy things : to keep 
 them in beautiful order was an obligation of which 
 the neglect might bring misfortune in the time of 
 combat ; and on certain days offerings were set 
 before the bows and spears, arrows and swords, and 
 other war-implements, in the alcove of the family 
 guest-room. Gardens, too, were holy ; and there 
 were rules to be observed in their management, lest 
 offence should be given to the gods of trees and 
 flowers. Carefulness, cleanliness, dustlessness, were 
 everywhere enforced as religious obligations. 
 
 ... It has often been remarked in these latter 
 days that the Japanese do not keep their public 
 offices, their railway stations, their new factory-build- 
 
WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION 171 
 
 ings, thus scrupulously clean. But edifices built in 
 foreign style, with foreign material, under foreign 
 supervision, and contrary to every local tradition, 
 must seem to old-fashioned thinking God-forsaken 
 places ; and servants amid such unhallowed sur- 
 roundings do not feel the invisible about them, the 
 weight of pious custom, the silent claim of beauti- 
 ful and simple things to human respect. 
 
The Rule of the Dead 
 
The Rule of the Dead 
 
 IT should now be evident to the reader that 
 the ethics of Shint5 were all comprised in the 
 doctrine of unqualified obedience to customs 
 originating, for the most part, in the family cult. 
 Ethics were not different from religion; religion 
 was not different from government ; and the very 
 word for government signified " matters-of-religion." 
 All government ceremonies were preceded by prayer 
 and sacrifice ; and from the highest rank of society 
 to the lowest every person was subject to the law 
 of tradition. To obey was piety ; to disobey was 
 impious ; and the rule of obedience was enforced 
 upon each individual by the will of the community 
 to which he belonged. Ancient morality consisted 
 in the minute observance of rules of conduct regard- 
 ing the household, the community, and the higher 
 authority. 
 
 But these rules of behaviour mostly represented 
 the outcome of social experience ; and it was scarcely 
 possible to obey them faithfully, and yet to remain 
 a bad man. They commanded reverence toward 
 the Unseen, respect for authority, affection to par- 
 
 i7S 
 
176 THE RULE OF THE DEAD 
 
 ents, tenderness to wife and children, kindness to 
 neighbours, kindness to dependants, diligence and 
 exactitude in labour, thrift and cleanliness in habit. 
 Though at first morality signified no more than obe- 
 dience to tradition, tradition itself gradually became 
 identified with true morality. To imagine the conse- 
 quent social condition is, of course, somewhat difficult 
 for the modern mind. Among ourselves, religious 
 ethics and social ethics have long been practically 
 dissociated ; and the latter have become, with the 
 gradual weakening of faith, more imperative and 
 important than the former. Most of us learn, 
 sooner or later in life, that it is not enough to keep the 
 ten commandments, and that it is much less danger- 
 ous to break most of the commandments in a quiet 
 way than to violate social custom. But in Old 
 Japan there was no distinction tolerated between 
 ethics and custom — between moral requirements 
 and social obligations: convention identified both, 
 and to conceal a breach of either was impossible, — 
 as privacy did not exist. Moreover the unwritten 
 commandments were not limited to ten ; they 
 were numbered by hundreds, and the least infringe- 
 ment was punishable, not merely as a blunder, but 
 as a sin. Neither in his own home nor anywhere 
 else could the ordinary person do as he pleased ; 
 and the extraordinary person was under the surveil- 
 lance of zealous dependants whose constant duty was 
 to reprove any breach of usage. The religion capa- 
 
THE RULE OF THE DEAD 177 
 
 ble of regulating every act of existence by the force 
 of common opinion requires no catechism. 
 
 Early moral custom must be coercive Custom. 
 But as many habits, at first painfully formed under 
 compulsion only, become easy through constant rep- 
 etition, and at last automatic, so the conduct com- 
 pelled through many generations by religious and 
 civil authority, tends eventually to become almost 
 instinctive. Much depends, no doubt, upon the 
 degree to which religious compulsion is hindered 
 by exterior causes, — by long-protracted war, for 
 example, — and in Old Japan there was interfer- 
 ence extraordinary. Nevertheless, the influence of 
 Shinto accomplished wonderful things, — evolved 
 a national type of character worthy, in many ways, 
 of earnest admiration. The ethical sentiment devel- 
 oped in that character differed widely from our own ; 
 but it was exactly adapted to the social requirements. 
 For this national type of moral character was in- 
 vented the name Yamato-damashi (or Yamato-gokoro), 
 — the Soul of Yamato (or Heart of Yamato), — 
 the appellation of the old province of Yamato, seat 
 of the early emperors, being figuratively used for 
 the entire country. We might correctly, though 
 less literally, interpret the expression Yamato- 
 damashi as "The Soul of Old Japan." 
 
 It was in reference to this " Soul of Old Japan " 
 that the great Shinto scholars of the eighteenth 
 
178 THE RULE OF THE DEAD 
 
 and nineteenth centuries put forth their bold asser- 
 tion that conscience alone was a sufficient ethical 
 guide. They declared the high quality of the 
 Japanese conscience a proof of the divine origin 
 of the race. " Human beings," wrote Motowori, 
 "having been produced by the spirits of the two 
 Creative Deities, are naturally endowed with the 
 knowledge of what they ought to do, and of what 
 they ought to refrain from doing. It is unneces- 
 sary for them to trouble their minds with systems- 
 of morality. If a system of morals were necessary,, 
 men would be inferior to animals, — all of whom, 
 are endowed with the knowledge of what they 
 ought to do, only in an inferior degree to 
 men." * . . . Mabuchi, at an earlier day, had made 
 a comparison between Japanese and Chinese mo- 
 rality, greatly to the disadvantage of the latter. "In 
 ancient times," said Mabuchi, " when men's disposi- 
 tions were straightforward, a complicated system of 
 morals, was unnecessary. It would naturally hap- 
 pen that bad actions might be occasionally -com- 
 mitted; but the straightforwardness of men's 
 dispositions would prevent the evil from being 
 concealed and so growing in extent. So in those 
 days it was unnecessary to have a doctrine of right 
 and wrong. But the Chinese, being bad at heart, 
 in spite of the teaching which they got, were good 
 
 1 All of these extracts are quoted from Satow's great essay on the Shinto 
 revival. 
 
THE RULE OF THE DEAD 179 
 
 only on the outside ; so their bad acts became of 
 such magnitude that society was thrown into dis- 
 order. The Japanese, being straightforward, could 
 do without teaching." Motowori repeated these 
 ideas in a slightly different way : " It is because 
 the Japanese were truly moral in their practice that 
 they required no theory of morals ; and the fuss 
 made by the Chinese about theoretical morals is 
 owing to their laxity in practice. . . . To have 
 learned that there is no Way \_ethical system] to be 
 learned and practised, is really to have learned to 
 practise the Way of the Gods." At a later day 
 Hirata wrote : " Learn to stand in awe of the 
 Unseen, and that will prevent you from doing 
 wrong. Cultivate the conscience implanted in you : 
 then you will never wander from the Way." 
 
 Though the sociologist may smile at these decla- 
 rations of moral superiority (especially as based on 
 the assumption that the race had been better in 
 primeval times, when yet fresh from the hands of 
 the gods), there was in them a grain of truth. 
 When Mabuchi and Motowori wrote, the nation 
 had been long subjected to a discipline of almost 
 incredible minuteness in detail, and of extraordinary 
 rigour in application. And this discipline had 
 actually brought into existence a wonderful average 
 of character, — a character of surprising patience, 
 unselfishness, honesty, kindliness, and docility com- 
 bined with high courage. But only the evolutionist 
 
180 THE RULE OF THE DEAD 
 
 can imagine what the cost of developing that char- 
 acter must have been. 
 
 It is necessary here to observe that the disci- 
 pline to which the nation had been subjected up to 
 the age of the great Shinto writers, seems to have 
 had a curious evolutional history of its own. In 
 primitive times it had been much less uniform, 
 less complex, less minutely organized, though not 
 less implacable ; and it had continued to develop 
 and elaborate more and more with the growth and 
 consolidation of society, until, under the Toku- 
 gawa Shogunate the possible maximum of regula- 
 tion was reached. In other words, the yoke had 
 been made heavier and heavier in proportion to the 
 growth of the national strength, — in proportion 
 to the power of the people to bear it. . . . We 
 have seen that, from the beginning of this civiliza- 
 tion, the whole life of the citizen was ordered for 
 him : his occupation, his marriage, his rights of 
 fatherhood, his rights to hold or to dispose of prop- 
 erty, — all these matters were settled by religious 
 custom. We have also seen that outside as well as 
 inside of his home, his actions were under supervi- 
 sion, and that a single grave breach of usage might 
 cause his social ruin, — in which case he would be 
 given to understand that he was not merely a social, 
 but also a religious offender ; that the communal god 
 was angry with him ; and that to pardon his fault might 
 
THE RULE OF THE DEAD 181 
 
 provoke the divine vengeance against the entire 
 settlement. But it yet remains to be seen what 
 rights were left him by the central authority ruling 
 his district, — which authority represented a third 
 form of religious despotism from which there was 
 no appeal in ordinary cases. 
 
 Material for the study of the old laws and cus- 
 toms have not yet been collected in sufficient 
 quantity to yield us full information as to the con- 
 ditions of all classes before Meiji. But a great deal 
 of precious work has been accomplished in this 
 direction by American scholars ; and the labours of 
 Professor Wigmore and of the late Dr. Simmons 
 have furnished documentary evidence from which 
 much can be learned about the legal status of the 
 masses during the Tokugawa period. This, as I 
 have said, was the period of the most elaborated 
 regulation. The extent to which the people were 
 controlled can be best inferred from the nature and 
 number of the sumptuary laws to which they were 
 subjected. Sumptuary laws in Old Japan probably 
 exceeded in multitude and minuteness anything of 
 which Western legal history yields record. Rigidly 
 as the family-cult dictated behaviour in the home, 
 strictly as the commune enforced its standards of 
 communal duty, — just so rigidly and strictly did 
 the rulers of the nation dictate how the individual 
 — man, woman, or child — should dress, walk, sit, 
 
i8z THE RULE OF THE DEAD 
 
 speak, work, eat, drink. Amusements were not less 
 unmercifully regulated than were labours. 
 
 Every class of Japanese society was under sump- 
 tuary regulation, — the degree of regulation varying 
 in different centuries ; and this kind of legislation 
 appears to have been established at an early period. 
 It is recorded that, in the year 68 1 a.d., the 
 Emperor Temmu regulated the costumes of all 
 classes, — " from the Princes of the Blood down to 
 the common people, — and the wearing of head- 
 dresses and girdles, as well as of all kinds of coloured 
 stuffs, — according to a scale." 1 The costumes and 
 the colours to be worn by priests and nuns had been 
 already fixed, by an edict issued in 679 a.d. After- 
 wards these regulations were greatly multiplied and 
 detailed. But it was under the Tokugawa rulers, a 
 thousand years later, that sumptuary laws obtained 
 their most remarkable development; and the nature 
 of them is best indicated by the regulations applying 
 to the peasantry. Every detail of the farmer's exist- 
 ence was prescribed for by law, — from the size, 
 form, and cost of his dwelling, down even to such 
 trifling matters as the number and the quality of the 
 dishes to be served to him at meal-times. A farmer 
 with an income of 100 koku of rice — (let us say 90 
 to ^100 per annum) — might build a house 60 feet 
 long, but no longer : he was forbidden to construct 
 it with a room containing an alcove ; and he was not 
 
 1 See Nibongi, Aston's translation, Vol. II, pp. 343, 348, 350, 
 
THE RULE OF THE DEAD 183 
 
 allowed — except by special permission — to roof it 
 with tiles. None of his family were permitted to 
 wear silk ; and in case of the marriage of his 
 daughter to a person legally entitled to wear silk, 
 the bridegroom was to be requested not to wear 
 silk at the wedding. Three kinds of viands only 
 were to be served at the wedding of such a farmer's 
 daughter or son ; and the quality as well as the 
 quantity of the soup, fish, or sweetmeats offered 
 to the wedding-guests, were legally fixed. So like- 
 wise the number of the wedding-gifts : even the cost 
 of the presents of rice-wine and dried fish was pre- 
 scribed, and the quality of the single fan which it 
 was permissible to offer the bride. At no time was 
 a farmer allowed to make any valuable presents to 
 his friends. At aiiineral he might serve the guests 
 with certain kinds of plain food ; but if rice-wine 
 were served it was not to be served in wine-cups, — 
 only in soup-cups ! [The latter regulation probably 
 referred to Shinto funerals in especial.] On the 
 occasion of a child's birth, the grandparents were 
 allowed to make only four presents (according to 
 custom), — including " one cotton baby-dress " ; and 
 the values of the presents were fixed. On the 
 occasion of the Boy's Festival, the presents to be 
 given to the child by the whole family, including 
 grandparents, were limited by law to " one paper- 
 flag," and " two toy-spears." ... A farmer whose 
 property was assessed at 50 koku was forbidden to 
 
1 84 THE RULE OF THE DEAD 
 
 build a house more than 45 feet long. At the 
 wedding of his daughter the gift-girdle was not to 
 exceed 50 sen in value ; and it was forbidden to 
 serve more than one kind of soup at the wed- 
 ding-feast. ... A farmer with a property assessed 
 at 20 koku was not allowed to build a house more 
 than 36 feet long, or to use in building it such 
 superior qualities of wood as keyaki or hinoki. The 
 roof of his house was to be made of bamboo-thatch 
 or straw ; and he was strictly forbidden the comfort 
 of floor-mats. On the occasion of the wedding of 
 his daughter he was forbidden to have fish or any 
 roasted food served at the wedding-feast. The 
 women of his family were not allowed to wear 
 leather sandals : they might wear only straw-sandals 
 or wooden clogs ; and the thongs of the sandals or 
 the clogs were to be made of cotton. The women 
 were further forbidden to wear hair-bindings of silk, 
 or hair-ornaments of tortoise-shells ; but they might 
 wear wooden combs and combs of bone — not ivory. 
 The men were forbidden to wear stockings, and 
 their sandals were to be made of bamboo. 1 
 They were also forbidden to use sun-shades — 
 hi-gasa — or paper-umbrellas. ... A farmer 
 assessed at 10 koku was forbidden to build a house 
 more than 30 feet long. The women of his family 
 were required to wear sandals with thongs of bam- 
 
 1 There are sandals or clogs made of bamboo-wood, but the meaning here is 
 bamboo-grass. 
 
THE RULE OF THE DEAD 185 
 
 boo-grass. At the wedding of his son or daughter 
 one present only was allowed, — a quilt-chest. At 
 the birth of his child one present only was to be 
 made : namely, one toy-spear, in the case of a boy ; 
 or one paper-doll, or one " mud-doll," in the case 
 of a girl. . . . As for the more unfortunate class 
 of farmers, having no land of their own, and offi- 
 cially termed mizunomi, or " water-drinkers," it is 
 scarcely necessary to remark that these were still 
 more severely restricted in regard to food, apparel, 
 etc. They were not even allowed, for example, to 
 have a quilt-chest as a wedding-present. But a fair 
 idea of the complexity of these humiliating restric- 
 tions can only be obtained by reading the documents 
 published by Professor Wigmore, which chiefly con- 
 sist of paragraphs like these : — 
 
 "The collar and the sleeve-ends of the clothes may be 
 ornamented with silk, and an obi (soft girdle) of silk or 
 crepe-silk may be worn — but not in public." . . . 
 
 " A family ranking less than 20 koku must use the Takida- 
 wan (Takcda rice-bowl), and the Nikk'o-zen (Nikk5 tray)." 
 . . . [These were utensils of the cheapest kind of 
 lacquer-ware.J 
 
 " Large farmers or chiefs of Kumi may use umbrellas ; 
 but small farmers and farm-labourers must use only mino 
 (straw-raincoats), and broad straw-hats." . . . 
 
 These documents published by Professor Wig- 
 more contain only the regulations issued for the 
 daimiate of Maizuru ; but regulations equally 
 
1 86 THE RULE OF THE DEAD 
 
 minute and vexatious appear to have been enforced 
 throughout the whole country. In Izumo I found 
 that, prior to Meiji, there were sumptuary laws pre- 
 scribing not only the material of the dresses to be 
 worn by the various classes, but even the colours of 
 them, and the designs of the patterns. The size 
 of rooms, as well as the size of houses, was fixed 
 there by law, — also the height of buildings and of 
 fences, the number of windows, the material of con- 
 struction. ... It is difficult for the Western mind 
 to understand how human beings could patiently 
 submit to laws that regulated not only the size of 
 one's dwelling, and the cost of its furniture, but 
 even the substance and character of clothing, — not 
 only the expense of a wedding outfit, but the quality 
 of the marriage-feast, and the quality of the vessels 
 in which the food was to be served, — not only the 
 kind of ornaments to be worn in a woman's hair, 
 but the material of the thongs of her sandals, — not 
 only the price of presents to be made to friends, but 
 the character and the cost of the cheapest toy to be 
 given to a child. And the peculiar constitution of 
 society made it possible to enforce this sumptuary 
 legislation by communal will ; the people were 
 obliged to coerce themselves ! Each community, 
 as we have seen, had been organized in groups of 
 five or more households, called kumi; and the heads 
 of the households forming a kumi elected one of 
 their number as kumi-gashira, or group-chief, directly 
 
THE RULE OF THE DEAD 187 
 
 responsible to the higher authority. The kumi was 
 accountable for the conduct of each and all of its 
 members ; and each member was in some sort 
 responsible for the rest. " Every member of a 
 kumi," declares one of the documents above men- 
 tioned, " must carefully watch the conduct of his 
 fellow-members. If any one violates these regula- 
 tions, without due excuse, he is to be punished ; and 
 his kumi will also be held responsible." Responsi- 
 ble even for the serious offence of giving more than 
 one paper-doll to a child ! . . . But we should 
 remember that in early Greek and Roman societies 
 there was much legislation of a similar kind. The 
 laws of Sparta regulated the way in which a woman 
 should dress her hair ; the laws of Athens fixed the 
 number of her robes. At Rome, in early times, 
 women were forbidden to drink wine ; and a similar 
 law existed in the Greek cities of Miletus and 
 Massilia. In Rhodes and Byzantium the citizen 
 was forbidden to shave ; in Sparta he was forbidden 
 to wear a moustache. (I need scarcely refer to the 
 later Roman laws regulating the cost of marriage- 
 feasts, and the number of guests that might be 
 invited to a banquet; for this legislation was 
 directed chiefly against luxury.) The astonishment 
 evoked by Japanese sumptuary laws, particularly 
 as inflicted upon the peasantry, is justified less by 
 their general character than by their implacable 
 minuteness, — their ferocity of detail. . . . 
 
i88 THE RULE OF THE DEAD 
 
 Where a man's life was legally ordered even to 
 the least particulars, — even to the quality of his 
 foot-gear and head-gear, the cost of his wife's hair- 
 pins, and the price of his child's doll, — one could 
 hardly suppose that freedom of speech would have 
 been tolerated. It did not exist ; and the degree to 
 which speech became regulated can be imagined 
 only by those who have studied the spoken 
 tongue. The hierarchical organization of society 
 was faithfully reflected in the conventional organiza- 
 tion of language, — in the ordination of pronouns, 
 nouns, and verbs, — in the grades conferred upon 
 adjectives by prefixes or suffixes. With the same 
 merciless exactitude which prescribed rules for dress, 
 diet, and manner of life, all utterance was regulated 
 both negatively and positively, — but positively 
 much more than negatively. There was little 
 insistence upon what was not to be said ; but rules 
 innumerable decided exactly what should be said, — 
 the word to be chosen, the phrase to be used. 
 Early training enforced caution in this regard : 
 everybody had to learn that only certain verbs and 
 nouns and pronouns were lawful when addressing 
 superiors, and other words permissible only when 
 speaking to equals or to inferiors. Even the un- 
 educated were obliged to learn something about 
 this. But education cultivated a system of verbal 
 etiquette so multiform that only the training of years 
 could enable any one to master it. Among the 
 
THE RULE OF THE DEAD 189 
 
 higher classes this etiquette developed almost incon- 
 ceivable complexity. Grammatical modifications of 
 language, which, by implication, exalted the person 
 addressed or humbly depreciated the person address- 
 ing, must have come into general use at some very 
 early period ; but under subsequent Chinese influ- 
 ence these forms of propitiatory speech multiplied 
 exceedingly. From the Mikado himself — who still 
 makes use of personal pronouns, or at least pro- 
 nominal expressions, forbidden to any other mortal 
 — down through all the grades of society, each class 
 had an " I " peculiarly its own. Of terms corre- 
 sponding to " you " or " thou " there are still six- 
 teen in use ; but formerly there were many more. 
 There are yet eight different forms of the second 
 person singular used only in addressing children, 
 pupils, or servants. 1 Honorific or humble forms of 
 nouns indicating relationship were similarly multi- 
 plied and graded : there are still in use nine terms 
 signifying " father," nine terms signifying " mother," 
 eleven terms for " wife," eleven terms for " son," 
 nine terms for " daughter," and seven terms for 
 " husband." The rules of the verb, above all, 
 were complicated by the exigencies of etiquette to a 
 
 1 The sociologist will of course understand that these facts are not by any means 
 inconsistent with that very sparing use of pronouns so amusingly discussed in Percival 
 Lowell's " Soul of the Far East." In societies where subjection is extreme " there 
 is an avoidance of the use of personal pronouns," though, as Herbert Spencer points 
 out in illustrating this law, it is just among such societies that the most elaborate 
 distinctions in pronominal forms of address are to be found. 
 
igo THE RULE OF THE DEAD 
 
 degree of which no idea can be given in any brief 
 statement. ... At nineteen or twenty years of age 
 a person carefully trained from childhood might have 
 learned all the necessary verbal usages of respectable 
 society ; but for a mastery of the etiquette of superior 
 converse many more years of study and experience 
 were required. With the unceasing multiplication 
 of ranks and classes there came into existence 
 a corresponding variety of forms of language : 
 it was possible to ascertain to what class a man 
 or a woman belonged by .listening to his or to 
 her conversation. The written, like the spoken 
 tongue, was regulated by strict convention : the 
 forms used by women were not those used by 
 men ; and those differences in verbal etiquette 
 arising from the different training of the sexes 
 resulted in the creation of a special epistolary style, 
 — a "woman's language," which remains in use. 
 And this sex-differentiation of language was not 
 confined to letter-writing : there was a woman's 
 language also of converse, varying according to 
 class. Even to-day, in ordinary conversation, an 
 educated woman makes use of words and phrases 
 not employed by men. Samurai women especially 
 had their particular forms of expression in feudal 
 times ; and it is still possible to decide, from the 
 speech of any woman brought up according to the 
 old home-training, whether she belongs to a Samurai 
 family. 
 
THE RULE OF THE DEAD 191 
 
 Of course the matter as well as the manner of 
 converse was restricted ; and the nature of the 
 restraints upon free speech can be inferred from 
 the nature of the restraints upon freedom of 
 demeanour. Demeanour was most elaborately and 
 mercilessly regulated, not merely as to obeisances, 
 of which there were countless grades, varying 
 according to sex as well as class, — but even in 
 regard to facial expression, the manner of smiling, 
 the conduct of the breath, the way of sitting, stand- 
 ing, walking, rising. Everybody was trained from 
 infancy in this etiquette of expression and deport- 
 ment. At what period it first became a mark of 
 disrespect to betray, by look or gesture, any feeling 
 of grief or pain in the presence of a superior, we 
 cannot know ; there is reason to believe that the 
 most perfect self-control in this regard was enforced 
 from prehistoric times. But there was gradually 
 developed — partly, perhaps, under Chinese teach- 
 ing — a most elaborate code of deportment which 
 exacted very much more than impassiveness. It 
 required not only that any sense of anger or pain 
 should be denied all outward expression, but that 
 the sufferer's face and manner should indicate the 
 contrary feeling. Sullen submission was an offence ; 
 mere impassive obedience inadequate : the proper 
 degree of submission should manifest itself by a 
 pleasant smile, and by a soft and happy tone of 
 voice. The smile, however, was also regulated. 
 
192 THE RULE OF THE DEAD 
 
 One had to be careful about the quality of the smile, 
 it was a mortal offence, for example, so to smile in 
 addressing a superior, that the back teeth could be 
 seen. In the military class especially this code of 
 demeanour was ruthlessly enforced. Samurai women 
 were required, like the women of Sparta, to show 
 signs of joy on hearing that their husbands or sons 
 had fallen in battle : to betray any natural feeling 
 under the circumstances was a grave breach of deco- 
 rum. And in all classes demeanour was regulated so 
 severely that even to-day the manners of the people 
 everywhere still reveal the nature of the old disci- 
 pline. The strangest fact is that the old-fashioned 
 manners appear natural rather than acquired, instinc- 
 tive rather than made by training. The bow, — the 
 sibilant indrawing of the breath which accompanies 
 the prostration, and is practised also in praying to 
 the gods, — the position of the hands upon the floor 
 in the moment of greeting or of farewell, — the way 
 of sitting or rising or walking in presence of a guest, 
 
 — the manner of receiving or presenting anything, 
 
 — all these ordinary actions have a charm of seem- 
 ing naturalness that mere teaching seems incapable 
 of producing. And this is still more true of the 
 higher etiquette, — the exquisite etiquette of the 
 old-time training in cultivated classes, — particularly 
 as displayed by women. We must suppose that the 
 capacity to acquire such manners depends consider- 
 ably upon inheritance, — that it could Only have 
 
THE RULE OF THE DEAD 193 
 
 been formed by the past experience of the race 
 under discipline. 
 
 What such discipline, as regards politeness, must 
 have signified for the mass of the people, may be 
 inferred from the enactment of Iyeyasu authorizing 
 a Samurai to kill any person of the three inferior 
 classes guilty of rudeness. Be it observed that 
 Iyeyasu was careful to qualify the meaning of 
 " rude " : he said that the Japanese term for a rude 
 fellow signified " an other-than-expected person " — 
 so that to commit an offence worthy of death it was 
 only necessary to act in an "unexpected manner" , 
 that is to say, contrary to prescribed etiquette : — 
 
 " The Samurai are the masters of the four classes. 
 Agriculturists, artizans, and merchants may not behave in 
 a rude manner towards Samurai. The term for a rude 
 man is ' other-than-expected fellow ' ; and a Samurai is not 
 to be interfered with in cutting down a fellow who has 
 behaved to him in a manner other than is expected. The 
 Samurai are grouped into direct retainers, secondary retain- 
 ers, and nobles and retainers of high and low grade ; but 
 the same line of conduct is equally allowable to them all 
 towards an other-than-expected fellow." — \_Art. 45. J 
 
 But there is little reason to suppose that Iyeyasu 
 created any new privilege of slaughter : he probably 
 did no more than confirm by enactment certain long- 
 established military rights. Stern rules about the 
 conduct of inferiors to superiors would seem to have 
 been pitilessly enforced long before the rise of the 
 
194 THE RULE OF THE DEAD 
 
 military power. We read that the Emperor Yuriaku, 
 in the latter part of the fifth century, killed a steward 
 for the misdemeanour of remaining silent, through 
 fear, when spoken to : we also find it recorded that 
 he struck down a maid-of-honour who had brought 
 him a cup of wine, and that he would have cut off 
 her head but for the extraordinary presence of mind 
 which enabled her to improvise a poetical appeal for 
 mercy. Her only fault had been that, in carrying 
 the wine-cup, she failed to notice that a leaf had 
 fallen into it, — probably because court-custom 
 obliged her to carry the cup in such a way as not 
 to breathe upon it ; for emperors and high nobles 
 were served after the manner of gods. It is true 
 that Yuriaku was in the habit of killing people for 
 little mistakes ; but it is evident that, in the cases 
 cited, such mistakes were regarded as breaches of 
 long-established decorum. 
 
 Probably before as well as after the introduction 
 of the Chinese penal codes, — the so-called Ming 
 and Tsing codes, by which the country was ruled 
 under the Shoguns, — the bulk of the nation was 
 literally under the rod. Common folk were pun- 
 ished by cruel whippings for the most trifling 
 offences. For serious offences, death by torture 
 was an ordinary penalty ; and there were extraor- 
 dinary penalties as savage, or almost as savage, as 
 those established during our own medieval period, — 
 
THE RULE OF THE DEAD 195 
 
 burnings and crucifixions and quarterings and boil- 
 ing alive in oil. The documents regulating the life 
 of village-folk do not contain any indication of the 
 severity of legal discipline : the Kumi-cho declara- 
 tions that such and such conduct " shall be pun- 
 ished " suggest nothing terrible to the reader who 
 has not made himself familiar with the ancient codes. 
 As a matter of fact the term " punishment " in a 
 Japanese legal document might signify anything 
 from a trifling fine up to burning alive. . . . Some 
 evidence of the severity used to repress quarrelling 
 even as late as the time of Iyeyasu, may be found in 
 a curious letter of Captain Saris, who visited Japan 
 in 1613. "The first of Iuly," wrote the Captain, 
 "two of our Company happened to quarrell the one 
 with the other, and were very likely to haue gone 
 into the field [i.e. to have fought a duel~\ to the 
 endangering of vs all. For it is a custome here that 
 whosoever drawes a weapon in anger, although he 
 do noe harme therewith, hee is presently cut in 
 peeces ; and, doing but small hurt, not only them- 
 selues are so executed, but their whole genera- 
 tion." . . . The literal meaning of " cut in 
 peeces " he explains later on, when recounting in 
 the same letter an execution that came under his 
 observation : — 
 
 " The eighth, three Iaponians were executed, viz., two 
 men and one woman : the cause this, — the woman, none 
 of the honestest (her husband being trauelled from home) 
 
196 THE RULE OF THE DEAD 
 
 had appointed these two their several hours to repair vnto 
 her. The latter man, not knowing of the former, and 
 comming in before the houre appointed, found the first 
 man, and enraged thereat, he whipped out his cattan 
 [katana] and wounded both of them very sorely, — hauing 
 very neere hewn the chine of the mans back in two. 
 But as well as hee might he cleared himselfe, and recouer- 
 ing his cattan, wounded the other. The street, taking 
 notice of the fray, forthwith seased vpon them, led them 
 aside, and acquainted King Foyne therewith, and sent to 
 know his pleasure, (for according to his will, the partie 
 is executed), who presently gaue order that they should cut 
 oft" their heads : which done, euery man that listed (as very 
 many did) came to try the sharpness of their cattans vpon 
 the corps, so that, before they left off, they had hewne them 
 all three into peeces as small as a mans hand, — and yet 
 notwithstanding, did not then giue over, but, placing the 
 peeces one vpon another, would try how many of them 
 they could strike through at a blow ; and the peeces are 
 left to the fowles to deuoure." .... 
 
 Evidently the execution was in this case ordered 
 for cause more serious than the offence of fighting ; 
 but it is true that quarrels were strictly forbidden 
 and rigorously punished. 
 
 Though privileged to cut down " other-than- 
 expected" people of inferior rank, the military class 
 itself had to endure a discipline even more severe 
 than that which it maintained. The penalty for a 
 word or a look that displeased, or for a trifling mis- 
 take in performance of duty, might be death. In 
 
THE RULE OF THE DEAD 197 
 
 most cases the Samurai was permitted to be his own 
 executioner ; and the right of self-destruction was 
 deemed a privilege ; but the obligation to thrust a 
 dagger deeply into one's belly on the left side, and 
 then draw the blade slowly and steadily across to 
 the right side, so as to sever all the entrails, was 
 certainly not less cruel than the vulgar punishment 
 of crucifixion, or rather, double-transfixion. 
 
 Just as all matters relating to the manner of the 
 individual's life were regulated by law, so were all 
 matters relating to his death, — the quality of his 
 coffin, the expenses of his interment, the order of 
 his funeral, the form of his tomb. In the seventh 
 century laws were passed to the effect that no one 
 should be buried with unseemly expense ; and these 
 laws fixed the cost of funerals according to rank and 
 grade. Subsequent edicts decided the dimensions 
 and material of coffins, and the size of graves. In 
 the eighth century every detail of funerals, for all 
 classes of persons from prince to peasant, was fixed 
 by decree. Other laws, and modifications of laws, 
 were made upon the subject in later centuries ; but 
 there appears to have always been a general tendency 
 to extravagance in the matter of funerals, — a ten- 
 dency so strong that, in spite of centuries of sump- 
 tuary legislation, it remains to-day a social danger. 
 This can easily be understood if we remember the 
 beliefs regarding duty to the dead, and the conse- 
 
198 THE RULE OF THE DEAD 
 
 quent desire to honour and to please the spirit even 
 at the risk of family impoverishment. 
 
 Most of the legislation to which reference has 
 already been made must appear to modern minda 
 tyrannical ; and some of deregulations seem to us 
 strangely cruel. There was, moreover, no way of 
 evading or shirking these obligations of law and cus- 
 tom : whoever failed to fulfil them was doomed to 
 perish or to become an outcast; implicit obedience 
 was the condition of survival. The tendency of such 
 regulation was necessarily to suppress all mental and 
 moral differentiation, to numb personality, to estab- 
 lish one uniform and unchanging type of character; 
 and such was the actual result. To this day every 
 Japanese mind reveals the lines of that antique mould 
 by which the ancestral mind was compressed and 
 limited. It is impossible to understand Japanese 
 psychology without knowing something of the laws 
 that helped to form it, — or, rather, to crystallize it 
 under pressure. 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, the ethical effects of this 
 iron discipline were unquestionably excellent. It 
 compelled each succeeding generation to practise the 
 frugality of the forefathers; and that compulsion was 
 partly justified by the great poverty of the nation. 
 It reduced the cost of living to a figure far below 
 our Western comprehension of the necessary ; it 
 cultivated sobriety, simplicity, economy ; it enforced 
 
THE RULE OF THE DEAD 199 
 
 cleanliness, courtesy, and hardihood. And — strange 
 as the fact may seem — it did not make the people 
 miserable : they found the world beautiful in spite 
 of all their trouble ; and the happiness of the old 
 life was reflected in the old Japanese art, much as the 
 joyousness of Greek life yet laughs to us from the 
 vase-designs of forgotten painters. 
 
 And the explanation is not difficult. We must 
 remember that the coercion was not exercised only 
 from without : it was really maintained from within. 
 The discipline of the race was self-imposed. The 
 people had gradually created their own social con- 
 ditions, and therefore the legislation conserving those 
 conditions ; and they believed that legislation the 
 best possible. They believed it to be the best pos- 
 sible for the excellent reason that it had been founded 
 upon their own moral experience; and they could 
 greatly endure because they had great faith. Only 
 religion could have. enabled any people to bear such 
 discipline without degenerating into mopes and 
 cowards ; and the Japanese never so degenerated : 
 the traditions that compelled self-denial and obedi- 
 ence, also cultivated courage, and insisted upon 
 cheerfulness. The power of the ruler was unlimited 
 because the power of all the dead supported him. 
 " Laws," says Herbert Spencer, " whether written 
 or unwritten, formulate the rule of the dead over the 
 living. In addition to that power which past gen- 
 erations exercise over present generations, by trans- 
 
200 THE RULE OF THE DEAD 
 
 mitting their natures, — bodily and mental, — and in 
 addition to the power they exercise over them by 
 bequeathed habits and modes of life, — there is the 
 power they exercise through their regulations for pub- 
 lic conduct, handed down orally, or in writing. . . . 
 I emphasize these truths," — he adds, — " for the 
 purpose of showing that they imply a tacit ancestor- 
 worship." . . . Of no other laws in the history of 
 human civilization are these observations more true 
 than of the laws of Old Japan. Most strikingly 
 did they " formulate the rule of the dead over the 
 living." And the hand of the dead was heavy : it is 
 heavy upon the living even to-day. 
 
The Introduction of Buddhism 
 
The Introduction of Buddhism 
 
 THE nature of the opposition which the 
 ancient religion of Japan could offer to the 
 introduction of any hostile alien creed, 
 should now be obvious. The family being founded 
 upon ancestor-worship, the commune being regu- 
 lated by ancestor-worship, the clan-group or tribe 
 being governed by ancestor-worship', and the Su- 
 preme Ruler being at once the high-priest and 
 deity of an ancestral cult which united all the other 
 cults in one common tradition, it must be evident 
 that the promulgation of any religion essentially 
 opposed to Shinto would have signified nothing 
 less than an attack upon the whole system of 
 society. Considering these circumstances, it may 
 well seem strange that Buddhism should have suc- 
 ceeded, after some preliminary struggles (which in- 
 cluded one bloody battle), in getting itself accepted 
 as a second national faith. But although the origi- 
 nal Buddhist doctrine was essentially in disaccord 
 with Shinto beliefs, Buddhism had learned in 
 India, in China, in Korea, and in divers adjacent 
 countries, how to meet the spiritual needs of peo- 
 ples maintaining a persistent ancestor-worship. In- 
 
 203 
 
204 THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 
 
 tolerance of ancestor-worship would have long ago 
 resulted in the extinction of Buddhism ; for its 
 vast conquests have all been made among ancestor- 
 worshipping races. Neither in India nor in China 
 nor in Korea, — neither in Siam nor Burmah nor 
 Annam, — did it attempt to extinguish ancestor- 
 worship. Everywhere it made itself accepted as 
 an ally, nowhere as an enemy, of social custom. 
 In Japan it adopted the same policy which had 
 secured its progress on the continent ; and in order 
 to form any clear conception of Japanese religious 
 conditions, this fact must be kept in mind. 
 
 As the oldest extant Japanese texts — with the 
 probable exception of some Shinto rituals — date 
 from the eighth century, it is only possible to sur- 
 mise the social conditions of that earlier epoch in 
 which there was no form of religion but ancestor- 
 worship. Only by imagining the absence of all 
 Chinese and Korean influences, can we form 
 some vague idea of the state of things which existed 
 during the so-called Age of the Gods, — and it is 
 difficult to decide at what period these influences 
 began to operate. Confucianism appears to have 
 preceded Buddhism by a considerable interval ; and 
 its progress, as an organizing power, was much 
 more rapid. Buddhism was first introduced from 
 Korea, about 552 a.d. ; but the mission accom- 
 plished little. By the end of the eighth century 
 
THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 205 
 
 the whole fabric of Japanese administration had been 
 reorganized upon the Chinese plan, under Confucian 
 influence; but it was not until well into the ninth 
 century that Buddhism really began to spread 
 throughout the country. Eventually it over- 
 shadowed the national life, and coloured all the 
 national thought. Yet the extraordinary conserva- 
 tism of the ancient ancestor-cult — its inherent 
 power of resisting fusion — was exemplified by the 
 readiness with which the two religions fell apart on 
 the disestablishment of Buddhism in 1871. After 
 having been literally overlaid by Buddhism for 
 nearly a thousand years, Shinto immediately re- 
 assumed its archaic simplicity, and reestablished 
 the unaltered forms of its earliest rites. 
 
 But the attempt of Buddhism to absorb Shinto 
 seemed at one period to have almost succeeded. 
 The method of the absorption is said to have been 
 devised, about the year 800, by the famous founder 
 of the Shingon sect, Kiikai or " Kob5daishi " 
 (as he is popularly called), who first declared the 
 higher Shinto gods to be incarnations of various 
 Buddhas. But in this matter, of course, Kobodaishi 
 was merely following precedents of Buddhist policy. 
 Under the name of Ryobu-Shint.5, 1 the new com- 
 pound of Shinto and Buddhism obtained imperial 
 approval and support. Thereafter, in hundreds of 
 
 1 The term " Ryobu " signifies "two-departments'* or "two religions." 
 
io6 THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 
 
 places, the two religions were domiciled within the 
 same precinct — sometimes even within the same 
 building: they seemed" to have been veritably- 
 amalgamated. And nevertheless there was no 
 real fusion ; — after ten centuries of such contact 
 they separated again, as lightly as if they had never 
 touched. It was only in the domestic form of the 
 ancestor-cult that Buddhism really affected perma- 
 nent modifications ; yet even these were neither 
 fundamental nor universal. In certain provinces 
 they were not made ; and almost everywhere a con- 
 siderable part of the population preferred to follow 
 the Shinto form of the ancestor-cult. Yet another 
 large class of persons, converts to Buddhism, con- 
 tinued to profess the older creed as well ; and, while 
 practising their ancestor-worship according to the 
 Buddhist rite, maintained separately also the domes- 
 tic worship of the elder gods. In most Japanese 
 houses to-day, the " god-shelf" and the Buddhist 
 shrine can both be found ; both cults being main- 
 tained under the same roof. 1 . . . But I am men- 
 tioning these facts only as illustrating the conservative 
 vitality of Shint5, not as indicating any weakness 
 in the Buddhist propaganda. Unquestionably the 
 influence which Buddhism exerted upon Japanese 
 
 1 The ancestor-worship and the funeral rites are Buddhist, as a general rule, if 
 the family be Buddhist ; but the Shinto gods are also worshipped in most Buddhist 
 households, except those attached to the Shin sect. Many followers of even the 
 Shin sect, however, appear to follow the ancient religion likewise ; and they have 
 their Ujigami. 
 
THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 207 
 
 civilization was immense, profound, multiform, 
 incalculable ; and the only wonder is that it should 
 not have been able to stifle Shinto forever. To 
 state, as various writers have carelessly stated, that 
 Buddhism became the popular religion, while Shinto 
 remained the official religion, is altogether mis- 
 leading. As a matter of fact Buddhism became as 
 much an official religion as Shinto itself, and in- 
 fluenced the lives of the highest classes not less than 
 the lives of the poor. It made monks of Emperors, 
 and nuns of their daughters ; it decided the conduct 
 of rulers, the nature of decrees, and the administra- 
 tion of laws. In every community the Buddhist 
 parish-priest was a public official as well as a spirit- 
 ual teacher : he kept the parish register, and made 
 report to the authorities upon local matters of 
 importance. 
 
 By introducing the love of learning, Confucianism 
 had partly prepared the way for Buddhism. As 
 early even as the first century there were some 
 Chinese scholars in Japan ; but it was toward the 
 close of the third century that the study of Chinese 
 literature first really became fashionable among the 
 ruling classes. Confucianism, however, did not 
 represent a new religion : it was a system of ethical 
 teachings founded upon an ancestor-worship much 
 like that of Japan. What it had to offer was a 
 kind of social philosophy, — an explanation of the 
 
zo8 THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 
 
 eternal reason of things. It reinforced and expanded 
 the doctrine of filial piety ; it regulated and elabo- 
 rated preexisting ceremonial ; and it systematized all 
 the ethics of government. In the education of the 
 ruling classes it became a great power, and has so 
 remained down to the present day. Its doctrines 
 were humane, in the best meaning of the word ; and 
 striking evidence of its humanizing effect on govern- 
 ment policy may be found in the laws and the 
 maxims of that wisest of Japanese rulers — Iyeyasu. 
 But the religion of the Buddha brought to Japan 
 another and a wider humanizing influence, — anew 
 gospel of tenderness, — together with a multitude of 
 new beliefs that were able to accommodate them- 
 selves to the old, in spite of fundamental dissimi- 
 larity. In the highest meaning of the term, it was a 
 civilizing power. Besides teaching new respect for 
 life, the duty of kindness to animals as well as to all 
 human beings, the consequence of present acts upon 
 the conditions of a future existence, the duty of res- 
 ignation to pain as the inevitable result of forgotten 
 error, it actually gave to Japan the arts and the 
 industries of China. Architecture, painting, sculp- 
 ture, engraving, printing, gardening — in short, 
 every art and industry that helped to make life 
 beautiful — developed first in Japan under Buddhist 
 teaching. 
 
 There are many forms of Buddhism; and in 
 
THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 209 
 
 modern Japan there are twelve principal Buddhist 
 sects ; but, for present purposes, it will be enough 
 to speak, in the most general way, of popular 
 Buddhism only, as distinguished from philosophical 
 Buddhism, which I shall touch upon in a subsequent 
 chapter. The higher Buddhism could not, at any 
 time or in any country, have had a large popular 
 following ; and it is a mistake to suppose that its 
 particular doctrines — such as the doctrine of Nir- 
 vana — were taught to the common people. Only 
 such forms of doctrine were preached as could be 
 made intelligible and attractive to very simple 
 minds. There is a Buddhist proverb : " First ob- 
 serve the person ; then preach the Law," — that is to 
 say, Adapt your instruction to the capacity of the 
 listener. In Japan, as in China, Buddhism had to 
 adapt its instruction to the mental capacity of large 
 classes of people yet unaccustomed to abstract ideas. 
 Even to this day the masses do not know so much 
 as the meaning of the word "Nirvana" (N'ehan) : they 
 have been taught only the simpler forms of the reli- 
 gion ; and in dwelling upon these, it will be needless 
 to consider differences of sect and dogma. 
 
 To appreciate the direct influence of Buddhist 
 teaching upon the minds of the common people, we 
 must remember that in Shinto there was no doctrine 
 of metempsychosis. As I have said before, the 
 spirits of the dead, according to ancient Japanese 
 thinking, continued to exist in the world: they 
 
210 THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 
 
 mingled somehow with the viewless forces of nature, 
 and acted through them. Everything happened by 
 the agency of these spirits — evil or good. Those 
 who had been wicked in life remained wicked after 
 death ; those who had been good in life became 
 good gods after death ; but all were to be propi- 
 tiated. No idea of future reward or punishment 
 existed before the coming of Buddhism : there was 
 no notion of any heaven or hell. The happiness 
 of ghosts and gods alike was supposed to depend 
 upon the worship and the offerings of the living. 
 With these ancient beliefs Buddhism attempted 
 to interfere only by expanding and expounding them, 
 — by interpreting them in a totally new light. 
 Modifications were effected, but no suppressions : 
 we might even say that Buddhism accepted the 
 whole body of the old beliefs. It was true, the new 
 teaching declared, that the dead continued to exist 
 invisibly ; and it was not wrong to suppose that 
 they became divinities, since all of them were des- 
 tined, sooner or later, to enter upon the way to 
 Buddhahood — the divine condition. Buddhism ac- 
 knowledged likewise the greater gods of Shinto, with 
 all their attributes and dignities, — declaring them 
 incarnations of Buddhas or Bodhisattvas : thus the 
 goddess of the sun was identified with Dai-Nichi- 
 Nyorai (the Tathagata Mahavairokana) ; the deity 
 Hachiman was identified with Amida (Amitabha). 
 Nor did Buddhism deny the existence of goblins 
 
THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 211 
 
 and evil gods : these were identified with the Pretas 
 and the Marakayikas ; and the Japanese popular 
 term for goblin, Ma, to-day reminds us of this iden- 
 tification. As for wicked ghosts, they were to be 
 thought of as Pretas only, — Gaki, — self-doomed by 
 the errors of former lives to the Circle of Perpetual 
 Hunger. The ancient sacrifices to the various gods 
 of disease and pestilence — gods of fever, small-pox, 
 dysentery, consumption, coughs, and colds — were 
 continued with Buddhist approval ; but converts 
 were bidden to consider such, maleficent beings as 
 Pretas, and to present them with only such food- 
 offerings as are bestowed upon Pretas — not for 
 propitiation, but for the purpose of relieving ghostly 
 pain. In this case, as in the case of the ancestral 
 spirits, Buddhism prescribed that the prayers to be 
 repeated were to be said for the sake of the haunters, 
 rather than to them. . . . The reader may be re- 
 minded of the fact that Roman Catholicism, by 
 making a similar provision, still practically tolerates 
 a continuance of the ancient European ancestor- 
 worship. And we cannot consider that worship 
 extinct in any of those Western countries where the 
 peasants still feast their dead upon the Night of All 
 Souls. 
 
 Buddhism, however, did more than tolerate the 
 old rites. It cultivated and elaborated them. 
 Under its teaching a new and beautiful form of 
 the domestic cult came into existence; and all the 
 
2i2 THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 
 
 touching poetry of ancestor-worship in modern 
 Japan can be traced to the teaching of the Buddh- 
 ist missionaries. Though ceasing to regard their 
 dead as gods in the ancient sense, the Japanese con- 
 verts were encouraged to believe in their presence, 
 and to address them in terms of reverence and 
 affection. It is worthy of remark that the doctrine 
 of Pretas gave new force to the ancient fear of 
 neglecting the domestic rites. Ghosts unloved 
 might not become " evil gods " in the Shinto mean- 
 ing of the term ; but the malevolent Gaki was even 
 more to be dreaded than the malevolent Kami, — 
 for Buddhism defined in appalling ways the nature 
 of the Gaki 's power to harm. In various Buddhist 
 funeral-rites, the dead are actually addressed as 
 Gaki, — beings to be pitied but also to be feared, — 
 much needing human sympathy and succour, but 
 able to recompense the food-giver by ghostly help. 
 
 One particular attraction of Buddhist teaching 
 was its simple and ingenious interpretation of 
 nature. Countless matters which Shirito had never 
 attempted to explain, and could not have explained, 
 Buddhism expounded in detail, with much apparent 
 consistency. Its explanations of the mysteries of 
 birth, life, and death were at once consoling to pure 
 minds, and wholesomely discomforting to bad con- 
 sciences. It taught that the dead were happy or 
 unhappy not directly because of the attention or the 
 
THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 213 
 
 neglect shown them by the living, but because of their 
 past conduct while in the body. 1 It did not attempt 
 to teach the higher doctrine of successive rebirths, — 
 which the people could not possibly have under- 
 stood, — but the merely symbolic doctrine of trans- 
 migration, which everybody could understand. To 
 die was not to melt back into nature, but to be re- 
 incarnated ; and the character of the new body, as 
 well as the conditions of the new existence, would 
 depend upon the quality of one's deeds and thoughts 
 in the present body. All states and conditions of 
 being were the consequence of past actions. Such 
 a man was now rich and powerful, because in pre- 
 vious lives he had been generous and kindly ; such 
 another man was now sickly and poor, because in some 
 previous existence he had been sensual and selfish. 
 This woman was happy in her husband and her 
 children, because in the time of a former birth she 
 had proved herself a loving daughter and a faithful 
 spouse ; this other was wretched and childless, 
 because in some anterior existence she had been a 
 jealous wife and a cruel mother. "To hate your 
 enemy," the Buddhist preacher would proclaim, " is 
 
 1 The reader will doubtless wonder how Buddhism could reconcile its doctrine of 
 successive rebirths with the ideas of ancestor-worship. If one died only to be bom 
 again, what could be the use of offering food or addressing any kind of prayer to the 
 reincarnated spirit ? This difficulty was met by the teaching that the dead were not 
 immediately reborn in most cases, but entered into a particular condition called Cb&- U. 
 They might remain in this disembodied condition for the time of one hundred years, 
 after which they were reincarnated. The Buddhist services for the dead are conse- 
 quently limited to the time of one hundred years. 
 
214 THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 
 
 foolish as well as wrong : he is now your enemy 
 only because of some treachery that you practised 
 upon him in a previous life, when he desired to be 
 your friend. Resign yourself to the injury which 
 he now does you : accept it as the expiation of your 
 forgotten fault. . . . The girl whom you hoped to 
 marry has been refused you by her parents, — given 
 away to another. But once, in another existence, 
 she was yours by promise ; and you broke the 
 pledge then given. . . . Painful indeed the loss 
 of your child ; but this loss is the consequence of 
 having, in some former life, refused affection where 
 affection was due. . . . Maimed by mishap, you 
 can no longer earn your living as before. Yet this 
 mishap is really due to the fact that in some pre- 
 vious existence you wantonly inflicted bodily injury. 
 Now the evil of your own act has returned upon 
 you : repent of your crime, and pray that its Karma 
 may be exhausted by this present suffering." . . . 
 All the sorrows of men were thus explained and 
 consoled. Life was expounded as representing but 
 one stage of a measureless journey, whose way 
 stretched back through all the night of the past, 
 and forward through all the mystery of the future, — 
 out of eternities forgotten into the eternities to be ; 
 and the world itself was to be thought of only as a 
 traveller's resting-place, an inn by the roadside. 
 
 Instead of preaching to the people about Nirvana, 
 
THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 215 
 
 Buddhism discoursed to them" of blisses to be won 
 and pains to be avoided : the Paradise of Amida, 
 Lord of Immeasurable Light ; the eight hot hells 
 called To-kwatsu, and the eight icy hells called 
 Abuda. On the subject of future punishment the 
 teaching was very horrible : I should advise no one 
 of delicate nerves to read the Japanese, or rather the 
 Chinese accounts of hell. But hell was the penalty 
 for supreme wickedness only : it was not eternal ; and 
 the demons themselves would at last be saved. . . . 
 Heaven was to be the reward of good deeds : the 
 reward might indeed be delayed, through many 
 successive rebirths, by reason of lingering Karma ; 
 but, on the other hand, it might be attained by 
 virtue of a single holy act in this present life. Be- 
 sides, prior to the period of supreme reward, each 
 succeeding rebirth could be made happier than the 
 preceding one by persistent effort in the holy Way. 
 Even as regarded conditions in this transitory world, 
 the results of virtuous conduct were not to be de- 
 spised. The beggar of to-day might to-morrow be 
 reborn in the palace of a daimyo; the blind shampooer 
 might become, in his very next life, an imperial 
 minister. Always the recompense would be pro- 
 portionate to the sum of merit. In this lower world 
 to practise the highest virtue was difficult ; and the 
 great rewards were hard to win. But for all good 
 deeds a recompense was sure ; and there was no 
 one who could not acquire merit. 
 
216 THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 
 
 Even the Shinto doctrine of conscience — the 
 god-given sense of right and wrong — was not 
 denied by Buddhism. But this conscience was in- 
 terpreted as the essential wisdom of the Buddha dor- 
 mant in every human creature, — wisdom darkened 
 by ignorance, clogged by desire, fettered by Karma, 
 but destined sooner or later to fully awaken, and to 
 flood the mind with light. 
 
 It would seem that the Buddhist teaching of the 
 duty of kindness to all living creatures, and of pity 
 for all suffering, had a powerful effect upon national 
 habit and custom, long before the new religion found 
 general acceptance. As early as the year 675, a 
 decree was issued by the Emperor Temmu for- 
 bidding the people to eat " the flesh of kine, horses, 
 dogs, monkeys, or barn-door fowls," and prohibiting 
 the use of traps or the making of pitfalls in catching 
 game. 1 The fact that all kinds of flesh-meat 
 were not forbidden is probably explained by this 
 Emperor's zeal for the maintenance of both creeds ; 
 — an absolute prohibition might have interfered 
 with Shinto usages, and would certainly have been 
 incompatible with Shinto traditions. But, although 
 fish never ceased to be an article of food for the 
 laity, we may say that from about this time the 
 mass of the nation abandoned its habits of diet, 
 and forswore the eating of meat, in accordance with 
 
 1 See Aston's translation of the Nibotigi, Vol. II, p. 318. 
 
THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 217 
 
 Buddhist teaching. . . . This teaching was based 
 upon the doctrine of the unity of all sentient exist- 
 ence. Buddhism explained the whole visible world 
 by its doctrine of Karma, — simplifying that doctrine 
 so as to adapt it to popular comprehension. The 
 forms of all creatures, — bird, reptile, or mammal; 
 insect or fish, — represented only different results of 
 Karma : the ghostly life in each was one and the 
 same ; and, in even the lowest, some spark of the 
 divine existed. The frog or the serpent, the bird 
 or the bat, the ox or the horse, — all had had, at 
 some past time, the privilege of human (perhaps 
 even superhuman) shape : their present conditions 
 represented only the consequence of ancient faults. 
 Any human being also, by reason of like faults, 
 might hereafter be reduced to the same dumb state, 
 — might be reborn as a reptile, a fish, a bird, or a 
 beast of burden. The consequence of wanton cruelty 
 to any animal might cause the perpetrator of that 
 cruelty to be reborn as an animal of the same kind, 
 destined to suffer the same cruel treatment. Who 
 could even be sure that the goaded ox, the over- 
 driven horse, or the slaughtered bird, had not 
 formerly been a human being of closest kin, — 
 ancestor, parent, brother, sister, or child? . . . 
 
 Not by words only were all these things taught. 
 It should be remembered that Shinto had no art : 
 its ghost-houses, silent and void, were not even 
 
218 THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 
 
 decorated. But Buddhism brought in its train all 
 the arts of carving, painting, and decoration. The 
 images of its Bodhisattvas, smiling in gold, — the 
 figures' of its heavenly guardians and infernal judges, 
 its feminine angels and monstrous demons, — must 
 have startled and amazed imaginations yet unaccus- 
 tomed to any kind of art. Great paintings hung in the 
 temples, and frescoes limned upon their walls or ceil- 
 ings, explained better than words the doctrine of the 
 Six States of Existence, and the dogma of future 
 rewards and punishments. In rows of kakemono, 
 suspended side by side, were displayed the incidents 
 of a Soul's journey to the realm of judgment, and 
 all the horrors of the various hells. One pictured 
 the ghosts of faithless wives, for ages doomed to 
 pluck, with bleeding fingers, the rasping bamboo- 
 grass that grows by the Springs of Death ; another 
 showed the torment of the slanderer, whose tongue 
 was torn by demon-pincers ; in a third appeared 
 the spectres of lustful men, vainly seeking to flee the 
 embraces of women of fire, or climbing, in frenzied 
 terror, the slopes of the Mountain of Swords. Pic- 
 tured also were the circles of the Preta-world, and the 
 pangs of the Hungry Ghosts, and likewise the pains 
 of rebirth in the form of reptiles and of beasts. And 
 the art of these early representations — many of which 
 have been preserved — was an art of no mean order. 
 We can hardly conceive the effect upon inexperi- 
 enced imagination of the crimson frown of Emma 
 
THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 219 
 
 (Tama), Judge of the dead, — or the vision of that 
 weird Mirror which reflected to every spirit the mis- 
 deeds of its life in the body, — or the monstrous 
 fancy of that double-faced Head before the judg- 
 ment seat, representing the visage of the woman 
 Mirume, whose eyes behold all secret sin ; and the 
 vision of the man Kaguhana, who smells all odours 
 of evil-doing. . . . Parental affection must have 
 been deeply touched by the painted legend of the 
 world of children's ghosts, — the little ghosts that 
 must toil, under demon-surveillance, in the Dry Bed 
 of the River of Souls. . . . But pictured terrors 
 were offset by pictured consolations, — by the beau- 
 tiful figure of Kwannon, white Goddess of Mercy, 
 — by the compassionate smile of Jizo, the playmate 
 of infant-ghosts, — by the charm also of celestial 
 nymphs, floating on iridescent wings in light of 
 azure. The Buddhist painter opened to simple 
 fancy the palaces of heaven, and guided hope, 
 through gardens of jewel-trees, even to the shores 
 of that lake where the souls of the blessed are 
 reborn in lotos-blossoms, and tended by angel- 
 nurses. 
 
 Moreover, for people accustomed only to such 
 simple architecture as that of the Shinto miya, the 
 new temples erected by the Buddhist priests must 
 have been astonishments. The colossal Chinese 
 gates, guarded by giant statues ; the lions and 
 lanterns of bronze and stone ; the enormous sus- 
 
220 THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 
 
 pended bells, sounded by swinging- beams ; the 
 swarming of dragon-shapes under the eaves of the 
 vast roofs; the glimmering splendour of the altars; 
 the ceremonial likewise, with its chanting and its 
 incense-burning and its weird Chinese music, — 
 cannot have failed to inspire the wonder-loving 
 with delight and awe. It is a noteworthy fact that 
 the earliest Buddhist temples in Japan still remain, 
 even to Western eyes, the most impressive. The 
 Temple of the Four Deva Kings at Osaka — which, 
 though more than once rebuilt, preserves the orig- 
 inal plan — dates from 600 a.d. ; the yet more 
 remarkable temple called Horyuji, near Nara, dates 
 from about the year 607. 
 
 Of course the famous paintings and the great 
 statues coujd be seen at the temples only ; but the 
 Buddhist image-makers soon began to people even 
 the most desolate places with stone images of 
 Buddhas and of Bodhisattvas. Then first were 
 made those icons of Jizo, which still smile upon 
 the traveller from every roadside, — and the images 
 of Koshin, protector of highways, with his three 
 symbolic Apes, — and the figure of that Bato- 
 Kwannon, who protects the horses of the peasant, 
 — with other figures in whose rude but impressive 
 art suggestions of Indian origin are yet recognizable. 
 Gradually the graveyards became thronged with 
 dreaming Buddhas or Bodhisattvas, — holy guar- 
 dians of the dead, throned upon lotos-flowers of 
 
THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 221 
 
 stone, and smiling with closed eyes the smile of the 
 Calm Supreme. In the cities everywhere Buddhist 
 sculptors opened shops, to furnish pious households 
 with images of the chief divinities worshipped by 
 the various Buddhist sects ; and the makers of ihai y 
 or Buddhist mortuary tablets, as well as the makers 
 of household shrines, multiplied and prospered. 
 
 Meanwhile the people were left free to worship 
 their ancestors according to either creed ; and if a 
 majority eventually gave preference to the Buddhist 
 rite, this preference was due in large measure to 
 the peculiar emotional charm which Buddhism had 
 infused into the cult. Except in minor details, the 
 two rites differed scarcely at all ; and there was no 
 conflict whatever between the old ideas of filial piety 
 and the Buddhist ideas attaching to the new ancestor- 
 worship. Buddhism taught that the dead might be 
 helped and made happier by prayer, and that much 
 ghostly comfort could be given them by food- 
 offerings. They were not to be offered flesh or 
 wine ; but it was proper to gratify them with fruits 
 and rice and cakes and flowers and the smoke of 
 incense. Besides, even the simplest food-offerings 
 might be transmuted, by force of prayer, into celes- 
 tial nectar and ambrosia. But what especially 
 helped the new ancestor-cult to popular favour, 
 was the fact that it included many beautiful and 
 touching customs not known to the old. Everywhere 
 
222 THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 
 
 the people soon learned to kindle the hundred and 
 eight fires of welcome for the annual visit of their 
 dead, — to supply the spirits with little figures made 
 of straw, or made out of vegetables, to serve for 
 oxen or horses, 1 — also to prepare the ghost-ships 
 (shoryobun'e), in which the souls of the ancestors 
 were to return, over the sea, to their under-world. 
 Then too were instituted the Bon-odori, or Dances 
 of the Festival of the Dead, 2 and the custom of 
 suspending white lanterns at graves, and coloured 
 lanterns at house-gates, to light the coming and 
 the going of the visiting dead. 
 
 But perhaps the greatest value of Buddhism to 
 the nation was educational. The Shinto priests 
 were not teachers. In early times they were mostly 
 aristocrats, religious representatives of the clans ; 
 and the idea of educating the common people could 
 not even have occurred to them. Buddhism, on 
 
 1 An eggplant, with four pegs of wood stuck into it, to represent legs, usually 
 stands for an ox j and a cucumber, with four pegs, serves for a horse. . . . One 
 is reminded of the fact that, at some of the ancient Greek sacrifices, similar substi- 
 tutes for real animals were used. In the worship of Apollo, at Thebes, apples with 
 wooden pegs stuck into them, to represent feet and horns, were offered as substi- 
 tutes for sheep. 
 
 2 The dances themselves — very curious and very attractive to witness — are 
 much older than Buddhism ; but Buddhism made them a feature of the festi- 
 val referred to, which lasts for three days. No person who has not witnessed a 
 Bon-odori can form the least idea of what Japanese dancing means : it is something 
 utterly different from what usually goes by the name, — something indescribably 
 archaic, weird, and nevertheless fascinating. I have repeatedly sat up all night to 
 watch the peasants dancing. Japanese dancing girls, be it observed, do not dance : 
 they pose. The peasants dance. 
 
THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 225 
 
 the other hand, offered the boon of education to 
 all, — not merely a religious education, but an edu- 
 cation in the arts and the learning of China. The 
 Buddhist temples eventually became common 
 schools, or had schools attached to them ; and at 
 each parish temple the children of the community 
 were taught, at a merely nominal cost, the doctrines 
 of the faith, the wisdom of the Chinese classics, cal- 
 ligraphy, drawing, and much besides. By degrees 
 the education of almost the whole nation came 
 under Buddhist control ; and the moral effect was 
 of the best. For the military class indeed there 
 was another and special system of education ; but 
 Samurai scholars sought to perfect their knowledge 
 under Buddhist teachers of renown ; and the impe- 
 rial household itself employed Buddhist instructors. 
 For the common people everywhere the Buddhist 
 priest was the schoolmaster ; and by virtue of his 
 occupation as teacher, not less than by reason of his 
 religious office, he ranked with the samurai. Much 
 of what remains most attractive in Japanese charac- 
 ter — the winning and graceful aspects of it — seems 
 to have been developed under Buddhist training. 
 
 It was natural enough that to his functions of 
 public instructor, the Buddhist priest should have 
 added those of a public registrar. Until the period 
 of disendowment, the Buddhist clergy remained, 
 throughout the country, public as well as religious 
 officials. They kept the parish records, and fur- 
 
224 THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 
 
 nished at need certificates of birth, death, or family 
 descent. 
 
 To give any just conception of the immense 
 civilizing influence which Buddhism exerted in 
 Japan would require many volumes. Even to 
 summarize the results of that influence by stating 
 only the most general facts, is scarcely possible, — 
 for no general statement can embody the whole 
 truth of the work accomplished. As a moral force, 
 Buddhism strengthened authority and cultivated 
 submission, by its capacity to inspire larger hopes 
 and fears than the more ancient religion could cre- 
 ate. As teacher, it educated the race, from the 
 highest to the humblest, both in ethics and in 
 esthetics. All that can be classed under the name 
 of art in Japan was either introduced or developed 
 by Buddhism ; and the same may be said regarding 
 nearly all Japanese literature possessing real literary 
 quality, — excepting some Shinto rituals, and some 
 fragments of archaic poetry. Buddhism introduced 
 drama, the higher forms of poetical composition, 
 and fiction, and history, and philosophy. All the 
 refinements of Japanese life were of Buddhist intro- 
 duction, and at least a majority of its diversions and 
 pleasures. There is even to-day scarcely one inter- 
 esting or beautiful thing, produced in the country, 
 for which the nation is not in some sort indebted to 
 Buddhism. Perhaps the best and briefest way of 
 
THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM 225 
 
 stating the range of such indebtedness, is simply to 
 say that Buddhism brought the whole of Chinese 
 civilization into Japan, and thereafter patiently 
 modified and reshaped it to Japanese requirements. 
 The elder civilization was not merely superimposed 
 upon the social structure, but fitted carefully into it, 
 combined with it so perfectly that the marks of the 
 welding, the lines of the juncture, almost totally 
 disappeared. 
 
The Higher Buddhism 
 
The Higher Buddhism 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL Buddhism requires some 
 brief consideration in this place, — for two 
 reasons. The first is that misapprehension 
 or ignorance of the subject has rendered possible the 
 charge of atheism against the intellectual classes of 
 Japan. The second reason is that some persons 
 imagine the Japanese common people — that is to 
 say, the greater part of the nation — believers in the 
 doctrine of Nirvana as extinction (though, as a 
 matter of fact, even the meaning of the word is 
 unknown to the masses), and quite resigned to 
 vanish from the face of the earth, because of that 
 incapacity for struggle which the doctrine is sup- 
 posed to create. A little serious thinking ought 
 to convince any intelligent man that no such creed 
 could ever have been the religion of either a savage 
 or a civilized people. But myriads of Western minds 
 are ready at all times to accept statements of impos- 
 sibility without taking the trouble to think about 
 them ; and if I can show some of my readers how 
 far beyond popular comprehension the doctrines 
 of the higher Buddhism really are, something will 
 have been accomplished for the cause of truth and 
 
 229 
 
230 THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 
 
 common-sense. And besides the reasons already 
 given for dwelling upon the subject, there is this 
 third and special reason, — that it is one of extraor- 
 dinary interest to the student of modern philosophy. 
 
 Before going further, I must remind you that the 
 metaphysics of Buddhism can be studied anywhere 
 else quite as well as in Japan, since the more impor- 
 tant sutras have been translated into various European 
 languages, and most of the untranslated texts edited 
 and published. The texts of Japanese Buddhism 
 are Chinese ; and only Chinese scholars are com- 
 petent to throw light upon the minor special phases 
 of the subject. Even to read the Chinese Buddhist 
 canon of 7000 volumes is commonly regarded as 
 an impossible feat, — though it has certainly been 
 accomplished in Japan. Then there are the com- 
 mentaries, the varied interpretations of different 
 sects, the multiplications of later doctrine, to heap 
 confusion upon confusion. The complexities of 
 Japanese Buddhism are incalculable ; and those who 
 try to unravel them soon become, as a general rule, 
 hopelessly lost in the maze of detail. All this has 
 nothing to do with my present purpose. I shall 
 have very little to say about Japanese Buddhism 
 as distinguished from other Buddhism, and nothing 
 at all to say about sect-differences. I shall keep to 
 general facts as regards the higher doctrine, — select- 
 ing from among such facts only those most suitable 
 
THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 231 
 
 for the illustration of that doctrine. And I shall 
 not take up the subject of Nirvana, in spite of its 
 great importance, — having treated it as fully as I 
 was able in my Gleanings in Buddha-Fields, — but 
 confine myself to the topic of certain analogies 
 between the conclusions of Buddhist metaphysics 
 and the conclusions of contemporary Western 
 thought. 
 
 In the best single volume yet produced in Eng- 
 lish on the subject of Buddhism, 1 the late Mr. 
 Henry Clarke Warren observed: "A large part of 
 the pleasure that I have experienced in the study 
 of Buddhism has arisen from what I may call the 
 strangeness of the intellectual landscape. All the 
 ideas, the modes of argument, even the postulates 
 assumed and not argued about, have always seemed 
 so strange, so different from anything to which I 
 have been accustomed, that I felt all the time 
 as though walking in Fairyland. Much of the 
 charm that the Oriental thoughts and ideas have for 
 me appears to be because they so seldom fit into 
 Western categories." . . . The serious attraction 
 of Buddhist philosophy could not be better sug- 
 gested : it is indeed " the strangeness of the intel- 
 lectual landscape," as of a world inside-out and 
 upside-down, that has chiefly interested Western 
 
 1 Buddhism in Translations, by Henry Clarke Warren (Cambridge, Massa- 
 chusetts, 1896). Published by Harvard University. 
 
232 THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 
 
 thinkers heretofore. Yet after all, there is a class of 
 Buddhist concepts which can be fitted, or very 
 nearly fitted, into Western categories. The higher 
 Buddhism is a kind of Monism ; and it includes 
 doctrines that accord, in the most surprising manner, 
 with the scientific theories of the German and the 
 English monists. To my thinking, the most curi- 
 ous part of the subject, and its main interest, is 
 represented just by these accordances, — particularly 
 in view of the fact that the Buddhist conclusions 
 have been reached through mental processes un- 
 known to Western thinking, and unaided by any 
 knowledge of science. ... I venture to call myself 
 a student of Herbert Spencer ; and it was because 
 of my acquaintance with the Synthetic Philosophy 
 that I came to find in Buddhist philosophy a more 
 than romantic interest. For Buddhism is also a 
 theory of evolution, though the great central idea of 
 our scientific evolution (the law of progress from 
 homogeneity to heterogeneity) is not correspondingly 
 implied by Buddhist doctrine as regards the life of 
 this world. The course of evolution as we conceive 
 it, according to Professor Huxley, " must describe a 
 trajectory like that of a ball fired from a mortar; 
 and the sinking half of that course is as much a part 
 of the general process of evolution as the rising." 
 The highest point of the trajectory would represent 
 what Mr. Spencer calls Equilibration, — the su- 
 preme point of development preceding the period 
 
THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 233 
 
 of decline ; but, in Buddhist evolution, this supreme 
 point vanishes into Nirvana. I can best illustrate 
 the Buddhist position by asking you to imagine the 
 trajectory line upside-down, — a course descending 
 out of the infinite, touching ground, and ascending 
 again to mystery. . . . Nevertheless, some Buddhist 
 ideas do offer the most startling analogy with the 
 evolutional ideas of our own time ; and even those 
 Buddhist concepts most remote from Western 
 thought can be best interpreted by the help of illus- 
 trations and of language borrowed from modern 
 science. 
 
 I think that we may consider the most remarkable 
 teachings of the higher Buddhism, — excluding 
 the doctrine of Nirvana, for the reason already 
 given, — to be the following : — 
 That there is but one Reality ; — 
 That the consciousness is not the real Self; — 
 That Matter is an aggregate of phenomena created 
 by the force of acts and thoughts ; — 
 
 That all objective and subjective existence is made by 
 Karma, — the -present being the creation of the past, 
 and the actions of the present and the past, in combi- 
 nation, determining the conditions of the future. . . . 
 (Or, in other words, that the universe of Matter, 
 and the universe of [conditioned] Mind, represent 
 in their evolution a strictly moral order.) 
 
 It will be worth while now to briefly consider 
 
234 THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 
 
 these doctrines in their relation to modern thought, 
 
 — beginning with the first, which is Monism : — 
 
 All things having form or name, — Buddhas, 
 gods, men, and all living creatures, — suns, worlds, 
 moons, the whole visible cosmos, — are transitory 
 phenomena. . . . Assuming, with Herbert Spencer, 
 that the test of reality is permanence, one can 
 scarcely question this position ; it differs little 
 from the statement with which the closing chapter 
 of the First Principles concludes : — 
 
 " Though the relation of subject and object renders 
 necessary to us these antithetical conceptions of Spirit and 
 Matter, the one is no less than the other to be regarded as 
 but a sign of the Unknown Reality which underlies both." — 
 Edition of 1 894. 
 
 For Buddhism the sole reality is the Absolute, 
 
 — Buddha as unconditioned and Infinite Being. 
 There is no other veritable existence, whether of 
 Matter or of Mind ; there is no real individuality 
 or personality ; the " I " and the " Not-I " are 
 essentially nowise different. We are reminded of 
 Mr. Spencer's position, that " it is one and the same 
 Reality which is manifested to us both subjectively 
 and objectively." Mr. Spencer goes on to say : 
 " Subject and Object, as actually existing, can never 
 be contained in the consciousness produced by the 
 cooperation of the two, though they are necessarily 
 
THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 235 
 
 implied by it ; and the antithesis of Subject and 
 Object, never to be transcended while consciousness 
 iasts, renders impossible all knowledge of that Ulti- 
 mate Reality in which Subject and Object are 
 united.". . . 1 do not think that a master of the 
 higher Buddhism would dispute Mr. Spencer's 
 doctrine of Transfigured Realism. Buddhism does 
 not deny the actuality of phenomena as phenomena, 
 but denies their permanence, and the truth of the 
 appearances which they present to our imperfect 
 senses. Being transitory, and not what they seem, 
 they are to be considered in the nature of illusions, 
 — impermanent manifestations of the only per- 
 manent Reality. But the Buddhist position is not 
 agnosticism : it is astonishingly different, as we shall 
 presently see. Mr. Spencer states that we cannot 
 know the Reality so long as consciousness lasts, — 
 because while consciousness lasts we cannot transcend 
 the antithesis of Object and Subject, and it is this , 
 very antithesis which makes consciousness possible. 
 " Very true," the Buddhist metaphysician would 
 reply ; " we cannot know the sole Reality while 
 consciousness lasts. But destroy consciousness, and 
 the Reality becomes cognizable. Annihilate the illu- 
 sion of Mind, and the light will come." This de- 
 struction of consciousness signifies Nirvana, — the 
 extinction of all that we call Self. Self is blindness: 
 destroy it, and the Reality will be revealed as 
 infinite vision and infinite peace. 
 
236 THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 
 
 We have now to ask what, according to Buddhist 
 philosophy, is the meaning of the visible universe 
 as phenomenon, and the nature of the consciousness 
 that perceives. However transitory, the phenome- 
 non makes an impression upon consciousness ; and 
 consciousness itself, though transitory, has existence ; 
 and its perceptions, however delusive, are percep- 
 tions of actual relation. Buddhism answers that 
 both the universe and the consciousness are merely 
 aggregates of Karma — complexities incalculable of 
 conditions shaped by acts and thoughts through 
 some enormous past. All substance and all condi- 
 tioned mind (as distinguished from unconditioned 
 mind) are products of acts and thoughts : by acts 
 and thoughts the atoms of bodies have been inte- 
 grated ; and the affinities of those atoms — the 
 polarities of them, as a scientist might say — rep- 
 resent tendencies shaped in countless vanished lives. 
 I may quote here from a modern Japanese treatise 
 on the subject : — 
 
 " The aggregate actions of all sentient beings give birth 
 to the varieties of mountains, rivers, countries, etc. They 
 are caused by aggregate actions, and so ,are called aggregate 
 fruits. Our present life is the reflection of past actions. 
 Men consider these reflections as their real selves. Their 
 eyes, noses, ears, tongues, and bodies — as well as their 
 gardens, woods, farms, residences, servanvs, and maids — 
 men imagine to be their own possessions ; but, in fact, 
 they are only results endlessly produced by innumerable 
 
THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 237 
 
 actions. In tracing every thing back to the ultimate limits 
 of the past, we cannot find a beginning : hence it is said 
 that death and birth have no beginning. Again, when 
 seeking the ultimate limit of the future, we cannot find the 
 end." i 
 
 This teaching that all things are formed by 
 Karma — whatever is good in the universe repre- 
 senting the results of meritorious acts or thoughts ; 
 and what ever is evil, the results of evil acts or 
 thoughts — has the approval of five of the great 
 sects ; and we may accept it as a leading doctrine of 
 Japanese Buddhism. . . . The cosmos is, then, an 
 aggregate of Karma; and the mind of man is an 
 aggregate of Karma ; and the beginnings thereof are 
 unknown, and the end cannot be imagined. There 
 is a spiritual evolution, of which the goal is Nirvana ; 
 but we have no declaration as to a final state of 
 universal rest, when the shaping of substance and of 
 mind will have ceased forever. . . . Now the Syn- 
 thetic Philosophy assumes a very similar position 
 as regards the evolution of phenomena : there is no 
 beginning to evolution, nor any conceivable end. 
 I quote from Mr. Spencer's reply to a critic in the 
 North American Review : — 
 
 " That ' absolute commencement of organic life upon 
 the globe,' which the reviewer says I ' cannot evade 
 the admission of,' I distinctly deny. The affirmation of 
 
 1 Outlines of the Mahay ana Philosophy, by S. Kuroda. 
 
238 THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 
 
 universal evolution is in itself the negation of an absolute 
 commencement of anything. Construed in terms of evolu- 
 tion, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modi- 
 fication wrought by insensible gradations upon a preexisting 
 kind of being; and this holds as fully of the supposed 
 * commencement of organic life ' as of all subsequent devel- 
 opments of organic life. . . . That organic matter was 
 not produced all at once, but was reached through steps, 
 we are well warranted in believing by the experiences of 
 chemists." 1 . . . 
 
 Of course it should be understood that the Buddh- 
 ist silence, as to a beginning and an end, concerns 
 only the production of phenomena, not any particular 
 existence of groups of phenomena. That of which 
 no beginning or end can be predicated is simply the 
 Eternal Becoming. And, like the older Indian 
 philosophy from which it sprang, Buddhism teaches 
 the alternate apparition and disparition of universes. 
 At certain prodigious periods of time, the whole 
 cosmos of " one hundred thousand times ten mil- 
 lions of worlds" vanishes away, — consumed by 
 fire or otherwise destroyed, — but only to be re- 
 formed again. These periods are called " World- 
 Cycles," and each World-Cycle is divided into four 
 "Immensities," — but we need not here consider 
 the details of the doctrine. It is only the funda- 
 mental idea of a evolutional rhythm that is really 
 interesting. I need scarcely remind the reader that 
 
 1 Principles of Biology, Vol. I, p. 482. 
 
THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 239 
 
 the alternate disintegration and reintegration of the 
 cosmos is also a scientific conception, and a com- 
 monly accepted article of evolutional belief. I may 
 quote, however, for other reasons, the paragraph 
 expressing Herbert Spencer's views upon the sub- 
 ject : — 
 
 " Apparently the universally coexistent forces of attrac- 
 tion and repulsion, which, as we have seen, necessitate 
 rhythm in all minor changes throughout the Universe, also 
 necessitate rhythm in the totality of changes, — produce 
 now an immeasurable period during which the attractive 
 forces, predominating, cause universal concentration ; and 
 then an immeasurable period during which the repulsive 
 forces, predominating, cause diffusion, — alternate eras of 
 Evolution and Dissolution. And thus there is suggested to 
 us the conception of a past during which there have been 
 successive Evolutions analogous to that which is now going 
 on ; and a future during which successive other such Evo- 
 lutions may go on — ever the same in principle, but never 
 the same in concrete result." — First Principles, § 183. 1 
 
 Further on, Mr. Spencer has pointed out the vast 
 logical consequence involved by this hypothesis : — 
 
 " If, as we saw reason to think, there is an alternation 
 of Evolution and Dissolution in the totality of things, — 
 if, as we are obliged to infer from the Persistence of Force, 
 the arrival at either limit of this vast rhythm brings about 
 the conditions under which a counter-movement commences, 
 
 1 This paragraph, from the fourth edition, has been considerably qualified in the 
 definitive edition of 1900. 
 
240 THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 
 
 — if we are hence compelled to entertain the conception of 
 Evolutions that have filled an immeasurable past, and Evolu- 
 tions that will fill an immeasurable future, — we can no longer 
 contemplate the visible creation as having a definite begin- 
 ning or end, or as being isolated. It becomes unified with 
 all existence before and after; and the Force which the 
 Universe presents falls into the same category with its 
 Space and Time as admitting of no limitation in thought." 1 
 
 — First Principles., § 190. 
 
 The foregoing Buddhist positions sufficiently 
 imply that the human consciousness is but a tem- 
 porary aggregate, — not an eternal entity. There is 
 no permanent self: there is but one eternal princi- 
 ple in all life, — the supreme Buddha. Modern 
 Japanese call this Absolute the " Essence of Mind." 
 " The fire fed by faggots," writes one of these, " dies 
 when the faggots have been consumed ; but the 
 essence of fire is never destroyed. . . . All things 
 in the Universe are Mind." So stated, the position 
 is unscientific ; but as for the conclusion reached, we 
 may remember that Mr. Wallace has stated almost 
 exactly the same thing, and that there are not a few 
 modern preachers of the doctrine of a " universe of 
 mind-stuff." The hypothesis is "unthinkable." But 
 the most serious thinker will agree with the Buddhist 
 assertion that the relation of all phenomena to the 
 unknowable is merely that of waves to sea. " Every 
 
 1 Condensed and somewhat modified in the definitive edition of 1 900 j but, for 
 present purposes of illustration, the text of the fourth edition has been preferred. 
 
THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 241 
 
 feeling and thought being but transitory," says Mr. 
 Spencer, " an entire life made up of such feelings 
 and thoughts being but transitory, — nay, the objects 
 amid which life is passed, though less transitory, 
 being severally in course of losing their individuali- 
 ties quickly or slowly, — we learn that the one thing 
 permanent is the Unknown Reality hidden under 
 all these changing shapes." Here the English and 
 the Buddhist philosophers are in accord ; but there- 
 after they suddenly part company. For Buddhism 
 is not agnosticism, but gnosticism, and professes 
 to know the unknowable. The thinker of Mr. 
 Spencer's school cannot make assumptions as to the 
 nature of the sole Reality, nor as to the reason of 
 its manifestations. He must confess himself in- 
 tellectually incapable of comprehending the nature 
 of force, matter, or motion. He feels justified . in 
 accepting the hypothesis that all known elements 
 have been evolved from one primordial undif- 
 ferentiated substance, — the chemical evidence for 
 this hypothesis being very strong. But he certainly 
 would not call that primordial substance a substance 
 of mind, nor attempt to explain the character of the 
 forces that effected its integration. Again, though 
 Mr. Spencer would probably acknowledge that we 
 know of matter only as an aggregate of forces, and 
 of atoms only as force-centres, or knots of force, he 
 would not declare that an atom is a force-centre, 
 and nothing else But we find evolutionists 
 
242 THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 
 
 of the German school taking a position very similar 
 to the Buddhist position, — which implies a uni- 
 versal sentiency, or, more strictly speaking, a uni- 
 versal potential-sentiency. Haeckel and other 
 German monists assume such a condition for all 
 substance. They are not agnostics, therefore, but 
 gnostics ; and their gnosticism very much resembles 
 that of the higher Buddhism. 
 
 According to Buddhism there is no reality save 
 Buddha : all things else are but Karma. There is 
 but one Life, one Self: human individuality and 
 personality are but phenomenal conditions of that 
 Self. Matter is Karma; Mind is Karma — that 
 is to say, mind as we know it : Karma, as visibility, 
 represents to us mass and quality ; Karma, as men- 
 tality, signifies character and tendency. The pri- 
 mordial substance — corresponding to the " protyle " 
 of our Monists — is composed of Five Elements, 
 which are mystically identified with Five Buddhas, 
 all of whom are really but different modes of the 
 One. With this idea of a primordial substance 
 there is necessarily associated the idea of a universal 
 sentiency. Matter is alive. 
 
 Now to the German monists also matter is alive. 
 On the phenomena of cell-physiology, Haeckel 
 claims to base his conviction that "even the 
 atom is not without rudimentary form of sensation 
 and will, — or, as it is better expressed, of feeling 
 (aesthesis), and of inclination {tropesis), — that is to 
 
THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 243 
 
 say, a universal soul of the simplest kind." I 
 may quote also from Haeckel's Riddle of the 
 Universe the following paragraph expressing the 
 monistic notion of substance as held by Vogt and 
 others : — 
 
 " The two fundamental forms of substance, ponderable 
 matter and ether, are not dead and only moved by extrinsic 
 force ; but they are endowed with sensation and will (though, 
 naturally, of the lowest grade) ; they experience an in- 
 clination for condensation, a dislike of strain ; they strive 
 after the one, and struggle against the other." 
 
 Less like a revival of the dreams of the Alche- 
 mists. is the very probable hypothesis of Schneider, 
 that sentiency begins with the formation of certain 
 combinations, — that feeling is evolved from the 
 non-feeling just as organic being has been evolved 
 from inorganic substance. But all these monist 
 ideas enter into surprising combination with the 
 Buddhist teaching about matter as integrated Karma ; 
 and for that reason they are well worth citing in this 
 relation. To Buddhist conception all matter is sen- 
 tient, — the sentiency varying according to condition : 
 " even rocks and stones," a Japanese Buddhist 
 text declares, " can worship Buddha." In the Ger- 
 man monism of Professor Haeckel's school, the 
 particular qualities and affinities of the atom repre- 
 sent feeling and inclination, " a soul of the simplest 
 kind " ; in Buddhism these qualities are made by 
 
244 THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 
 
 Karma, — that is to say, they represent tendencies 
 formed in previous states of existence. The hy- 
 potheses appear to be very similar. But there is one 
 immense, all-important difference, between the Occi- 
 dental and the Oriental monism. The former would 
 attribute the qualities of the atom merely to a sort 
 of heredity, — to the persistency of tendencies devel- 
 oped under chance-influences operating throughout 
 an incalculable past. The latter declares the history 
 of the atom to be purely moral ! All matter, accord- 
 ing to Buddhism, represents aggregated' sentiency, 
 making, by its inherent tendencies, toward conditions 
 of pain or pleasure, evil or good. " Pure actions," 
 writes the author of Outlines of the Mahayhna 
 Philosophy, " bring forth the Pure Lands of all 
 the quarters of the universe ; while impure deeds 
 produce the Impure Lands." That is to say, the 
 matter integrated by the force of moral acts goes to 
 the making of blissful worlds ; and the matter formed 
 by the force of immoral acts goes to the making of 
 miserable worlds. All substance, like all mind, has 
 its Karma; planets, like men, are shaped by the 
 creative power of acts and thoughts ; and every 
 atom goes to its appointed place, sooner or later, 
 according to the moral or immoral quality of the 
 tendencies that inform it. Your good or bad thought 
 or deed will not only affect your next rebirth, but 
 will likewise affect in some sort the nature of worlds 
 yet unevolved, wherein, after innumerable cycles, 
 
THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 245 
 
 you may have to live again. Of course, this tre- 
 mendous idea has no counterpart in modern evolu- 
 tional philosophy. Mr. Spencer's position is well 
 known ; but I must quote him for the purpose of 
 emphasizing the contrast between Buddhist and 
 scientific thought : — 
 
 "... We have no ethics of nebular condensation, or of 
 sidereal movement, or of planetary evolution ; the conception 
 is not relevant to inorganic matter. Nor, when we turn to 
 organized things, do we find that it has any relation to the 
 phenomena of plant-life ; though we ascribe to plants 
 superiorities and inferiorities, leading to successes and fail- 
 ures in the struggle for existence, we do not associate 
 with them praise or blame. It is only with the rise of 
 sentiency in the animal world that the subject-matter of 
 ethics originates." — Principles of Ethics, Vol. II, § 326. 
 
 On the contrary, it will be seen, Buddhism 
 actually teaches what we may call, to borrow Mr. 
 Spencer's phrase, " the ethics of nebular condensa- 
 tion," — though to Buddhist astronomy, the scien- 
 tific meaning of the term " nebular condensation " 
 was never known. Of course the hypothesis is be- 
 yond the power of human intelligence to prove or 
 to disprove. But it is interesting, for it proclaims 
 a purely moral order of the cosmos, and attaches 
 almost infinite consequence to the least of human 
 acts. Had the old Buddhist metaphysicians been 
 acquainted with the facts of modern chemistry, they 
 
246 THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 
 
 might have applied their doctrine, with appalling 
 success, to the interpretation of those facts. They 
 might have explained the dance of atoms, the affini- 
 ties of molecules, the vibrations of ether, in the 
 most fascinating and terrifying way by their theory 
 of Karma. . . . Here is a universe of suggestion, 
 — most weird suggestion — for anybody able and 
 willing to dare the experiment of making a new 
 religion, or at least a new and tremendous system of 
 Alchemy, based upon the notion of a moral order 
 in the inorganic world ! 
 
 But the metaphysics of Karma in the higher 
 Buddhism include much that is harder to under- 
 stand than any alchemical hypothesis of atom-com- 
 binations. As taught by popular Buddhism, the 
 doctrine of rebirth is simple enough, — signifying 
 no more than transmigration : you have lived 
 millions of times in the past, and you are likely to 
 live again millions of times in the future, — all the 
 conditions of each rebirth depending upon past con- 
 duct. The common notion is that after a certain 
 period of bodiless sojourn in this world, the spirit 
 is guided somehow to the place of its next incarna- 
 tion. The people, of course, believe in souls. But 
 there is nothing of all this in the higher doctrine, 
 which denies transmigration, denies the existence of 
 the soul, denies personality. There is no Self to be 
 reborn; there is no transmigration — and yet there 
 
THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 247 
 
 is rebirth ! There is no real " I " that suffers or is 
 glad — and yet there is new suffering to be borne 
 or new happiness to be gained ! What we call the 
 Self, — the personal consciousness, — dissolves at 
 the death of the body ; but the Karma, formed 
 during life, then brings about the integration of a 
 new body and a new consciousness. You suffer in 
 this existence because of acts done in a previous 
 existence — yet the author of those acts was not 
 identical with your present self! Are you, then, 
 responsible for the faults of another person ? 
 
 The Buddhist metaphysician would answer thus : 
 " The form of your question is wrong, because 
 it assumes the existence of personality, — and there 
 is no personality. There is really no such individual 
 as the c you ' of the inquiry. The suffering is 
 indeed the result of errors committed in some 
 anterior existence or existences ; but there is no 
 responsibility for the acts of another person, since 
 there is no personality. The c I ' that was and the 
 ' I ' that is represent in the chain of transitory being 
 aggregations momentarily created by acts and 
 thoughts ; and the pain belongs to the aggregates 
 as condition resulting from quality." All this 
 sounds extremely obscure : to understand the real 
 theory we must put away the notion of personality, 
 which is a very difficult thing to do. Successive 
 births do not mean transmigration in the common 
 sense of that word, but only the self-propagation of 
 
248 THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 
 
 Karma : the perpetual multiplying of certain condi- 
 tions by a kind of ghostly gemmation, — if I may 
 borrow a biological term. The Buddhist illustration, 
 however, is that of flame communicated from one 
 lamp-wick to another : a hundred lamps may thus 
 be lighted from one flame, and the hundred flames 
 will all be different, though the origin of all was the 
 same. Within the hollow flame of each transitory 
 life is enclosed a part of the only Reality ; but this 
 is not a soul that transmigrates. Nothing passes 
 from birth to birth but Karma, — character or 
 condition. 
 
 One will naturally ask how can such a doctrine 
 exert any moral influence whatever ? If the future 
 being shaped by my Karma is to be in nowise iden- 
 tical with my present self, — if the future conscious- 
 ness evolved by my Karma is to be essentially 
 another consciousness, — how can I force myself to 
 feel anxious, about the sufferings of that unborn 
 person ? "Again yourquestion iswrong," a Buddhist 
 would answer : " to understand the doctrine you must 
 get rid of the notion of individuality, and think, not 
 of persons, but of successive states of feeling and 
 consciousness, each of which buds out of the 
 other, — a chain of existences interdependently 
 united." ... I may attempt another illustration. 
 Every individual, as we understand the term, is con- 
 tinually changing. All the structures of the body 
 are constantly undergoing waste and repair ; and the 
 
THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 249 
 
 body that you have at this hour is not, as to sub- 
 stance, the same body that you had ten years ago. 
 Physically you are not the same person : yet you 
 suffer the same pains, and feel the same pleasures, 
 and find your powers limited by the same conditions. 
 Whatever disintegrations and reconstructions of 
 tissue have taken place within you, you have the 
 same physical and mental peculiarities that you had 
 ten years ago. Doubtless the cells of your brain 
 have been decomposed and recomposed : yet you 
 experience the same emotions, recall the same 
 memories, and think the same thoughts- Every- 
 where the fresh substance has assumed the qualities 
 and tendencies of the substance replaced. This 
 persistence of condition is like Karma. The trans- 
 mission of tendency remains, though the aggregate 
 is changed. . . . 
 
 These few glimpses into the fantastic world of 
 Buddhist metaphysics will suffice, I trust, to con- 
 vince any intelligent reader that the higher Buddh- 
 ism (to , which belongs the much-discussed and 
 little-comprehended doctrine of Nirvana) could 
 never have been the religion of millions almost 
 incapable of forming abstract ideas, — the religion 
 of a population even yet in a comparatively early 
 stage of religious evolution. It was never under- 
 stood by the people at all, nor is it ever taught to 
 them to-day. It is a religion of metaphysicians, a 
 
250 THE HIGHER BUDDHISM 
 
 religion of scholars, a religion so difficult to be 
 understood, even by persons of some philosophical 
 training, that it might well be mistaken for a system 
 of universal negation. Yet the reader should now 
 be able to perceive that, because a man disbelieves 
 in a personal God, in an immortal soul, and in any 
 continuation of personality after death, it does not 
 follow that we are justified in declaring him an 
 irreligious person, — especially if he happen to be 
 an Oriental. The Japanese scholar who believes in 
 the moral order of the universe, the ethical responsi- 
 bility of the present to all the future, the immeasur- 
 able consequence of every thought and deed, the 
 ultimate disparition of evil, and the power of attain- 
 ment to conditions of infinite memory and infinite 
 vision,-; — cannot be termed either an atheist or a 
 materialist, except by bigotry and ignorance. Pro- 
 found as may be the difference between his religion 
 and our own, in respect of symbols and modes of 
 thought, the moral conclusions reached in either 
 case are very much the same. 
 
The Social Organization 
 
The Social Organization 
 
 THE late Professor Fiske, in his Outlines 
 of Cosmic Philosophy, made a very inter- 
 esting remark about societies like those of 
 China, ancient Egypt, and ancient Assyria. " I am 
 expressing," he said, " something more than an 
 analogy, I am describing a real homology so far as 
 concerns the process of development, — when I say 
 that these communities simulated modern European 
 nations, much in the same way that a tree-fern of 
 the carboniferous period simulated the exogenous 
 trees of the present time." So far as this is true of 
 China, it is likewise true of Japan. The constitu- 
 tion of the old Japanese society was no more than 
 an amplification of the constitution of the family, 
 — the patriarchal family of primitive times. All 
 modern Western societies have been developed out 
 of a like patriarchal condition : the early civiliza- 
 tions of Greece and Rome were similarly constructed, 
 upon a lesser scale. But the patriarchal family in 
 Europe was disintegrated thousands of years ago ; 
 the gens and the curia dissolved and disappeared ; 
 the originally distinct classes became fused together ; 
 and a total reorganization of society was gradually 
 
 2 53 
 
254 THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 effected, everywhere resulting in the substitution of 
 voluntary for compulsory cooperation. Industrial 
 types of society developed ; and a state-religion 
 overshadowed the ancient and exclusive local cults. 
 But society in Japan never, till within the present 
 era, became one coherent body, never developed 
 beyond the clan-stage. It remained a loose agglom- 
 erate of clan-groups, or tribes, each religiously and 
 administratively independent of the rest ; and this 
 huge agglomerate was kept together, not by volun- 
 tary cooperation, but by strong compulsion. Down 
 to the period of Meiji, and even for some time after- 
 ward, it was liable to split and fall asunder at any 
 moment that the central coercive power showed 
 signs of weakness. We may call it a feudalism ; 
 but it resembled European feudalism only as a tree- 
 fern resembles a tree. 
 
 Let us first briefly consider the nature of the 
 ancient Japanese society. Its original unit was not 
 the household, but. the patriarchal family, — that is 
 to say, the gens or clan, a body of hundreds or 
 thousands of persons claiming descent from a com- 
 mon ancestor, and so religiously united by a com- 
 mon ancestor-worship, — the cult of the Ujigami. 
 As I have said before, there were two classes 
 of these patriarchal families : the O-uji, or Great 
 Clans ; and the Ko-uji, or Little Clans. The lesser 
 were branches of the greater, and subordinate to 
 
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 255 
 
 them, — so that the group formed by an O-uji with 
 its Ko-uji might be loosely compared with the 
 Roman curia or Greek phratry. Large bodies of 
 serfs or slaves appear to have been attached to the 
 various great Uji ; and the number of these, even at 
 a very early period, seems to have exceeded that of 
 the members of the clans proper. The different 
 names given to these subject-classes indicate differ- 
 ent grades and kinds of servitude. One name was 
 tomob'e, signifying bound to a place, or district; 
 another was yakab'e, signifying bound to a family; 
 a third was kakib'e, signifying bound to a close, or 
 estate; yet another and more general term was 
 tami, which anciently signified " dependants," but is 
 now used in the meaning of the English word 
 "folk." . . . There is little doubt that the bulk 
 of the people were in a condition of servitude, and 
 that there were many forms of servitude. Mr. 
 Spencer has pointed out that a general distinction 
 between slavery and serfdom, in the sense com- 
 monly attached to each of those terms, is by no 
 means easy to establish ; the real state of a subject- 
 class, especially in early forms of- society, depending 
 much more upon the character of the master, and 
 the actual conditions of social development, than 
 upon matters of privilege and legislation. In 
 speaking of early Japanese institutions, the distinc- 
 tion is particularly hard to draw : we are still but 
 little informed as to the condition of the subject- 
 
256 THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 classes in ancient times. It is safe to assert, how- 
 ever, that there were then really but two great 
 classes, — a ruling oligarchy, divided into many 
 grades ; and a subject population, also divided into 
 many grades. Slaves were tattooed, either on the 
 face or some part of the body, with a mark indicat- 
 ing their ownership. Until within recent years this 
 system of tattooing appears to have been maintained 
 in the province of Satsuma, — where the marks 
 were put especially upon the hands ; and in many 
 other provinces the lower classes were generally 
 marked by a tattoo on the face. Slaves were 
 bought and sold like cattle in early times, or pre- 
 sented as tribute by their owners, — a practice con- 
 stantly referred to in the ancient records. Their 
 unions were not recognized : a fact which reminds 
 us of the distinction among the Romans between 
 connubium and contubernium ; and the children of a 
 slave-mother by a free father remained slaves. 1 In 
 the seventh century, however, private slaves were 
 declared state-property, and great numbers were 
 
 1 In the year 645, the Emperor Kotoku issued the following edict on the 
 subject : — 
 
 ' ' The law of men and women shall be that the children bom of a free man and 
 a free woman shall belong to the father ; if a free man takes to wife a slave-woman, 
 her children shall belong to the mother ; if a free woman marries a slave-man, the 
 children shall belong to the father 5 if they are slaves of two houses, the children 
 shall belong to the mother. The children of temple-serfs shall follow the rule for 
 freemen. But in regard to others who become slaves, they shall be treated accord- 
 ing to the rule for slaves." — Aston's translation of the Nibongi, Vol. II, 
 p. 202. 
 
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 257 
 
 then emancipated, — including nearly all — probably 
 all — who were artizans or followed useful callings. 
 Gradually a large class of freedmen came into exist- 
 ence ; but until modern times the great mass of the 
 common people appear to have remained in a con- 
 dition analogous to serfdom. The greater number 
 certainly had no family names, — which is considered 
 evidence of a former slave-condition. Slaves proper 
 were registered in the names of their owners : they 
 do not seem to have had a cult of their own, — in 
 early times, at least. But, prior to Meiji, only the 
 aristocracy, samurai, doctors, and teachers — with 
 perhaps a few other exceptions — could use a 
 family name. Another queer bit of evidence on 
 the subject, furnished by the late Dr. Simmons, 
 relates to the mode of wearing the hair among the 
 subject-classes. Up to the time of the Ashikaga 
 shogunate (1334 a.d.), all classes excepting the 
 nobility, samurai, Shinto priests, and doctors, shaved 
 the greater part of the head, and wore queues ; and 
 this fashion of wearing the hair was called yakko- 
 atama or dorei-atama — terms signifying " slave- 
 head," and indicating that the fashion originated in 
 a period of servitude. 
 
 About the origin of Japanese slavery, much 
 remains to be learned. There are evidences of suc- 
 cessive immigrations ; and it is possible that some, 
 at least, of the earlier Japanese settlers were reduced 
 by later invaders to the status of servitude. Again, 
 
258 THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 there was a considerable immigration of Koreans 
 and Chinese, some of whom might have voluntarily 
 sought servitude as a refuge from worse evils. But 
 the subject remains obscure. We know, however, 
 that degradation to slavery was a common punish- 
 ment in early times ; also, that debtors unable to 
 pay became the slaves of their creditors ; also, that 
 thieves were sentenced to become the slaves of those 
 whom they had robbed. 1 Evidently there were 
 great differences in the conditions of servitude. 
 The more unfortunate class of slaves were scarcely 
 better off than domestic animals ; but there were 
 serfs who could not be bought or sold, nor em- 
 ployed at other than special work ; these were of 
 kin to their lords, and may have entered voluntarily 
 into servitude for the sake of sustenance and pro- 
 tection. Their relation to their masters reminds 
 us of that of the Roman client to the Roman 
 patron. 
 
 As yet it is difficult to establish any clear distinc- 
 tion between the freedmen and the freemen of 
 ancient Japanese society ; but we know that the 
 free population, ranking below the ruling class, 
 
 1 An edict issued by the Empress Jito, in 690, enacted that a father could sell 
 his son into real slavery} but that debtors could be sold only into a kind of serfdom. 
 The edict ran thus : " If a younger brother of the common people is sold by his 
 elder brother, he should be classed with freemen ; if a child is sold by his parents, 
 he should be classed with slaves ; persons confiscated into slavery, by way of pay- 
 ment of interest on debts, are to be classed with freemen ; and their children, though 
 born of a union with a slave, are to be all classed with freemen.'* — Aston's 
 Nibongi, Vol. II, p. 402. 
 
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 259 
 
 consisted of two great divisions : the kunitsuko and 
 the tomonotsuko. The first were farmers, descend- 
 ants perhaps of the earliest Mongol invaders, and 
 were permitted to hold their own lands indepen- 
 dently of the central government : they were lords 
 of their own soil, but not nobles. The tomonotsuko 
 were artizans, — probably of Korean or Chinese 
 descent, for the most part, — and numbered no 
 less than 180 clans. They followed hereditary 
 occupations ; and their clans were attached to the 
 imperial clans, for which they were required to 
 furnish skilled labour. 
 
 Originally each of the O-uji and Ko-uji had its 
 own territory, chiefs, dependants, serfs, and slaves. 
 The chieftainships were hereditary, — descending 
 from father to son in direct succession from the 
 original patriarch. The chief of a great clan was 
 lord over the chiefs of the subclans attached to it : 
 his authority was both religious and military. It 
 must not be forgotten that religion and government 
 were considered identical. 
 
 All Japanese clan-families were classed under 
 three heads, — Kob'etsu, Shinbetsu, and Bamb'etsu. 
 The Kobetsu (" Imperial Branch ") represented the 
 so-called imperial families, claiming descent from 
 the Sun-goddess ; the Shinbetsu (" Divine Branch ") 
 were clans claiming descent from other deities, 
 terrestrial or celestial ; the Bamb'etsu (" Foreign 
 Branch ") represented the mass of the people. 
 
26o THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 Thus it would seem that, by the ruling classes, the 
 common people were originally considered strangers, 
 — Japanese only by adoption. Some scholars think 
 that the term Bamb'etsu was at first given to serfs or 
 freedmen of Chinese or Korean descent. But this 
 has not been proved. It is only certain that all 
 society was divided into three classes, according to 
 ancestry ; that two of these classes constituted a 
 ruling oligarchy ; 1 and that the third, or " foreign " 
 class represented the bulk of the nation, — the plebs. 
 There was a division also into castes — kabank 
 or sei. (I use the term " castes," following Dr. 
 Florenz, a leading authority on ancient Japanese 
 civilization, who gives the meaning of sei as equiva- 
 lent to that of the Sanscrit varna, signifying " caste " 
 or " colour.") Every family in the three great 
 divisions of Japanese society belonged to some 
 caste ; and each caste represented at first some 
 occupation or calling. Caste would not seem to 
 have developed any very rigid structure in Japan ; 
 and there were early tendencies to a confusion of 
 the kabane. In the seventh century the confusion 
 became so great that the Emperor Temmu thought 
 it necessary to reorganize the sei ; and by him all the 
 clan-families were regrouped into eight new castes. 
 
 1 Dr. Florenz accounts for the distinction between Kobetsu and Sbinbktsu as 
 due to the existence of two military ruling classes, — resulting from two successive 
 waves of invasion or immigration. The Kobetsu were the followers of Jimmu 
 Tenno ; the Shinbetsu were earlier conquerors who had settled in Yamato prior to 
 the advent of Jimmu. These first conquerors, he thinks, were not dispossessed. 
 
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 261 
 
 Such was the primal constitution of Japanese 
 society ; and that society was, therefore, in no true 
 sense of the term, a fully formed nation. Nor can 
 the title of Emperor be correctly applied to its early 
 rulers. The German scholar, Dr. Florenz, was the 
 first to establish these facts, contrary to the assump- 
 tion of Japanese historians. He has shown that the 
 " heavenly sovereign " of the early ages was the 
 hereditary chief of one Uji only, — which Uji, being 
 the most powerful of all, exercised influence over 
 many of the others. The authority of the " heavenly 
 sovereign " did not extend over the country. But 
 though not even a king, — outside of his own large 
 group of patriarchal families, — he enjoyed three 
 immense prerogatives. The first was the right of 
 representing the different Uji before the common 
 ancestral deity, — which implies the privileges and 
 powers of a high priest. The second was the right 
 of representing the different Uji in foreign relations : 
 that is to say, he could make peace or declare war in 
 the name of all the clans, and therefore exercised the 
 supreme military authority. His third prerogative 
 included the right to settle disputes between clans ; 
 the right to nominate a clan-patriarch, in case that 
 the line of direct succession to the chieftainship of 
 any Uji came to an end ; the right to establish new 
 Uji ; and the right to abolish an Uji guilty of so act- 
 ing as to endanger the welfare of the rest. H e was, 
 therefore, Supreme Pontiff, Supreme Military Com- 
 
262 THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 mander, Supreme Arbitrator, and Supreme Magis- 
 trate. But he was not yet supreme king : his 
 powers were exercised only by consent of the clans. 
 Later he was to become the Great Khan in very 
 fact, and even much more, — the Priest- Ruler, the 
 God- King, the Deity-Incarnate. But with the growth 
 of his dominion, it became more and more difficult 
 for him to exercise all the functions originally com- 
 bined in his authority ; and, as a consequence of 
 deputing those functions, his temporal sway was 
 doomed to decline, even while his religious power 
 continued to augment. 
 
 The earliest Japanese society was not, therefore, 
 even a feudalism in the meaning which we com- 
 monly attach to that word : it was a union of clans 
 at first combined for defence and offence, — each 
 clan having a religion of its own. Gradually one 
 clan-group, by power of wealth and numbers, 
 obtained such domination that it was able to impose 
 its cult upon all the rest, and to make its hereditary 
 chief Supreme High Pontiff. The worship of the 
 Sun-goddess so became a race-cult ; but this worship 
 did not diminish the relative importance of the other 
 clan-cults, — it only furnished them with a common 
 tradition. Eventually a nation formed ; but the 
 clan remained the real unit of society ; and not 
 until the present era of Meiji was its disintegration 
 effected — at least in so far as legislation could 
 accomplish. 
 
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 263 
 
 We may call that period during which the clans 
 became really united under one head, and the 
 national cult was established, the First Period of 
 Japanese Social Evolution. However, the social 
 organism did not develop to the limit of its type until 
 the era of the Tokugawa sh5guns, — so that, in 
 order to study it as a completed structure, we must 
 turn to modern times. Yet it had taken on the 
 vague outline of its destined form as early as the 
 reign of the Emperor Temmu, whose accession 
 is generally dated 673 a.d. During that reign 
 Buddhism appears to have become a powerful influ- 
 ence at court ; for the Emperor practically imposed 
 a vegetarian diet upon the people — proof positive 
 of supreme power in fact as well as in theory. Even 
 before this time society had been arranged into 
 ranks and grades, — each of the upper grades being 
 distinguished by the form and quality of the official 
 head-dresses worn ; but the Emperor Temmu estab- 
 lished many new grades, and reorganized the whole 
 administration, after the Chinese manner, in one 
 hundred and eight departments. Japanese society 
 then assumed, as to its upper ranks, nearly all the 
 hierarchical forms which it presented down to the era 
 of the Tokugawa shoguns, who consolidated the 
 system without seriously changing its fundamental 
 structure. We may say that from the close of the 
 First Period of its social evolution, the nation re- 
 mained practically separated into two classes : the 
 
264 THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 governing class, including all orders of the nobility 
 and military ; and the producing class, comprising 
 all the rest. The chief event of the Second Period 
 of the social evolution was the rise of the military 
 power, which left the imperial religious authority in- 
 tact, but usurped all the administrative functions — 
 (this subject will be considered in a later chapter). 
 The society eventually crystallized by this military 
 power was a very complex structure — outwardly 
 resembling a huge feudalism, as we understand the 
 term, but intrinsically different from any European 
 feudalism that ever existed. The difference lay 
 especially in the religious organization of the Japan- 
 ese communities, each of which, retaining its par- 
 ticular cult and patriarchal administration, remained 
 essentially separate from every other. The national 
 cult was a bond of tradition, not of cohesion : there 
 was no religious unity. Buddhism, though widely 
 accepted, brought no real change into this order of 
 things ; for, whatever Buddhist creed a commune 
 might profess, the real social bond remained the 
 bond of the Ujigami. So that, even as fully devel- 
 oped under the Tokugawa rule, Japanese society 
 was still but a great aggregate of clans and subclans, 
 kept together by military coercion. 
 
 At the head of this vast aggregate was the 
 Heavenly Sovereign, the Living God of the race, 
 — Priest-Emperor and Pontiff Supreme, — repre- 
 senting the oldest dynasty in the world. 
 
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 265 
 
 Next to him stood the Kuge, or ancient nobility, 
 
 — descendants of emperors and of gods. There 
 were, in the time of the Tokugawa, 155 families of 
 this high nobility. One of these, the Nakatomi, 
 held, and still holds, the highest hereditary priest- 
 hood : the Nakatomi were, under the Emperor, the 
 chiefs of the ancestral cult. All the great clans of 
 early Japanese history — such as the Fujiwara, the 
 Taira, the Minamoto — were Kuge ; and most of 
 the great regents and shSguns of later history were 
 either Kuge or descendants of Kuge. 
 
 Next to the Kuge ranked the Buke, or military 
 class, — also called Monofufu, Wasaraii, or Samu- 
 rahi (according to the ancient writing of these names), 
 
 — with an extensive hierarchy of its own. But the 
 difference, in most cases, between the lords and the 
 warriors of the Buke was a difference of rank based 
 upon income and title : all alike were samurai, and 
 nearly all were of Kobetsu or Shinbetsu descent. 
 In early times the head of the military class was 
 appointed by the Emperor, only as a temporary 
 commander-in-chief: afterwards, these commanders- 
 in-chief, by usurpation of power, made their office 
 hereditary, and became veritable imperatores, in the 
 Roman sense. Their title of shogun is well known 
 to Western readers. The shogun ruled over be- 
 tween two and three hundred lords of provinces or 
 districts, whose powers and privileges varied accord- 
 ing to income and grade. Under the Tokugawa 
 
266 THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 shogunate there were 292 of these lords, or daimyo. 
 Before that time each lord exercised supreme rule 
 over his own domain ; and it is not surprising that 
 the Jesuit missionaries, as well as the early Dutch 
 and English traders should have called the daimyo 
 " kings." The despotism of the daimyo was first 
 checked by the founders of the Tokugawa dynasty, 
 Iyeyasu, who so restricted their powers that they 
 became, with some exceptions, liable to lose their 
 estates if proved guilty of oppression and cruelty. 
 He ranked them all in four great classes : (1) Sanki, 
 or Go-Sank^, the "Three Exalted Families" (those 
 from whom a successor to the shogunate might 
 be chosen in case of need) ; (2) Kokushu, " Lords 
 of Provinces " ; (3) Tozama, " Outside-Lords " ; 
 (4) Fudai, " Successful Families " : a name given 
 to those families promoted to lordship or otherwise 
 rewarded for fealty to Iyeyasu. Of the Sanke, there 
 were three clans, or families : of the Kokushu, eigh- 
 teen ; of the Tozama, eighty-six ; and of the Fudai, 
 one hundred and seventy-six. The income of the 
 least of these daimyo was 10,000 koku of rice (we 
 may say about _£ 10,000, though the value of the 
 koku differed greatly at different periods) ; and the 
 income of the greatest, the Lord of Kaga, was esti- 
 mated at 1,027,000 koku. 
 
 The great daimyo had their greater and lesser 
 vassals ; and each of these, again, had his force of 
 trained samurai, or fighting gentry. There was 
 
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 267 
 
 also a particular class of soldier-farmers, called goshi, 
 some of whom possessed privileges and powers ex- 
 ceeding those of the lesser daimyo. These goshi, who 
 were independent landowners, for the most part, 
 formed a kind of yeomanry ; but there were many 
 points of difference between the social position of 
 the goshi and that of the English yeomen. 
 
 Besides reorganizing the military class, Iyeyasu 
 created several new subclasses. The more important 
 of these were the hatamoto and the gok'enin. The 
 hatamoto, whose appellation signifies " banner-sup- 
 porters," numbered about 2000, and the gokenin 
 about 5000. These two bodies of samurai formed 
 the special military force of the shogun ; the 
 hatamoto being greater vassals, with large incomes ; 
 and the gokenin lesser vassals, with small incomes, 
 who ranked above other common samurai only be- 
 cause of being directly attached to the shogun's 
 service. . . . The total number of samurai of all 
 grades was about 2,000,000. They were exempted 
 from taxation, and privileged to wear two swords. 
 
 Such, in brief outline, was the general ordination 
 of those noble and military classes by whom the 
 nation was ruled with great severity. The bulk of 
 the common people were divided into three classes 
 (we might even say castes, but for Indian ideas 
 long associated with the term) : Farmers, Artizans, 
 and Merchants. 
 
268 THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 Of these three classes, the farmers {hyakusho) were 
 the highest ; ranking immediately after the samurai. 
 Indeed, it is hard to draw a line between the samurai- 
 class and the farming-class, — because many samurai 
 were farmers also, and because some farmers held a 
 rank considerably above that of ordinary samurai. 
 Perhaps we should limit the term hyakusho (farmers, 
 or peasantry) to those tillers of the soil who lived 
 only by agriculture, and were neither of Kob'etsu nor 
 Shimb'etsu descent. ... At all events, the occupa- 
 tion of the peasant was considered honourable : a 
 farmer's daughter might become a servant in the 
 imperial household itself — though she could occupy 
 only an humble position in the service. Certain 
 farmers were privileged to wear swords. It appears 
 that in the early ages of Japanese society there was 
 no distinction between farmers and warriors : all 
 able-bodied farmers were then trained fighting-men, 
 ready for war at any moment, — a condition paral- 
 leled in old Scandinavian society. After a special 
 military class had been evolved, the distinction be- 
 tween farmer and samurai still remained vague in 
 certain parts of the country. In Satsuma and in 
 Tosa, for example, the samurai continued to farm 
 down to the present era : the best of the Kyushu 
 samurai were nearly all farmers ; and their superior 
 stature and strength were commonly attributed to 
 their rustic occupations. In other parts of the coun- 
 try, as in Izumo, farming was forbidden to samurai.: 
 
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 269 
 
 they were not even allowed to hold rice-land, though 
 they might own forest-land. But in various prov- 
 inces they were permitted to farm, even while strictly 
 forbidden to follow any other occupation, — any trade 
 or craft. ... At no time did any degradation attach 
 to the pursuit of agriculture. Some of the early 
 emperors took a personal interest in farming; and in 
 the grounds of the Imperial Palace at Akasaka may 
 even now be seen a little rice-field. By religious 
 tradition, immemorially old, the first sheaf of rice 
 grown within the imperial grounds should be reaped 
 and offered by the imperial hand to the divine an- 
 cestors as a harvest offering, on the occasion of the 
 Ninth Festival, — Shin-Sho-Sai} 
 
 Below the peasantry ranked the artizan-class {Sho- 
 kunin), including smiths, carpenters, weavers, potters, 
 — all crafts, in short. Highest among these were 
 reckoned, as we might expect, the sword-smiths. 
 Sword-smiths not infrequently rose to dignities 
 far beyond their class : some had conferred upon 
 them the high title of Kami, written with the same 
 character used in the title of a daimyo, who was usu- 
 ally termed the Kami of his province or district. Nat- 
 urally they enjoyed the patronage of the highest, — 
 emperors and Kuge. The Emperor Go-Toba is 
 known to have worked at sword-making in a smithy 
 
 1 At this festival the fit* new silk of the year, as well as the first of the new 
 rice-crop, is still offered to the Sun-goddess by the Emperor in person. 
 
270 THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 of his own. Religious rites were practised during 
 the forging of a blade down to modern times. . . . 
 All the principal crafts had guilds ; and, as a 
 general rule, trades were hereditary. There are 
 good historical grounds for supposing that the an- 
 cestors of the Shokunin were mostly Koreans and 
 Chinese. 
 
 The commercial class (Akindo), including bank- 
 ers, merchants, shopkeepers, and traders of all kinds, 
 was the lowest officially recognized. The business 
 of money-making was held in contempt by the su- 
 perior classes ; and all methods of profiting by the 
 purchase and re-sale of the produce of labour were 
 regarded as dishonourable. A military aristocracy 
 would naturally look down upo,n the trading- 
 classes ; and there is generally, in militant so- 
 cieties, small respect for the common forms of 
 labour. But in Old Japan the occupations of the 
 farmer and the artizan were not despised : trade 
 alone appears to have been considered degrading, — 
 and the discrimination may have been partly a 
 moral one. The relegation of the mercantile class 
 to the lowest place in the social scale must have 
 produced some curious results. However rich, for 
 example, a rice-dealer might be, he ranked below 
 the carpenters or potters or boat-builders whom he 
 might employ, — unless it happened that his family 
 originally belonged to another class. In later times 
 
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 271 
 
 the Akindo included many persons of other than 
 Akindo descent; and the class thus virtually re- 
 trieved itself. 
 
 Of the four great classes of the nation — Samu- 
 rai, Farmers, Artizans, and Merchants (the Shi-No- 
 Ko-Sho, as they were briefly called, after the initial 
 characters of the Chinese terms used to designate 
 them) — the last three were counted together under 
 the general appellation of Heimin, " common folk." 
 All heimin were subject to the samurai ; any samu- 
 rai being privileged to kill the heimin showing him 
 disrespect. But the heimin were actually the nation : 
 they alone created the wealth of the country, pro- 
 duced the revenues, paid the taxes, supported the 
 nobility and military and clergy. As for the clergy, 
 the Buddhist (like the Shinto) priests, though 
 forming a class apart, ranked with the samurai, not 
 with the heimin. 
 
 Outside of the three classes of commoners, and 
 hopelessly below the lowest of them, large classes of 
 persons existed who were not reckoned as Japanese, 
 and scarcely accounted human beings. Officially 
 they were mentioned generically as chori, and were 
 counted with the peculiar numerals used in counting 
 animals : ippiki, nihiki, sambiki, etc. Even to-day 
 they are commonly referred to, not as persons (Mto), 
 but as " things " (mono). To English readers (chiefly 
 through Mr. Mitford's yet unrivalled Tales of Old 
 
272 THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 Japan) they are known as £ta ; but their appella- 
 tions varied according to their callings. They were 
 pariah-people : Japanese writers have denied, upon 
 apparently good grounds, that the chori belong to 
 the Japanese race. Various tribes of these outcasts 
 followed occupations in the monopoly of which they 
 were legally confirmed : they were well-diggers, gar- 
 den-sweepers, straw-workers, sandal-makers, accord- 
 ing to local privileges. One class was employed 
 officially in the capacity of torturers and execu- 
 tioners ; another was employed as night-watchmen ; 
 a third as grave-makers. But most of the Eta fol- 
 lowed the business of tanners and leather-dressers. 
 They alone had the right to slaughter and flay 
 animals, to prepare various kinds of leather, and to 
 manufacture leather sandals, stirrup-straps, and drum- 
 heads, — the making of drumheads being a lucrative 
 occupation in a country where drums were used in a 
 hundred thousand temples. The Eta had their own 
 laws, and their own chiefs, who exercised powers of 
 life and death. They lived always in the suburbs or 
 immediate neighbourhood of towns, but only in sepa- 
 rate settlements of their own. They could enter the 
 town to sell their wares, or to make purchases ; but 
 they could not enter any shop, except the shop of 
 a dealer in footgear. 1 As professional singers they 
 were tolerated ; but they were forbidden to enter any 
 house — so they could perform their music or sing 
 
 1 This is still the rule in certain parts of the country. 
 
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 273 
 
 their songs only in the street, or in a garden. Any 
 occupations other than their hereditary callings were 
 strictly forbidden to them. Between the lowest of 
 the commercial classes and the Eta, the barrier was 
 impassable as any created by caste- tradition in India; 
 and never was Ghetto more separated from the rest 
 of a European city by walls and gates, than an Eta 
 settlement from the rest of a Japanese town by social 
 prejudice. No Japanese would dream of entering 
 an Eta settlement unless obliged to do so in some 
 official capacity. ... At the pretty litde seaport of 
 Mionoseki, I saw an Eta settlement, forming one 
 termination of the crescent of streets extending round 
 the bay. Mionoseki is certainly one of the most 
 ancient towns in Japan ; and the Eta village attached 
 to it must be very old. Even to-day, no Japanese 
 habitant of Mionoseki would think of walking 
 through that settlement, though its streets are con- 
 tinuations of the other streets : children never pass 
 the unmarked boundary ; and the very dogs will not 
 cross the prejudice-line. For all that the settlement 
 is clean, well built, — with gardens, baths, and 
 temples of its own. It looks like any well-kept 
 Japanese village. But for perhaps a thousand years 
 there has been no fellowship between the people of 
 those contiguous communities. . . . Nobody can 
 now tell the history of these outcast folk : the cause 
 of their social excommunication has long been for- 
 gotten. 
 
 T 
 
274 THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 Besides the Eta proper, there were pariahs called 
 hinin, — a name signifying " not-human-beings." 
 Under this appellation were included professional 
 mendicants, wandering minstrels, actors, certain 
 classes of prostitutes, and persons outlawed by 
 society. The hinin had their own chiefs, and their 
 own laws. Any person expelled from a Japanese 
 community might join the hinin ; but that signified 
 good-by to the rest of humanity. The Govern- 
 ment was too shrewd to persecute the hinin. Their 
 gipsy-existence saved a world of trouble. It was 
 unnecessary to keep petty offenders in jail, or to 
 provide for people incapable of earning an honest 
 living, so long as these could be driven into the 
 hinin class. There the incorrigible, the vagrant, the 
 beggar, would be kept under discipline of a sort, and 
 would practically disappear from official cognizance. 
 The killing of a hinin was not considered murder, 
 and was punished only by a fine. 
 
 The reader should now be able to form an approxi- 
 mately correct idea of the character of the old Japan- 
 ese society. But the ordination of that society was 
 much more complex than I have - been able to indi- 
 cate, — so complex that volumes would be required 
 to treat the subject in detail. Once fully evolved, 
 what we may still call Feudal Japan, for want of 
 a better name, presented most of the features of a 
 doubly-compound society of the militant type, with 
 
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 275 
 
 certain marked approaches toward th^ trebly-com- 
 pound type. A striking peculiarity, of course, is 
 the absence of a true ecclesiastical hierarchy, — due 
 to the fact that Government never became dissoci- 
 ated from religion. There was at one time a ten- 
 dency on the part of Buddhism to establish a religious 
 hierarchy independent of central authority; but there 
 were two fatal obstacles in the way of such a develop- 
 ment. The first was the condition of Buddhism 
 itself, — divided into a number of sects, some bitterly 
 opposed to others. The second obstacle was the 
 implacable hostility of the military clans, jealous of 
 any religious power capable of interfering, either 
 directly or indirectly, with their policy. So soon 
 as the foreign religion began to prove itself formid- 
 able in the world of action, ruthless measures were 
 decided ; and the frightful massacres of priests by 
 Nobunaga, in the sixteenth century, ended the 
 political aspirations of Buddhism in Japan. 
 
 Otherwise the regimentation of society resembled 
 that of all antique civilizations of the militant type, 
 — all action being both positively and negatively 
 regulated. The household ruled the person ; the 
 five-family group, the household ; the community, 
 the group ; the lord of the soil, the community ; the 
 Shogun, the lord. Over the whole body of the pro- 
 ducing classes, two million samurai had power of life 
 and death ; over these samurai the daimyo held a like 
 power ; and the daimyo were subject to the Shogun. 
 
276 THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 Nominally tjje Shogun was subject to the Emperor, 
 but not in fact : military usurpation disturbed and 
 shifted the natural order of the higher responsibility. 
 However, from the nobility downwards, the regula- 
 tive discipline was much reinforced by this change 
 in government. Among the producing classes there 
 were countless combinations — guilds of all sorts ; 
 but these were only despotisms within despotisms 
 — despotisms of the communistic order; each mem- 
 ber being governed by the will of the rest ; and 
 enterprise, whether commercial or industrial, being 
 impossible outside of some corporation. . . . We 
 have already seen that the individual was bound to 
 the commune — could not leave it without a permit, 
 could not marry out of it. We have seen also that 
 the stranger was a stranger in the old Greek and 
 Roman sense, — that is to say an enemy, a hostis, — 
 and could enter another community only by being 
 religiously adopted into it. As regards exclusive- 
 ness, therefore, the social conditions were like those 
 of the early European communities ; but the mili- 
 tant conditions resembled rather those of the great 
 Asiatic empires. 
 
 Of course such a society had nothing in common 
 with any modern form of Occidental civilization. It 
 was a huge mass of clan-groups, loosely united under 
 a duarchy, in which the military head was omnipo- 
 tent, and the religious head only an object of 
 
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 277 
 
 worship, — the living symbol of a cult. However 
 this organization might outwardly resemble what we 
 are accustomed to call feudalism, its structure was 
 rather like that of ancient Egyptian or Peruvian 
 society, — minus the priestly hierarchy. The su- 
 preme figure is not an Emperor in our meaning of 
 the word, — not a king of kings and vicegerent of 
 heaven, — but a God incarnate, a race-divinity, an 
 Inca descended from the Sun. About his sacred 
 person, we see the tribes ranged in obeisance, — 
 each tribe, nevertheless, maintaining its own ances- 
 tral cult ; and the clans forming these tribes, and 
 the communities- forming these clans, and the house- 
 holds forming these communities, have all their sepa- 
 rate cults ; and out of the mass of these cults have 
 been derived the customs and the laws. Yet every- 
 where the customs and the laws differ more or less, 
 because of the variety of their origins : they have 
 this only in common, — that they exact the most 
 humble and implicit obedience, and regulate every 
 detail of private and public life. Personality is 
 wholly suppressed by coercion ; and the coercion 
 is chiefly from within, .not from without, — the life 
 of every individual being so ordered by the will of 
 the rest as to render free action, free speaking, or 
 free thinking, out of the question. This means 
 something incomparably harsher than the socialistic 
 tyranny of early Greek society : it means religious 
 communism doubled with a military despotism of 
 
278 THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 the most terrible kind. The individual did not 
 legally exist, — except for punishment ; and from 
 the whole of the producing-classes, whether serfs 
 or freemen, the most servile submission was ruth- 
 lessly exacted. 
 
 It is difficult to believe that any intelligent man 
 of modern times could endure such conditions and 
 live (except under the protection of some power- 
 ful ruler, as in the case of the English pilot Will 
 Adams, created a samurai by Iyeyasu) : the in- 
 cessant and multiform constraint upon mental and 
 moral life would of itself be enough to kill. . . . 
 Those who write to-day about the extraordinary 
 capacity of the Japanese for organization, and about 
 the " democratic spirit " of the people as natural 
 proof of their fitness for representative government 
 in the Western sense, mistake appearances for reali- 
 ties. The truth is that the extraordinary capacity 
 of the Japanese for communal organization, is the 
 strongest possible evidence of their unfitness for any 
 modern democratic form of government. Superficially 
 the difference between Japanese social organization, 
 and local self-government in the modern American, 
 or the English colonial meaning of the term, appears 
 slight ; and we may justly admire the perfect self- 
 discipline of a Japanese community. But the real 
 difference between the two is fundamental, prodig- 
 ious, — measurable only by thousands of years. It 
 is the difference between compulsory and free 
 
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 279 
 
 cooperation, — the difference between the most 
 despotic form of communism, founded upon the 
 most ancient form of religion, and the most highly- 
 evolved form of industrial union, with unlimited 
 individual right of competition. 
 
 There exists a popular error to the effect that 
 what we call communism and socialism in Western 
 civilization are modern growths, representing aspira- 
 tion toward some perfect form of democracy. As a 
 matter of fact these movements represent reversion, 
 — reversion toward the primitive conditions of human 
 society. Under every form of ancient despotism 
 we find exactly the same capacity of self-governmetT: 
 among the people : it was manifested by the old 
 Egyptians and Peruvians as well as by the early 
 Greeks and Romans ; it is exhibited to-day by 
 Hindoo and Chinese communities ; it may be 
 studied in Siamese or Annamese villages quite as 
 well as in Japan. It means a religious communistic 
 despotism, — a supreme social tyranny suppressing 
 personality, forbidding enterprise, and making com- 
 petition a public offence. Such self-government 
 also has its advantages : it was perfectly adapted to 
 the requirements of Japanese life so long as the 
 nation could remain isolated from the rest of the 
 world. Yet it must be obvious that any society 
 whose ethical traditions forbid the individual to 
 profit at the cost of his fellow-men will be placed at 
 an enormous disadvantage when forced into the 
 
a8o THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 industrial struggle for existence against communities 
 whose self-government permits of the greatest 
 possible personal freedom, and the widest range of 
 competitive enterprise. 
 
 We might suppose that perpetual and universal 
 coercion, moral and physical, would have brought 
 about a state of universal sameness, — a dismal 
 uniformity and monotony in all life's manifestations. 
 But such monotony existed only as to the life of 
 the commune, not as to that of the race. The most 
 wonderful variety characterized this quaint civiliza- 
 tion, as it also characterized the old Greek civiliza- 
 tion, and for precisely the same reasons. In every 
 patriarchal civilization ruled by ancestor-worship, all 
 tendency to absolute sameness, to general uniform- 
 ity, is prevented by the character of the aggregate 
 itself, which never becomes homogeneous and 
 plastic. Every unit of that aggregate, each one of 
 the multitude of petty despotisms composing it, 
 most jealously guards its own particular traditions 
 and customs, and remains self-sufficing. Hence 
 results, sooner or later, incomparable variety of 
 detail, small detail, artistic, industrial, architectural, 
 mechanical. In Japan such differentiation and 
 specialization was thus maintained, that you will 
 hardly find in the whole country even two villages 
 where the customs, industries, and methods of 
 production are exactly the same. . . . The cus- 
 
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 281 
 
 toms of the fishing-villages will, perhaps, best illus- 
 trate what I mean. In every coast district the 
 various fishing-settlements have their own traditional 
 ways of constructing nets and boats, and their own 
 particular methods of handling them. Now, in the 
 time of the great tidal-wave of 1896, when thirty 
 thousand people perished, and scores of coast-villages 
 were wrecked, large sums of money were collected 
 in Kobe and elsewhere for the benefit of the sur- 
 vivors ; and well-meaning foreigners attempted to 
 supply the want of boats and fishing implements by 
 purchasing quantities of locally made nets and boats, 
 and sending them to the afflicted districts. But it 
 was found that these presents were of no use to the 
 men of the northern provinces, who had been accus- 
 tomed to boats and nets of a totally different kind ; 
 and it was further discovered that every fishing- 
 hamlet had special requirements of its own in this 
 regard. . . . Now the differentiations of habit and 
 custom, thus exhibited in the life of the fishing- 
 communities, is paralleled in many crafts and call- 
 ings. The way of building houses, and of roofing 
 them, differs in almost every province ; also the 
 methods of agriculture and of horticulture, the 
 manner of making wells, the methods of weaving 
 and lacquering and pottery-making and tile-baking. 
 Nearly every town and village of importance boasts 
 of some special production, bearing the name of the 
 place, and unlike anything made elsewhere. . . . 
 
282 THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 No doubt the ancestral cults helped to conserve and 
 to develop such local specialization of industries : 
 the craft-ancestors, the patron-gods of the guild, 
 were supposed to desire that the work of their 
 descendants and worshippers should maintain a 
 particular character of its own. Though individual 
 enterprise was checked by communal regulation, the 
 specialization of local production was encouraged by 
 difference of cults. Family-conservatism or guild- 
 conservatism would tolerate small improvements or 
 modifications suggested by local experience, but 
 would be wary, perhaps superstitious likewise, about 
 accepting the results of strange experience. 
 
 Still, for the Japanese themselves, not the least 
 pleasure of travel in Japan is the pleasure of study- 
 ing the curious variety in local production, — the 
 pleasure of finding the novel, the unexpected, the 
 unimagined. Even those arts or industries of Old 
 Japan, primarily borrowed from Korea or from 
 China, appear to have developed and conserved 
 innumerable queer forms under the influence of the 
 numberless local cults. 
 
The Rise of the Military Power 
 
The Rise of the Military Power 
 
 ALMOST the whole of authentic Japanese 
 history is comprised in one vast episode : 
 the rise and fall of the military power. . . . 
 It has been customary to speak of Japanese history 
 as beginning with the accession of Jimmu Tenno, 
 alleged to have reigned from 660 to 585 B.C., and 
 to have lived for one hundred and twenty-seven 
 years. Before the time of the Emperor Jimmu was 
 the Age of the Gods, — the period of mythology. 
 But trustworthy history does not begin for a thou- 
 sand years after the accession of Jimmu Tenno; and 
 the chronicles of those thousand years must be 
 regarded as little better than fairy-tales. They con- 
 tain records of fact ; but fact and myth are so inter- 
 woven that it is difficult to distinguish the one from 
 the other. We have legends, for example, of an 
 alleged conquest of Korea in the year 202 a.d., by 
 the Empress Jingo ; and it has been tolerably well 
 proved that no such conquest took place. 1 The 
 later records are somewhat less mythical than the 
 earlier. We have traditions apparently founded on 
 
 1 See Aston's paper, Early Japanese History, in the translations of the Asiatic 
 Society of Japan. 
 
 285 
 
286 THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 
 
 fact, of Korean immigration in the time of the 
 fifteenth ruler, the Emperor Ojin; then later tradi- 
 tions, also founded on fact, of early Chinese studies 
 in Japan ; then some vague accounts of a dis- 
 turbed state of society, which appears to have con- 
 tinued through the whole of the fifth century. 
 Buddhism was introduced in the middle of the 
 century following ; and we have record of the fierce 
 opposition offered to the new creed by a Shinto 
 faction, and of a miraculous victory won by the help 
 of the Four Deva Kings, at the prayer of Shotoku 
 Taishi, — the great founder of Buddhism, and 
 regent of the Empress Suiko. With the firm 
 establishment of Buddhism in the reign of that 
 Empress (593-628 a.d.), we reach the period of 
 authentic history, and of the thirty-third Japanese 
 sovereign counting from Jimmu Tenno. 
 
 But although everything prior to the^ seventh 
 century remains obscured for us by the mists of 
 fable, much can be inferred, even from the half- 
 mythical records, concerning social conditions dur- 
 ing the reigns of the first thirty-three Emperors 
 and Empresses. It appears that the early Mikado 
 lived very simply — scarcely better, indeed, than 
 their subjects. The Shinto scholar Mabuchi tells 
 us that they dwelt in huts with mud walls and roofs 
 of shingle ; that they wore hempen clothes ; that 
 they carried their swords in simple wooden scab- 
 bards, bound round with the tendrils of a wild 
 
THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 287 
 
 vine ; that they walked about freely among the 
 people ; that they carried their own bows and arrows 
 when they went to hunt. But as society developed 
 wealth and power, this early simplicity disappeared ; 
 and the gradual introduction of Chinese customs 
 and etiquette effected great changes. The Empress 
 Suik5 introduced Chinese court-ceremonies, and 
 first established among the nobility the Chinese 
 grades of rank. Chinese luxury, as well as Chinese 
 learning, soon made its appearance at court; and 
 thereafter the imperial authority appears to have 
 been less and less directly exerted. The new 
 ceremonialism must have rendered the personal 
 exercise of the multiform imperial functions more 
 difficult than before ; and it is probable that the 
 temptation to act more or less by deputy would 
 have been strong even in the case of an energetic 
 ruler. At all events we find that the real adminis- 
 tration of government began about this time to pass 
 into the hands of deputies, — all of whom were 
 members of the great Kuge clan of the Fujiwara. 
 
 This clanj which included the highest hereditary 
 priesthood, represented a majority of the ancient 
 nobility, claiming divine descent. Ninety-five out 
 of the total one hundred and fifty-five families of 
 Kuge belonged to it, — including the five families, 
 Go-Sekki, from which alone the Emperor was by 
 tradition allowed to choose his Empress. Its his- 
 toric name dates only from the reign of the Emperor 
 
288 THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 
 
 Kwammu (782-806 a.d.), who bestowed it as an 
 honour upon Nakatomi no Kamatari ; but the clan 
 had long previously held the highest positions at 
 Court. By the close of the seventh century 
 most of the executive power had passed into its 
 hands. Later the office of Kwambaku, or Regent, 
 was established, and remained hereditary in the 
 house down to modern times — ages after all real 
 power had been taken from the descendants of 
 Nakatomi no Kamatari. But during almost five 
 centuries the Fujiwara remained the veritable regents 
 of the country, and took every possible advantage 
 of their position. All the civil offices were in the 
 hands of Fujiwara men ; all the wives and favourites 
 of the Emperors were Fujiwara women. The whole 
 power of government was thus kept in the hands 
 of the clan ; and the political authority of the 
 Emperor ceased to exist. Moreover the succession 
 was regulated entirely by the Fujiwara ; and even 
 the duration of each reign was made to depend upon 
 their policy. It was deemed advisable to compel 
 Emperors to abdicate at an early age, and after 
 abdicating to become Buddhist monks, — the suc- 
 cessor chosen being often a mere child. There is 
 record of an Emperor ascending the throne at the 
 age of two, and abdicating at the age of four ; another 
 Mikado was appointed at the age of five ; several at 
 the age of ten. Yet the religious dignity of the 
 throne remained undiminished, or, rather, continued 
 
THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 289 
 
 to grow. The more the Mikado was withdrawn 
 from public view by policy and by ceremonial, 
 the more did his seclusion and inaccessibility serve 
 to deepen the awe of the divine legend. Like the 
 Lama of Thibet the living deity was made invisible 
 to the multitude ; and gradually the belief arose 
 that to lopk upon his face was death. ... It is 
 said that the Fujiwara were not satisfied even with 
 these despotic means of assuring their own domina- 
 tion, and that luxurious forms of corruption were 
 maintained within the palace for the purpose of 
 weakening the character of young emperors who 
 might otherwise have found the energy to assert the 
 ancient rights of the throne. 
 
 Perhaps this usurpation — which prepared the 
 way for the rise of the military power — has never 
 been rightly interpreted. The history of all the 
 patriarchal societies of ancient Europe will be found 
 to illustrate the same phase of social evolution. At 
 a certain period in the development of each we find 
 the same thing happening, — the withdrawal of all 
 political authority from the Priest-King, who is suf- 
 fered, nevertheless, to retain the religious dignity. 
 It may be a mistake to judge the policy of the Fuji- 
 wara as a policy of mere ambition and usurpation. 
 The Fujiwara were a religious aristocracy, claiming 
 divine origin, — clan-chiefs of a society in which 
 religion and government were identical, and holding 
 to that society much the same relation as that of the 
 
290 THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 
 
 Eupatrida to the ancient Attic society. The Mi- 
 kado had originally become supreme magistrate, 
 military commander, and religious head by consent 
 of a majority of the clan-chiefs, — each of whom 
 represented to his own following what the " Heav- 
 enly Sovereign " represented to the social aggregate. 
 But as the power of the ruler extended with the 
 growth of the nation, those who had formerly 
 united to maintain that power began to find it dan- 
 gerous. They decided to deprive the Heavenly 
 Sovereign of all political and legal authority, without 
 disturbing in any way his religious supremacy. At 
 Athens, at Sparta, at Rome, and elsewhere in ancient 
 Europe, the same policy was carried out, for the 
 same reasons, by religious senates. The history of 
 the early kings of Rome, as interpreted by M. de 
 Coulanges, best illustrates the nature of the antago- 
 nism developed between the priest-ruler and the 
 religious aristocracy ; but the same thing took place 
 in all the Greek communities, with about the same 
 result. Everywhere political power was taken away 
 from the early kings ; but they were mostly left in 
 possession of their religious dignities and privileges : 
 they remained supreme priests after having ceased to 
 be rulers. This was the case also in Japan ; and I 
 imagine that future Japanese historians will be able 
 to give us an entirely new interpretation of the Fu- 
 jiwara episode, as reviewed in the light of modern 
 sociology. At all events, there can be little doubt 
 
THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 291 
 
 that, in curtailing the powers of the Heavenly Sov- 
 ereign, the religious aristocracy must have been 
 actuated by conservative precaution as well as by 
 ambition. There had been various Emperors who 
 made changes in the laws and customs — changes 
 which could scarcely have been viewed with favour 
 by many of the ancient nobility ; there had been 
 an Emperor whose diversions can to-day be written 
 of only in Latin ; there had even been an Emperor 
 — Kotoku — who, though "God Incarnate," and 
 chief of the ancient faith, " despised the Way of the 
 Gods," and cut down the holy grove of the shrine 
 of Iku-kuni-dama. Kotoku, for all his Buddhist 
 piety (perhaps, indeed, because of it), was one of the 
 wisest and best of rulers ; but the example of a 
 heavenly sovereign " despising the Way of the 
 Gods," must have given the priestly clan matter for 
 serious reflection. . . . Besides, there is another 
 important fact to be noticed. The Imperial house- 
 hold proper had become, in the course of centuries, 
 entirely detached from the Uji ; and the omnipo- 
 tence of this unit, independent of all other units, 
 constituted in itself a grave danger to aristocratic 
 privileges and established institutions. Too much 
 might depend upon the personal character and will 
 of an omnipotent God-King, capable of breaking 
 with all clan-custom, and of abrogating clan-privi- 
 leges. On the other hand, there was safety for all 
 alike under the patriarchal rule of the clan, which 
 
292 THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 
 
 could check every tendency on the part of any of its 
 members to exert predominant influence at the 
 expense of the rest. But for obvious reasons the 
 Imperial cult — traditional source of all authority 
 and privilege — could not be touched : it was only 
 by maintaining and reinforcing it that the religious 
 nobility could expect to keep the real power in their 
 hands. They actually kept it for nearly five cen- 
 turies. 
 
 The history of all the Japanese regencies, how- 
 ever, amply illustrates the general rule that inherited 
 authority is ever and everywhere liable to find itself 
 supplanted by deputed authority. The Fujiwara 
 appear to have eventually become the victims of 
 that luxury which they had themselves, for reasons 
 of policy, introduced and maintained. Degenerat- 
 ing into a mere court-nobility, they made little effort 
 to exert any direct authority in other than civil direc- 
 tions, entrusting military matters almost wholly to 
 the Buke. In the eighth century the distinction 
 between military and civil organization had been 
 made upon the Chinese plan ; the great military 
 class then came into existence, and began to extend 
 its power rapidly. Of the military clans proper, the 
 most powerful were the Minamoto and the Taira. 
 By deputing to these clans the conduct of all im- 
 portant matters relating to war, the Fujiwara eventu- 
 ally lost their high position and influence. As soon 
 
THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 293 
 
 as the Bulce found themselves strong enough to lay 
 hands upon the reins of government, — which hap- 
 pened about the middle of the eleventh century, — 
 the Fujiwara supremacy became a thing of the past, 
 although members of the clan continued for cen- 
 turies to occupy positions of importance under 
 various regents. 
 
 But the Buke could not realize their ambition 
 without a bitter struggle among themselves, — the 
 longest and the fiercest^ war in Japanese history. 
 The Minamoto and the Taira were both Kuge ; 
 both claimed imperial descent. In the early part of 
 the contest the Taira carried all before them ; and 
 it seemed that no power could hinder them from 
 exterminating the rival clan. But fortune turned at 
 last in favour of the Minamoto ; and at the famous 
 sea-fight of Dan-no-ura, in 11 85, the Taira were 
 themselves exterminated. 
 
 Then began the reign of the Minamoto regents, 
 or rather shogun. I have elsewhere said that the 
 title " shogun " originally signified, as did the 
 Roman military term Imperator, only a commander- 
 m-chief : it now became the title of the supreme 
 ruler de facto, in his double capacity of civil and 
 military sovereign, — the King of kings. From the 
 accession of the Minamoto to power the history of 
 the shogunate — the long history of the military 
 supremacy — really begins; Japan thereafter, down 
 to the present era of Meiji, having really two Em- 
 
294 THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 
 
 perors : the Heavenly Sovereign, or Deity Incar- 
 nate, representing the religion of the race ; and the 
 veritable Imperator, who wielded all the powers of 
 the administration. No one sought to occupy by 
 force the throne of the Sun's Succession, whence all 
 authority was at least supposed to be derived. Re- 
 gent or shogun bowed down before it: divinity 
 could not be usurped. 
 
 Yet peace did not follow upon the battle of Dan- 
 no-ura : the clan-wars initiated by the great struggle 
 of the Minamoto and the Taira, continued, at ir- 
 regular intervals, for five centuries more ; and the 
 nation remained disintegrated. Nor did the Mina- 
 moto long keep the supremacy which they had so 
 dearly won. Deputing their powers to the Hojo 
 family, they were supplanted by the Hojo, just as the 
 Fujiwara had been supplanted by the Taira. Three 
 only of the Minamoto shogun really exercised rule. 
 During the whole of the thirteenth century, and for 
 some time afterwards, the Hojo continued to govern 
 the country ; and it is noteworthy that these regents 
 never assumed the title of shogun, but professed to 
 be merely shogunal deputies. Thus a triple-headed 
 government appeared to exist; for the Minamoto 
 kept up a kind of court at Kamakura. But they 
 faded into mere shadows, and are yet remembered by 
 the significant appellation of " Shadow-Shogun," or 
 " Puppet Shogun." There was nothing shadowy, 
 however, about the administration of the Hojo, — 
 
THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 295 
 
 men of immense energy and ability. By them Em- 
 peror or shogun could be deposed and banished 
 without scruple ; and the helplessness of the shogu- 
 nate can be inferred from the fact, that the seventh 
 Hojo regent, before deposing the seventh shogun, 
 sent him home in a palanquin, head downwards and 
 heels upwards. Nevertheless the Hojo suffered 
 the phantom-shogunate to linger on, until 1333. 
 Though unscrupulous in their methods, these regents 
 were capable rulers- and proved themselves able 
 to save the country in a great emergency, — the 
 famous invasion attempted by Kublai Khan in 1281. 
 Aided by a fortunate typhoon, which is said to have 
 destroyed the hostile fleet in answer to prayer offered 
 up at the national shrines, the Hojo could repel 
 this invasion. They were less successful in deal- 
 ing with certain domestic disorders, — especially 
 those fomented by the turbulent Buddhist priest- 
 hood. During the thirteenth century, Buddhism 
 had developed into a great military power, — 
 strangely like that church-militant of the European 
 middle ages : the period of soldier-priests and fight- 
 ing-bishops. The, Buddhist monasteries had been 
 converted into fortresses rilled with men-at-arms ; 
 Buddhist menace had more than once carried terror/ 
 into the sacred seclusion of the imperial court. At 
 an early day, Yoritomo, the far-seeing founder of 
 the Minamoto dynasty, had observed a militant 
 tendency in Buddhism, and had attempted to check 
 
296 THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 
 
 it by forbidding all priests and monks either to bear 
 arms, or to maintain armed retainers. But his suc- 
 cessors had been careless about enforcing these pro- 
 hibitions ; and the Buddhist military power developed 
 in consequence so rapidly that the shrewdest Hojo 
 were doubtful of their ability to cope with it. 
 Eventually this power proved capable of giving them 
 serious trouble. The ninety-sixth Mikado, Go- 
 Daigo, found courage to revolt against the tyranny 
 of the Hojo ; and the Buddhist soldiery took part 
 with him. He was promptly defeated, and banished 
 to the islands of Oki ; but his cause was soon 
 espoused by powerful lords, who had long chafed 
 under the despotism of the regency. These 
 assembled their forces, restored the banished Em- 
 peror, and combined in a desperate attack upon the 
 regent's capital, Kamakura. The city was stormed 
 and burned ; and the last of the Hojo rulers, after a 
 brave bu.t vain defence, performed harakiri. Thus 
 shogunate and regency vanished together, in 1333. 
 
 For the moment the whole power of administra- 
 tion had been restored to the Mikado. Unfortu- 
 nately for himself and for the country, Go-Daigo 
 was too feeble of character to avail himself of this 
 great opportunity. He revived the dead shogunate 
 by appointing his own son shogun ; he weakly 
 ignored the services of those whose loyalty and 
 courage had restored him ; and he foolishly strength- 
 
THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 297 
 
 ened the hands of those whom he had every reason 
 to fear. As a consequence there happened the most 
 serious political catastrophe in the history of Japan, 
 a division of the imperial house" against itself. 
 
 The unscrupulous despotism of the Hojo regents 
 had prepared the possibility of such an event. 
 During the last years of the thirteenth century, there 
 were living at the same time in Kyoto, besides the 
 reigning Mikado, no less than three deposed em- 
 perors. To bring about a contest for the succession 
 was, therefore, an easy matter ; and this was soon 
 accomplished by the treacherous general Ashikaga 
 Takeuji, to whom Go-Daigo had unwisely shown 
 especial favour. Ashikaga had betrayed the Hojo 
 in order to help the restoration of Go-Daigo : he 
 subsequently would have betrayed the trust of Go- 
 Daigo in order to seize the administrative power. 
 The Emperor discovered this treasonable purpose 
 when too late, and sent against Ashikaga an army 
 which was defeated. After some further contest 
 Ashikaga mastered the capital, drove Go-Daigo a 
 second time into exile, set up a rival Emperor, and 
 established a new shogunate. Now for the first 
 time, two branches of the Imperial family, each 
 supported by powerful lords, contended for the right 
 of succession. That of which Go-Daigo remained 
 the acting representative, is known in history as the 
 Southern Branch (Nanchd), and by Japanese his- 
 torians is held to be the only legitimate branch. 
 
298 THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 
 
 The other was called the Northern Branch (Hokucho), 
 and was maintained at Kyoto by the power of the 
 Ashikaga clan ; while Go-Daigo, finding refuge in 
 a Buddhist monastery, retained the insignia of em- 
 pire. . . . Thereafter, for a period of fifty-six 
 years Japan continued to have two Mikado ; and 
 the resulting disorder was such as to imperil the 
 national integrity. It would have been no easy 
 matter for the people to decide which Emperor 
 possessed the better claim. Hitherto the imperial 
 presence had represented the national divinity ; and 
 the imperial palace had been regarded as the temple 
 of the national religion : the division maintained by 
 the Ashikaga usurpers therefore signified nothing 
 less than the breaking up of the whole tradition 
 upon which existing society had been built. The 
 confusion became greater and greater, the danger 
 increased more and more, until the Ashikaga them- 
 selves took alarm. They managed then to end the 
 trouble by persuading the fifth Mikado of the 
 Southern Dynasty, Go Kameyama, to surrender his 
 insignia to the reigning Mikado of the Northern 
 Dynasty, Go-Komatsu. This having been done, in 
 1392, Go-Kameyama was honoured with the title 
 of retired Emperor, and Go-Komatsu was nationally 
 acknowledged as legitimate Emperor. But the 
 names of the other four Emperors of the Northern 
 Dynasty are still excluded from the official list. 
 The Ashikaga shogunate thus averted the supreme 
 
THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 299 
 
 peril ; but the period of this military domination, 
 which endured until 1573, was destined to remain the 
 darkest in Japanese history. The Ashikaga gave the 
 country fifteen rulers, several of whom were men of 
 great ability : they tried to encourage industry ; they 
 cultivated literature and the arts ; but they could not 
 give peace. Fresh disputes arose ; and lords whom 
 the shogunate could not subdue made war upon 
 each other. To such a condition of terror was the 
 capital reduced that the court nobility fled from it 
 to take refuge with daimyo powerful enough to afford 
 them protection. Robbery became rife throughout 
 the land; and piracy terrorized the seas. The 
 shogunate itself was reduced to the humiliation of 
 paying tribute to China. Agriculture and industry 
 at last ceased to exist outside of the domains of cer- 
 tain powerful lords. Provinces became waste ; and 
 famine, earthquake, and pestilence added their horror 
 to the misery of ceaseless war. The poverty pre- 
 vailing may be best imagined from the fact that 
 when the Emperor known to history as Go-Tsuchi- 
 rnikado — one hundred and second of the Sun's 
 Succession — died in the year 1500, his corpse had 
 to be kept at the gates of the palace forty days, 
 because the expenses of the funeral could riot be 
 defrayed. Until 1 573 the misery continued ; and 
 the shogunate meanwhile degenerated into insignifi- 
 cance. Then a strong captain arose and ended the 
 house of Ashikaga, and seized the reins of power. 
 
300 THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 
 
 This usurper was Oda Nobunaga ; and the usurpa- 
 tion was amply provoked. Had it not occurred, 
 Japan might never have entered upon an era of 
 peace. 
 
 For there had been no peace since the fifth cen- 
 tury. No emperor or regent or shogun had ever 
 been able. to impose his rule firmly upon the whole 
 country. Somewhere or other, there were always 
 wars of clan with clan. By the time of the six- 
 teenth century personal safety could be found only 
 under the protection of some military leader, able to 
 exact his own terms for the favour of such protection. 
 The question of the imperial succession, — which 
 had almost wrecked the empire during the four- 
 teenth century, — might be raised again at any time 
 by some reckless faction, with the probable result 
 of ruining civilization, and forcing the nation back 
 to its primitive state of barbarism. Never did the 
 future of Japan appear so dark as at the moment 
 when Oda Nobunaga suddenly found himself the 
 strongest man in the empire, and leader of the most 
 formidable Japanese army that had ever obeyed a 
 single head. This man, a descendant of Shinto 
 priests, was above all things a patriot. He did not 
 seek the title of shogun, and never received it. His 
 hope was to save the country ; and he saw that this 
 could be done only by centralizing all feudal power 
 under one control, and strenuously enforcing law. 
 Looking about him for the ways and means of effect- 
 
THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 30 1 
 
 ing this centralization, he perceived that one of the 
 very first obstacles to be removed was that created 
 by the power of Buddhism militant, — the feudal 
 Buddhism developed under the Hojo regency, and 
 especially represented by the great Shin and Tendai 
 sects. As both had already given aid to his ene- 
 mies, it was easy to find a cause for quarrel ; and he 
 first proceeded against the Tendai. The campaign 
 was conducted with ferocious vigour ; the monastery- 
 fortresses of Hiyei-san were stormed and razed, and 
 all the priests, with all their adherents, put to the 
 sword — no mercy being shown even to women and 
 children. By nature Nobunaga was not cruel ; but 
 his policy was ruthless, and he knew when and why 
 to strike hard. The power of the Tendai sect 
 before this massacre may be imagined from the fact 
 that three thousand monastery buildings were burnt 
 at Hiyei-san. The Shin sect of the Hongwanji, 
 with headquarters at Osaka, was scarcely less power- 
 ful ; and its monastery, occupying the site of the 
 present Osaka castle, was one of the strongest for- 
 tresses in the country. Nobunaga waited several 
 years, merely to prepare for the attack. The soldier- 
 priests defended themselves well; upwards of fifty 
 thousand lives are said to have been lost in the 
 
 1 
 
 siege ; yet only the personal intervention of the 
 Emperor prevented the storming of the stronghold, 
 and the slaughter of every being within its walls. 
 Through respect for the Emperor, Nobunaga agreed 
 
302 THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 
 
 to spare the lives of the Shin priests : they were only 
 dispossessed and scattered, and their power forever 
 broken. Buddhism having been thus effectually 
 crippled, Nobunaga was able to turn his attention 
 to the warring clans. Supported by the greatest 
 generals that the nation ever produced, — Hideyoshi 
 and Iyeyasu, — he proceeded to enforce pacification 
 and order ; and his grand purpose would probably 
 have been soon accomplished, but for the revengeful 
 treachery of a subordinate, who brought about his 
 death in 1582. 
 
 Nobunaga, with Taira blood in his veins, had 
 been essentially an aristocrat, inheriting all the apti- 
 tudes of his great race for administration, and versed 
 in all the traditions of diplomacy. His avenger 
 and successor, Hideyoshi, was a totally different 
 type of soldier : a son of peasants, an untrained 
 genius who had won his way to high command by 
 shrewdness and courage, natural skill of arms, and 
 immense inborn capacity for all the chess-play of 
 war. With the great purpose of Nobunaga he had 
 always been in sympathy ; and he actually carried it 
 out, — subduing the entire country, from north to 
 south, in the name of the Emperor, by whom he 
 was appointed Regent {Kwambaku). Thus universal 
 peace was temporarily established. But the vast 
 military powers which Hideyoshi had collected and 
 disciplined, threatened to become refractory. He 
 found employment for them by declaring unpro- 
 
THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 303 
 
 voked war against Korea, whence he hoped to effect 
 the conquest of China. The war with Korea 
 opened in 1592, and dragged on unsatisfactorily 
 until 1598, when Hideyoshi died. He had proved 
 himself one of the greatest soldiers ever born, but 
 not one of the best among rulers. Perhaps the 
 issue of the war in Korea would have been more 
 fortunate, if he could have ventured to conduct it 
 himself. As a matter of fact, it merely exhausted 
 the force of both countries ; and Japan had little to 
 show for her dearly bought victories abroad except 
 the Mimidzuka or " Ear-Monument " at Nara, — 
 marking the spot where thirty thousand pairs of 
 foreign ears, cut from the pickled heads of slain, 
 were buried in the grounds of the temple of 
 Daibutsu. . . . 
 
 Into the vacant place of power then stepped the 
 most remarkable man that Japan ever produced, — 
 Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Iyeyasu was of Minamoto 
 descent, and an aristocrat to the marrow of his bones. 
 As a soldier he was scarcely inferior to Hideyoshi, 
 whom he once defeated, — but he was much more 
 than a soldier : a far-sighted statesman, an incom- 
 parable diplomat, and something of a scholar. 
 Cool, cautious, secretive, — distrustful, yet generous, 
 — stern, yet humane, — by the range and the versa- 
 tility of his genius he might be not unfavourably 
 contrasted with Julius Caesar. All that Nobunaga 
 and Hideyoshi had wished to do, and failed to 
 
304 THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 
 
 do, Iyeyasu speedily accomplished. After fulfilling 
 Hideyoshi's dying injunction, not to leave the 
 troops in Korea " to become ghosts haunting a 
 foreign land," — that is to say, in the condition of 
 spirits without a cult, — Iyeyasu had to face a formi- 
 dable league of lords resolved to dispute his claim 
 to rule. The terrific battle of Sekigahara left him 
 master of the country ; and he at once took measures 
 to consolidate his power, and to perfect, even to the 
 least detail, all the machinery of military govern- 
 ment. As shogun, he reorganized the daimiates, 
 redistributed a majority of fiefs among those whom 
 he could trust, created new military grades, and 
 ordered and so balanced the powers of the greater 
 daimyo as to make it next to impossible for them to 
 dare a revolt. Later on the daimyo were even 
 required to furnish security for their good behaviour: 
 they were obliged to pass a certain time of the 
 year 1 in the shogun's capital, leaving their families 
 as hostages during the rest of the year. The entire 
 administration was readjusted upon a simple and 
 sagacious plan ; and the Laws of Iyeyasu prove him 
 to have been an excellent legislator. For the first 
 time in Japanese history the nation was integrated, 
 — integrated, at least, in so far as the peculiar nature 
 of the social unit rendered possible. The counsels 
 
 1 The period of obligatory residence in Yedo was not the same for all daimyo. 
 In some cases the obligation seems to have extended to six months j in others, the 
 requirement was to pass every alternate year in the capital. 
 
THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 305 
 
 of the founder of Yedo were followed by his suc- 
 cessors ; and the Tokugawa shogunate, which lasted 
 until 1867, gave the country fifteen military 
 sovereigns. Under these, Japan enjoyed both peace 
 and prosperity for the time of two hundred and 
 fifty years ; and her society was thus enabled to 
 evolve to the full limit of its peculiar type. Indus- 
 tries and arts developed in new and wonderful ways ; 
 literature found august patronage. The national 
 cult was carefully maintained ; and all precautions 
 were taken to prevent the occurrence of another 
 such contest for the imperial succession as had nearly 
 ruined the country in the fourteenth century. 
 
 We have seen that the history of military rule in 
 Japan embraces nearly the whole period of authentic 
 history, down to modern times, and closes with the 
 second period of national integration. The first 
 period had been reached when the clans first ac- 
 cepted the leadership of the chief of the greatest 
 clan, — thereafter revered as the Heavenly Sover- 
 eign, Supreme Pontiff, Supreme Arbiter, Supreme 
 Commander, and Supreme Magistrate. How long 
 a time was required for this primal integration, under 
 a patriarchal monarchy, we cannot know ; but we 
 have learned that the later integration, under a 
 duarchy, occupied considerably more than a thou- 
 sand years. . . . Now the extraordinary fact to 
 note is that, during all those centuries, the imperial 
 
306 THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 
 
 cult was carefully maintained by even the enemies 
 of the Mikado; the only legitimate ruler being, 
 in national belief, the Tenshi, " Son of Heaven," 
 — the Tenno, " Heavenly King." Through every 
 period of disorder the Offspring of the Sun was 
 the object of national worship, and his palace the 
 temple of the national faith. Great captains might 
 coerce the imperial will ; but they styled themselves, 
 none the less, the worshippers and slaves of the 
 incarnate deity ; and they would no more have 
 thought of trying to occupy his throne, than they 
 would have thought of trying to abolish all religion 
 by decree. Once only, by the arbitrary folly of the 
 Ashikaga shogun, the imperial cult had been seri- 
 ously interfered with ; and the social earthquake 
 consequent upon that division of the imperial house,, 
 apprised the usurpers of the enormity of their blun- 
 der. . . . Only the integrity of the imperial succes- 
 sion, the uninterrupted maintenance of the imperial 
 worship, made it possible even for Iyeyasu to clamp 
 together the indissoluble units of society. 
 
 Herbert Spencer has taught the student of sociology 
 to recognize that religious dynasties have extraordi- 
 nary powers of longevity, because they possess ex- 
 traordinary power to resist change ; whereas military 
 dynasties, depending for their perpetuity upon the: 
 individual character of their sovereigns, are particu- 
 larly liable to disintegration. The immense dura- 
 tion of the Japanese imperial dynasty, as contrasted. 
 
THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER 307 
 
 with the history of the various shogunates and 
 regencies representing a merely military domina- 
 tion, illustrates this teaching in a most remarkable 
 way. Back through twenty-five hundred years we 
 can follow the line of the imperial succession, till 
 it vanishes out of sight into the mystery of the past. 
 Here we have evidence of that extreme power of 
 resisting all changes which is inherently characteristic 
 of religious conservatism ; on the other hand, the 
 history of shogunates and regencies proves the 
 tendency to disintegration of institutions having 
 no religious foundation, and therefore no religious 
 power of cohesion. The remarkable duration of 
 the Fujiwara rule, as compared with others, may 
 perhaps be accounted for by the fact that the 
 Fujiwara represented a religious, rather than a mili- 
 tary, aristocracy. Even the marvellous military 
 structure devised by Iyeyasu had begun to decay 
 before alien aggression precipitated its inevitable 
 collapse. 
 
The Religion of Loyalty 
 
The Religion of Loyalty 
 
 " 1^ /TILITANT societies," says the author of 
 I T I t ' ie Priwriphs °f Sociology, " must have a 
 patriotism which regards the triumph of 
 their society as the supreme end of action ; they 
 must possess the loyalty whence flows obedience to 
 authority, — and, that they may be obedient, they 
 must have abundant faith." The history of the 
 Japanese people strongly exemplifies these truths. 
 Among no other people has loyalty ever assumed 
 more impressive and extraordinary forms ; and 
 among no other people has obedience ever been 
 nourished by a more abundant faith, — that faith 
 derived from the cult of the ancestors. 
 
 The reader will understand how filial piety — the 
 domestic religion of obedience — widens in range 
 with social evolution, and eventually differentiates 
 both into that political obedience required by the 
 community, and that military obedience exacted by 
 the war-lord, — obedience implying not only sub- 
 mission, but affectionate submission, — not merely 
 the sense of obligation, but the sentiment of duty. 
 In its origin such dutiful obedience is essentially 
 religious ; and, as expressed in loyalty, it retains the 
 
 3" 
 
312 THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 
 
 religious character, — becomes the constant manifes- 
 tation of a religion of self-sacrifice. Loyalty is 
 developed early in the history of a militant people ; 
 and we find touching examples of it in the earliest 
 Japanese chronicles. We find also terrible ones, — 
 stories of self-immolation. 
 
 To his divinely descended lord, the retainer 
 owed everything — in fact, not less than in theory : 
 goods, household, liberty, and life. Any or all of 
 these he was expected to yield up without a mur- 
 mur, on demand, for the sake of the lord. And 
 duty to the lord, like the duty to the family ances- 
 tor, did not cease with death. As the ghosts of 
 parents were to be supplied with food by their 
 living children, so the spirit of the lord was to be 
 worshipfully served by those who, during his life- 
 time, owed him direct obedience. It could not be 
 permitted that the spirit of the ruler should enter 
 unattended into the world of shadows : some, at 
 least, of those who served him living were bound 
 to follow him in death. Thus in early societies 
 arose the custom of human sacrifices, — sacrifices 
 at first obligatory, afterwards voluntary. In Japan, 
 as stated in a former chapter, they remained an 
 indispensable feature of great funerals, up to the 
 first century, when images of baked clay were first 
 substituted for the official victims. I have already 
 mentioned how, after this abolition of obligatory 
 
THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 313 
 
 junshi, or following of one's lord in death, the prac- 
 tice of voluntary junshi continued up to the six- 
 teenth century, when it actually became a military 
 fashion. At the death of a daimyo it was then 
 common for fifteen or twenty of his retainers to 
 disembowel themselves. Iyeyasu determined to 
 put an end to this custom of suicide, which is thus 
 considered in the 76th article of his celebrated 
 Legacy : — 
 
 " Although it is undoubtedly the ancient custom for a 
 vassal to follow his Lord in death, there is not the slightest 
 reason in the practice. Confucius has ridiculed the making 
 of To [effigies buried with the dead] . These practices are 
 strictly forbidden, more especially to primary retainers, but 
 to secondary retainers likewise, even of the lowest rank. 
 He is the reverse of a faithful servant who disregards this 
 prohibition. His posterity shall be impoverished by the 
 confiscation of his property, as a warning for those who 
 disobey the laws. ' 
 
 Iyeyasu's command ended the practice of junshi 
 among his own vassals ; but it continued, or revived 
 again, after his death. In 1664 the shogunate issued 
 an edict proclaiming that the family of any person 
 performing junshi should be punished ; and the 
 shogunate was in earnest. When this edict was 
 disobeyed by one Uyemon no Hyoge, who disem- 
 bowelled himself at the death of his lord, Okudaira 
 Tadamasa, the government promptly confiscated the 
 lands of the family of the suicide, executed two of 
 
3 H THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 
 
 his sons, and sent the rest of the household into 
 exile. Though cases of junshi have occurred even 
 within this present era of Meiji, the determined atti- 
 tude of the Tokugawa government so far checked 
 the practice that even the most fervid loyalty lat- 
 terly made its sacrifices through religion, as a rule. 
 Instead of performing harakiri, the retainer shaved 
 his head at the death of his lord, and became a 
 Buddhist monk. 
 
 The custom of junsM represents but one aspect 
 of Japanese loyalty : there were other customs 
 equally, if not even more, significant, — for example, 
 the custom of military suicide, not as junshi, but as 
 a self-inflicted penalty exacted by the traditions of 
 samurai discipline. Against harakiri, as punitive 
 suicide, there was no legislative enactment, for obvi- 
 ous reasons. It would seem that this form of self- 
 destruction was not known to the Japanese in early 
 ages ; it may have been introduced from China, with 
 other military customs. The ancient Japanese usu- 
 ally performed suicide by strangulation, as the JV7- 
 hangi bears witness. It was the military class that 
 established the harakiri as a custom and privilege. 
 Previously, the chiefs of a routed army, or the 
 defenders of a castle taken by storm, would thus 
 end themselves to avoid falling into the enemy's 
 hands, — a custom which continued into the present 
 era. About the close of the fifteenth century, the 
 
THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 315 
 
 military custom of permitting any samurai to per- 
 form harakiri, instead of subjecting him to the shame 
 of execution, appears to have been generally estab- 
 lished. Afterwards it became the recognized duty 
 of a samurai to kill himself at the word of command. 
 All samurai were subject to this disciplinary law, 
 even lords of provinces ; and in samurai families, 
 children of both sexes were trained how to perform 
 suicide whenever personal honour or the will of a 
 liege-lord, might require it. . . . Women, I should 
 observe, did not perform harakiri, but jigai, • — that 
 is to say, piercing the throat with a dagger so as to 
 sever the arteries by a single thrust-and-cut move- 
 ment. . . . The particulars of the harakiri ceremony 
 have become so well known through Mitford's trans- 
 lation of Japanese texts on the subject, that I need 
 not touch upon them. The important fact to remem- 
 ber is that honour and loyalty required the samurai 
 man or woman to be ready at any moment to per- 
 form self-destruction by the sword. As for the 
 warrior, any breach of trust (voluntary or involun- 
 tary), failure to execute a difficult mission, a clumsy 
 mistake, and even a look of displeasure from one's 
 liege, were sufficient reasons for harakiri, or, as the 
 aristocrats 1 preferred to call it, by the Chinese term, 
 seppuku. Among the highest class of retainers, it 
 was also a duty to make protest against misconduct 
 on the part of their lord by performing seppuku, 
 when all other means of bringing him to reason had 
 
316 THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 
 
 failed, — which heroic custom has been made the 
 subject of several popular dramas founded upon 
 fact. In the case of married women of the samurai 
 class, — directly responsible to their husbands, not 
 to the lord, — jigai was resorted to most often as a 
 means of preserving honour in time of war, though 
 it was sometimes performed merely as a sacrifice of 
 loyalty to the spirit of the husband, after his un- 
 timely death. 1 In the case of girls it was not 
 uncommon for other reasons, — samurai maidens 
 often entering into the service of noble households, 
 where the cruelty of intrigue might easily bring 
 about a suicide, or where loyalty to the wife of the 
 lord might exact it. For the samurai maiden in 
 service was bound by loyalty to her mistress not 
 less closely than the warrior to the lord ; and the 
 heroines of Japanese feudalism were many. 
 
 In the early ages it appears to have been the 
 custom for the wives of officials condemned to death 
 to kill themselves ; — the ancient chronicles are full 
 of examples. But this custom is perhaps to be 
 partly accounted for by the ancient law, which held 
 the household of the offender equally responsible 
 with him for the offence, independently of the facts 
 in the case. However, it was certainly also common 
 enough for a bereaved wife to perform suicide, not 
 through despair, but through the wish to follow her 
 
 1 The Japanese moralist Yekken wrote : "A woman has no feudal lord : she 
 must reverence and obey her husband." 
 
THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 317 
 
 husband into the other world, and there to wait 
 upon him as in life. Instances of female suicide, 
 representing the old ideal of duty to a dead husband, 
 have occurred in recent times. Such suicides are 
 usually performed according to the feudal rules, — 
 the woman robing herself in white for the occasion. 
 At the time of the late war with China there occurred 
 in Tokyo one remarkable suicide of this kind ; the 
 victim being the wife of Lieutenant Asada, who had 
 fallen in battle. She was only twehty-one. On 
 hearing of her husband's death, she at once began 
 to make preparations for her own, — writing letters 
 of farewell to her relatives, putting her affairs in 
 order, and carefully cleaning the house, according 
 to old-time rule. Thereafter she donned her death- 
 robe ; laid mattings down opposite to the alcove in 
 the guest-room; placed her husband's portrait in 
 the alcove, and set offerings before it. When 
 everything had been arranged, she seated herself 
 before. the portrait, took up her dagger, and with 
 a single skilful thrust divided the arteries of her 
 throat. 
 
 Besides the duty of suicide for the sake of preserv- 
 ing honour, there was also, for the samurai woman, 
 the duty of suicide as a moral protest. I have 
 already said that among the highest class of retainers 
 it was thought a moral duty to perform harakiri as 
 a remonstrance against shameless conduct on the 
 part of one's lord, when all other means of persua- 
 
318 THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 
 
 sion had been tried in vain. Among samurai 
 women — taught to consider their husbands as their 
 lords, in the feudal meaning of the term — it was held 
 a moral obligation to perform jigai, by way of pro- 
 test against disgraceful behaviour upon the part of a 
 husband who would not listen to advice or reproof. 
 The ideal of wifely duty which impelled such sacri- 
 fice still survives ; and more than one recent example 
 might be cited of a generous life thus laid down in 
 rebuke of some moral wrong. Perhaps the most 
 touching instance occurred in 1892, at the time of 
 the district elections in Nagano prefecture. A rich 
 voter named Ishijima, after having publicly pledged 
 himself to aid in the election of a certain candidate, 
 transferred his support to the rival candidate. On 
 learning of this breach of promise, the wife of Ishi- 
 jima, robed herself in white, and performed jigai after 
 the old samurai manner. The grave of this brave 
 woman is still decorated with flowers by the people 
 of the district; and incense is burned before her 
 tomb. 
 
 To kill oneself at command — a duty which no 
 loyal samurai would have dreamed of calling in 
 question — appears to us much less difficult than 
 another duty, also fully accepted : the sacrifice of 
 children, wife, and household for the sake of the 
 lord. Much of Japanese popular tragedy is devoted 
 to incidents of such sacrifice made by retainers or 
 
THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 319 
 
 dependents of daimyo, — men or women who gave 
 their children to death in order to save the children 
 of their masters. 1 Nor have we any reason to sup- 
 pose that the facts have been exaggerated in these 
 dramatic compositions, most of which are based 
 upon feudal history. The incidents, of course, have 
 been rearranged and expanded to meet theatrical re- 
 quirements ; but the general pictures thus given of 
 the ancient society are probably even less grim than 
 the vanished reality. The people still love these 
 tragedies ; and the foreign critic of their dramatic 
 literature is wont to point out only the blood-spots, 
 and to comment upon them as evidence of a public 
 taste for gory spectacles, — as proof of some innate 
 ferocity in the race. Rather, I think, is this love of 
 the old tragedy proof of what foreign critics try 
 always to ignore as much as possible, — the deeply 
 religious character of the people. These plays con- 
 tinue to give delight, — not because of their horror, 
 but because of their moral teaching, — because of 
 their exposition of the duty of sacrifice and courage, 
 the religion of loyalty. They represent the martyr- 
 doms of feudal society for its noblest ideals. 
 
 All down through that society, in varying forms, 
 the same spirit of loyalty had its manifestations. 
 As the samurai to his liege-lord, so the apprentice 
 was bound to the patron, and the clerk to the mer- 
 
 1 See, for a good example, the translation of the drama Terakya, published, 
 with admirable illustrations, by T. Hasegawa (Tokyo) . 
 
320 THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 
 
 chant. Everywhere there was trust, because every- 
 where there existed the like sentiment of mutual 
 duty between servant and master. Each industry 
 and occupation had its religion of loyalty, — requir- 
 ing, on the one side, absolute obedience and sacrifice 
 at need ; and on the other, kindliness and aid. 
 And the rule of the dead was over all. 
 
 Not less ancient than the duty of dying for parent 
 or lord was the social obligation to avenge the kill- 
 ing of either. Even before the beginnings of settled 
 society, this duty is recognized. The oldest chron- 
 icles of Japan teem with instances of obligatory ven- 
 geance. Confucian ethics more than affirmed the 
 obligation, — forbidding a man to live " under the 
 same heaven" with the slayer of his lord, or parent, 
 or brother ; and fixing all the degrees of kinship, or 
 other relationship, within which the duty of ven- 
 geance was to be considered imperative. Confucian 
 ethics, it will be remembered, became at an early 
 date the ethics of the Japanese ruling-classes, and so 
 remained down to recent times. The whole Confu- 
 cian system, as I have remarked elsewhere, was 
 founded upon ancestor-worship, and represented 
 scarcely more than an amplification and elaboration 
 of filial piety : it was therefore in complete accord 
 with Japanese moral experience. As the military 
 power developed in Japan, the Chinese code of ven- 
 geance became universally accepted ; and it was sus- 
 
THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 321 
 
 tained by law as well as by custom in later ages. 
 Iyeyasu himself maintained it — exacting only that 
 preliminary notice of an intended vendetta should 
 be given in writing to the district criminal court. The 
 text of his article on the subject is interesting: — 
 
 " In respect to avenging injury done to master or father, 
 it is acknowledged by the Wise and Virtuous [Confucius] 
 that you and the injurer cannot live together under the 
 canopy of heaven. A person harbouring such vengeance 
 shall give notice in writing to the criminal court ; and al- 
 though no check or hindrance may be offered to the carry- 
 ing out of his design within the period allowed for that 
 purpose, it is forbidden that the chastisement of an enemy 
 be attended with riot. Fellows who neglect to give notice 
 of their intended revenge are like wolves of pretext : 1 their 
 punishment or pardon should depend upon the circum- 
 stances of the case." 
 
 Kindred, as well as parents ; teachers, as well as 
 lords, were to be revenged. A considerable propor- 
 tion of popular romance and drama is devoted to 
 the subject of vengeance taken by women ; and, as 
 a matter of fact, women, and even children, some- 
 times became avengers when there were no men of a 
 wronged family left to perform the duty. Appren- 
 tices avenged their masters ; and even sworn friends 
 were bound to avenge each other. 
 
 1 Or "hypocritical wolves," — that is to say, brutal murderers seeking to excuse 
 their crime on the pretext of justifiable vengeance. (The translation is by Lowder. ) 
 Y 
 
322 THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 
 
 Why the duty of vengeance was not confined to 
 the circle of natural kinship is explicable, of course, 
 by the peculiar organization of society. We have 
 seen that the patriarchal family was a religious cor- 
 poration ; and that the family-bond was not the 
 bond of natural affection, but the bond of the cult. 
 We have also seen that the relation of the house- 
 hold to the community, and of the community to 
 the clan, and of the clan to the tribe, was equally 
 a religious relation. As a necessary consequence, 
 the earlier customs of vengeance were regulated by 
 the bond of the family, communal, or tribal cult, 
 as well as by the bond of blood ; and with the 
 introduction of Chinese ethics, and the develop- 
 ment of militant conditions, the idea of revenge as 
 duty took a wider range. The son or the brother 
 by adoption was in respect of obligation the same as 
 the son or brother by blood ; and the teacher stood 
 to his pupil in the relation of father to child. To 
 strike one's natural parent was a crime punishable 
 by death : to strike one's teacher was, before the 
 law, an equal offence. This notion of the teacher's 
 claim to filial reverence was of Chinese importation : 
 an extension of the duty of filial piety to " the 
 father of the mind." There were other such exten- 
 sions ; and the origin of all, Chinese or Japanese, 
 may be traced alike to ancestor-worship. 
 
 Now, what has never been properly insisted 
 upon, in any of the books treating of ancient 
 
THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 323 
 
 Japanese customs, is the originally religious sig- 
 nificance of the kataki-uchi. That a religious origin 
 can be found for all customs of vendetta established 
 in early societies is, of course, well known ; but a 
 peculiar interest attaches to the Japanese vendetta 
 in view of the fact that it conserved its religious 
 character unchanged down to the present era. The 
 kataki-uchi was essentially an act of propitiation, as 
 is proved by the rite with which it terminated, — 
 the placing of the enemy's head upon the tomb of 
 the person avenged, as an offering of atonement. 
 And one of the most impressive features of this 
 rite, as formerly practised, was the delivery of an 
 address to the ghost of the person avenged. Some- 
 times the address was only spoken ; sometimes it 
 was also written, and the manuscript left upon 
 the tomb. 
 
 There is probably none of my readers unac- 
 quainted with Mitford's ever-delightful Tales of 
 Old Japan, and his translation of the true story of 
 the " Forty-Seven Ronins." But I doubt whether 
 many persons have noticed the significance of the 
 washing of Kira Kotsuke-no-Suke's severed head, 
 or the significance of the address inscribed to their 
 dead lord by the brave men who had so long waited 
 and watched for the chance to avenge him. This 
 address, of which I quote Mitford's translation, was 
 laid upon the tomb of the Lord Asano. It is still 
 preserved at the temple called Sengakuji : — 
 
324 THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 
 
 " The fifteenth year of Genroku \_I7oj\ , the twelfth month, 
 the fifteenth day. — We have come this day to do homage 
 here : forty-seven men in all, from Oishi Kuranosuke 
 down to the foot-soldier Terasaka Kichiyemon, — all 
 cheerfully about to lay down our lives on your behalf. 
 We reverently announce this to the honoured spirit of 
 our dead master. On the fourteenth day of the third 
 month of last year, our honoured master was pleased to 
 attack Kira Kotsuke-no-Suke, for what reason we know 
 not. Our honoured master put an end to his own life; 
 but Kira Kotsuke-no-Suke lived. Although we fear that 
 after the decree issued by the Government, this plot of 
 ours will be displeasing to our honoured master, still we, 
 who have eaten of your food, could not without blushing 
 repeat the verse, " Thou shalt not live under the same heaven, 
 nor tread the same earth with the enemy of thy father or lord" 
 nor could we have dared to leave hell [Hades] and present 
 ourselves before you in Paradise, unless we had carried out 
 the vengeance which you began. Every day that we waited 
 seemed as three autumns to us. Verily we have trodden 
 the snow for one day, nay, for two days, and have tasted food 
 but once. The old and decrepit, the sick and the ailing, 
 have come forth gladly to lay down their lives. Men 
 might laugh at us, as at grasshoppers trusting in the 
 strength of their arms, and thus shame our honoured lord ; 
 but we could not halt in our deed of vengeance. Having 
 taken counsel together last night, we have escorted my 
 Lord Kosuke-no-Suke hither to your tomb. This dirk^ 
 by which our honoured lord set great store last year, and 
 entrusted to our care, we now bring back. If your noble 
 spirit be now present before this tomb, we pray you, as a 
 
THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 325 
 
 sign, to take the dirk, and, striking the head of your enemy 
 with it a second time, to dispel your hatred forever. This 
 is the respectful statement of forty-seven men." 
 
 It will be observed that the Lord Asano is ad- 
 dressed as if he were present and visible. The 
 head of the enemy -has been carefully washed, ac- 
 cording to the rule concerning the presentation of 
 heads to a living superior. It is laid upon the tomb 
 together with the nine-inch sword, or dagger, origi- 
 nally used by the Lord Asano in performing harakiri 
 at Government command, and afterwards used by 
 Oishi Kuranosuke in cutting off the head of Kira 
 Kotsuke-no-Suke ; — and the spirit of the Lord 
 Asano is requested to take up the weapon and to 
 strike the head, so that the pain of ghostly anger may 
 be dissipated forever. Then, having been them- 
 selves all sentenced to perform harakiri, the forty- 
 seven retainers join their lord in death, and are buried 
 in front of his tomb. Before their graves the smoke 
 of incense, offered by admiring visitors, has been 
 ascending daily for two hundred years. 1 
 
 One must have lived in Japan, and have been 
 able to feel the true spirit of the old Japanese life, 
 in order to comprehend the whole of this romance of 
 loyalty ; but I think that whoever carefully reads Mr. 
 Mitford's version of it, and his translation of the 
 
 1 It has been long the custom also for visitors to leave their cards upon the 
 tombs of the Forty-seven Ronin. When I last visited Sengakuji, the ground 
 about the tombs was white with visiting-cards. 
 
326 THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 
 
 authentic documents relating to it, will confess himself 
 moved. That address especially touches, — because 
 of the affection and the faith to which it testifies, 
 and the sense of duty beyond this life. How- 
 ever much revenge must be condemned by our 
 modern ethics, there is a noble side to many of 
 the old Japanese stories of loyal vengeance; and 
 these stories affect us by the expression of what 
 has nothing to do with vulgar revenge, — by their 
 exposition of gratitude, self-denial, courage in facing 
 death, and faith in the unseen. And this means, 
 of course, that we are, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, impressed by their religious quality. Mere 
 individual revenge — the postponed retaliation for 
 some personal injury — repels our moral feeling : 
 we have learned to regard the emotion inspiring 
 such revenge as simply brutal — something shared 
 by man with lower forms of animal life. But in the 
 story of a homicide exacted by the sentiment of 
 duty or gratitude to a dead master, there may be cir- 
 cumstances which can make appeal to our higher 
 moral sympathies, — to our sense of the force and 
 beauty of unselfishness, unswerving fidelity, un- 
 changing affection. And the story of the Forty- 
 Seven Ronin is one of this class. . . . 
 
 Yet it must be borne in mind that the old Jap- 
 anese religion of loyalty, which found its supreme 
 manifestation in those three terrible customs of 
 
THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 327 
 
 junshi, harakiri, and kataki-uchi, was narrow in its 
 range. It was limited by the very constitution of 
 society. Though the nation was ruled, through ah 
 its groups, by notions of duty everywhere similar 
 in character, the circle of that duty, for each indi- 
 vidual, did not extend beyond the clan-group to 
 which he belonged. For his own lord the retainer 
 was always ready to die; but he did not feel 
 equally bound to sacrifice himself for the military 
 government, unless he happened to belong to the 
 special military following of the Shogun. His 
 fatherland, his country, his world, extended only 
 to the boundary of his chief's domain. Outside of 
 that domain he could be only a wanderer, — a ronin, 
 or " wave-man," as the masterless samurai was 
 termed. Under such conditions that larger loyalty 
 which identifies itself with love of king and country, 
 — which is patriotism in the modern, not in the 
 narrower antique sense, — could not fully evolve. 
 Some common peril, some danger to the whole 
 race — such as the attempted Tartar conquest of 
 Japan — might temporarily arouse the true senti- 
 ment of patriotism; but otherwise that sentiment 
 had little opportunity for development. The Ise 
 cult represented, indeed, the religion of the nation, 
 as distinguished from the clan or tribal worship ; 
 but each man had been taught to believe that his 
 first duty was to his lord. One cannot efficiently 
 serve two masters ; and feudal government practi- 
 
328 THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 
 
 cally suppressed any tendencies in that direction. 
 The lordship so completely owned the individual, 
 body and soul, that the idea of any duty to the 
 nation, outside of the duty to the chief, had neither 
 time nor chance to define itself in the mind of the 
 vassal. To the ordinary samurai, for example, an 
 imperial order would not have been law : he recog- 
 nized no law above the law of his daimyo. As for 
 the daimyo, he might either disobey or obey an 
 imperial command according to circumstances : his 
 direct superior was the shogun ; and he was obliged 
 to make for himself a politic distinction between the 
 Heavenly Sovereign as deity, and the Heavenly 
 Sovereign as a human personality. Before the ulti- 
 mate centralization of the military power, there were 
 many instances of lords sacrificing themselves for 
 their emperor ; but there were even more cases of 
 open rebellion by lords against the imperial will. 
 Under the Tokugawa rule, the question of obeying 
 or resisting an imperial command would have de- 
 pended upon the attitude of the shogun ; and no 
 daimyo would have risked such obedience to the 
 court at Kyoto as might have signified disobedience 
 to the court at Yedo. Not at least until the sh5- 
 gunate had fallen into decay. In Iyemitsu's time 
 the daimyo were strictly forbidden to approach the 
 imperial palace on their way to Yedo, — even in 
 response to an imperial command ; and they were 
 also forbidden to make any direct appeal to the 
 
THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 329 
 
 Mikado. The policy of the shogunate was to pre- 
 vent all direct communication between the Kyoto 
 court and the daimyo. This policy paralyzed in- 
 trigue for two hundred years ; but it prevented the 
 development of patriotism. 
 
 And for that very reason, when Japan at last 
 found herself face to face with the unexpected peril 
 of Western aggression, the abolition of the daimiates 
 was felt to be a matter of paramount importance. 
 The supreme danger required that the social units 
 should be fused into one coherent mass, capable of 
 uniform action, — that the clan and tribal groupings 
 should be permanently dissolved, — that all author- 
 ity should immediately be centred in the repre- 
 sentative of the national religion, — that the duty of 
 obedience to the Heavenly Sovereign should replace, 
 at once and forever, the feudal duty of obedience to 
 the territorial lord. The religion of loyalty, evolved 
 by a thousand years of war, could not be cast away : 
 properly utilized, it would prove a national heritage 
 of incalculable worth, — a moral power capable of 
 miracles if directed by one wise will to a single wise 
 end. Destroyed by reconstruction it could not be ; 
 but it could be diverted and transformed. Diverted } 
 therefore, to nobler ends — expanded to larger needs, 
 — it became the new national sentiment of trust 
 and duty : the modern sense of patriotism. What 
 wonders it has wrought, within the space of thirty 
 years, the world is now obliged to confess : what 
 
330 THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY 
 
 more it may be able to accomplish remains to be 
 seen. One thing at least is certain, — that the 
 future of Japan must depend upon the maintenance 
 of this new religion of loyalty, evolved, through the 
 old, from the ancient religion of the dead. 
 
The Jesuit Peril 
 
The Jesuit Peril 
 
 THE second half of the sixteenth century is 
 the most interesting period in Japanese his- 
 tory — for three reasons. First, because it 
 witnessed the apparition of those mighty captains, 
 Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Iyeyasu, — types of men 
 that a race seems to evolve for supreme emergencies 
 only, — types requiring for their production not 
 merely the highest aptitudes of numberless genera- 
 tions, but likewise an extraordinary combination of 
 circumstances. Secondly, this period is all-impor- 
 tant because it saw the first complete integration of 
 the ancient social system, — the definitive union 
 of all the clan-lordships under a central military 
 government. And lastly, the period is of special 
 interest because the incident of the first attempt to 
 christianize Japan — the story of the rise and fall 
 of the Jesuit power — properly belongs to it. 
 
 The sociological significance of this episode is 
 instructive. Excepting, perhaps, the division of the 
 imperial house against itself in the twelfth century, 
 the greatest danger that ever threatened Japanese 
 national integrity was the introduction of Christianity 
 
 333 
 
334 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 by the Portuguese Jesuits. The nation saved itself 
 only by ruthless measures, at the cost of incalculable 
 suffering and of myriads of lives. 
 
 It was during the period of great disorder pre- 
 ceding Nobunaga's effort to centralize authority, 
 that this unfamiliar disturbing factor was introduced 
 by Xavier and his followers. Xavier landed at 
 Kagoshima in 1549; and by 1581 the Jesuits had 
 upwards of two hundred churches in the country. 
 This fact alone sufficiently indicates the rapidity 
 with which the new religion spread ; and it seemed 
 destined to extend over the entire empire. In 1585 
 a Japanese religious embassy was received at Rome ; 
 and by that date no less than eleven daimyo, — or 
 " kings," as the Jesuits not inaptly termed them — 
 had become converted. Among these were several 
 very powerful lords. The new creed had made 
 rapid way among the common people also : it was 
 becoming " popular," in the strict meaning of the 
 word. 
 
 When Nobunaga rose to power, he favoured the 
 Jesuits in many ways — not because of any sym- 
 pathy with their creed, for he never dreamed of 
 becoming a Christian, but because he thought that 
 their influence would be of service to him in his 
 campaign against Buddhism. Like the Jesuits 
 themselves, Nobunaga had no scruple about means 
 in his pursuit of ends. More ruthless than William 
 the Conqueror, he did not hesitate to put to death 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 335 
 
 his own brother and his own father-in-law, when 
 they dared to oppose his will. The aid and pro- 
 tection which he extended to the foreign priests, 
 for merely political reasons, enabled them to develop 
 their power to a degree which soon gave him cause 
 for repentance. Mr. Gubbins, in his " Review of 
 the Introduction of Christianity into China and 
 Japan," quotes from a Japanese work, called Ibuki 
 Mogusa, an interesting extract on the subject : — 
 
 " Nobunaga now began to regret his previous policy 
 in permitting the introduction of Christianity. He ac- 
 cordingly assembled his retainers, and said to them: — ' The 
 conduct of these missionaries in persuading people to join 
 them by giving money, does not please me. How would 
 it be, think you, if we were to demolish Nambanji [The 
 " Temple of the Southern Savages" — so the Portuguese church 
 was called] ? ' To this Mayeda Tokuzenin replied : — 
 ' It is now too late to demolish the Temple of the Nam- 
 ban. To endeavour to arrest the power of this religion 
 now is like trying to arrest the current of the ocean. 
 Nobles, both great and small, have become adherents of it. 
 If you would exterminate this religion now, there is fear 
 that disturbance should be created among your own re- 
 tainers. I am therefore of opinion that you should aban- 
 don your intention of destroying Nambanji.' Nobunaga 
 in consequence regretted exceedingly his previous action 
 in regard to the Christian religion, and set about thinking 
 how he could root it out." 
 
 The assassination of Nobunaga in 1586 may 
 have prolonged the period of toleration. His sue- 
 
336 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 cessor Hideyoshi, who judged the influence of the 
 foreign priests dangerous, was for the moment oc- 
 cupied with the great problem of centralizing the 
 military power, so as to give peace to the country. 
 But the furious intolerance of the Jesuits in the 
 southern provinces had already made them many 
 enemies, eager to avenge the cruelties of the new 
 creed. We read in the histories of the missions 
 about converted daimyo burning thousands of 
 Buddhist temples, destroying countless works of 
 art, and slaughtering Buddhist priests; — and we 
 find the Jesuit writers praising these crusades as 
 evidence of holy zeal. At first the foreign faith had 
 been only persuasive ; afterwards, gathering power 
 under Nobunaga's encouragement, it became coer- 
 cive and ferocious. A reaction against it set in 
 about a year after Nobunaga's death. In 1587 
 Hideyoshi destroyed the mission churches in Kyoto, 
 Osaka, and Sakai, and drove the Jesuits from the 
 capital ; and in the following year he ordered them 
 to assemble at the port of Hirado, and prepare to 
 leave the country. They felt themselves strong 
 enough to disobey : instead of leaving Japan, they 
 scattered through the country, placing themselves 
 under the protection of various Christian daimyo. 
 Hideyoshi probably thought it impolitic to push 
 matters further : the priests kept quiet, and ceased 
 to preach publicly ; and their self-effacement served 
 them well until 1591. In that year the advent of 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 337 
 
 certain Spanish Franciscans changed the state of 
 affairs. These Franciscans arrived in the train of 
 an embassy from the Philippines, and obtained leave 
 to stay in the country on condition that they were 
 not to preach Christianity. They broke their pledge, 
 abandoned all prudence, and aroused the wrath of 
 Hideyoshi. He resolved to make an example ; and 
 in 1597 he had six Franciscans, three Jesuits, and 
 several other Christians taken to Nagasaki and there 
 crucified. The attitude of the great Taiko toward the 
 foreign creed had the effect of quickening the re- 
 action against it, — a reaction which had already 
 begun to show itself in various provinces. But 
 Hideyoshi's death in 1598 enabled the Jesuits to 
 hope for better fortune. His successor, the cold 
 and cautious Iyeyasu, allowed them to hope, and 
 even to reestablish themselves in Kyoto, Osaka, and 
 elsewhere. He was preparing for the great contest 
 which was to be decided by the battle of Sekiga- 
 hara; — he knew that the Christian element was 
 divided, — some of its leaders being on his own 
 side, and some on the side of his enemies ; — and 
 the time would have been ill chosen for any repres- 
 sive policy. But in 1606, after having solidly es- 
 tablished his power, Iyeyasu for the first time showed 
 himself decidedly opposed to Christianity by issuing 
 an edict forbidding further mission work, and pro- 
 claiming that those who had adopted the foreign 
 religion must abandon it. Nevertheless the prop- 
 
338 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 aganda went on — conducted no longer by Jesuits 
 only, but also by Dominicans and Franciscans. 
 The number of Christians then in the empire is 
 said, with gross exaggeration, to have been nearly 
 two millions. But Iyeyasu neither took, nor caused 
 to be taken, any severe measures of repression until 
 1 6 14, — from which date the great persecution may 
 be said to have begun. Previously there had been 
 local persecutions only, conducted by independent 
 daimy5, — not by the central government. The 
 local persecutions in Kyushu, for example, would 
 seem to have been natural consequences of the in- 
 tolerance of the Jesuits in the days of their power, 
 when converted daimyo burned Buddhist temples 
 and massacred Buddhist priests ; and these persecu- 
 tions were most pitiless in those very districts — 
 such as Bungo, Omura, and Higo — where the 
 native religion had been most fiercely persecuted at 
 Jesuit instigation. But from 16 14 — at which date 
 there remained only eight, out of the total sixty-four 
 provinces of Japan, into which Christianity had not 
 been introduced — the suppression of the foreign 
 creed became a government matter ; and the perse- 
 cution was conducted systematically and uninter- 
 ruptedly until every outward trace of Christianity 
 had disappeared. 
 
 The fate of the missions, therefore, was really 
 •settled, by Iyeyasu and his immediate successors ^ 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 339 
 
 and it is the part taken by Iyeyasu that especially 
 demands attention. Of the three great captains, all 
 had, sooner or later, become suspicious of the for- 
 eign propaganda ; but only Iyeyasu could find both 
 the time and the ability to deal with the social prob- 
 lem which it had aroused. Even Hideyoshi had 
 been afraid to complicate existing political troubles 
 by any rigorous measures of an extensive character. 
 Iyeyasu long hesitated. The reasons for his hesita- 
 tion were doubtless complex, and chiefly diplomatic. 
 He was the last of men to act hastily, or suffer 
 himself to be influenced by prejudice of any sort ; 
 and to suppose him timid would be contrary to all 
 that we know of his character. He must have 
 recognized, of course, that to extirpate a religion 
 which could claim, even in exaggeration, more than 
 a million of adherents, was no light undertaking, and 
 would involve an immense amount of suffering. To 
 cause needless misery was not in his nature : he had 
 always proved himself humane, and a friend of the 
 common people. But he was first of all a states- 
 man and patriot ; and the main question for him 
 must have been the probable relation of the foreign 
 creed to political and social conditions in Japan. 
 This question required long and patient investiga- 
 tion ; and he appears to have given it all possible 
 attention. At last he decided that Roman Chris- 
 tianity constituted a grave political danger and that 
 its extirpation would be an unavoidable necessity. 
 
340 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 The fact that the severe measures which he and his 
 successors enforced against Christianity — measures 
 steadily maintained for upwards of two hundred 
 years — failed to completely eradicate the creed, 
 proves how deeply the roots had struck. Superfi- 
 cially, all trace of Christianity vanished to Japanese 
 eyes; but in 1865 there were discovered near 
 Nagasaki some communities which had secretly 
 preserved among themselves traditions of the Ro- 
 man forms of worship, and still made use of Portu- 
 guese and Latin words relating to religious matters. 
 
 To rightly estimate the decision of Iyeyasu — 
 one of the shrewdest, and also one of the most 
 humane statesmen that ever lived, — it is necessary 
 to consider, from a Japanese point of view, the 
 nature of the evidence upon which he was impelled 
 to act. Of Jesuit intrigues in Japan he must have 
 had ample knowledge — several of them having 
 been directed against himself; — but he would have 
 been more likely to consider the ultimate object and 
 probable result of such intrigues, than the mere fact 
 of their occurrence. Religious intrigues were com- 
 mon among the Buddhists, and would scarcely at- 
 tract the notice of the military government except 
 when they interfered with state policy or public 
 order. But religious intrigues having for their object 
 the overthrow of government, and a sectarian domi- 
 nation of the country, would be gravely considered. 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 341 
 
 Nobunaga had taught Buddhism a severe lesson about 
 the danger of such intriguing. Iyeyasu decided that 
 the Jesuit intrigues had a political object of the most 
 ambitious kind ; but he was more patient than Nobu- 
 naga. By 1603 he had every district of Japan under 
 his yoke ; but he did not issue his final edict until 
 eleven years later. It plainly declared that the foreign 
 priests were plotting to get control of the government, 
 and to obtain possession of the country : — 
 
 " The Kirishitan band have come to Japan, not only 
 sending their merchant-vessels to exchange commodities, 
 but also longing to disseminate an evil law, to overthrow 
 right doctrine, so that they may change the government of 
 the country, and obtain possession of the land. This is 
 the germ of great disaster, and must be crushed. . . . 
 
 " Japan is the country of the gods and of the Buddha : 
 it honours the gods, and reveres the Buddha. . . . The 
 faction of the Bateren 1 disbelieve in the Way of the Gods, 
 and blaspheme the true Law, — violate right-doing, and 
 injure the good. . . . They truly are the enemies of the 
 gods and of the Buddha. ... If this be not speedily pro- 
 hibited, the safety of the state will assuredly hereafter be 
 imperilled ; and if those who are charged with ordering its 
 affairs do not put a stop to the evil, they will expose them- 
 selves to Heaven's rebuke. 
 
 " These [missionaries] must be instantly swept out, so 
 that not an inch of soil remains to them in Japan on which 
 
 1 Bateren, a corruption of the Portuguese padre, is still the term used for Roman 
 Catholic priests, of any denomination. 
 
342 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 to plant their feet ; and if they refuse to obey this com- 
 mand, they shall suffer the penalty. . . . Let Heaven and 
 the Four Seas hear this. Obey ! " 1 
 
 It will be observed that there are two distinct 
 charges made against the Bateren in this document, 
 — that of political conspiracy under the guise of 
 religion, with a view to getting possession of the 
 government ; and that of intolerance, towards both 
 the Shinto and the Buddhist forms of native wor- 
 ship. The intolerance is sufficiently proved by the 
 writings of the Jesuits themselves. The charge of 
 conspiracy was less easy to prove ; but who could 
 reasonably have doubted that, were opportunity 
 offered, the Roman Catholic orders would attempt 
 to control the general government precisely as they 
 had been able to control local government already 
 in the lordships of converted daimyo. Besides, we 
 may be sure that by the time at which the edict was 
 issued, Iyeyasu must have heard of many matters 
 likely to give him a most evil opinion of Roman 
 Catholicism : — the story of the Spanish conquests 
 in America, and the extermination of the West 
 Indian races ; the story of the persecutions in the 
 Netherlands, and of the work of the Inquisition 
 elsewhere; the story of the attempt of Philip II to 
 conquer England, and of the loss of the two great 
 
 1 The entire proclamation, which is of considerable length, has been translated 
 by Satow, and may be found in Vol. VI, part I, of the Transactions of the Asiatic 
 Society of Japan. 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 343 
 
 Armadas. The edict was issued in 16 14, and Iye- 
 yasu had found opportunity to inform himself about 
 some of these matters as early as 1600. In that 
 year the English pilot Will Adams had arrived at 
 Japan in charge of a Dutch ship. Adams had 
 started on this eventful voyage in the year 1598, — 
 that is to say, just ten years after the defeat of the 
 first Spanish Armada, and one year after the ruin of 
 the second. He had seen the spacious times of 
 great Elizabeth — who was yet alive ; — he had very 
 probably seen Howard and Seymour and Drake 
 and Hawkins and Frobisher and Sir Richard Gren- 
 ville, the hero of 1591. For this Will Adams was 
 a Kentish man, who had " serued for Master and 
 Pilott in her Majesties ships. . . ." The Dutch 
 vessel was seized immediately upon her arrival at 
 Kyushu ; and Adams and his shipmates were taken 
 into custody by the daimyo of Bungo, who reported 
 the fact to Iyeyasu. The advent of these Protes- 
 tant sailors was considered an important event by 
 the Portuguese Jesuits, who had their own reasons 
 for dreading the results of an interview between such 
 heretics and the ruler of Japan. But Iyeyasu also 
 happened to think the event an important one ; and 
 he ordered that Adams should be sent to him at 
 Osaka. The malevolent anxiety of the Jesuits 
 about the matter had not escaped Iyeyasu's pene- 
 trating observation. They endeavoured again and 
 again to have the sailors killed, according to the 
 
344 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 written statement of Adams himself, who was cer- 
 tainly no liar ; and they had been able in Bungo to 
 frighten two scoundrels of the ship's company into 
 giving false testimony. 1 "The Iesuites and the 
 Portingalls," wrote Adams, "gaue many euidences 
 against me and the rest to the Emperour [Iyeyasu], 
 that we were theeues and robbers of all nations, — 
 and [that] were we suffered to liue, it should be 
 against the profit of his Highnes, and the land." 
 But Iyeyasu was perhaps all the more favourably 
 inclined towards Adams by the eagerness of the 
 Jesuits to have him killed — "crossed [crucified],'' 
 as Adams called it, — " the custome of iustice in 
 Japan, as hanging is in our land." He gave them 
 answer, says Adams, " that we had as yet not doen 
 to him nor to none of his lande any harme or dam- 
 mage : therefore against Reason and Iustice to put 
 vs to death." . . . And there came to pass pre- 
 cisely what the Jesuits had most feared, — what 
 they had vainly endeavoured by intimidation, by 
 slander, by all possible intrigue to prevent, — an 
 interview between Iyeyasu and the heretic Adams. 
 
 1 " Daily more and more the Portugal^ incensed the justices and the people 
 against vs. And two of our men, as traytors, gaue themselves in seruice to the king 
 \_daimyo\ , beeing all in all with the Portugals, hauing by them their Hues warranted. 
 The one was called Gilbert de Conning, whose mother dwelleth at Middleborough, 
 who gaue himself out to be marchant of all the goods in the shippe. The other 
 was called Iobn Abehon Van Oivatcr. These traitours sought all manner of wayes 
 to get the goods into their hands, and made known vnto them all things that had 
 passed in our voyage. Nine dayes after our arriuall, the great king of the land 
 \_Iyiyasu~\ sent for me to come vnto him." — Letter of Will Adams to his wife. 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 345 
 
 " Soe that as soon as I came before him," wrote 
 Adams, " he demanded of me of what countrey we 
 were : so I answered him in all points ; for there 
 was nothing that he demanded not, both concerning 
 warre and peace between countrey and countrey : so 
 that the particulars here to wryte would be too 
 tedious. And for that time I was commanded to 
 prison, being well vsed, with one of our mariners 
 that cam with me to serue me." From another 
 letter of Adams it would seem that this interview 
 lasted far into the night, and that Iyeyasu's ques- 
 tions referred especially to politics and religion. 
 " He asked," says Adams, " whether our countrey 
 had warres ? 1 answered him yea, with the Span- 
 iards and Portugals — beeing in peace with all other 
 nations. Further he asked me in what I did be- 
 leeue ? I said, in God, that made heauen and 
 earth. He asked me diverse other questions of 
 things of religion, and many other things : As, what 
 way we- came to the country? Having a chart of 
 the whole world, I shewed him through the Straight 
 of Magellan. At which he wondred, and thought 
 me to lie. Thus, from one thing to another, I 
 abode with him till midnight." . . . The two men 
 liked each other at sight, it appears. Of Iyeyasu, 
 Adams significantly observes : " He viewed me 
 well, and seemed to be wonderful favourable." Two 
 days later Iyeyasu again sent for Adams, and cross- 
 questioned him just about those matters which the 
 
346 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 Jesuits wanted to remain in the dark. " He de- 
 maunded also as conserning the warres between the 
 Spaniard or Portingall and our countrey, and the 
 reasons : the which I gaue him to vnderstand of all 
 things, which he was glad to heare, as it seemed to 
 me. In the end I was commaunded to prisson agein, 
 but my lodging was bettered." . . . Adams did 
 not see Iyeyasu again for nearly six weeks : then he 
 was sent for, and cross-questioned a third time. 
 The result was liberty and favour. Thereafter, at 
 intervals, Iyeyasu used to send for him ; and pres- 
 ently we hear of him teaching the great statesman 
 " some points of jeometry, and understanding of 
 the art of mathematickes, with other things." . . . 
 Iyeyasu gave him many presents, as well as a good 
 living, and commissioned him to build some ships 
 for deep-sea sailing. Eventually, the poor pilot was 
 created a samurai, and given an estate. " Being 
 employed in the Emperour's seruice," he wrote, 
 " he hath given me a liuing, like vnto a lordship in 
 England, with eightie or ninetie husbandmen that 
 be as my slaues or seruents : the which, or the like 
 president \_prec edeni\ , was neuer here before geven 
 to any stranger." . . . Witness to the influence of 
 Adams with Iyeyasu is furnished by the correspond- 
 ence of Captain Cock, of the English factory, who 
 thus wrote home about him in 1614: "The truth 
 is the Emperour esteemeth hym much, and he may 
 goe in and speake with hym at all times, when 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 347 
 
 kynges and princes are kept ovt." 1 It was through 
 this influence that the English were allowed to es- 
 tablish their factory at Hirado. There is no 
 stranger seventeenth- century romance than that 
 of this plain English pilot, — with only his simple 
 honesty and common-sense to help him, — rising 
 to such extraordinary favour with the greatest and 
 shrewdest of all Japanese rulers. Adams was never 
 allowed, however, to return to England, — perhaps 
 because his services were deemed too precious to 
 lose. He says himself in his letters that Iyeyasu 
 never refused him anything that he asked for, 2 ex- 
 cept the privilege of revisiting England : when he 
 asked that, once too often, the " ould Emperour " 
 remained silent. 
 
 The correspondence of Adams proves that Iye- 
 yasu disdained no means of obtaining direct informa- 
 tion about foreign affairs in regard to religion and 
 politics. As for affairs in Japan, he had at his dis- 
 posal the most perfect system of espionage ever 
 
 1 "It has plessed God to bring things to pass, so as in ye eyes of ye world 
 [must seem] strange ; for the Spaynnard and Portingall hath bin my bitter enemies 
 to death ; and now theay must seek to me, an unworthy wretch ; for the Spayn- 
 ard as well as the Portingall must haue all their negosshes [negotiations] go thorough 
 my hand/* — Letter of Adams dated January 12, 1613. 
 
 2 Even favours for the people who had sought to bring about his death. "I 
 pleased him so," wrote Adams, "that what I said he would not contrarie. At 
 which my former enemies did wonder $ and at this time must entreat me to do them 
 a friendship, which to both Spaniards and Portingals have I doen : recompencing 
 them good for euill. So, to passe my time to get my liuing, it hath cost mee great 
 labour and trouble at the first, but God hath blessed my labour.*' 
 
348 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 established ; and he knew all that was going on. 
 Yet he waited, as we have seen, fourteen years 
 before he issued his edict. Hideyoshi's edict was, 
 indeed, renewed by him in 1 606 ; but that referred 
 particularly to the public preaching of Christianity ; 
 and while the missionaries outwardly conformed to 
 the law, he continued to suffer them within his own 
 dominions. Persecutions were being carried on else- 
 where ; but the secret propaganda was also being 
 carried on, and the missionaries could still hope. 
 Yet there was menace in the air, like the heaviness 
 preceding storms. Captain Saris, writing from Japan 
 in 1613, records a pathetic incident which is very 
 suggestive. " I gaue leaue," he says, " to divers 
 women of the better sort to come into my Cabbin, 
 where the picture of Venus, with her sonne Cupid, 
 did hang somewhat wantonly set out in a large 
 frame. They, thinking it to bee Our Ladie and 
 her sonne, fell downe and worshipped it, with shewes 
 of great deuotion, telling me in a whispering man- 
 ner (that some of their own companions, which were 
 not so, might not heare), that they were Christianos : 
 whereby we perceived them to be Christians, con- 
 uerted by the Portugall Iesuits." . . . When Iye- 
 yasu first took strong measures, they were directed, 
 not against the Jesuits, but against a more imprudent 
 order, — as we know from Adams's correspondence. 
 "In. the yeer 161 2," he says, "is put downe all 
 the sects of the Franciscannes , The Jesouets hau 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 349 
 
 what priuiledge . . . theare beinge in Nangasaki, in 
 which place only may be so manny as will of all 
 sectes : in other places not so many permitted. . . ." 
 Roman, Catholicism was given two more years' grace 
 after the Franciscan episode. 
 
 Why Iyeyasu should have termed it a " false and 
 corrupt religion," both in his Legacy and elsewhere, 
 remains to be considered. From the Far-Eastern 
 point of view he could scarcely have judged it other- 
 wise, after an impartial investigation. It was essen- 
 tially opposed to all the beliefs and traditions upon 
 which Japanese society had been founded. The 
 Japanese State was an aggregate of religious com- 
 munities, with a God-King at its head ; — the cus- 
 toms of all these communities had the force of 
 religious laws, and ethics were identified with obedi- 
 ence to custom ; filial piety was the basis of social 
 order, and loyalty itself was derived from filial piety. 
 But this Western creed, which taught that a husband 
 should leave his parents and cleave to his wife, held 
 filial piety to be at best an inferior virtue. It pro- 
 claimed that duty to parents, lords, and rulers 
 remained duty only when obedience involved no 
 action opposed to Roman teaching, and that the 
 supreme duty of obedience was not to the Heavenly 
 Sovereign at Kyoto, but to the Pope at Rome. 
 Had not the Gods and the Buddhas been called 
 devils by these missionaries from Portugal and 
 Spain ? Assuredly such doctrines were subversive, 
 
350 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 no matter how astutely they might be interpreted 
 by their apologists. Besides, the worth of a creed 
 as a social force might be judged from its fruits. 
 This creed in Europe had been a ceaseless cause 
 of disorders, wars, persecutions, atrocious cruelties. 
 This creed, in Japan, had fomented great disturb- 
 ances, had instigated political intrigues, had wrought 
 almost immeasurable mischief. In the event of 
 future political trouble, it would justify the diso- 
 bedience of children to parents, of wives to hus- 
 bands, of subjects to lords, of lords to shogun. 
 The paramount duty of government was now to 
 compel social order, and to maintain those condi- 
 tions of peace and security without which the nation 
 could never recover from the exhaustion of a thou- 
 sand years of strife. But so long as this foreign 
 religion was suffered to attack and to sap the foun- 
 dations of order, there never could be peace. . . . 
 Convictions like these must have been well estab- 
 lished in the mind of Iyeyasu when he issued his 
 famous edict. The only wonder is that he should 
 have waited so long. 
 
 Very possibly Iyeyasu, who never did anything 
 by halves, was waiting until Christianity should find 
 itself without one Japanese leader of ability. In 
 1611 he had information of a Christian conspiracy 
 in the island of Sado (a convict mining-district) whose 
 governor, Okubo, had been induced to adopt Chris- 
 tianity, and was to be made ruler of the country if 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 351 
 
 the plot proved successful. But still Iyeyasu waited. 
 By 1 6 14 Christianity had scarcely even an Okubo 
 to lead the forlorn hope. The daimyo converted in 
 the sixteenth century were dead or dispossessed or 
 in banishment; the great Christian generals had 
 been executed ; the few remaining converts of im- 
 portance had been placed under surveillance, and 
 were practically helpless. 
 
 The foreign priests and native catechists were not 
 cruelly treated immediately after the proclamation 
 of 16 14. Some three hundred of them were put 
 into ships and sent out of the country, — together 
 with various Japanese suspected of religious political 
 intrigues, such as Takayama, former daimyo of 
 Akashi, who was called " Justo Ucondono " by the 
 Jesuit writers, and who had been dispossessed and 
 degraded by Hideyoshi for the same reasons. Iye- 
 yasu set no example of unnecessary severity. But 
 harsher measures followed upon an event which 
 took place in 1615, — the very year after the issu- 
 ing of the edict. Hideyori, the son of Hideyoshi, 
 had been supplanted — fortunately for Japan — by 
 Iyeyasu, to whose tutelage the young man had 
 been confided. Iyeyasu took all care of him, but 
 had no intention of suffering him to direct the gov- 
 ernment of the country, — a task scarcely within the 
 capacity of a lad of twenty-three. In spite of vari- 
 ous political intrigues in which Hideyori was known 
 to have taken part, Iyeyasu had left him in posses- 
 
352 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 sion of large revenues, and of the strongest fortress in 
 Japan, — that mighty castle of Osaka, which Hide- 
 yoshi's genius had rendered almost impregnable. 
 Hideyori, unlike his father, favoured the Jesuits : 
 and he made the castle a refuge for adherents of the 
 "false and corrupt sect." Informed by government 
 spies of a dangerous intrigue there preparing, Iye- 
 yasu resolved to strike ; and he struck hard. In 
 spite of a desperate defence, the great fortress was 
 stormed and burnt — Hideyori perishing in the con- 
 flagration. One hundred thousand lives are said to 
 have been lost in this siege. Adams wrote thus 
 quaintly of Hideyori's fate, and the results of his 
 conspiracy : — 
 
 " Hee mad warres with the Emperour . . . allso 
 by the Jessvits and Ffriers, which mad belleeue he 
 should be fauord with mirrackles and wounders ; 
 but in fyne it proued the contrari. For the ould 
 Emperour against him pressentlly maketh his forces 
 reddy by sea and land, and compasseth his castell 
 that he was in ; although with loss of multitudes on 
 both sides, yet in the end rasseth the castell walles, 
 setteth it on fyre, and burneth hym in it. Thus 
 ended the warres. Now the Emperour heering of 
 thees Jessvets and friers being in the castell with his 
 ennemis, and still from tym to tym agaynst hym, 
 coumandeth all romische sorte of men to depart ovt 
 of his countri — thear churches pulld dooun, and 
 burned. This folowed in the ould Emperour's 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 353 
 
 daies. Now this yeear, 1616, the old Emperour he 
 died. His son raigneth in his place, and hee is 
 more hot agaynste the romish relligion then his 
 ffather wass : for he hath forbidden thorough all 
 his domynions, on paine of deth, none of his subjects 
 to be romish christiane ; which romish seckt to pre- 
 vent eueri wayes that he maye, he hath forbidden that 
 no stranger merchant shall abid in any of the great 
 citties." . . . 
 
 The son here referred to was Hidetada, who, in 
 16 17, issued an ordinance sentencing to death every 
 Roman priest or friar discovered in Japan, — an 
 ordinance provoked by, the fact that many priests 
 expelled from the country had secretly returned, 
 and that others had remained to carry on their 
 propaganda under various disguises. Meanwhile, 
 in every city, town, village, and hamlet throughout 
 the empire, measures had been taken for the 
 extirpation of Roman Christianity. Every com- 
 munity was made responsible for the existence in 
 it of any person belonging to the foreign creed ; 
 and special magistrates, or inquisitors, were ap- 
 pointed, called Kirishitan-bugyo, to seek out and pun- 
 ish members of the prohibited religion. 1 Christians 
 
 1 It should be borne in mind that none of these edicts were directed against Prot- 
 estant Christianity : the Dutch were not considered Christians in the sense of the 
 Ordinances, nor were the English. The following extract from a typical village, 
 Kumicbo, or code of communal regulations, shows the responsibility imposed upon 
 all communities regarding the presence in their midst of Roman Catholic converts 
 or believers : — 
 
 " Every year, between the first and the third month, we will renew our Sbumon- 
 2 A 
 
354 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 who freely recanted were not punished, but only 
 kept under surveillance : those tvho refused to 
 recant, even after torture, were degraded to the 
 condition of slaves, or else put to death. In some 
 parts of the country, extraordinary cruelty was prac- 
 tised, and every form of torture used to compel 
 recantation. But it is tolerably certain that the 
 more atrocious episodes of the persecution were 
 due to the individual ferocity of local governors 
 or magistrates — as in the case of Takenaka 
 Uneme-no-Kami, who was compelled by the gov- 
 ernment to perform harakiri for abusing his powers 
 at Nagasaki, and making persecution a means of 
 extorting money. Be that as it may, the persecu- 
 tion at last either provoked, or helped to bring 
 about a Christian rebellion in the daimiate of 
 Arima, — historically remembered as the Shima- 
 bara Revolt. In 1636 a host of peasants, driven 
 to desperation by the tyranny of their lords — 
 the daimyo of Arima and the daimyo of Karatsu 
 (convert-districts) — rose in arms, burnt all the 
 Japanese temples in their vicinity, and proclaimed 
 religious war. Their banner bore a cross ; their 
 leaders were converted samurai. They were soon 
 
 cbo. If we know of any person who belongs to a prohibited sect, we will immedi- 
 ately inform the Daikivan. . . . Servants and labourers shall give to their masters 
 a certificate declaring that they are not Christians. In regard to persons who have 
 been Christians, but have recanted, — if such persons come to or leave the village, 
 we promise to report it." — See Professor Wigmore's Notes m Land-Tenurt 
 and Local Institutions in Old Japan. 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 355 
 
 joined by Christian refugees from every part of the 
 country, until their numbers swelled to thirty or 
 forty thousand. On the coast of the Shimabara 
 peninsula they seized an abandoned castle, at a 
 place called Hara, and there fortified themselves. 
 The local authorities could not cope with the up- 
 rising; and the rebels more than held their own 
 until government forces, aggregating over 160,000 
 men, were despatched against them. After a brave 
 defence of one hundred and two days, the castle was 
 stormed in 1638, and its defenders, together with 
 their women and children, put to the sword. 
 Officially the occurrence was treated as a peasant 
 revolt; and the persons considered responsible for 
 it were severely punished ; — the lord of Shi- 
 mabara (Arima) was further sentenced to perform 
 harakiri. Japanese historians state that the rising 
 was first planned and led by Christians, who de- 
 signed to seize Nagasaki, subdue Kyushu, invite 
 foreign military help, and compel a change of 
 government; — the Jesuit writers would have us, 
 believe there was no plot. One thing certain is 
 that a revolutionary appeal was made to the Chris- 
 tian element, and was largely responded to with 
 alarming consequences. A strong castle on the 
 Kyushu coast, held by thirty or forty thousand 
 Christians, constituted a serious danger, — a point 
 of vantage from which a Spanish invasion of the 
 country might have been attempted with some 
 
356 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 chance of success. The government seems to 
 have recognized this danger, and to have despatched 
 in consequence an overwhelming force to Shimabara. 
 If foreign help could have been sent to the rebels, 
 the result might have been a prolonged civil war. 
 As for the wholesale slaughter, it represented no 
 more than the enforcement of Japanese law: the 
 punishment of the peasant revolting against his 
 lord, under any circumstances whatever, being 
 death. So far as concerns the policy of such 
 massacre, it may be remembered that, with less 
 provocation, Nobunaga exterminated the Tendai 
 Buddhists at Hiyei-san. We have every reason 
 to pity the brave men who perished at Shimabara, 
 and to sympathize with their revolt against the 
 atrocious cruelty of their rulers, But it is neces- 
 sary, as a simple matter of justice, to consider the 
 whole event from the Japanese political point of 
 view. 
 
 The Dutch have been denounced for helping to 
 crush the rebellion with ships and cannon : they 
 fired, by their own acknowledgment, 426 shot 
 into the castle. However, the extant correspond- 
 ence of the Dutch factory at Hirado proves be- 
 yond question that they were forced, under menace, 
 to thus act. In any event, it would be difficult to 
 discover a good reason for the merely religious de- 
 nunciations of their conduct, — although that con- 
 duct would be open to criticism from the humane 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 357 
 
 point of view. Dutchmen could not reasonably 
 have refused to assist the Japanese authorities in 
 suppressing a revolt, merely because a large pro- 
 portion of the rebels happened to profess the re- 
 ligion which had been burning alive as heretics the 
 men and women of the Netherlands. Very pos- 
 sibly, not a few persons of kin to those very Dutch 
 had suffered in the days of Alva. What would 
 have happened to all the English and Dutch in 
 Japan, if the Portuguese and Spanish clergy could 
 have got full control of government, ought to be 
 obvious. 
 
 With the massacre of Shimabara ends the real 
 history of the Portuguese and Spanish missions. 
 After that event, Christianity was slowly, steadily, 
 implacably stamped out of visible existence. It 
 had been tolerated, or half-tolerated, for only sixty- 
 five years : the entire, history of its propagation and 
 destruction occupies a period of scarcely ninety years. 
 People of nearly every rank, from prince to pauper, 
 suffered for it; thousands endured tortures for its 
 sake — tortures so frightful that even three of those 
 Jesuits who sent multitudes to useless martyrdom 
 were forced to deny their faith under the infliction ; * 
 — and tender women, sentenced to the stake, car- 
 
 1 Francisco Cassola, Pedro Marquez, and Giuseppe Chiara. Two of these — 
 probably under compulsion — married Japanese women. For their after-history, see a 
 paper by Satow in the Transactions oftbc Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. VI, Part I. 
 
358 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 ried their little ones with them into the fire, rather 
 than utter the words that would have saved both 
 mother and child. Yet this religion, for which 
 thousands vainly died, had brought to Japan noth- 
 ing but evil : disorders, persecutions, revolts, politi- 
 cal troubles, and war. Even those virtues of the 
 people which had been evolved at unutterable cost 
 for the protection and conservation of society, — 
 their self-denial, their faith, their loyalty, their 
 constancy and courage, — were by this black creed 
 distorted, diverted, and transformed into forces 
 directed to the destruction of that society. Could 
 that destruction have been accomplished, and a 
 new Roman Catholic empire have been founded 
 upon the ruins, the forces of that empire would 
 have been used for the further extension of priestly 
 tyranny, the spread of the Inquisition, the perpetual 
 Jesuit warfare against freedom of conscience and 
 human progress. Well may we pity the victims of 
 this pitiless ' faith, and justly admire their useless 
 courage : yet who can regret that their cause was 
 lost ? . . . Viewed from another standpoint than 
 that of religious bias, and simply judged by its 
 results, the Jesuit effort to Christianize Japan must 
 be regarded as a crime against humanity, a labour 
 of devastation, a calamity comparable only, — by 
 reason of the misery and destruction which it 
 wrought, — to an earthquake, a tidal-wave, a 
 volcanic eruption. 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 359 
 
 The policy of isolation, — of shutting off Japan 
 from the rest of the world, — as adopted by Hide- 
 tada and maintained by his successors, sufficiently 
 indicates the fear that religious intrigues had inspired. 
 Not only were all foreigners, excepting the Dutch 
 traders, expelled from the country ; all half-breed 
 children of Portuguese or Spanish blood were also 
 expatriated, Japanese families being forbidden to 
 adopt or conceal any of them, under penalties to be 
 visited upon all the members of the household dis- 
 obeying. In 1636 two hundred and eighty-seven 
 half-breed children were shipped to Macao. It is 
 possible that the capacity of half-breed children to 
 act as interpreters was particularly dreaded; but 
 there can be little doubt that, at the time when this 
 ordinance was issued, race-hatred had been fully 
 aroused by religious antagonism. After the Shima- 
 bara episode all Western foreigners, without exception, 
 were regarded with unconcealed distrust. 1 The 
 Portuguese and Spanish traders were replaced by 
 the Dutch (the English factory having been closed 
 some years previously) ; but even in the case of 
 these, extraordinary precautions were taken. They 
 were compelled to abandon their good quarters at 
 Hirado, and transfer their factory to Deshima, — a 
 tiny island only six hundred feet long, by two hun- 
 dred and forty feet wide. There they were kept 
 under constant guard, like prisoners ; they were not 
 
 1 The Chinese traders, however, were allowed much more liberty than the Dutch. 
 
360 • THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 permitted to go among the people ; no man could 
 visit them without permission, and no woman, except 
 a prostitute, was allowed to enter their reservation 
 under any circumstances. But they had a monopoly 
 of the trade of the country ; and Dutch patience 
 endured these conditions, for the profit's sake, dur- 
 ing more than two hundred years. Other commerce 
 with foreign countries than that maintained by the 
 Dutch factory, and by the Chinese, was entirely sup- 
 pressed. For any Japanese to leave Japan was a 
 capital offence ; and any one who might succeed in 
 leaving the country by stealth, was to be put to 
 death upon his return. The purpose of this law 
 was to prevent Japanese, sent abroad by the Jesuits 
 for missionary training, from returning to Japan in the 
 disguise of laymen. It was forbidden also to con- 
 struct ships capable of long voyages ; and all ships 
 exceeding a dimension fixed by the government 
 were broken up. Lookouts were established along 
 the coast to watch for strange vessels ; and any 
 European ships entering a Japanese port, excepting 
 the ships of the Dutch company, were to be attacked 
 and destroyed. 
 
 The great success at first achieved by the Portu- 
 guese missions remains to be considered. In our 
 present comparative ignorance of Japanese social 
 history, it is not easy to understand the whole of the 
 Christian episode. There are plenty of Jesuit- 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 361 
 
 missionary records ; but the Japanese contemporary 
 chronicles yield us scanty information about the mis- 
 sions — probably for the reason that an edict was 
 issued in the seventeenth century interdicting, not 
 only all books on the subject of Christianity, but 
 any book, containing the words Christian or Foreign. 
 What the Jesuit books do not explain, and what we 
 should rather have expected Japanese historians to ex- 
 plain, had they been allowed, is how a society founded 
 on ancestor-worship, and apparently possessing im- 
 mense capacity for resistance to outward assault, 
 could have been so quickly penetrated and partly 
 dissolved by Jesuit energy. The question of all 
 questions that I should like to see answered, by 
 Japanese evidence, is this : To what extent did the 
 missionaries interfere with the ancestor-cult ? It is an 
 important question. In China, the Jesuits were quick 
 to perceive that the power of resistance to proselytism 
 lay in ancestor-worship ; and they shrewdly endeav- 
 oured to tolerate it, somewhat as Buddhism before 
 them had been obliged to do. Had the Papacy 
 supported their policy, the Jesuits might have 
 changed the history of China ; but other religious 
 orders fiercely opposed the compromise, and the 
 chance was lost. How far the ancestor-cult was tol- 
 erated by the Portuguese missionaries in Japan is a 
 matter of much sociological interest for investigation. 
 The supreme cult was, of course, left alone, for 
 obvious reasons. It is difficult to suppose that the 
 
362 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 domestic cult was attacked' then as implacably as it 
 is attacked now by Protestant and Roman Catholic 
 missionaries alike ; — it is difficult to suppose, for 
 example, that converts were compelled to cast away 
 or to destroy their ancestral tablets. On the other 
 hand, we are yet in doubt as to whether many of 
 the poorer converts — servants and other common 
 folk — possessed a domestic ancestor-cult. The out- 
 cast classes, among whom many converts were 
 made, need not be considered, of course, in this 
 relation. Before the matter can be fairly judged, 
 much remains to be learned about the religious con- 
 dition of the heimin during the sixteenth century. 
 Anyhow, whatever methods were followed, the early 
 success of the missions was astonishing. Their 
 work, owing to the particular character of the social 
 organization, necessarily began from the top : the 
 subject could change his creed only by permission 
 of his lord. From the outset this permission was 
 freely granted. In some cases the people were offi- 
 cially notified that they were at liberty to adopt the 
 new religion ; in other cases, converted lords ordered 
 them to do so. It would seem that the foreign 
 faith was at first mistaken for a new kind of Buddh- 
 ism ; and in the extant official grant of land at Ya- 
 maguchi to the Portuguese mission, in 1552, the 
 Japanese text plainly states that the grant (which ap- 
 pears to have included a temple called Daidoji) 
 was made to the strangers that they might preach 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 363 
 
 "the Law of Buddha" — Buppo shoryo no tam'e. 
 The original document is thus translated by Sir 
 Ernest Satow, who reproduced it in facsimile : — 
 
 " With respect to Daidoji in Yamaguchi Agata, Yoshiki 
 department, province of Suwo. This deed witnesses that I 
 have given permission to the priests who have come to this 
 country from the Western regions, in accordance with 
 their request and desire, that they may found and erect a 
 monastery and house in order to develope the Law of 
 Buddha. 
 
 "The 28th day of the 8th month of the 21st year of 
 Tembun. 
 
 [August Seal] " * 
 
 " SUWO NO SuKE. 
 
 If this error [or deception ?] could have occurred 
 at Yamaguchi, it is reasonable to suppose that it 
 also occurred in other places. Exteriorly the Ro- 
 man rites resembled those of popular Buddhism : 
 the people would have observed but little that was 
 unfamiliar to them in the forms of the service, the 
 vestments, the beads, the prostrations, the images, 
 the bells, and the incense. The virgins and the saints 
 would have been found to resemble the aureoled 
 Boddhisattvas and Buddhas ; the angels and the de- 
 mons would have been at once identified with the Ten- 
 
 1 In the Latin and Portuguese translations, or rather pretended translations of this 
 document, there is nothing about preaching the Law of Buddha ; and there are 
 many things added which do not exist in the Japanese text at all. See Transactions 
 of tbe Asiatic Society of Japan (Vol. VIII, Part II) for Satow's comment on 
 this document and the false translations made of it. 
 
364 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 nin and the Oni. All that pleased popular imagination 
 in the Buddhist ceremonial could be witnessed, under 
 slightly different form, in those temples which 
 had been handed over to the Jesuits, and con- 
 secrated by them as churches or chapels. The 
 fathomless abyss really separating the two faiths 
 could not have been perceived by the common 
 mind ; but the outward resemblances were imme- 
 diately observable. There were furthermore some 
 attractive novelties. It appears, for example, that 
 the Jesuits used to have miracle-plays performed in 
 their churches for the purpose of attracting pop- 
 ular attention. . . . But outward attractions of 
 whatever sort, or outward resemblances to Buddhism, 
 could only assist the spread of the new religion ; 
 they could not explain the rapid progress of the 
 propaganda. 
 
 Coercion might partly explain it, — coercion ex- 
 ercised by converted daimyo upon their subjects. 
 Populations of provinces are known to have fol- 
 lowed, under strong compulsion, the religion of their 
 converted lords ; and hundreds — perhaps thousands 
 — of persons must have done the same thing through 
 mere habit of loyalty. In these cases it is worth 
 while to consider what sort of persuasion was used 
 upon the daimyo. We know that one great help 
 to the missionary work was found in Portuguese 
 commerce, — especially the trade in firearms and 
 ammunition. In the disturbed state of the country 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 365 
 
 preceding the advent to power of Hideyoshi, this 
 trade was a powerful bribe in religious negotiation 
 with provincial lords. The daimyo able to use fire- 
 arms would necessarily possess some advantage over 
 a rival lord having no such weapons; and those 
 lords able to monopolize the trade could increase 
 their power at the expense of their neighbours. Now 
 this trade was actually offered for the privilege of 
 preaching; and sometimes much more than that 
 privilege was demanded and obtained. In 1572 the 
 Portuguese presumed to ask for the whole town of 
 Nagasaki, as a gift to their church, — with power 
 of jurisdiction over the same ; threatening, in case 
 of refusal, to establish themselves elsewhere. The 
 daimyo, Omura, at first demurred, but eventually 
 yielded ; and Nagasaki then became Christian terri- 
 tory, directly governed by the Church. Very soon 
 the fathers began to prove the character of their 
 creed by furious attacks upon the local religion. 
 They set fire to the great Buddhist temple, Jinguji, 
 and attributed the fire to the " wrath of God," — 
 after which act, by the zeal of their converts, some 
 eighty other temples, in or about Nagasaki, were 
 burnt. Within Nagasaki territory Buddhism was 
 totally suppressed, — its priests being persecuted 
 and driven away. In the province of Bungo the 
 Jesuit persecution of Buddhism was far more 
 violent, and conducted upon an extensive scale. 
 Otomo Sorin Munechika, the reigning daimyo, not 
 
366 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 only destroyed all the Buddhist temples in his do- 
 minion (to the number, it is said, of three thousand), 
 but had many of the Buddhist priests put to death. 
 For the destruction of the great temple of Hikozan, 
 whose priests were reported to have prayed for the 
 tyrant's death, he is said to have maliciously chosen 
 the sixth day of the fifth month (1576), — the 
 festival of the Birthday of the Buddha ! 
 
 Coercion, exercised by their lords upon a docile 
 people trained to implicit obedience, would explain 
 something of the initial success of the missions ; but 
 it would leave many other matters unexplained : 
 the later success of the secret propaganda, the fer- 
 vour and courage of the converts under persecution, 
 the long-continued indifference of the chiefs of the 
 ancestor-cult to the progress of the hostile faith. . . . 
 When Christianity first began to spread through 
 the Roman empire, the ancestral religion had fallen 
 into decay, the structure of society had lost its orig- 
 inal form, and there was no religious conservatism 
 really capable of successful resistance. But in the 
 Japan of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
 the religion of the ancestors was very much alive ; 
 and society was only entering upon the second 
 period of its yet imperfect integration. The Jesuit 
 conversions were not made among a people already 
 losing their ancient faith, but in one of the most 
 intensely religious and conservative societies that 
 ever existed. Christianity of any sort could not 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 367 
 
 have been introduced into such a society without 
 effecting structural disintegrations, — disintegrations, 
 at least, of a local character. How far these disin- 
 tegrations extended and penetrated we do not know ; 
 and we have yet no adequate explanation of the 
 long inertia of the native religious instinct in the 
 face of danger. 
 
 But there are certain historical facts which appear 
 to throw at least a side-light upon the subject. The 
 early Jesuit policy in China, as established by Ricci, 
 had been to leave converts free to practise the an- 
 cestral rites. So long as this policy was followed, 
 the missions prospered. When, in consequence of 
 this compromise, dissensions arose, the matter was 
 referred to Rome. Pope Innocent X decided for 
 intolerance by a bull issued in 1645 ; and the Jesuit 
 missions were thereby practically ruined in China. 
 Pope Innocent's decision was indeed reversed the 
 very next year by a bull of Pope Alexander VIII ; 
 but' ^gain and again contests were raised by the 
 religious bodies over this question of ancestor- 
 worship, until in 1693 Pope Clement XI definitively 
 prohibited converts from practising the ancestral rites 
 under any form whatsoever. . . . All the efforts 
 of all the missions in the Far East have ever since 
 then failed to advance the cause of Christianity. 
 The sociological reason is plain. 
 
 We have seen, then, that up to the year 1645 
 the ancestor-cult had been tolerated by the Jesuits 
 
368 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 in China, with promising results ; and it is probable 
 that an identical policy of tolerance was maintained 
 in Japan during the second half of the sixteenth 
 century. The Japanese missions began in 1549, 
 and their history ends with the Shimabara slaughter 
 in 1638, — about seven years before the first Papal 
 decision against the tolerance of ancestor-worship. 
 The Jesuit mission-work seems to have prospered 
 steadily, in spite of all opposition, until it was 
 interfered with by less cautious and more uncompro- 
 mising zealots. By a bull issued in 1585 by Greg- 
 ory XIII, and confirmed in 1600 by Clement III, 
 the Jesuits alone were authorized to do missionary- 
 work in Japan ; and it was not until after their 
 privileges had been ignored by Franciscan zeal that 
 trouble with the government began. We have seen 
 that in 1593 Hideyoshi had six Franciscans executed. 
 Then the issue of a new Papal bull in 1608, by Paul 
 V, allowing Roman Catholic missionaries of all 
 orders to work in Japan, probably ruined the Jesuit 
 interests. It will be remembered that Iyeyasu sup- 
 pressed the Franciscans in 161 2, — a proof that 
 their experience with Hideyoshi had profited them 
 little. On the whole, it appears more than likely 
 that both Dominicans and Franciscans recklessly 
 meddled with matters which the Jesuits (whom they 
 accused of timidity) had been wise enough to leave 
 alone, and that this interference hastened the inev- 
 itable ruin of the missions. 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 369 
 
 We may reasonably doubt whether there were a 
 million Christians in Japan at the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century : the more probable claim of 
 six hundred thousand can be accepted. In this era 
 of toleration the efforts of all the foreign missionary 
 bodies combined, and the yearly expenditure of 
 immense sums in support of their work, have 
 enabled them to achieve barely one-fifth of the 
 success attributed to their Portuguese predecessors, 
 upon a not incredible estimate. The sixteenth- 
 century Jesuits were indeed able to exercise, through 
 various lords, the most forcible sort of coercion upon 
 whole populations of provinces ; but the modern mis- 
 sions certainly enjoy advantages educational, financial, 
 and legislative, much outweighing the doubtful value 
 of the power to coerce ; and the smallness of the 
 results which they have achieved seems to require 
 explanation. The explanation is not difficult. Need- 
 less attacks upon the ancestor-cult are necessarily at- 
 tacks upon the constitution of society ; and Japanese 
 society instinctively resists these assaults upon its 
 ethical basis. For it is an error to suppose that this 
 Japanese society has yet arrived even at such a con- 
 dition as Roman society presented in the second or 
 third century of our era. Rather it remains at a 
 stage resembling that of a Greek or Latin society 
 many centuries before Christ. The introduction of 
 railroads, telegraphs, modern arms of precision, 
 modern applied science of all kinds, has not yet 
 
370 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 sufficed to change the fundamental order of things. 
 Superficial disintegrations are rapidly proceeding; new 
 structures are forming ; but the social condition still 
 remains much like that which, in southern Europe, 
 long preceded the introduction of Christianity. 
 
 Though every form of religion holds something 
 of undying truth, the evolutionist must classify reli- 
 gions. He must regard a monotheistic faith as repre- 
 senting, in the progress of human thought, a very 
 considerable advance upon any polytheistic creed ; 
 monotheism signifying the fusion and expansion of 
 countless ghostly beliefs into one vast concept of 
 unseen omnipotent power. And, from the stand- 
 point of psychological evolution, he must of course 
 consider pantheism as an advance upon monotheism, 
 and must further regard agnosticism as an advance 
 upon both. But the value of a creed is necessarily 
 relative ; and the question of its worth is to be 
 decided, not by its adaptability to the intellectual 
 developments of a single cultured class, but by its 
 larger emotional relation to the whole society of 
 which it embodies the moral experience. Its value 
 to any other society must depend upon its power of 
 self-adaptation to the ethical experience of that 
 society. We may grant that Roman Catholicism 
 was, by sole virtue of its monotheistic conception, a 
 stage in advance of the primitive ancestor-worship. 
 But it was adapted only to a form of society at 
 
THE JESUIT PERIL 371 
 
 which neither Chinese nor Japanese civilization had 
 arrived, — a form of society in which the ancjent 
 family had been dissolved, and the religion of filial 
 piety forgotten. Unlike that subtler and incompara- 
 bly more humane creed of India, which had learned 
 the secret of missionary-success a thousand years 
 before Loyola, the religion of the Jesuits could never 
 have adapted itself to the social conditions of 
 Japan ; and by the fact of this incapacity the fate 
 of the missions was really decided in advance. The 
 intolerance, the intrigues, the savage persecutions 
 carried on, — all the treacheries and cruelties of the 
 Jesuits, — may simply be considered as the mani- 
 festations of such incapacity ; while the repressive 
 measures taken by Iyeyasu and his successors signify 
 sociologically no more than the national perception 
 of supreme danger. It was recognized that the 
 triumph of the foreign religion would involve the 
 total disintegration of society, and the subjection of 
 the empire to foreign domination. 
 
 Neither the artist nor the sociologist, at least, can 
 regret the failure of the missions. . Their extirpa- 
 tion, which enabled Japanese society to evolve to 
 its type-limit, preserved for modern eyes the mar- 
 vellous world of Japanese art, and the yet more 
 marvellous world of its traditions, beliefs, and cus- 
 toms. Roman Catholicism, triumphant, would have 
 swept all this out of existence. The natural antago- 
 
372 THE JESUIT PERIL 
 
 nism of the artist to the missionary may be found in 
 the fact that the latter is always, and must be, an 
 unsparing destroyer. Everywhere the develop- 
 ments of art are associated in some sort with reli- 
 gion ; and by so much as the art of a people reflects 
 their beliefs, that art will be hateful to the enemies 
 of those beliefs. Japanese art, of Buddhist origin, 
 is especially an art of religious suggestion, — not 
 merely as regards painting and sculpture, but like- 
 wise as regards decoration, and almost every product 
 of aesthetic taste. There is something of religious 
 feeling associated even with the Japanese delight in 
 trees and flowers, the charm of gardens, the love of 
 nature and of nature's voices, — with all the poetry 
 of existence, in short. Most assuredly the Jesuits 
 and their allies would have ended all this, every 
 detail of it, without the slightest qualm. Even 
 could they have understood and felt the meaning 
 of that world of strange beauty, — result of a race- 
 experience never to be repeated or replaced, — they 
 would not have hesitated a moment in the work of 
 obliteration and effacement. To-day, indeed, that 
 wonderful art-world is being surely and irretrievably 
 destroyed by Western industrialism. But industrial 
 influence, though pitiless, is not fanatic; and the 
 destruction is not being carried on with such fero- 
 cious rapidity but that the fading story of beauty 
 can be recorded for the future benefit of human 
 civilization. 
 
Feudal Integration 
 
V 
 
Feudal Integration 
 
 IT was under the later Tokugawa Shogun — dur- 
 ing the period immediately preceding the modern 
 regime — that Japanese civilization reached the 
 limit of its development. No further evolution was 
 possible, except through social reconstruction. The 
 conditions of this integration chiefly represented the 
 reinforcement and definition of conditions preexist- 
 ing, — scarcely anything in the way of fundamental 
 change. More than ever before the old compul- 
 sory systems of cooperation were strengthened ; 
 more than ever before all details of ceremonial con- 
 vention were insisted upon with merciless exactitude. 
 In preceding ages there had been more harshness; 
 but at no previous period had there been less lib- 
 erty. Nevertheless, the results of this increased 
 restriction were not without ethical value : the time 
 was yet far off at which personal liberty could prove 
 a personal advantage ; and the paternal coercion of 
 the Tokugawa rule helped to develop and to accen- 
 tuate much of what is most attractive in the national 
 character. Centuries of warfare had previously allowed 
 small opportunity for the cultivation of the more deli- 
 cate qualities of that character : the refinements, the 
 
 375 
 
376 FEUDAL INTEGRATION 
 
 ingenuous kindliness, the joy in life that after- 
 ward lent so rare a charm to Japanese existence. 
 But during two hundred years of peace, prosperity, 
 and national isolation, the graceful and winning side 
 of this human nature found chance to bloom ; and 
 the multiform restraints of law and custom then 
 quickened and curiously shaped the blossoming, — 
 as the gardener's untiring art evolves the flowers of 
 the chrysanthemum into a hundred forms of fantastic 
 beauty. . . . Though the general social tendency 
 under pressure was toward rigidity, constraint left 
 room, in special directions, for moral and aesthetic 
 cultivation. 
 
 In order to understand the social condition, it 
 will be* necessary to consider the nature of the 
 paternal rule in its legal aspects. To modern 
 imagination the old Japanese laws may well seem 
 intolerable ; but their administration was really less 
 uncompromising than that of our Western laws. 
 Besides, although weighing heavily upon all classes, 
 from the highest to the lowest, the legal burden 
 was proportioned to the respective strength of the 
 bearers ; the application of law being made less 
 and less rigid as the social scale descended. In 
 theory at least, from the earliest times, the poor 
 and unfortunate had been considered as entitled 
 to pity; and the duty of showing them all pos- 
 sible mercy was insisted upon in the oldest extant 
 moral code of Japan, — the Laws of Shotoku Tai- 
 
FEUDAL INTEGRATION 377 
 
 shi. But the most striking example of such dis- 
 crimination appears in the Legacy of Iyeyasu, 
 which represents the conception of justice in a 
 time when society had become much more devel- 
 oped, its institutions more firmly fixed, and all its 
 bonds tightened. This stern and wise ruler, who 
 declared that " the people are the foundation of 
 the Empire," commanded leniency in dealing with 
 the humble. He ordained that any lord, no mat- 
 ter what his rank, convicted of breaking laws " to 
 the injury of the people," should be punished by 
 the confiscation of his estates. Perhaps the humane 
 spirit of the legislator is most strongly shown in his 
 enactments regarding crime, as, for example, where 
 he deals with the question of adultery — necessarily 
 a crime of the first magnitude in any society based 
 on ancestor-worship. By the 50th article of the 
 Legacy, the injured husband is confirmed in his 
 ancient right to kill, — but with this important 
 provision, that should he kill but one of the guilty 
 parties, he must himself be held as guilty as either 
 of them. Should the offenders be brought up for 
 trial, Iyeyasu advises that, in the case of common 
 people, particular deliberation be given to the 
 matter : he remarks upon the weakness of human 
 nature, and suggests that, among the young and 
 simple-minded, some momentary impulse of pas- 
 sion may lead to folly even when the parties are 
 not naturally depraved. But in the next article, 
 
378 FEUDAL INTEGRATION 
 
 No. 51, he orders that no mercy whatever be 
 shown to men and women of the upper classes 
 when convicted of the same crime. " These," he 
 declares, " are expected to know better than to 
 occasion disturbance by violating existing regula- 
 tions ; and such persons, breaking the laws by 
 lewd trifling or illicit intercourse, shall at once be 
 punished without deliberation or consultation. 1 It 
 is not the same in this case as in the case of 
 farmers, artizans, and traders." . . . Throughout 
 the entire code, this tendency to tighten the bonds 
 of law in the case of the military classes, and to 
 loosen them mercifully for the lower classes, is 
 equally visible. Iyeyasu strongly disapproved of 
 unnecessary punishments ; and held that the fre- 
 quency of punishments was proof, not of the ill- 
 conduct of subjects, but of the ill-conduct of officials. 
 The 91st article of his code puts the matter thus 
 plainly, even as regarded the Shogunate : " When 
 punishments and executions abound in the Empire, 
 it is a proof that the military ruler is without virtue 
 and degenerate." . . . He devised particular en- 
 actments to protect the peasantry and the poor from 
 the cruelty or the rapacity of powerful lords. The 
 great daimy5 were strictly forbidden, when making 
 their obligatory journeys to Yedo, " to disturb or 
 harass the people at the post-houses," or suffer 
 themselves " to be puffed up with military pride." 
 
 1 That is to say, immediately put to death. 
 
FEUDAL INTEGRATION 
 
 379 
 
 The private, not less than the public conduct of 
 these great lords, was under Government surveil- 
 lance ; and they were actually liable to punishment 
 for immorality ! Concerning debauchery among 
 them, the legislator remarked that "even though 
 this can hardly be pronounced insubordination," 
 it should be judged and punished according to the 
 degree in which it constitutes a . bad example for the 
 lower classes (Art. 88). 1 As to veritable insubordi- 
 nation there was no pardon : the severity of the law 
 on this subject allowed of no exception or mitiga- 
 tion. The 53 d section of the Legacy proves this 
 to have been regarded as the supreme crime : 
 " The guilt of a vassal murdering his suzerain is 
 in principle the same as that of an arch-traitor to 
 the Emperor. His immediate companions, his 
 relations, — all even to his most distant con- 
 nexions, — shall be cut off, hewn to atoms, root 
 and fibre. The guilt of a vassal only lifting his 
 hand against his master, even though he does not 
 
 1 Though even daimyo were liable to suffer for debauchery, Iyeyasu did not 
 believe in the expediency of attempting to suppress all vice by law. There is a 
 strangely modern ring in his remarks upon this subject, in the 73d section of the 
 Legacy : " Virtuous men have said, both in poetry and in classic works, that 
 houses of debauch, for women of pleasure and for street-walkers, are the worm- 
 eaten spots of cities and towns. But these are necessary evils, and if they be 
 forcibly abolished, men of unrighteous principles will become like ravelled thread, 
 and there will be no end to daily pur'shments and floggings." In many castle- 
 towns, however, such houses were never allowed — probably in view of the large 
 military force, assembled in such towns, which had to be maintained under iron 
 discipline. 
 
380 FEUDAL INTEGRATION 
 
 assassinate him, is the same." In strong contrast 
 to this grim ordinance is the spirit of all the regu- 
 lations touching the administration of law among 
 the lower classes. Forgery, incendiarism, and poi- 
 soning were indeed crimes justifying the penalty of 
 burning or crucifixion ; but judges were instructed 
 to act with as much leniency as circumstances per- 
 mitted in the case of ordinary offences. "With 
 regard to minute details affecting individuals of 
 the inferior classes," says the 73 d article of the 
 code, " learn the wide benevolence of Koso of 
 the Han [Chinese] dynasty." It was further or- 
 dered that magistrates of the criminal and civil 
 courts should be chosen only from " a class of 
 men who are upright and pure, distinguished for 
 charity and benevolence." All magistrates were 
 kept under close supervision, and their conduct 
 regularly reported by government spies. 
 
 Another humane aspect of Tokugawa legislation 
 is furnished by its dictates in regard to the relations 
 of the sexes. Although concubinage was tolerated 
 in the Samurai class, for reasons relating to the con- 
 tinuance of the family-cult, Iyeyasu denounces the 
 indulgence of the privilege for merely selfish rea- 
 sons : " Silly and ignorant men neglect their true 
 wives for the sake of a loved mistress, and thus dis- 
 turb the most important relation. . . . Men so far 
 sunk as this may always be known as Samurai without 
 fidelity or sincerity." Celibacy, condemned by pub- 
 
FEUDAL INTEGRATION 281 
 
 a v 
 
 iic opinion, — except in the case of Buddhist priests, — 
 was equally condemned by the code. " One should 
 not live alone after sixteen years of age," declares the 
 legislator ; " all mankind recognize marriage as the 
 first law of nature." The childless man was obliged 
 to adopt a son ; and the 47th article of the Legacy 
 ordained that the family estate of a person dying 
 without male issue, and without having adopted a 
 son, should be "forfeited without any regard to 
 his relatives or connexions." This law, of course, 
 was made in support of the ancestor-cult, the con- 
 tinuance of which it was deemed the paramount duty 
 of each man to provide for; but the government 
 regulations concerning adoption enabled everybody 
 to fulfil the legal requirement without difficulty. 
 
 Considering that this code which inculcated hu- 
 manity, repressed moral laxity, prohibited celibacy, 
 and rigorously maintained the family-cult, was drawn 
 up in the time of the extirpation of the Jesuit mis- 
 sions, the position assumed in regard to religious 
 freedom appears to us one of singular liberality. , 
 "High and low alike," proclaims the 31st article, 
 " may follow their own inclinations with respect to 
 religious tenets which have obtained down to the 
 present time, except as regards the false and corrupt 
 school [Roman Catholicism^ . Religious disputes have 
 ever proved the bane and misfortune of this Empire, 
 and must be firmly suppressed." . . . But the 
 seeming liberality of this article must not be mis- 
 
382 FEUDAL INTEGRATION 
 
 interpreted : the legislator who made so rigid an 
 enactment in regard to the religion of the famil) 
 was not the man to proclaim that any Japanese 
 was free to abandon the faith of his race for an 
 alien, creed. One must carefully read the entire 
 Legacy in order to understand Iyeyasu's real posi- 
 tion, — which was simply this: that any man was 
 free to adopt any religion tolerated by the State, 
 in addition to his ancestor-cult. Iyeyasu was himself 
 a member of the Jodo sect of Buddhism, and a 
 friend of Buddhism in general. But he was first 
 of all a Shintoist ; and the third article of his code 
 commands devotion to the Kami as the first of 
 duties : — " Keep your heart pure ; and so long 
 as your body shall exist, be diligent in paying 
 honour and veneration to the Gods." That he 
 placed the ancient cult above Buddhism should be 
 evident from the text of the 5 2d article of the 
 Legacy, in which he declares that no one should 
 suffer himself to neglect the national faith because 
 of a belief in any other form of religion. This text 
 is of particular interest : — 
 
 " My body, and the bodies of others, being born in the 
 Empire of the Gods, to accept unreservedly the teachings 
 of other countries, — such as Confucian, Buddhist, or 
 Taoist doctrines, — and to apply one's whole and un- 
 divided attention to them, would be, in short, to desert 
 one's own master, and transfer one's loyalty to another. 
 Is not this to ' forget the origin of one's being ? " 
 
FEUDAL INTEGRATION 383 
 
 Of course the Shogun, professing to derive his 
 authority from the descendant of the elder gods, 
 could not with consistency have proclaimed the 
 right of freedom to doubt those gods : his official 
 religious duty permitted of no compromise. But 
 the interest attaching to his opinions, as expressed 
 in the Legacy, rests upon the fact that the Legacy 
 was not a public, but a strictly private document, 
 intended for the perusal and guidance of his succes- 
 sors only. Altogether his religious position was 
 much like that of the liberal Japanese statesman of 
 to-day, — respect for whatever is good in Buddhism, 
 qualified by the patriotic conviction that the first 
 religious duty is to the cult of the ancestors, the 
 ancient creed of the race. . . . Iyeyasu had pref- 
 erences regarding Buddhism ; but even in this he 
 showed no narrowness. Though he wrote in his 
 Legacy, " Let my posterity ever be of the honoured 
 sect of Jodo," he greatly reverenced the high-priest 
 of the Tendai temple, Yeizan, who had been one of 
 his instructors, and obtained for him the highest 
 court-office possible for a Buddhist priest to obtain, 
 as well as the headship of the Tendai sect. More- 
 over the Shogun visited Yeizan to make there 
 official prayer for the prosperity of the country. 
 
 There is every reason to believe that within the 
 territories of the Shogunate proper, comprising the 
 greater part of the Empire, the administration of 
 
384 FEUDAL INTEGRATION 
 
 ordinary criminal law was humane, and that the 
 infliction of punishment was made, in the case of 
 the common people, to depend largely upon circum- 
 stances. Needless severity was a crime before the 
 higher military law, which, in such cases, made no 
 distinctions of rank. Although the ring-leaders of 
 a peasant-revolt, for example, would be sentenced 
 to death, the lord through whose oppression the 
 uprising was provoked, would be deprived of a part 
 or the whole of his estates, or degraded in rank, or 
 perhaps even sentenced to perform harakiri. Pro- 
 fessor Wigmore, whose studies of Japanese law first 
 shed light upon the subject, has given us an excel- 
 lent review of the spirit of the ancient legal meth- 
 ods. He points out that the administration of law 
 was never made impersonal in the modern sense; 
 that unbending law did not, for the people at least, 
 exist in relation to minor offences. The Anglo- 
 Saxon idea of inflexible law is the idea of a justice 
 impartial and pitiless as fire : whoever breaks the 
 law must suffer the consequence, just as surely as 
 the person who puts his hand into fire must ex- 
 perience pain. But in the administration of the old 
 Japanese law, everything was taken into considera- 
 tion : the condition of the offender, his intelligence, 
 his degree of education, his previous conduct, his 
 motives, suffering endured, provocation received, 
 and so forth ; and final judgment was decided by 
 moral common sense rather than by legal enactment 
 
FEUDAL INTEGRATION 385 
 
 or precedent. Friends and relatives were allowed 
 to make plea for the offender, and to help him in 
 whatever honest way they could. If a man were 
 falsely accused, and proved innocent upon trial, he 
 would not only be consoled by kind words, but 
 would probably receive substantial compensation ; 
 and it appears that judges were accustomed, at the 
 end of important trials, to reward good conduct as 
 well as to punish crime. 1 . . . On the other hand, 
 litigation was officially discouraged. Everything pos- 
 sible was done to prevent any cases from being taken 
 into court, which could be settled or compromised by 
 communal arbitration ; and the people were taught 
 to consider the court only as the last possible 
 resort. 
 
 The general character of the Tokugawa rule can 
 be to some degree inferred from the foregoing facts. 
 It was in no sense a reign of terror that compelled 
 peace and encouraged industry for two hundred and 
 
 1 The following extracts from a sentence said to have been passed by the famous 
 iudge, Ooka Tadasuke, at the close of a celebrated criminal trial, are illustrative : 
 "Musashiya Chobei and Goto Hanshiro, these actions of yours are worthy of 
 the highest praise: as a remuneration I award ten silver ryo to each of you. . . . 
 Tami, you, for maintaining your brother, are to be commended: for this you are to 
 receive the amount of five ktoammon. Ko, daughter of Chohachi, you are obedient 
 to your parents: in consideration of this, the sum of five silver ryo is awarded to 
 you." — (See Dening's Japan in Days of Tore.) The good old custom of re- 
 warding notable cases of filial piety, courage, generosity, etc., though not now 
 practised in the courts, is still maintained by the local governments. The rewards 
 are small ; but the public honour which they confer upon the recipient is very great. 
 2 C 
 
386 FEUDAL INTEGRATION 
 
 fifty years. Though the national civilization was 
 restrained, pruned, clipped in a thousand ways, it 
 was at the same time cultivated, refined, and strength- 
 ened. The long peace established throughout the 
 Empire what had never before existed, — a universal 
 feeling of security. The individual was bound more 
 than ever by law and custom ; but he was also pro- 
 tected : he could move without anxiety to the 
 length of his chains. Though coerced by his 
 fellows, they helped him to bear the coercion cheer- 
 fully : everybody aided everybody else to fulfil the 
 obligations and to support the burdens of communal 
 life. Conditions tended, therefore, toward the gen- 
 eral happiness as well as toward the general pros- 
 perity. There was not, in those years, any struggle 
 for existence, — not at least in our modern meaning 
 of the phrase. The requirements of life were easily 
 satisfied ; every man had a master to provide for 
 him or to protect him ; competition was repressed 
 or discouraged ; there was no need for supreme 
 effort of any sort, — no need for the straining of any 
 faculty. Moreover, there was little or nothing to 
 strive after : for the vast majority of the people, 
 there were no prizes to win. Ranks and incomes 
 were fixed ; occupations were hereditary ; and the 
 desire to accumulate wealth must have been checked 
 or numbed by those regulations which limited the 
 rich man's right to use his money as he might please. 
 Even a great lord — even the Shogun himself — 
 
FEUDAL INTEGRATION 387 
 
 could not do what he pleased. As for any common 
 person, — farmer, craftsman, or shopkeeper, — he 
 could not build a house as he liked, or furnish it 
 as he liked, or procure for himself such articles of 
 luxury as his taste might incline him to buy. The 
 richest heimin, who attempted to indulge himself in 
 any of these ways, would at once have been forcibly 
 reminded that he must not attempt to imitate the 
 habits, or to assume the privileges, of his betters. 
 He could not even order certain kinds of things to 
 be made for him. The artizans or artists who 
 created objects of luxury, to gratify aesthetic taste, 
 were little disposed to accept commissions from 
 people of low rank : they worked for princes, or 
 great lords, and could scarcely afford to take the 
 risk of displeasing their patrons. Every man's 
 pleasures were more or less regulated by his place 
 in society, and to pass from a lower into a higher 
 rank was no easy matter. Extraordinary men were 
 sometimes able to do this, by attracting the favour 
 of the great. But many perils attended upon such 
 distinction ; and the wisest policy for the heimin was 
 to remain satisfied with his position, and try to find 
 as much happiness in life as the law allowed. 
 
 Personal ambition being thus restrained, and the 
 cost of existence reduced to a minimum much below 
 our Western ideas of the necessary, there were really 
 established conditions highly favourable to certain 
 forms of culture, in despite of sumptuary regula- 
 
388 FEUDAL INTEGRATION 
 
 tions. The national mind was obliged to seek 
 solace for the monotony of existence, either in 
 amusement or study. Tokugawa policy had left 
 imagination partly free in the directions of literature 
 and art — the cheaper art; and within those two 
 directions repressed personality found means to 
 utter itself, and fancy became creative. There was 
 a certain amount of danger attendant upon even 
 such intellectual indulgences ; and much was dared. 
 iEsthetic taste, however, mostly followed the line 
 of least resistance. Observation concentrated itself 
 upon the interest of everyday life, — upon incidents 
 which might be watched from a window, or studied 
 in a garden, — upon familiar aspects of nature in 
 various seasons, — upon trees, flowers, birds, fishes, 
 or reptiles, — upon insects and the ways of them, — 
 upon all kinds of small details, delicate trifles, amus- 
 ing curiosities. Then it was that the race-genius 
 produced most of that queer bric-a-brac which still 
 forms the delight of Western collectors. The painter, 
 the ivory-carver, the decorator, were left almost un- 
 troubled in their production of fairy-pictures, exqui- 
 site grotesqueries, miracles of liliputian art in metal 
 and 'enamel and lacquer-of-gold. In all such small 
 matters they could feel free ; and the results of that 
 freedom are now treasured in the museums of Europe 
 and America. It is true that most of .the arts (nearly 
 all of Chinese origin) were considerably developed 
 before the Tokugawa era ; but it was then that they 
 
FEUDAL INTEGRATION 389 
 
 began to assume those inexpensive forms which 
 placed aesthetic gratification within reach of the 
 common people. Sumptuary legislation or rule 
 might yet apply to the use and possession of costly 
 production, but not to the enjoyment of form ; and 
 the beautiful, whether shaped in paper or in ivory, 
 in clay or gold, is always a power for culture. It 
 has been said that in a Greek city of the fourth cen- 
 tury before Christ, every household utensil, even 
 the most trifling object, was in respect of design an 
 object of art ; and the same fact is true, though in 
 another and a stranger way, of all things in a Japan- 
 ese home : even such articles of common use as a 
 bronze candlestick, a brass lamp, an iron kettle, a 
 paper lantern, a bamboo curtain, a wooden pillow, 
 a wooden tray, will reveal to educated eyes a sense 
 of beauty and fitness entirely unknown to Western 
 cheap production. And it was especially during 
 the Tokugawa period that this sense of beauty 
 began to inform everything in common life. Then 
 also was developed the art of illustration; then came 
 into existence those wonderful colour-prints (the 
 most beautiful made in any age or country) which 
 are now so eagerly collected by wealthy dilettanti. 
 Literature also ceased, like art, to be the enjoyment 
 of the upper classes only : it developed a multitude 
 of popular forms. This was the age of popular fic- 
 tion, of cheap books, of popular drama, of story- 
 telling for young and old. . . . We may certainly 
 
390 FEUDAL INTEGRATION 
 
 call the Tokugawa period the happiest in the long 
 life of the nation. The mere increase of population 
 and of wealth would prove the fact, irrespective of 
 the general interest awakened in matters literary and 
 aesthetic. It was an age of popular enjoyment, also 
 of general culture and social refinement. 
 
 Customs spread downward from the top of society. 
 During the Tokugawa period, various diversions 
 or accomplishments, formerly fashionable in upper 
 circles only, became common property. Three of 
 these were of a sort indicating a high degree of 
 refinement : poetical contests, tea-ceremonies, and 
 the complex art of flower-arrangement. All were 
 introduced into Japanese society long before the 
 Tokugawa regime ; — the fashion of poetical compe- 
 titions must be as old as Japanese authentic history. 
 But it was under the Tokugawa Shogunate that such 
 amusements and accomplishments became national. 
 Then the tea-ceremonies were made a feature of 
 female education throughout the country. Their 
 elaborate character could be explained only by the 
 help of many pictures; and it requires years of train- 
 ing and practice to graduate in the art of them. Yet 
 the whole of this art, as to detail, signifies no more 
 than the making and serving of a cup of tea. How- 
 ever, it is a real art — a most exquisite art. The 
 actual making of the infusion is a matter of no con- 
 sequence in itself: the supremely important matter 
 is that the act be performed in the most perfect, 
 
FEUDAL INTEGRATION 391 
 
 most polite, most graceful, most charming manner 
 possible. Everything done — from the kindling of 
 the charcoal fire to the presentation of the tea — 
 must be done according to rules of supreme eti- 
 quette : rules requiring natural grace as well as great 
 patience to fully master. Therefore a training in 
 the tea-ceremonies is still held to be a training in 
 politeness, in self-control, in delicacy, — a discipline 
 in deportment. . . . Quite as elaborate is the art of 
 arranging flowers. There are many different schools ; 
 but the object of each system is simply to display 
 sprays of leaves and flowers in the most beautiful 
 manner possible, and according to the irregular 
 graces of Nature herself. This art also requires 
 years to learn ; and the teaching of it has a moral as 
 well as an aesthetic value. 
 
 It was in this period also that etiquette was culti- 
 vated to its uttermost, — that politeness became dif- 
 fused throughout all ranks, not merely as a fashion, 
 but as an art. In all civilized societies of the mili- 
 tant type politeness becomes a national characteristic 
 at an early period ; and it must have been a common 
 obligation among the Japanese, as their archaic 
 tongue bears witness, before the historical epoch. 
 Public enactments on the subject were made as early 
 as the seventh century by the founder of Japan- 
 ese Buddhism, the prince-regent, Shotoku Taishi. 
 " Ministers and functionaries," he proclaimed, 
 
392 FEUDAL INTEGRATION 
 
 " should make decorous behaviour 1 their leading prin- 
 ciple ; for their leading principle of the government 
 of the people consists in decorous behaviour. If the 
 superiors do not behave with decorum, the inferiors 
 are disorderly : if inferiors are wanting in proper be- 
 haviour, there must necessarily be offences. There- 
 fore it is that when lord and vassal behave with 
 propriety, the distinctions of rank are not confused : 
 when the people behave with propriety, the gov- 
 ernment of the Commonwealth proceeds of itself." 
 Something of the same old Chinese teaching we find 
 reechoed, a thousand years later, in the Legacy of 
 Iyeyasu : " The art of governing a country consists 
 in the manifestation of due deference on the part of 
 a suzerain to his vassals. Know that if you turn 
 your back upon this, you will be assassinated ; and 
 the Empire will be lost." We have already seen 
 that etiquette was rigidly enforced upon all classes 
 by the military rule : for at least ten centuries 
 before Iyeyasu, the nation had been disciplined in 
 politeness, under the edge of the sword. But under 
 the Tokugawa Shogunate politeness became partic- 
 ularly a popular characteristic, — a rule of conduct 
 maintained by even the lowest classes in their daily 
 relations. Among the higher classes it became the 
 art of beauty in life. All the taste, the grace, the 
 
 1 Or, " ceremony " : the Chinese term used signifying everything relating to 
 gentlemanly and upright conduct. The translation is Mr. Aston's (see Vol. II, 
 p. 130, of his translation of the Nibongi). 
 
FEUDAL INTEGRATION 393 
 
 nicety which then informed artistic production in 
 precious material, equally informed every detail of 
 speech and action. Courtesy was a moral and 
 aesthetic study, carried to such incomparable perfec- 
 tion that every trace of the artificial disappeared. 
 Grace and charm seemed to have become habit, — 
 inherent qualities of the human fibre, — and doubt- 
 less, in the case of one sex at least, did so become. 
 For it has well been said that the most wonderful 
 aesthetic products of Japan are not its ivories, nor its 
 bronzes, nor its porcelains, nor its swords, nor any 
 of its marvels in metal or lacquer — but its women. 
 Accepting as partly true the statement that woman 
 everywhere is what man has made her, we might say 
 that this statement is more true of the Japanese 
 woman than of any other. Of course it required 
 thousands and thousands of years to make her ; but 
 the period of which I am speaking beheld the work 
 completed and perfected. Before this ethical crea- 
 tion, criticism should hold its breath ; for there is 
 here no single fault save the fault of a moral charm 
 unsuited to any world of selfishness and struggle. 
 It is the moral artist that now commands our praise, 
 — the realizer of an ideal beyond Occidental reach. 
 How frequently has it been asserted that, as a moral 
 being, the Japanese woman does not seem to belong 
 to the same race as the Japanese man ! Considering 
 that heredity is limited by sex, there is reason in the 
 assertion : the Japanese woman is an ethically differ- 
 
394 FEUDAL INTEGRATION 
 
 ent being from the Japanese man. Perhaps no such 
 type of woman will appear again in this world for a 
 hundred thousand years : the conditions of indus- 
 trial civilization will not admit of her existence. 
 The type could not have been created in any society 
 shaped on modern lines, nor in any society where 
 the competitive struggle takes those unmoral forms 
 with which we have become too familiar. Only a 
 society under extraordinary regulation and regimen- 
 tation, — a society in which all self-assertion was 
 repressed, and self-sacrifice made a universal obliga- 
 tion, — a society in which personality was clipped 
 like a hedge, permitted to bud and bloom from 
 within, never from without, — in short, only a society 
 founded upon ancestor-worship, could have produced 
 it. It has no more in common with the humanity 
 of this twentieth century of ours — perhaps very 
 much less — than has the life depicted upon old 
 Greek vases. Its charm is the charm of a vanished 
 world — a charm strange, alluring, indescribable as 
 the perfume of some flower of which the species 
 became extinct in our Occident before the modern 
 languages were born. Transplanted successfully it 
 cannot be : under a foreign sun its forms revert to 
 something altogether different, its colours fade, its 
 perfume passes away. The Japanese woman can 
 be known only in her own country, — the Japanese 
 woman as prepared and perfected by the old-time 
 education for that strange society in which the charm 
 
FEUDAL INTEGRATION 395 
 
 of her moral being, — her delicacy, her supreme un- 
 selfishness, her child-like piety and trust, her exquisite 
 tactful perception of all ways and means to make happi- 
 ness about her, — can be comprehended and valued. 
 I have spoken only of her moral charm : it re- 
 quires time for the unaccustomed foreign eye to 
 discern the physical charm. Beauty, according to 
 our Western standards, can scarcely be said to exist 
 in this race, — or, shall we say that it has never yet 
 been developed ? One seeks in vain for a facial 
 angle satisfying Western aesthetic canons. It is 
 seldom that one meets even with a fine example 
 of that physical elegance, — that manifestation of 
 the economy of force, — which we call grace, in 
 the Greek meaning of the word. Yet there is 
 charm — great charm — both of face and form : 
 the charm of childhood — childhood with its every 
 feature yet softly and vaguely outlined {effaci, as a 
 French artist would call it), — childhood before 
 the limbs have fully lengthened, — slight and 
 dainty, with admirable little hands and feet. The 
 eyes at first surprise us, by the strangeness of 
 their lids, so unlike Aryan eyelids, and folding 
 upon another plan. Yet they are often very 
 charming ; and a Western artist would not fail 
 to appreciate the graceful terms, invented by 
 Japanese or Chinese art, to designate particular 
 beauties in the lines of the eyelids. Even if she 
 cannot be called handsome, according to Western 
 
396 FEUDAL INTEGRATION 
 
 standards, the Japanese woman must be confessed 
 pretty, — pretty like a. comely child; and if she 
 be seldom graceful in the Occidental sense, she is 
 at least in all her ways incomparably graceful : her 
 every motion, gesture, or expression being, in its 
 own Oriental' manner, a perfect thing, — an act per- 
 formed, or a look conferred, in the most easy, the 
 most graceful, the most modest way possible. By 
 ancient custom, she is not permitted to display hei 
 grace in the street : she must walk in a particular 
 shrinking manner, turning her feet inward as she 
 patters along upon her wooden sandals. But to 
 watch her at home, where she is free to be comely, 
 — merely to see her performing any household 
 duty, or waiting upon guests, or arranging flowers, 
 or playing with her children, — is an education in 
 Far Eastern aesthetics for whoever has the head 
 and the heart to learn. . . . But is she not, then, 
 one may ask, an artificial product, — a forced 
 growth of Oriental civilization? I would answer 
 both " Yes " and " No." She is an artificial prod- 
 uct in only the same evolutional sense that all 
 character is an artificial product; and it required 
 tens of centuries to mould her. She is not, on the 
 other hand, an artificial type, because she has been 
 particularly trained to be her true self at all times 
 when circumstances allow, — or, in other words, to 
 be delightfully natural. The old-fashioned educa- 
 tion of her sex was directed to the development 
 
FEUDAL INTEGRATION 397 
 
 of every quality essentially feminine, and to the 
 suppression of the opposite quality. Kindliness, 
 docility, sympathy, tenderness, daintiness — these 
 and other attributes were cultivated into incom- 
 parable blossoming. " Be good, sweet maid, and 
 let who will be clever: do noble things, not dream 
 
 them, all day long " those words of Kingsley 
 
 really embody the central idea in her training. 
 Of course the being, formed by such training 
 only, must be protected by society; and by the 
 old Japanese society she was protected. Excep- 
 tions did not affect the rule. What I mean is that 
 she was able to be purely herself, within certain 
 limits of emotional etiquette, in all security. Her 
 success in life was made to depend on her power 
 to win affection by gentleness, obedience, kindli- 
 ness ; — not the affection merely of a husband, but 
 of the husband's parents and grandparents, and 
 brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, — in short of 
 all the members of a strange household. Thus 
 to succeed required angelic goodness and patience ; 
 and the Japanese woman realized at least the ideal 
 of a Buddhist angel. A being working only for 
 others, thinking only for others, happy only in 
 making pleasure for others, — a being incapable 
 of unkindness, incapable of selfishness, incapable 
 of acting contrary to her own inherited sense of 
 right, — and in spite of this softness and gentleness 
 ready, at any moment, to lay down her life, to 
 
39 8 FEUDAL INTEGRATION 
 
 sacrifice everything at the call of duty : such was 
 the character of the Japanese woman. Most 
 strange may seem the combination, in this child- 
 soul, of gentleness and force, tenderness and 
 courage, — yet the explanation is not far to seek. 
 Stronger within her than wifely affection or pa- 
 rental affection or even maternal affection, — stronger 
 than any womanly emotion, was the moral convic- 
 tion born of her great faith. This religious quality 
 of character can be found among ourselves only 
 within the shadow of cloisters, where it is cultivated 
 at the expense of all else ; and the Japanese woman 
 has been therefore compared to a Sister of Charity. 
 But she had to be very much more than a Sister 
 of Charity, — daughter-in-law and wife and mother, 
 and to fulfil without reproach the multiform duties 
 of her triple part. Rather might she be compared 
 to the Greek type of noble woman, — to Antigone, 
 to Alcestis. With the Japanese woman, as formed 
 by the ancient training, each act of life was an act 
 of faith : her existence was a religion, her home a 
 temple, her every word and thought ordered by 
 the law of the cult of the dead. . . . This won- 
 derful type is not extinct — though surely doomed 
 to disappear. A human creature so shaped for the 
 service of gods and men that every beat of her heart 
 is duty, that every drop of her blood is moral feel- 
 ing, were not less out of place in the future world 
 of competitive selfishness, than an angel in hell. 
 
The Shinto Revival 
 
The Shinto Revival 
 
 THE slow weakening of the Tokugawa Sho- 
 gunate was due to causes not unlike those 
 which had brought about the decline of pre- 
 vious regencies : the race degenerated during that 
 long period of peace which its rule had inaugurated ; 
 the strong builders were succeeded by feebler and 
 feebler men. Nevertheless the machinery of admin- 
 istration, astutely devised by Iyeyasu, and further 
 perfected by Iyemitsu, worked so well that the 
 enemies of the Shogunate could find no opportunity 
 for a successful attack until foreign aggression un- 
 expectedly came to their aid. The most dangerous 
 enemies of the government were the great clans of 
 Satsuma and Choshu. Iyeyasu had not ventured 
 to weaken them beyond a certain point: the risks 
 of the undertaking would have been great ; and, on 
 the other hand, the alliance of those clans was for 
 the time being a matter of vast political importance. 
 He only took measures to preserve a safe balance 
 of power, placing between those formidable allies 
 new lordships in whose rulers he could put trust, — 
 a trust based first upon interest, secondly upon kin- 
 ship. But he always felt that danger to the Sho* 
 
 2D 401 
 
402 THE SHINTO REVIVAL 
 
 gunate might come from Satsuma and Choshu ; and 
 he left to his successors careful instructions about 
 the policy to be followed in dealing with such pos- 
 sible enemies. He felt that his work was not per- 
 fect, — that certain outlying blocks of the structure 
 had not been properly clamped to the rest. He could 
 not do more in the direction of consolidation, simply 
 because the material of society had not yet sufficiently 
 evolved, had not yet become plastic enough, to per- 
 mit of perfect and permanent cohesion. In order 
 to effect that, it would have been necessary to dis- 
 solve the clans. But Iyeyasu did all that human 
 foresight could have safely attempted under' the cir- 
 cumstances ; and no one was more keenly conscious 
 than himself of the weak points in his wonderful 
 organization. 
 
 For more than two hundred years the Satsuma 
 and Choshu clans, and several others ready to league 
 with them, submitted to the discipline of the Toku- 
 gawa rule. But they chafed under it, and watched 
 for a chance to break the yoke. All the while this 
 chance was being slowly created for them — not by 
 any political changes, but by the patient toil of 
 Japanese men of letters. Three among these — the 
 greatest scholars that Japan ever produced — espe- 
 cially prepared the way, by their intellectual labours, 
 for the abolition of the Shogunate. They were 
 ShintS scholars ; and they represented the not un- 
 natural reaction of native conservatism against the 
 
THE SHINTO REVIVAL +03 
 
 long tyranny of alien ideas and alien beliefs, — 
 against the literature and philosophy and bureau- 
 cracy of China, — against the preponderant influence 
 upon education of the foreign religion of Buddhism. 
 To all this they opposed the old native literature of 
 Japan, the ancient poetry, the ancient cult, the early 
 traditions and rites of Shinto. The names of these 
 three remarkable men were Mabuchi (1 697-1 769), 
 Motowori (1730^1801), and Hirata (1776-1843). 
 Their efforts actually resulted in the disestablish- 
 ment of Buddhism, and in the great Shinto revival 
 of 1871. 
 
 The intellectual revolution made by these scholars 
 could have been prepared only during a long era of 
 peace, and by men enjoying the protection and 
 patronage of members of the ruling class. By a 
 strange chance, it was the house of Tokugawa itself 
 which first gave to literature such encouragement 
 and aid as made possible the labours of the Shinto 
 scholars. Iyeyasu had been a lover of learning; 
 and had devoted the later years of his life — passed 
 in retirement at Shidzuoka — to the collection of 
 ancient books and manuscripts. He bequeathed his 
 Japanese books to his eighth son, the Prince of 
 Owari ; and his Chinese books to another son, the 
 Prince of Kishu. The Prince of Owari himself com- 
 posed several works upon Japanese early literature. 
 Other descendants of Iyeyasu inherited the great 
 
404 THE SHINTO REVIVAL 
 
 Sh5gun's love of letters : one of his grandsons, 
 Mitsukuni, the second Prince of Mito (1622-1700), 
 compiled, with the aid of various scholars, the first 
 important history of Japan, — the Dai-Nihon-Shi, in 
 240 books. Also he compiled a work of 500 vol- 
 umes upon the ceremonies and the etiquette of the 
 Imperial Court, and set aside from his revenues a 
 sum equal to about .£30,000 per annum, to cover 
 the cost of publishing the splendid productions.. . . . 
 Under the patronage of great lords like these — 
 collectors of libraries — there gradually developed a 
 new school of men-of-letters : men who turned away 
 from Chinese literature to the study of the Jap- 
 anese classics. They reedited the ancient poetry 
 and chronicles ; they republished the sacred rec- 
 ords, with ample commentaries. They produced 
 whole libraries of works upon religious, histori- 
 cal, and philological subjects ; they made grammars 
 and dictionaries ; they wrote treatises on the art 
 of poetry, on popular errors, on the nature of the 
 gods, on government, on the manners and customs 
 of ancient days. . . . The foundations of this new 
 scholarship were laid by two Shinto priests, — Kada 
 and Mabuchi. 
 
 The high patrons of learning never suspected 
 the possible results of those researches which they 
 had encouraged and aided. The study of the an- 
 cient records, the study of Japanese literature, the 
 study of the early political and religious conditions, 
 
THE SHINTO REVIVAL 405 
 
 naturally led men to consider the history of those 
 foreign literary influences which had well-nigh 
 stifled native learning, and to consider also the his- 
 tory of the foreign creed which had overwhelmed 
 the religion of the ancestral gods. Chinese ethics, 
 Chinese ceremonial, and Chinese Buddhism had 
 reduced the ancient faith to the state of a minor 
 belief — almost to the state of a superstition. "The 
 Shinto gods," exclaimed one of the scholars of the 
 new school, " have become the servants of the Bud- 
 dhas ! " But those Shinto gods were the ancestors 
 of the race, — the fathers of its emperors and princes, 
 — and their degradation could not but involve the 
 degradation of the imperial tradition. Already, in- 
 deed, the emperors had been deprived not only of 
 their immemorial rights and privileges, but of their 
 revenues : many had been deposed and banished and 
 insulted. Just as the gods had been admitted only 
 as inferior personages to the Buddhist pantheon, so 
 their living descendants were now permitted to reign 
 only as the dependants of military usurpers. By 
 sacred law the whole soil of the empire belonged to 
 the Heavenly Sovereign : yet there had been great 
 poverty at times in the imperial palace ; and the 
 revenues, allotted for the maintenance of the 
 Mikado, had often been insufficient to relieve his 
 family from want. Assuredly all this was wrong. 
 The Shogunate had indeed established peace and 
 inaugurated prosperity ; but who could forget that 
 
406 THE SHINTO REVIVAL 
 
 it had originated in a military usurpation of impe- 
 rial rights ? Only by the restoration of the Son of 
 Heaven to his ancient position of power, and by the 
 relegation of the military chiefs to their proper state 
 of subordination, could the best interests of the 
 nation be really served. . . . 
 
 All this was thought and felt and strongly sug- 
 gested; but not all of it was openly proclaimed. To 
 have publicly preached against the military govern- 
 ment as a usurpation would have been to invite 
 destruction. The Shinto scholars dared only so 
 much as the politics and the temper of their time 
 seemed to permit, — though they closely approached 
 the danger-line. By the end of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, however, their teaching had created a strong 
 party in favour of the official revival of the ancient 
 religion, the restoration of the Mikado to supreme 
 power, and the repression, if not suppression, of 
 the military power. Yet it was not until the year 
 1 841 that the Shogunate took alarm, and proclaimed 
 its disquiet by banishing from the capital the great 
 scholar Hirata, and forbidding him to write any- 
 thing more. Not long afterwards he died. But he 
 had been able to teach for forty years; he had 
 written and published several hundred volumes ; 
 and the school of which he was the last and greatest 
 theologian already exerted far-reaching influence. 
 The restive lords of Choshu, Satsuma, Tosa, and 
 Hizen were watching and waiting. They perceived 
 
THE SHINTO REVIVAL 407 
 
 the worth of the new ideas to their own policy ; they 
 encouraged the new Shintoism ; they felt that a time 
 was coming when they could hope to shake off the 
 domination of the Tokugawa. And their oppor- 
 tunity came at last with the advent to Japan of 
 Commodore Perry's fleet. 
 
 The events of that time are well known, and need 
 not here be dwelt upon at any length. Suffice to 
 say that after the Shogunate had been terrified into 
 making commercial treaties with the United States 
 and other powers, and practically compelled to open 
 sundry ports to foreign trade, great discontent arose 
 and was fomented as much as possible by the ene- 
 mies of the military government. Meanwhile the 
 Shogunate had ascertained for itself the impossibility 
 of resisting foreign aggression : it was fairly well 
 informed as to the strength of Western countries. 
 The imperial court was nowise informed ; and the 
 Shogunate naturally dreaded to furnish the informa- 
 tion. To acknowledge incapacity to resist Occi- 
 dental aggression would be to invite the ruin of the 
 Tokugawa house ; to resist, on the other hand, 
 would be to invite the destruction of the Empire. 
 The enemies of the Shogunate then persuaded the 
 imperial court to order the expulsion of the for- 
 eigners ; and this order — which, it must be remem- 
 bered, was essentially a religious order, emanating 
 from the source of all acknowledged authority — 
 placed the military government in a serious dilemma. 
 
408 THE SHINTO REVIVAL 
 
 It tried to effect by diplomacy what it could not 
 accomplish by force ; but while it was negotiating 
 for the withdrawal of the foreign settlers, matters 
 were suddenly forced to a crisis by the Prince of 
 Choshii, who fired upon various ships belonging to 
 the foreign powers. This action provoked the bom- 
 bardment of Shimonoseki, and the demand of an 
 indemnity of three million dollars. The Shogun 
 Iyemochi attempted to chastise the daimyo of 
 Choshii for this act of hostility ; but the attempt 
 only proved the weakness of the military govern- 
 ment. Iyemochi died soon after this defeat ; and 
 his successor Hitotsubashi had no chance to do any- 
 thing, — for the now evident feebleness of the Sho- 
 gunate gave its enemies courage to strike a fatal 
 blow. Pressure was brought upon the imperial 
 court to proclaim the abolition of the Shogunate ; 
 and the Shogunate was abolished by decree. Hitot- 
 subashi submitted ; and the Tokugawa regime thus 
 came to an end, — although its more devoted fol- 
 lowers warred for two years afterwards, against hope- 
 less odds, to reestablish it. In 1867 the entire 
 administration was reorganized ; the supreme power, 
 both military and civil, being restored to the 
 Mikado. Soon afterward the Shinto cult, officially 
 revived in its primal simplicity, was declared the 
 Religion of State ; and Buddhism was disendowed. 
 Thus the Empire was reestablished upon the 
 ancient lines ; and all that the literary party had 
 
THE SHINTO REVIVAL 409 
 
 hoped for seemed to be realized — except one 
 thing. . . . 
 
 Be it here observed that the adherents of the 
 literary party wanted to go much further than the 
 great founders of the new Shintoism had dreamed 
 of going. These later enthusiasts were not satisfied 
 with the abolition of the Shogunate, the restoration 
 of imperial power, and the revival of the ancient 
 cult : they wanted a return of all society to the 
 simplicity of primitive times ; they desired that all 
 foreign influence should be got rid of, and that the 
 official ceremonies, the future education, the future 
 literature, the ethics, the laws, should be purely 
 Japanese. They were not even satisfied with the 
 disendowment of Buddhism : there was a vigorous 
 proposal made for its total suppression! And all 
 this would have signified, in more ways than one, 
 a social retrogression towards barbarism. The great 
 scholars had never proposed to cast away Buddhism 
 and all Chinese learning ; they had only insisted 
 that the native religion and culture should have pre- 
 cedence. But the new literary party desired what 
 would have been equivalent to the destruction of a 
 thousand years' experience. Happily the clansmen 
 who had broken down the Shogunate saw both past 
 and future in another light. They understood that 
 the national existence was in peril, and that resist- 
 ance to foreign pressure would be hopeless. Satsuma 
 had witnessed the bombardment of Kagoshima in 
 
410 THE SHINTO REVIVAL 
 
 1863; Choshu, the bombardment of Shimonoseki 
 in 1864. Evidently the only chance of being able 
 to face Western power would be through the patient 
 study of Western science ; and the survival of the 
 Empire depended upon the Europeanization of 
 society. By 1871 the daimiates were abolished; 
 in 1873 the edicts against Christianity were with- 
 drawn; in 1876 the wearing of swords was pro- 
 hibited. The samurai, as a military body, were 
 suppressed ; and all classes were declared thence- 
 forward equal before the law. New codes were 
 compiled ; a new army and navy organized ; a new 
 police system established ; a new system of educa- 
 tion introduced at Government expense ; and a new 
 constitution promised. Finally, in 1891, the first 
 Japanese parliament (strictly speaking) was convoked. 
 By that time the entire framework of society had 
 been remodelled, so far as laws could remodel it, 
 upon a European pattern. The nation had fairly 
 entered upon its third period of integration. The 
 clan had been legally dissolved ; the family was no 
 longer the legal unit of society : by the new consti- 
 tution the individual had been recognized. 
 
 When we consider the history of some vast and 
 sudden political change in its details only, — the 
 factors of the movement, the combinations of imme- 
 diate cause and effect, the influences of strong per- 
 sonality, the conditions impelling individual action, 
 
THE SHINTO REVIVAL 411 
 
 — then the transformation is apt to appear to us the 
 work and the triumph of a few superior minds. We 
 forget, perhaps, that those minds themselves were the 
 product of their epoch, and that every such rapid 
 change must represent the working of a national 
 or race-instinct quite as much as the operation of 
 individual intelligence. The events of the Meiji 
 reconstruction strangely illustrate the action of 
 such instinct in the face of peril, — the readjust- 
 ment of internal relations to sudden changes of 
 environment. The nation had found its old political 
 system powerless before the new conditions ; and it 
 transformed that system. It had found its military 
 organization incapable of defending it; and it recon- 
 structed that organization. It had found its educa- 
 tional system useless in the presence of unforeseen 
 necessities ; and it replaced that system, — simultan- 
 eously crippling the power of Buddhism, which 
 might otherwise have offered serious opposition to 
 the new developments required. And in that hour 
 of greatest danger the national instinct turned back 
 at once to the moral experience upon which it could 
 best rely, — the experience embodied in its ancient 
 cult, the religion of unquestioning obedience. Re- 
 lying upon Shinto tradition, the people rallied 
 about their ruler, descendant of the ancient gods, 
 and awaited his will with unconquerable zeal of 
 faith. By strict obedience to his commands the 
 peril might be averted, — never otherwise : this was 
 
412 THE SHINTO REVIVAL 
 
 the national conviction. And the imperial order 
 was simply that the nation should strive by study 
 to make itself, as far as possible, the intellectual 
 equal of its enemies. How faithfully that command 
 was obeyed, — how well the old moral discipline of 
 the race served it in the period of that supreme 
 emergency, — I need scarcely say. Japan, by right 
 of self-acquired strength, has entered into the circle 
 of the modern civilized powers, — formidable by 
 her new military organization, respectable through 
 her achievements in the domain of practical science. 
 And the force to effect this astonishing self- 
 improvement, within the time of thirty years, 
 she owes assuredly to the moral habit derived 
 from her ancient cult, — the religion of the 
 ancestors. To fairly measure the feat, we should 
 remember that Japan was evolutionary younger 
 than any modern European nation, by at least 
 twenty-seven hundred years, when she went to 
 school ! . . . 
 
 Herbert Spencer has shown that the great value 
 to society of ecclesiastical institutions lies in their 
 power to give cohesion to the mass, — to strengthen 
 rule by enforcing obedience to custom, and by op- 
 posing innovations likely to supply any element 
 of disintegration. In other words, the value of a 
 religion, from the sociological standpoint, lies in its 
 conservatism. Various writers have alleged that the 
 
THE SHINTO REVIVAL 413 
 
 Japanese national religion proved itself weak by 
 incapacity to resist the overwhelming influence of 
 Buddhism. I cannot help thinking that the entire 
 social history of Japan yields proof to the contrary. 
 Though Buddhism did for a long period appear to 
 have almost entirely absorbed Shinto, by the ac- 
 knowledgment of the Shinto scholars themselves ; 
 though Buddhist emperors reigned who neglected 
 or despised the cult of their ancestors ; though 
 Buddhism directed, during ten centuries, the educa- 
 tion of the nation, Shinto remained all the while 
 so very much alive that it was able not only to dis- 
 possess its rival at last, but to save the country 
 from foreign domination. To assert that the Shinto 
 revival signified no more than a stroke of policy 
 imagined by a group of statesmen, is to ignore all 
 the antecedents of the event. No such change 
 could have been wrought by mere decree had not 
 the national sentiment welcomed it. . . . Moreover, 
 there are three important facts to be remembered 
 in regard to the former Buddhist predomination : 
 (1) Buddhism conserved the family-cult, modifying 
 the forms of the rite ; (2) Buddhism never really- 
 supplanted the Ujigami cults, but maintained them ; 
 (3) Buddhism never interfered with the imperial 
 cult. Now these three forms of ancestor-worship, 
 — the domestic, the communal, and the national, — 
 constitute all that is vital in Shinto. No single es- 
 sential of the ancient faith had ever been weakened, 
 
4 H THE SHINTO REVIVAL 
 
 much less abolished, under the long pressure of 
 Buddhism. 
 
 The Supreme Cult is not now the State Religion ; 
 by request of the chiefs of Shinto, it is not even 
 officially classed as a religion. Obvious reasons of 
 state policy decided this course. Having fulfilled 
 its grand task, Shinto abdicated. But as representing 
 all those traditions which appeal to race-feeling, to 
 the sentiment of duty, to the passion of loyalty, and 
 the love of country, it yet remains an immense force, 
 a power to which appeal will not be vainly made in 
 another hour of national peril. 
 
Survivals 
 
Survivals 
 
 IN the gardens of certain Buddhist temples there 
 are trees which have been famous for centuries, 
 — trees trained and clipped into extraordinary 
 shapes. Some have the form of dragons ; others have 
 theform of pagodas,ships,umbrellas. Supposing that 
 one of these trees were abandoned to its own natural 
 tendencies, it would eventually lose the queer shape 
 so long imposed upon it ; but the outline would 
 not be altered for a considerable time, as the new 
 leafage would at first unfold only in the direction of 
 least resistance : that is to say, within limits origi- 
 nally established by the shears and the pruning-knife. 
 By sword and law the old Japanese society had been 
 pruned and clipped, bent and bound, just like such 
 a tree ; and after the reconstructions of the Meiji 
 period, — after the abolition of the daimiates, and 
 the suppression of the military class, — it still main- 
 tained its former shape, just as the tree would con- 
 tinue to do when first abandoned by the gardener. 
 Though delivered from the bonds of feudal law, 
 released from the shears of military rule, the great 
 bulk of the social structure preserved its ancient 
 2E 417 
 
418 SURVIVALS. 
 
 aspect ; and the rare spectacle bewildered and de- 
 lighted and deluded the Western observer. Here 
 indeed was Elf-land, — the strange, the beautiful, 
 the grotesque, the very mysterious, — totally unlike 
 aught of strange and attractive ever beheld else- 
 where. It was not a world of the 1 nineteenth cen- 
 tury after Christ, but a world of many centuries 
 before Christ : yet this fact — the wonder of won- 
 ders — remained unrecognized ; and it remains un- 
 recognized by most people even to this day. 
 
 Fortunate indeed were those privileged to enter 
 this astonishing fairyland thirty odd years ago, be- 
 fore the period of superficial change, and to observe 
 the unfamiliar aspects of its life : the universal urban- 
 ity, the smiling silence of crowds, the patient delib- 
 eration of toil, the absence of misery and struggle. 
 Even yet, in those remoter districts where alien 
 influence has wrought but little change, the charm 
 of the old existence lingers and amazes ; and the 
 ordinary traveller can little understand what it 
 means. That all are polite, that nobody quarrels, 
 that everybody smiles, that pain and sorrow remain 
 invisible, that the new police have nothing to do, 
 would seem to prove a morally superior humanity. 
 But for the trained sociologist it would prove some- 
 thing different, and suggest something very terrible. 
 It would prove to him that this society had been 
 moulded under immense coercion, and that the 
 coercion must have been exerted uninterruptedly 
 
SURVIVALS 419 
 
 for thousands of years. He would immediately 
 perceive that ethics and custom had not yet be- 
 come dissociated, and that the conduct of each 
 person was regulated by the will of the rest. He 
 would know that personality could not develop in 
 such a social medium, — that no individual superi- 
 ority dare assert itself, that no competition would 
 be tolerated. He would understand that the out- 
 ward charm of this life — its softness, its smiling 
 silence as of dreams — signified the rule of the 
 dead. He would recognize that between those 
 minds and the minds of his own epoch no kin- 
 ship of thought, no community of sentiment, no 
 sympathy whatever could exist, — that the separating 
 gulf was not to be measured by thousands of leagues, 
 but only by thousands of years, — that the psycho- 
 logical interval was hopeless as the distance from 
 planet to planet. Yet this knowledge probably 
 would not — certainly should not — blind him to 
 the intrinsic charm of things. Not to feel the 
 beauty of this archaic life is to prove oneself in- 
 sensible to all beauty. Even that Greek world, 
 for which our scholars and poets profess such lov- 
 ing admiration, must have been in many ways a 
 world of the same kind, whose daily mental exist- 
 ence no modern mind could share. 
 
 Now that the great social tree, so wonderfully 
 dipped and cared for during many centuries, 
 
420 SURVIVALS 
 
 is losing its fantastic shape, let us try to see 
 how much of the original design can still be 
 traced. 
 
 Under all the outward aspects of individual 
 activity that modern Japan presents to the visit- 
 or's gaze, the ancient conditions really persist to 
 an extent that no observation could reveal. Still 
 the immemorial cult rules all the land. Still the 
 family-law, the communal law, and (though in a 
 more irregular manner) the clan-law, control every 
 action of existence. I do not refer to any written 
 law, but only to the old unwritten religious law, 
 with its host of obligations deriving from ancestor- 
 worship. It is true that many changes — and, in 
 the opinion of the wise, too many changes — have 
 been made in civil legislation ; but the ancient 
 proverb, " Government-laws are only seven-day 
 laws," still represents popular sentiment in regard 
 to hasty reforms. The old law, the law of the 
 dead, is that by which the millions prefer to 
 act and think. Though ancient social groupings 
 have been officially abolished, re-groupings of a 
 corresponding sort have been formed, instinctively, 
 throughout the country districts. In theory the 
 individual is free ; in practice he is scarcely more 
 free than were his forefathers. Old penalties for 
 breach of custom have been abrogated ; yet commu- 
 nal opinion is able to compel the ancient obedience. 
 Legal enactments can nowhere effect immediate 
 
SURVIVALS 421 
 
 change of sentiment and long-established usage, 
 — least of all among a people of such fixity of 
 character as the Japanese. Young persons are 
 no more at liberty now, than were their fathers 
 and mothers under the Shogunate, to marry at 
 will, to invest their means and efforts in undertak- 
 ings not sanctioned by family approval, to consider 
 themselves in any way enfranchised from family 
 authority ; and it is probably better for the pres- 
 ent that they are not. No man is yet complete 
 master of his activities, his time, or his means. 
 
 Though the individual is now registered, and made 
 directly accountable to the law, while the household 
 has been relieved from its ancient responsibility for 
 the acts of its members, still the family practically 
 remains the social unit, retaining its patriarchal 
 organization and its particular cult. Not unwisely, 
 the modern legislators have protected this domestic 
 religion : to weaken its bond at this time were to 
 weaken the foundations of the national moral life, — 
 to introduce disintegrations into the most deeply 
 seated structures of the social organism. The new 
 codes forbid the man who becomes by succession the 
 head of a house to abolish that house : he is not per- 
 mitted to suppress a cult. No legal presumptive heir 
 to the headship of a family can enter into another 
 family as adopted son or husband ; nor can he aban- 
 don the paternal house to establish an independent 
 
422 SURVIVALS 
 
 family of his own. 1 Provision has been made to 
 meet extraordinary cases ; but no individual is al- 
 lowed, without good and sufficient reason, to free 
 himself from those traditional obligations which the 
 family-cult imposes. As regards adoption, the new 
 law maintains the spirit of the old, with fresh pro 
 vision for the conservation of the family religion, — ' 
 permitting any person of legal age to adopt a son, 
 on the simple condition that the person adopted 
 shall be younger than the adopter. The new 
 divorce-laws do not permit the dismissal of a wife 
 for sterility alone (and divorce for such cause had 
 long been condemned by Japanese sentiment) ; butj 
 in view of the facilities given for adoption, this re- 
 form does not endanger the continuance of the cult. 
 An interesting example of the manner in which the 
 law still protects ancestor-worship is furnished by 
 the fact that an aged and childless widow, last repre- 
 sentative of her family, is not permitted to remain 
 without an heir. She must adopt a son if she can : 
 if she cannot, because of poverty, or for other rea- 
 
 1 That is to say, he cannot separate himself from the family in law 5 but he is 
 free to live in a separate house. The tendency to further disintegration of the family 
 is shown by a custom which has been growing of late years, — especially in Tokyo : 
 the custom of demanding, as a condition of marriage, that the bride shall not be 
 obliged to live in the same house with the parents of the bridegroom. This custom 
 is yet confined to certain classes, and has been adversely criticised. Many young 
 men, on marrying, leave the parental home to begin independent housekeeping, — 
 though remaining legally attached to their parents' families, of course. ... It 
 will perhaps be asked, What becomes of the cult in such cases ? The cult remains 
 in the parental home. When the parents die, then the ancestral tablets are trans- 
 ferred to the home of the married son. 
 
SURVIVALS 4*3 
 
 sons, the local authorities will provide a son for her r 
 — that is to say, a male heir to maintain the family- 
 worship. Such official interference would seem to 
 us tyrannical : it is simply paternal, and represents 
 the continuance of an ancient regulation intended to 
 protect the bereaved against what Eastern faith still 
 deems the supreme misfortune, — the extinction of 
 the home-cult. ... In other respects the later 
 codes allow of individual liberty unknown in previ- 
 ous generations. But the ordinary person would 
 not dream of attempting to claim a legal right opposed 
 to common opinion. Family and public sentiment 
 are still more potent than law. The Japanese news- 
 papers frequently record tragedies resulting from the 
 prevention or dissolution of unions ; and these trage- 
 dies afford strong proof that most young people 
 would prefer even suicide to the probable conse- 
 quence of a successful appeal to law against family 
 decision. 
 
 The communal form of coercion is less apparent 
 in the large cities ; but everywhere it endures to 
 some extent, and in the agricultural districts it re- 
 mains supreme. Between the new conditions and 
 the old there is this difference, that the man who 
 finds the yoke of his district hard to bear can flee 
 from it : he could not do so fifty years ago. But 
 he can flee from it only to enter into another state 
 of subordination of nearlv the same kind. Full 
 
424 SURVIVALS 
 
 advantage, nevertheless, has been taken of this 
 modern liberty of movement: thousands yearly 
 throng to the cities ; other thousands travel over the 
 country, from province to province ; working for a 
 year or a season in one place, then going to another, 
 with little more to hope for than experience of 
 change. Emigration also has been taking place 
 upon an extensive scale ; but for the common class 
 of emigrants, at least, the advantage of emigration 
 is chiefly represented by the chance of earning larger 
 wages. A Japanese emigrant community abroad 
 organizes itself upon the home-plan ; 1 and the in- 
 dividual emigrant probably finds himself as much 
 under communal coercion in Canada, Hawaii, or the 
 Philippine Islands, as he could ever have been in 
 his native province. Needless to say that in foreign 
 countries such coercion is more than compensated 
 by the aid and protection which the communal or- 
 ganization insures. But with the constantly increas- 
 ing number of restless spirits at home, and the 
 ever widening experience of Japanese emigrants 
 
 1 Except as regards the communal cult, perhaps. The domestic cult is trans- 
 planted ; emigrants who go abroad, accompanied by their families, take the ances- 
 tral tablets with them. To what extent the communal cult may have been 
 established in emigrant communities, I have not yet been able to learn. It would 
 appear, however, that the absence of Ujigami in certain emigrant settlements is to 
 be accounted for solely by the pecuniary difficulty of constructing such temples and 
 maintaining competent officials. In Formosa, for example, though the domestic 
 ancestor-cult is maintained in the homes of the Japanese settlers, Ujigami have not 
 yet been established. The government, however, has erected several important 
 Shinto temples ; and I am told that some of these will probably be converted into 
 Ujigami when the Japanese population has increased enough to justify the measure. 
 
SURVIVALS 425 
 
 abroad, it would seem likely that the power of the 
 commune for compulsory cooperation must become 
 considerably weakened in the near future. 
 
 As for the tribal or clan law, it survives to the 
 degree of remaining almost omnipotent in adminis- 
 trative circles, and in all politics. Voters, officials, 
 legislators, do not follow principles in our sense of 
 the word : they follow men, and obey commands. 
 In these spheres of action the penalties of disobe- 
 dience to orders are endless as well as serious : by 
 a single such offence one may array against oneself 
 powers that will continue their hostile operation 
 for years and yearsy- — unreasoningly, implacably, 
 blindly, with the weight and persistence of natural 
 forces, — of winds or tides. Any comprehension 
 of the history of Japanese politics during the last 
 fifteen years is not possible without some know- 
 ledge of clan-history. A political leader, fully ac- 
 quainted with the history of clan-parties, and their 
 offshoots, can accomplish marvellous things ; and 
 even foreign residents, with long experience of 
 Japanese life, have been able, by pressing upon 
 clan-interests, to exercise a very real power in gov- 
 ernment circles. But to ' the ordinary foreigner, 
 Japanese contemporary politics must appear a chaos, 
 a disintegration, a hopeless flux. The truth is that 
 most things remain, under varying outward forms, 
 " as all were ordered, ages* since," — though the 
 
426 SURVIVALS 
 
 shiftings have become more rapid, and the results 
 less obvious, in the haste of an era of steam and 
 electricity. 
 
 The greatest of living Japanese statesmen, the 
 Marquis Ito, long ago perceived that the tendency 
 of political life to agglomerations, to clan-groupings, 
 presented the most serious obstacle to the successful 
 working of constitutional government. He under- 
 stood that this tendency could be opposed only by 
 considerations weightier than clan-interests, consider- 
 ations worthy of supreme sacrifice. He therefore 
 formed a party of which every member was pledged 
 to pass over clan-interests, clique-interests, personal 
 and every other kind of interests, for the sake of 
 national interests. Brought into collision with a 
 hostile cabinet in 1903, this party achieved the feat 
 of controlling its animosities even to the extent of 
 maintaining its foes in power ; but large fragments 
 broke off in the process. So profoundly is the 
 grouping-tendency, the clan-sentiment, identified 
 with national character, that the ultimate success of 
 Marquis Ito's policy must still be considered doubt- 
 ful. Only a national danger — the danger of war, 
 — has yet been able tb weld all parties together, to 
 make all wills work as one. 
 
 Not only politics, but nearly all phases of modern 
 life, yield evidence that the disintegration of the old 
 society has been superficial rather than fundamental. 
 Structures dissolved have recrystallized, taking forms 
 
SURVIVALS 427 
 
 dissimilar in aspect to the original forms, but in- 
 wardly built upon the same plan. For the dissolu- 
 tions really effected represented only a separation of 
 masses, not a breaking up of substance into inde- 
 pendent units ; and these masses, again cohering, 
 continue to act only as masses. Independence 
 of personal action, in the Western sense, is still 
 almost inconceivable. The individual of every 
 class above the lowest must continue to be at once 
 coercer and coerced. Like an atom within a solid 
 body, he can vibrate ; but the orbit of his vibration 
 is fixed. He must act and be acted upon in ways 
 differing little from those of ancient time. 
 
 As for being acted upon, the average man is under 
 three kinds of pressure : pressure from above, ex- 
 emplified in the will of his superiors ; pressure 
 about him, represented by the common will of 
 his fellows and equals ; pressure from below, rep- 
 resented by the general sentiment of his inferiors. 
 And this last sort of coercion is not the least 
 formidable. 
 
 Individual resistance to the first kind of pressure 
 — that represented by authority — is not even to be 
 thought of ; because the superior represents a clan, 
 a class, an exceedingly multiple power of some de- 
 scription ; and no solitary individual, in the present 
 order of things, can strive against a combination. 
 To resist injustice he must find ample support, in 
 
428 SURVIVALS 
 
 which case his resistance does not represent indi- 
 vidual action. 
 
 Resistance to the second kind of pressure — com- 
 munal coercion — signifies ruin, loss of the right to 
 form a part of the social body. 
 
 Resistance to the third sort of pressure, embodied 
 in the common sentiment of inferiors, may result in 
 almost anything, — from momentary annoyance to 
 sudden death, — according to circumstances. 
 
 In all forms of society these three kinds of press- 
 ure are exerted to some degree ; but in Japanese 
 society, owing to inherited tendency, and traditional 
 sentiment, their power is tremendous. 
 
 Thus, in every direction, the individual finds 
 himself confronted by the despotism of collective 
 opinion : it is impossible for him to act with safety 
 except as one unit of a combination. The first 
 kind of pressure deprives him of moral freedom, 
 exacting unlimited obedience to orders ; the sec- 
 ond kind of pressure denies him the right to use 
 his best faculties in the best way for his own advan- 
 tage (that is to say, denies him the right of free 
 competition) ; the third kind of pressure compels 
 him, in directing the actions of others, to follow 
 tradition, to forbear innovations, to avoid making 
 any changes, however beneficial, which do not find 
 willing acceptance on the part of his inferiors. 
 
 These are the social conditions which, under 
 
SURVIVALS 429 
 
 normal circumstances, make for stability, for con- 
 servation ; and they represent the will of the dead. 
 They are inevitable to a militant state ; they make 
 the strength of that state ; they render facile the 
 creation and maintenance of formidable armies. 
 But they are not conditions favourable to success in 
 the future international competition, — in the indus- 
 trial struggle for existence against societies incom- 
 parably more plastic, and of higher mental energy. 
 
Modern Restraints 
 
Modern Restraints 
 
 FOR even a vague understanding of modern 
 Japan, it will be necessary to consider the 
 effect of the three forms of social coercion, 
 mentioned in the preceding chapter, as restraints 
 upon individual energy and capacity. All three 
 represent survivals of the ancient religious respon- 
 sibility. I shall treat of them in order inverse, 
 beginning with the under-pressure. 
 
 It has often been asserted by foreign observers 
 that the real power in Japan is exercised not from 
 above, but from below. There is some truth in 
 this assertion, but not all the truth : the conditions • 
 are much too complex to be covered by any general 
 statement. What cannot be gainsaid is that supe- 
 rior authority has always been more or less restrained 
 by tendencies to resistance from below. . . . At 
 no time in Japanese history, for example, do the 
 peasants appear to have been left without recourse 
 against excessive oppression, — notwithstanding all 
 the humiliating regulations imposed on their exist- 
 ence. They were suffered to frame their own 
 village-laws, to estimate the possible amount of 
 
 2* 433 
 
434 MODERN RESTRAINTS 
 
 their tax payments, and to make protest — through 
 official channels — against unmerciful exaction. They 
 were made to pay as much as they could ; but they 
 were not reduced to bankruptcy or starvation; and 
 tneir holdings were mostly secured to them by laws 
 forbidding the sale or alienation of family property. 
 Such was at least the general rule. There were, 
 however, wicked daimyo, who treated their farmers 
 with extreme cruelty, and found ways to prevent 
 complaints or protests from reaching the higher 
 authorities. The almost invariable result of such 
 tyranny was revolt ; and the tyrant was then made 
 responsible for the disorder, and punished. Though 
 denied in theory, the right of the peasant to rebel 
 against oppression was respected in practice ; the 
 revolt was punished, but the oppressor was like- 
 wise punished. Daimyo were obliged to reckon 
 with their farmers In regard to any fresh imposition 
 of taxes or forced labour. We also find that al- 
 though heimin were made subject to the military 
 class, it was possible for artizans and commercial 
 folk to form, in the great cities, strong associations 
 by which military tyranny was kept in check. 
 Everywhere the reverential deference of the com- 
 mon people to authority, as exercised in usual direc- 
 tions, seems to have been accompanied by an 
 extraordinary readiness to defy authority exercised 
 in other directions. 
 
 It may seem strange that a society in which reft- 
 
MODERN RESTRAINTS 435 
 
 gion and government, ethics and custom, were prac- 
 tically identical, should furnish striking examples of 
 resistance to authority. But the religious fact itself 
 supplies the explanation. From the earliest period 
 there was firmly established, in the popular mind, 
 the conviction that implicit obedience to authority 
 was the universal duty under all ordinary circum- 
 stances. But with this conviction there was united 
 another, — that resistance to authority (excepting 
 the sacred authority of the Supreme Ruler) was 
 equally a duty under extraordinary circumstances. 
 And these seemingly opposed convictions were not 
 really inconsistent. So long as rule followed prece- 
 dent, — so long as its commands, however harsh, 
 did not conflict with sentiment and tradition, — that 
 rule was regarded as religious, and there was abso- 
 lute submission. But when rulers presumed to 
 break with ethical usage, — in a spirit of reckless 
 cruelty or greed, — then the people might feel it a 
 religious obligation to resist with all the zeal of vol- 
 untary martyrdom. The danger-line for every form 
 of local tyranny was departure from precedent. Even 
 the conduct of regents and princes was much re- 
 strained by the common opinion of their retainers, 
 and by the knowledge that certain kinds of arbitrary 
 conduct were likely to provoke assassination. 
 
 Deference to the sentiment of vassals and retainers 
 was from ancient time a necessary policy with Japan- 
 ese rulers, — not merely because of the peril involved 
 
436 MODERN RESTRAINTS 
 
 by needless oppression, but much more because of 
 the recognition that duties are well performed only 
 when subordinates feel assured that their efforts will 
 be fairly considered, and that sudden needless changes 
 will not be made to their disadvantage. This old 
 policy still characterizes Japanese administration ; 
 and the deference of high authority to collective 
 opinion astonishes and puzzles the foreign observer. 
 He perceives only that the conservative power of 
 sentiment, as exercised by groups of subordinates, 
 remains successfully opposed to those conditions of 
 discipline which we think indispensable to social 
 progress. Just as in Old Japan the ruler of a dis- 
 trict was held responsible for the behaviour of his 
 subjects, so to-day, in New Japan, every official in 
 charge of a department is held responsible for the 
 smooth working of its routine. But this does not 
 mean that he is responsible only for the efficiency 
 of a service : it means that he is held responsible 
 likewise for failure to satisfy the wishes of his sub- 
 ordinates, or at least the majority of his subordi- 
 nates. If this majority be displeased with their 
 minister, governor, president, manager, chief, or 
 director, the fact is considered proof of administra- 
 tive incompetency. . . . Perhaps educational circles 
 afford the most curious examples of this old idea of 
 responsibility. A student-revolt is commonly sup- 
 posed to mean, not that the students are intractable, 
 but that the superintendent or teacher does not know 
 
MODERN RESTRAINTS 437 
 
 his business. Thus the principal of a college, the 
 director of a school, holds his office only on the 
 condition that his rule gives satisfaction to a ma- 
 jority of the students. In the higher government 
 institutions, each professor or lecturer is made re- 
 sponsible for the success of his lectures. No matter 
 how great may be his ability in other directions, the 
 official instructor, unable to make himself liked by 
 his pupils, will be got rid of in short order — unless 
 some powerful protectors interfere on his behalf. The 
 efforts of the man will never be judged (officially) by 
 any accepted standard of excellence, — never esti- 
 mated by their intrinsic worth ; they will be con- 
 sidered only according to their direct effect upon the 
 average of minds. 1 Almost everywhere this antique 
 system of responsibility is maintained. A minister 
 of state is by public sentiment made responsible not 
 only for the results of his administration, but like- 
 wise for any scandals or troubles that may occur in 
 his department, independently of the question whether 
 he could or could not have prevented them. To a 
 considerable degree, therefore, it is true that the ulti- 
 
 1 Unjust as this policy must appear to the Western reader (a policy which cer- 
 tainly presupposes ethical conditions very different from our own), it was probably at 
 one time the best possible under the new order. Considering the extraordinary changes 
 suddenly made in the educational system, it will be obvious that a teacher's immedi- 
 ate value was likely — twenty years ago — to depend on his ability to make his teach- 
 ing attractive. If he attempted to teach either above or below the average capacity 
 of his pupils, or if he made his instruction unpalatable to minds greedy for new know- 
 ledge, but innocent as to method, his inexperience could be corrected by the will of 
 his class. 
 
438 MODERN RESTRAINTS 
 
 mate power is below. The highest official is not 
 able with impunity to impose his personal will im 
 certain directions ; and, for the time being, it is 
 probably better that his powers are thus restrained. 
 From above downwards through all the grades of 
 society, the same system of responsibility, and the 
 same restraints upon individual exercise of will, "per- 
 sist under varying forms. The conditions within 
 the household differ but little in this regard from the 
 conditions in a government department : no house- 
 holder, for example, can impose his will, beyond 
 certain fixed limits, even upon his own servants or 
 dependents. Neither for love nor money can a 
 good servant be induced to break with traditional 
 custom ; and the old opinion, that the value of a 
 servant is proved by such inflexibility, has been 
 justified by the experience of centuries. Popular 
 sentiment remains conservative ; and the apparent 
 zeal for superficial innovation affords no indication of 
 the real order of existence. Fashions and formal- 
 ities, house-interiors and street-vistas, habits and 
 methods, and all the outer aspects of life are changed ; 
 but the old regimentation of society persists under 
 all these surface-shiftings ; and the national character 
 remains little affected by all the transformations of 
 
 m. 
 
 The second kind of coercion to which the individ- 
 ual is subjected — the communal, or communistic — 
 
MODERN RESTRAINTS 439 
 
 seems likely to prove mischievous in the near future, 
 as it signifies practical suppression of the right to com- 
 pete. . . . The everyday life of any Japanese city 
 offers numberless suggestions of the manner in which 
 the masses continue to think and to act by groups. 
 But no more familiar and forcible illustration of the 
 fact can be cited than that which is furnished by the 
 code of the kurumaya or jihrikisha^men. According 
 to its terms, one runner must not attempt to pass by 
 another going in the same direction. Exceptions 
 have been made, grudgingly, in favour of runners in 
 private employ, — men selected for strength and 
 speed, who are expected to use their physical powers 
 to the utmost. But among the tens of thousands of 
 public kurumaya, it is the rule that a young and 
 active man must not pass by an old and feeble man, 
 nor even by a needlessly slow and lazy man. To 
 take advantage of one's own superior energy, so as 
 to force competition, is an offence against the calling, 
 an'd certain to be resented. You engage a good 
 runner, whom you order to make all speed : he 
 springs away splendidly, and keeps up the pace 
 until he happens to overtake some weak or lazy 
 puller, who seems to be moving as slowly as the 
 gait permits. Therewith, instead of bounding by, 
 your man drops immediately behind the slow-going 
 vehicle, and slackens his pace almost to a walk. 
 For half an hour, or more, you may be thus delayed 
 by the regulation which obliges the strong and 
 
440 MODERN RESTRAINTS 
 
 swift to wait for the weak and slow. An angry 
 appeal is made to the runner who dares to pass 
 another; and the idea behind the words might be 
 thus expressed : " You know that you are break- 
 ing the rule, — that you are acting to the disadvan- 
 tage of your comrades ! This is a hard calling ; and 
 our lives would be made harder than they are, if 
 there were no rules to prevent selfish competition ! " 
 Of course there is no thought of the consequences 
 of such rules to business interests at large. . . . 
 Now it is not unjust to say that this moral code of 
 the kurumaya exemplifies an unwritten law which 
 has been always imposed, in varying forms, upon 
 every class of workers in Japan : " You must not 
 try, without special authorization, to pass your fel- 
 lows." . . . La carrier e est ouverte aux talents — 
 mats la concurrence est def endue ! 
 
 Of course the modern communal restraint upon 
 free competition represents the survival and exten- 
 sion of that altruistic spirit which ruled the ancient 
 society, — not the mere continuance of any fixed 
 custom. In feudal times there were no kurumaya; 
 but all craftsmen and all labourers formed guilds or 
 companies ; and the discipline maintained by those 
 guilds or companies prohibited competition as under- 
 taken for merely personal advantage. Similar or 
 nearly similar forms of organization are maintained 
 by artizans and labourers to-day ; and the relation 
 
MODERN RESTRAINTS 441 
 
 of any outside employer to skilled labour is regu- 
 lated, by the guild or company, in the old commu- 
 nistic manner. . . . Let us suppose, for instance, 
 that you wish to have a good house built. For that 
 undertaking, you will have to deal with a very intel- 
 ligent class of skilled labour ; for the Japanese house- 
 carpenter may be ranked with the artist almost as 
 much as with the artizan. You may apply to a 
 building-company ; but, as a general rule, you will 
 do better by applying to a master-carpenter, who 
 combines in himself the functions of architect, con- 
 tractor, and builder. In any event you cannot select 
 and hire workmen : guild-regulations forbid. You 
 can only make your contract; and the master-car- 
 penter, when his plans have been approved, will 
 undertake all the rest, — purchase and transport 
 of material, — hire of carpenters, plasterers, tilers, 
 mat-makers, screen-fitters, brass-workers, stone-cut- 
 ters, locksmiths, and glaziers. For each master- 
 carpenter represents much more than his own 
 craft-guild : he has his clients in every trade re- 
 lated to house-building and house-furnishing ; and 
 you must not dream of trying to interfere with his 
 claims and privileges. . . . He builds your house 
 according to contract; but that is only the begin- 
 ning of the relation. You have really made with 
 him an agreement which you must not break, with- 
 out good and sufficient reason, for the rest of your 
 life. Whatever afterwards may happen to any part 
 
442 MODERN RESTRAINTS 
 
 of your house, — walls, floor, ceiling, roof, founda- 
 tion, — you must arrange for repairs with him, never 
 with anybody else. Should the roof leak, for in- 
 stance, you must not send for the nearest tiler or 
 tinsmith ; if the plaster cracks, you must not send 
 for a plasterer. The man who built your house 
 holds himself responsible for its condition ; and he 
 is jealous of that responsibility: none but he has 
 the right to send for the plasterer, the roofer, the 
 tinsmith. If you interfere with that right, you 
 may have some unpleasant surprises. If you make 
 appeal to the law against that right, you will find 
 that you can get no carpenter, tiler, or plasterer to 
 work for you at any terms. Compromise is always 
 possible ; but the guilds will resent a needless ap- 
 peal to the law. And after all, these craft-guilds 
 are usually faithful performers, and well worth 
 conciliating. 
 
 Or take the occupation of landscape-gardening. 
 You want a pretty garden ; and you hire a profes- 
 sional gardener who comes to you well recommended. 
 He makes the garden ; and you pay his price. But 
 your gardener really represents a company ; and by 
 engaging him it is understood that either he, or 
 some other member of the gardeners' corporation to 
 which he belongs, will continue to take care of your 
 garden as long as you own it. At each season he 
 will pay your garden a visit, and put everything to 
 rights : he will clip the hedges, prune the fruit trees, 
 
MODERN RESTRAINTS 443 
 
 repair the fences, train the climbing-plants, look 
 after the flowers, — putting up paper awnings to 
 protect delicate shrubs from the sun during the 
 hot season, or making little tents of straw to shel- 
 ter them in time of frost ; — he will do a hundred 
 useful and ingenious things for a very small remu- 
 neration. You cannot dismiss him, however, with- 
 out good reason, and hire another gardener to take 
 his place. No other gardener would serve you at 
 any price, .unless assured that the original relation 
 had been dissolved by mutual consent. If you 
 have just cause for complaint, the matter can be 
 settled through arbitration ; and the guild will see 
 that you have no further trouble. But you cannot 
 dismiss your gardener without cause, merely to en- 
 gage another. 
 
 The above examples will suffice to show the char- 
 acter of the old communistic organization which is 
 yet maintained in a hundred forms. This com- 
 munism suppressed competition, except as between 
 groups ; but it insured good work, and secured easy 
 conditions for the workman. It was the best system 
 possible in those ages of isolation when there was no 
 such thing as want, and when the population, for yet 
 undetermined causes, appears to have remained al- 
 ways below the numerical level at which serious 
 pressure begins. . . . Another interesting sur- 
 vival is represented by existing conditions of ap- 
 
444 MODERN RESTRAINTS 
 
 prenticeship and service, — conditions which also 
 originated in the patriarchal organization, and im- 
 posed other kinds of restraint upon competition. 
 Under the old regime service was, for the most 
 part, unsalaried. Boys taken into a commercial 
 house to learn the business, or apprentices bound 
 to a master-workman, were boarded, lodged, clothed, 
 and even educated by their patron, with whom they 
 might hope to pass the rest of their lives. But they 
 were not paid wages until they had learned the busi- 
 ness or the trade of their employer, and were fully 
 capable of managing a business or a workshop of 
 their own. To a considerable degree these condi- 
 tions still prevail in commercial centres, — though 
 the merchant or patron seldom now finds it neces- 
 sary to send his clerk or apprentice to school. 
 Many of the great commercial houses pay salaries 
 only to men of great experience : other employes 
 are only trained and cared for until their term of 
 service ends, when the most clever among them will 
 be reengaged as experts, and the others helped to 
 start in business for themselves. In like manner 
 the apprentice to a trade, when his term expires, 
 may be reengaged by his master as a hired journey- 
 man, or helped to find permanent employ elsewhere. 
 These paternal and filial relations between employer 
 and employed have helped to make life pleasant and 
 labour cheerful ; and the quality of all industrial pro- 
 duction must suffer much when they disappear. 
 
MODERN RESTRAINTS 445 
 
 Even in private domestic service the patriarchal 
 system still prevails to a degree that is little imag- 
 ined ; and this subject deserves more than a pass- 
 ing mention. I refer especially to female service. 
 The maid-servant, according to the old custom, is 
 not primarily responsible to her employers, but to 
 her own family ; and the terms of her service must 
 be arranged with her family, who pledge themselves 
 for their daughter's good behaviour. As a general 
 rule, a nice girl does not seek domestic service for 
 the sake of the wages (which it is now the custom 
 to pay), nor for the sake of a living, but chiefly to 
 prepare herself for marriage ; and this preparation 
 is desired as much in the hope of doing credit to 
 her own family, as in the hope of better fitting her- 
 self for membership in the family of her future hus- 
 band. The best servants are country girls ; and 
 they are sometimes put out to service very young. 
 Parents are careful about choosing the family into 
 which their daughter thus enters : they particularly 
 desire that the house be one in which a girl can 
 learn nice ways, — therefore a house in which things 
 are ordered according to the old etiquette. A good 
 girl expects to be treated rather as a helper than as 
 a hireling, — to be kindly considered, and trusted, 
 and liked. In an old-fashioned household the maid 
 is indeed so treated ; and the relation is not a brief 
 one — from three to five years being the term of 
 service usually agreed upon. But when a girl is 
 
446 MODERN RESTRAINTS 
 
 taken into service at the age of eleven or twelve, 
 she will probably remain for eight or ten years. 
 Besides wages, she is entitled to receive from her 
 employers the gift of a dress, twice every year, 
 besides other necessary articles of clothing ; and she 
 is entitled also to a certain number of holidays. 
 Such wages, or presents in money, as she receives, 
 should enable her to provide herself, by degrees, 
 with a good wardrobe. Except in the event of some 
 extraordinary misfortune, her parents will make no 
 claim upon her wages ; but she remains subject to 
 them ; and when she is called home to be married, 
 she must go. During the period of her service, 
 the services of her family are also at the disposal 
 of her employers. Even if the mistress or master 
 desire no recognition of the interest taken in the 
 girl, some recognition will certainly be made. If 
 the servant be a farmer's daughter, it is probable 
 that gifts of vegetables, fruits, or fruit trees, garden- 
 plants or other country products, will be sent to 
 the house at intervals fixed by custom ; — if the 
 parents belong to the artizan-class, it is likely that 
 some creditable example of handicraft will be pre- 
 sented as a token of gratitude. The gratitude of 
 the parents is not for the wages or the dresses given 
 to their daughter, but for the practical education 
 she receives, and for the moral and material care 
 taken of her, as a temporarily adopted child of the 
 house. The employers may reciprocate such atten- 
 
MODERN RESTRAINTS ^7 
 
 tions on the part of the. parents by contributing to 
 the girl's wedding outfit. The relation, it will be 
 observed, is entirely between families, not between 
 individuals ; and it is a permanent relation. Such 
 a relation, in feudal ages, might continue through 
 many generations. 
 
 The patriarchal conditions which these survivals 
 exemplify helped to make existence easy and happy. 
 Only from a modern point of view is it possible to 
 criticise them. The worst that can be said about 
 them is that their moral value was chiefly conserva- 
 tive, and that they tended to repress effort in new 
 directions. But where they still endure, Japanese life 
 keeps something of its ancient charm ; and where they 
 have disappeared, that charm has vanished forever. 
 
 There remains to be considered a third form 
 of restraint, — that exercised upon the individual by 
 official authority. This also presents us with vari- 
 ous survivals, which have their bright as well as their 
 dark aspects. 
 
 We have seen that the individual has been legally 
 freed from most of the obligations imposed by the 
 ancient law. He is no longer obliged to follow a 
 particular occupation ; he is able to travel ; he is at 
 liberty to marry into a higher or a lower class than 
 his own ; he is not even forbidden to change his 
 religion ; he can do a great many things — at his own 
 
448 MODERN RESTRAINTS 
 
 risk. But where the law leaves him free, the family 
 and the community do not ; and the persistence of 
 old sentiment and custom nullifies many of the 
 rights legally conferred. Precisely in the same way, 
 his relations to higher authority are still controlled 
 by traditions which maintain, in despite of constitu- 
 tional law, many of the ancient restraints, and not 
 a little of the ancient coercion. In theory any man 
 of great talent and energy may rise, from rank to 
 rank, up to the highest positions. But as private 
 life is still controlled to no small degree by the old 
 communism, so public life is yet controlled by survi- 
 vals of class or clan despotism. The chances for 
 ability to rise without assistance, to win its way 
 to rank and power, are extraordinarily small ; since to 
 contend alone against an opposition that thinks by 
 groups, and acts by masses, must be almost hopeless. 
 Only commercial or industrial life now offers really 
 fair opportunities to capable men. The few talented 
 persons of humble origin who do succeed in official 
 directions owe their success chiefly to party-help or 
 clan-patronage : in order to force any recognition of 
 personal ability, group must be opposed to group. 
 Alone, no man is likely to accomplish anything by 
 mere force of competition, outside of trade or com- 
 merce. ... It is true, of course, that individual 
 talent must in every country encounter many forms 
 of opposition. It is likewise true that the malevo- 
 lence of envy and the brutalities of class-prejudice 
 
MODERN RESTRAINTS 449 
 
 have their sociological worth : they help to make it 
 impossible for any but the most gifted to win and 
 to keep success. But in Japan the peculiar consti- 
 tution of society lends excessive power to social 
 intrigues directed against obscure ability, and makes 
 them highly injurious to the interests of the nation ; 
 — for at' no previous time in her history has Japan 
 needed, so much as now, the best capacities of her 
 best men, irrespective of class or condition. 
 
 But all this was inevitable in the period of recon- 
 struction. More significant is the fact that in no 
 single department of its multitudinous service does 
 the Government yet offer substantial reward to ris- 
 ing merit. No matter how well a man may strive 
 to win Government approbation, he must strive for 
 little more than honour and the bare means of exist- 
 ence. The costliest efforts are no more highly paid 
 in proportion to their worth than the cheapest ; the 
 most invaluable services are scarcely better recog- 
 nized than those most easily dispensed with or 
 replaced. (There have been some remarkable 
 exceptions : I am stating only the general rule.) 
 By extraordinary energy, patience, and cleverness, 
 one may reach, with class-help, some position which 
 in Europe would assure comfort as well as honour ; 
 but the emoluments of such a position in Japan will 
 scarcely cover the actual cost of living. Whether 
 in the army or in the navy, in the departments of 
 justice, of education, of communications, or of 
 
450 
 
 MODERN RESTRAINTS 
 
 home affairs, — the differences in remuneration no- 
 where represent the differences in capacity and 
 responsibility. To rise from grade to grade sig- 
 nifies pecuniarily almost nothing, — for the expenses 
 of each higher position augment out of all propor- 
 tion to the salaries fixed by law. The general rule 
 has been to exact everywhere the greatest possible 
 amount of service for the least possible amount of 
 pay. 1 Any one unacquainted with the social his- 
 
 1 Salaries of judges range from £70 to ^500 per annum, — the latter figure 
 representing the highest possible emolument. The highest salary allowed to a Japan- 
 ese professor in the imperial universities has been fixed at £110. The wages of 
 employes in the postal departments is barely sufficient to meet the cost of living. 
 The police are paid from £1 to £1 10s. per month, according to locality; and 
 the average pay of school-teachers is yet lower (being 9 yen 50 sen, or about 19s. 
 per month), — many receiving less than 71. a month. 
 
 Readers may be interested in the following table of army-payments (1904) : — 
 
 
 
 ALLOWANCE 
 
 
 MONTH 
 
 LY PAY 
 
 FOR 
 
 HOUSE-RENT 
 
 TOTAL 
 
 yen 
 
 
 yen 
 
 yen 
 
 500 
 
 tfs°) 
 
 25 : 00 
 
 525 : 00 
 
 333 
 
 
 18:75 
 
 35' =75 
 
 263 
 
 
 12 : 50 
 
 275 : 50 
 
 179 
 
 
 10 : 00 
 
 189 : 00 
 
 146 
 
 
 8:75 
 
 154:75 
 
 102 
 
 
 7:50 
 
 109 : 50 
 
 70 
 
 
 4:75 
 
 74 = 75 
 
 60 
 
 
 4:75 
 
 64:75 
 
 45 
 
 
 4 : 00 
 
 49 : 00 
 
 34 
 
 
 4 :oo 
 
 40 :oo 
 
 30 
 
 
 3 =5° 
 
 33 •• 5° 
 
 General .... 
 Lieutenant-General . 
 .Major-General . 
 Colonel .... 
 Lieutenant- Colonel . 
 
 Major 
 
 Captain (ist grade) . 
 
 " (2d grade) . 
 
 Lieutenant (ist grade) 
 
 * ( (ad grade) 
 
 Second Lieutenant . 
 
 When these rates of pay were fixed, about twenty years ago, house-rent was 
 cherp : a good house could be rented anywhere at 3 yen or 4 yen per month. To- 
 
MODERN RESTRAINTS 451 
 
 tory of the country might suppose that the policy 
 of the Government toward its employes consisted 
 in substituting* empty honours for material advan- 
 tages. But the truth is that the Government has 
 simply maintained, under modern forms, the ancient 
 feudal condition of service, — service in exchange 
 for the means of simple but honourable living. In 
 feudal times the farmer was expected to pay all that 
 he could pay for the right to exist ; the artist or 
 artizan was expected to content himself with the 
 good fortune of having a distinguished patron ; 
 even the ordinary samurai were supplied with barely 
 more than the necessary by their liege-lords. To 
 receive considerably more than the necessary signi- 
 fied extraordinary favour; and the gift was usually 
 accompanied by promotion. But although the same 
 policy is yet successfully maintained by Government, 
 under the modern system of money-payments, the 
 conditions everywhere, outside of commercial life, 
 are incomparably harder than in feudal times. Then 
 the poorest samurai was secured against want, and 
 not liable to be dismissed from his post without 
 fault. Then the teacher received no salary ; but 
 the respect of the community and the gratitude 
 of his pupils assured him of the means to live re- 
 day in Tokyo an officer can scarcely rent even a very small house at less than 
 18 yen or 20 yen ; and prices of food-stuffs have tripled. Vet there have been very 
 few complaints. Officers whose pay will not allow them to rent houses hire rooms 
 wherever they can. Many suffer hardship ; but all are proud of the privilege of 
 serving, and no one dreams of resigning. 
 
452 MODERN RESTRAINTS 
 
 spectably. Then the artizans were patronized by 
 great lords who vied with each other in the encour- 
 agement of humble genius. They might expect the 
 genius to be satisfied with merely nominal payment, 
 so far as money was concerned ; but they secured 
 him against want or discomfort, allowed him ample 
 leisure to perfect his work, made him happy in the 
 certainty that his best would be prized and praised. 
 But now that the cost of living has tripled or quad- 
 rupled, even the artist and the artizan have small 
 encouragement to do their best : cheap rapid work 
 is replacing the beautiful leisurely work of the old 
 days; and the best traditions of the crafts are doomed 
 to perish. It cannot even be said that the state of 
 the agricultural classes to-day is happier or better 
 than in the time when a farmer's land could not 
 legally be taken from him. And as the cost of life 
 continues always to increase, it is evident that at no 
 distant time, the present patient order of things will 
 become impossible. 
 
 To many it would seem that a wise government 
 must recognize the impracticability of indefinitely 
 maintaining its present demand for self-sacrifice, — 
 must perceive the necessity of encouraging talent, 
 inviting fair competition, and making the prizes of 
 life large enough to stimulate healthy egoism. But 
 it is possible that the Government has been acting 
 more wisely than outward appearances would indi- 
 cate. Several years ago a Japanese official made in 
 
MODERN RESTRAINTS 453 
 
 my presence this curious observation : " Our Gov- 
 ernment does not wish to encourage competition 
 beyond the necessary. The people are not prepared 
 for it ; and if it were strongly encouraged, the worst 
 side of character would come to the surface." How 
 far this statement really expressed any policy I do 
 not know. But every one is aware that free com- 
 petition can be made as cruel and as pitiless as war, — 
 though we are apt to forget what experience must 
 have been undergone before Occidental free com- 
 petition could become as comparatively merciful as it 
 is. Among a people trained for centuries to regard 
 all selfish competition as criminal, and all profit- 
 seeking despicable, any sudden stimulation of effort 
 for purely personal advantage might well be im- 
 politic. Evidence as to how little the nation was 
 prepared, twelve or thirteen years ago, for Western 
 forms of free government, has been furnished by the 
 history of the earlier district-elections and of the first 
 parliamentary sessions. There was really no per- 
 sonal enmity in those furious election-contests, which 
 cost so many lives ; there was scarcely any per- 
 sonal antagonism in those parliamentary debates of 
 which the violence, astonished strangers. The po- 
 litical struggles were not really between individuals, 
 but between clan-interests, or party-interests ; and 
 the devoted followers of each clan or party under- 
 stood the new politics only as a new kind of war, — 
 a war of loyalty to be fought for the leader's sake, — 
 
454 MODERN RESTRAINTS 
 
 a war not to be interfered with by any abstract 
 notions of right or justice. Suppose that a people 
 have been always accustomed to think of loyalty in 
 relation to persons rather than to principles, — loy- 
 alty as involving the duty of self-sacrifice regardless 
 of consequence, — it is obvious that the first experi- 
 ments of such a people with parliamentary govern- 
 ment will not reveal any comprehension of fair play 
 in the Western sense. Eventually that comprehen- 
 sion may come ; but it will not come quickly. And 
 if you can persuade such a people that in other 
 matters every man has a right to act according to 
 his own convictions, and for his own advantage, 
 independently of any group to which he may belong, 
 the immediate result will not be fortunate, — be- 
 cause the sense of individual moral responsibility 
 has not yet been sufficiently cultivated outside of 
 the group-relation. 
 
 The probable truth is that the strength of the 
 government up to the present time has been chiefly 
 due to the conservation of ancient methods, and to 
 the survival of the ancient spirit of reverential sub- 
 mission. Later on, no doubt, great changes will 
 have to be made ; meanwhile, much must be bravely 
 endured. Perhaps the future history of modern 
 civilization will hold record of nothing more touch- 
 ing than the patient heroism of those myriads of 
 Japanese patriots, content to accept, under legal 
 
MODERN RESTRAINTS 455 
 
 conditions of freedom, the official servitude of feudal 
 days, — satisfied to give their talent, their strength, 
 their utmost effort, their lives, for the simple privi- 
 lege of obeying a government that still accepts all 
 sacrifices in the feudal spirit — as a matter of course, 
 — as a national duty. And as a national duty, in-' 
 deed, the sacrifices are made. All know that Japan 
 is in danger, between the terrible friendship of 
 England and the terrible enmity of Russia, — that 
 she is poor, — that the cost of maintaining her arma- 
 ments is straining her resources, — that it is every- 
 body's duty to be content with as little as possible. 
 So the complaints are not many. . . . Nor has the 
 simple obedience of the nation at large been less 
 touching, — especially, perhaps, as regards the im- 
 perial order to acquire Western knowledge, to learn 
 Western languages, to imitate Western ways. Only 
 those who have lived in Japan during or before the 
 early nineties are qualified to speak of the loyal 
 eagerness that made self-destruction by over-study 
 a common form of death, — the passionate obedi- 
 ence that impelled even children to ruin their health 
 in the effort to master tasks too difficult for their 
 little minds (tasks devised by well-meaning advisers 
 with no knowledge of Far-Eastern psychology), — 
 and the strange courage of persistence in periods of 
 earthquake and conflagration, when boys and girls 
 used the tiles of their ruined homes for school-slates, 
 and bits of fallen plaster for pencils. What trage- 
 
456 MODERN RESTRAINTS 
 
 dies I might relate even of the higher educational 
 life of universities ! — of fine brains giving way 
 under pressure of work beyond the capacity of the 
 average European student, — of triumphs won in 
 the teeth of death, — of strange farewells from 
 pupils in the time of the dreaded examinations, as 
 when one said to me : " Sir, I am very much afraid 
 that my paper is bad, because I came out of the 
 hospital to make it — there is something the matter 
 with my heart." (His diploma was placed in his 
 hands scarcely an hour before he died.) . . . And 
 all this striving — striving not only against difficul- 
 ties of study, but in most cases against difficulties 
 of poverty, and underfeeding, and discomfort — 
 has been only for duty, and the means to live. To 
 estimate the Japanese student by his errors, his fail- 
 ures, his incapacity to comprehend sentiments and 
 ideas alien to the experience of his race, is the mis- 
 take of the shallow : to judge him rightly one must 
 have learned to know the silent moral heroism of 
 which he is capable. 
 
Official Education 
 
Official Education 
 
 THE extent to which national character has 
 been fixed by the discipline of centuries, and 
 the extent of its extraordinary capacity to 
 resist change, is perhaps most strikingly indicated 
 by certain results of State education. The whole 
 nation is being educated, with Government help, 
 upon a European plan ; and the full programme 
 includes the chief subjects of Western study, except- 
 ing Greek and Latin classics. From Kindergarten 
 to University the entire system is modern in out- 
 ward seeming ; yet the effect of the new education 
 is much less marked in thought and sentiment than 
 might be supposed. This fact is not to be explained 
 merely by the large place which old Chinese study 
 still occupies in the obligatory programme, nor by 
 differences of belief: it is much more due to the ; 
 fundamental difference in the Japanese and the / 
 European conceptions of education as means to an 
 end. In spite of new system and programme the 
 whole of Japanese education is still conducted upon 
 a traditional plan almost the exact opposite of the 
 Western plan. With us, the repressive part of 
 moral training begins in early childhood : the Euro- 
 pean or American teacher is strict with the little 
 
 459 
 
460 OFFICIAL' EDUCATION 
 
 ones ; we think that it is important to inculcate 
 the duties of behaviour, — the "must" and the 
 " must not " of individual obligation, — as soon as 
 possible. Later on, more liberty is allowed. The 
 well-grown boy is made to understand that his 
 future will depend upon his personal effort and ca- 
 pacity ; and he is thereafter left, in a great measure, to 
 take care of himself, being occasionally admonished 
 or warned, as seems needful. Finally, the adult - 
 student of promise and character may become the 
 intimate, or, under happy circumstances, even the 
 friend of his tutor, to whom he can look for counsel 
 in all difficult situations. And throughout the whole 
 course of mental and moral training competition is 
 not only expected, but required. But it is more and 
 more required as discipline is more and more relaxed, 
 with the passing of boyhood into manhood. The 
 aim of Western education is the cultivation of in- 
 dividual ability and personal character, — the creation 
 of an independent and forceful being. 
 
 Now Japanese education has always been con- 
 ducted, and, in spite of superficial appearances, is 
 still being conducted, mostly upon the reverse plan. 
 | Its object never has been to train the individual for 
 ' independent action, but to train him for cooperative 
 action, — to fit him to occupy an exact place in the 
 mechanism of a rigid society. Constraint among 
 ourselves begins with childhood, and gradually re- 
 laxes ; constraint in Far-Eastern training begins later, 
 
OFFICIAL EDUCATION 461 
 
 and thereafter gradually tightens; and it is not a 
 constraint imposed directly by parents or teachers — 
 which fact, as we shall presently see, makes an enor- 
 mous difference in results. Not merely up to the 
 age of school-life, — supposed to begin at six years, 
 
 — but considerably beyond it, a Japanese child en- 
 joys a degree of liberty far greater than is allowed 
 to Occidental children. Exceptional cases are com- 
 mon, of course; but the general rule is that the 
 child be permitted to do as he pleases, providing 
 that his conduct can cause no injury to himself or 
 to others. He is guarded, but not constrained; 
 admonished, but rarely compelled. In short, he is 
 allowed to be so mischievous that, as a Japanese 
 proverb says, " even the holes by the roadside hate 
 a boy of seven or eight years old" 1 (Nanatsu, yatsu 
 
 — michibata no ana desaimon nikumu). Punishment is 
 administered only when absolutely necessary ; and 
 on such occasions, by ancient custom, the entire 
 household — servants and all — intercede for the 
 offender ; the little brothers and sisters, if any there 
 be, begging in turn to bear the penalty instead. 
 Whipping is not a common punishment, except 
 among the roughest classes ; the moxa is preferred 
 as a deterrent ; and it is a severe one. To frighten 
 a child by loud harsh words, or angry looks, is con- 
 demned by general opinion : all punishment ought 
 
 1 By former custom a newly-born child was said to be one year old ; and in this 
 case the words " seven or eight years old " mean " six or seven years old." 
 
462 OFFICIAL EDUCATION 
 
 to be inflicted as quietly as possible, the punisher 
 calmly admonishing the while. To slap a child 
 about the head, for any reason, is a proof of vulgarity 
 and ignorance. It is not customary to punish by 
 restraining from play, or by a change of diet, or by 
 any denial of accustomed pleasures. To be perfectly 
 patient with children is the ethical law. At school 
 the discipline begins ; but it is at first so very light 
 that it can hardly be called discipline : the teacher 
 does not act as a master, but rather as an elder 
 brother ; and there is no punishment beyond a pub- 
 lic admonition. Whatever restraint exists is chiefly 
 exerted on the child by the common opinion of his 
 class ; and a skilful teacher is able to direct that 
 opinion. Also each class is nominally governed by 
 one or two little captains, selected for character and 
 intelligence ; and when a disagreeable order has to 
 be given, it is the child-captain, the kyucho, who is 
 commissioned with the duty of giving it. (These 
 little details are worthy of note : I cite them only 
 to show how early in school-life begins the discipline 
 of opinion, the pressure of the common will, and 
 how perfectly this policy accords with the ethical 
 j traditions of the race.) In higher classes the press- 
 ure slightly increases ; and in higher schools it is 
 very much stronger ; the ruling power always being 
 class-sentiment, not the individual will of the teacher. 
 In middle schools the pupils become serious : class- 
 opinion there attains a force to which the teacher 
 
OFFICIAL EDUCATION 463 
 
 himself must bend, as it is quite capable of expelling 
 him for any attempt to override it. Each middle- 
 school class has its elected officers, who represent 
 and enforce the moral code of the majority, — the 
 traditional standard of conduct. (This moral stand- 
 ard is deteriorating; but it survives everywhere to 
 some degree.) Fighting or bullying are yet unknown 
 in Japanese schools of this grade for obvious reasons : 
 there can be little indulgence of personal anger, and 
 no attempt at personal domination, under a disci- 
 pline enforcing a uniform manner of behaviour. It 
 is never the domination of the one over the many 
 that regulates class-life : it is always the rule of the 
 many over the one, — and the power is formidable. 
 The student who consciously or unconsciously of- 
 fends class-sentiment will suddenly find himself iso- 
 lated, — condemned to absolute solitude. No one 
 will speak to him or notice him even outside of the 
 school, until such time as he decides to make a pub- 
 lic apology, when his pardon will depend upon a 
 majority-vote. 
 
 Such temporary ostracism is not unreasonably 
 feared, because it is regarded even outside of student- 
 circles as a disgrace ; and the memory of it will cling 
 to the offender during the rest of his career. How- 
 ever high he may rise in official or professional life 
 in after years, the fact that he was once condemned 
 by the general opinion of his schoolmates will not 
 be forgotten, — though circumstances may occur 
 
464 OFFICIAL EDUCATION 
 
 which will turn the fact to his credit. ... In the 
 great Government schools — to one of which the 
 student may proceed after graduating from a middle- 
 school — class-discipline is still more severe. The 
 instructors are mostly officials looking for promotion: 
 the students are grown men, preparing for the Uni- 
 versity, and destined, with few exceptions, for public 
 office. In this quietly and coldly ordered world 
 there is little place for the joy of youth, and small 
 opportunity for sympathetic expansion. There are 
 gatherings and societies ; but these are arranged or 
 established for practical purposes — chiefly in rela- 
 tion to particular branches of study ; there is little 
 time for merry-making, and less inclination. Under 
 all circumstances, a certain formal demeanour is ex- 
 acted by tradition, — a tradition older by far than 
 any public school. Everybody watches everybody : 
 eccentricities or singularities are quickly marked and 
 quietly suppressed. The results of this class-disci- 
 pline, as maintained in some institutions, must seem 
 to the foreign observer discomforting. What most 
 impressed me about these higher official schools was 
 the sinister silence of them. In one where I taught 
 for several years — the most conservative school in 
 the country — there were more than a thousand 
 young men, full of life and energy ; yet during the 
 intervals between classes, or during recreation-hours 
 in the playground, the garden, and the gymnastic 
 hall, the general hush gave one a strange sense of 
 
OFFICIAL EDUCATION 465 
 
 oppression. One might watch a game of foot-ball 
 being played, and hear nothing but the thud of the 
 kicking; or one might watch wrestling-contests in 
 the jiujutsu-room, and hear no word spoken for half 
 an hour at a time. (The rules of jiujutsu, it is true, 
 require not only silence, but the total suppression 
 of all visible emotional interest on the part of the 
 spectators.) All this repression at first seemed to 
 me very strange — though I knew that thirty years 
 previously, the training at samurai-schools compelled 
 the same impassiveness and reticence. 
 
 At last the University is reached, — the great 
 gate of ceremony to public office. Here the student 
 finds himself released from the restraints previously 
 imposed upon his private life, 1 though the class-will 
 continues to rule him in certain directions. As a 
 rule, the student passes into official life after having 
 graduated, marries, and becomes the head, or the 
 
 1 This release is of recent date ; and the results, by the acknowledgment of the 
 students themselves, have not been good. Twenty-five years ago, University study, 
 was so seriously thought about that a scholar who failed, through his own fault, 
 would have been considered a criminal. There was then a Chinese poem in vogue, \ 
 which used to be sung at the departure of youths for the University of that time i 
 (Daigaku Nanko') by their friends and relations : — 
 
 Danji kokorozashi wo tatete, kyokwan wo idzu j 
 
 Gaku moshi narazunba, shisudomo kaeradzu. ', 
 
 \Tbe young man, having made a firm resolve, leaves bis native borne. 
 If be fail to acquire learning, tben, even tbougb be die, be must never return^ j 
 
 In those years also it was obligatory upon students to live and dress simply, and to 
 
 abstain from all self-indulgence. 
 2H 
 
466 OFFICIAL EDUCATION 
 
 prospective head, of a household. How sudden the 
 transformation of the man at this epoch of his career, 
 only those who have observed the transformation 
 can imagine. It is then that the full significance of 
 Japanese education reveals itself. 
 
 Few incidents of Japanese life are more surprising 
 than -the metamorphosis of the gawky student into 
 the dignified, impassive, easy-mannered official. 
 But a little time ago he was respectfully asking, 
 cap in hand, the explanation of some text, the mean- 
 ing of some foreign idiom ; to-day, perhaps, he is 
 judging cases in some court, or managing diplo- 
 matic correspondence under ministerial supervision, 
 or directing the management of some public school. 
 Whatever you may have thought of his particular 
 capacity as a student, you will scarcely doubt his 
 particular fitness for the position to which he has 
 been called. Success in study was at best a second- 
 ary consideration in the matter of his appointment, 
 — though he had to succeed. He was put through 
 some special course, under high protection, after 
 having been selected for certain qualities of char- 
 acter, — or at least for the promise of such qualities. 
 There may have been favouritism in his case ; but, 
 generally speaking, capable men are appointed to 
 positions of trust : the Government seldom makes 
 serious mistakes. This man has value beyond what 
 mere study could make for him, — some capacity in 
 the direction of management or of organization, — 
 
OFFICIAL EDUCATION 467 
 
 some natural force or talent which his training has 
 served to cultivate. According to the quality of his 
 worth, his position was chosen for him in advance. 
 His long, hard schooling has taught him more than 
 books can teach, and more than a stupid person can 
 ever learn : how to read minds and motives, — how; 
 to remain impassive under all circumstances, — how 
 to reach a truth quickly by simple questioning, — [ 
 how to live upon his guard (even against the most; 
 intimate of old acquaintances), — how to remain, ! 
 even when most amiable, secretive and inscrutable. ] 
 He has graduated in the art of worldly wisdom. 1 
 He is really a wonderful person, a highly developed 
 type of his race ; and no inexperienced Occidental 
 is capable of judging him, because his visible acquire- 
 ments count for very little in the measure of his 
 relative value. His University study — his Eng- 
 lish or French or German knowledge — serves him 
 only as so much oil to make easy the working of 
 certain official machinery: he esteems this learning 
 only as means to some administrative end ; his 
 real learning, considerably deeper, represents the 
 development of the Japanese soul of him. Between 
 that mind and any Western mind the distance has 
 become immeasurable. And now, less than evert 
 before, does he belong to himself. He belongs to 
 a family, to a party, to a government : privately he 
 is bound by custom ; publicly he must act accord- 
 ing to order only, and never dream of yielding to 
 
468 OFFICIAL EDUCATION 
 
 any impulses at variance with order, however gener- 
 ous or sensible such impulses may be. A word 
 might ruin him : he has learned to use no words 
 unnecessarily. By silent submission and tireless 
 observance of duty he may rise, and rise quickly : 
 he may become Governor, Chief Justice, Minister 
 of State, Minister Plenipotentiary ; but the higher 
 he rises, the heavier will his bonds become. 
 
 Long training in caution and self-control is indeed 
 an indispensable preparation for official existence ; 
 the ability either to keep a position won, or to resign 
 it with honour, depending much upon such training. 
 The most sinister circumstance of official life is the 
 absence of moral freedom, — the absence of the 
 right to act according to one's own convictions of 
 justice. The subordinate, who desires above all 
 things to keep his place, is not supposed to have 
 personal convictions or sympathies — save by per- 
 mission. He is not the slave of a man, but of a 
 system — a system as old, as China. Were human 
 nature perfect, that system would be perfect ; but so 
 long as human nature remains what it is now, the 
 system leaves much to be desired. Everything mav 
 depend upon the personal character of those tem- 
 porarily intrusted with higher power ; and the only 
 choice left for the most capable servant under a bad 
 master may be to resign or to do wrong. The 
 strong man faces the problem bravely and resigns ; 
 but for one strong man there are fifty timid ones. 
 
OFFICIAL EDUCATION 469 
 
 Probably the prospect of a broken career is much 
 less terrifying than the ancient idea of crime attach- 
 ing to any form of insubordination. As the forms 
 of a religion survive after the faith in doctrine has 
 passed away, so the power of Government to coerce 
 even conscience still remains, though religion is no 
 longer identified with Government. The system of 
 secrecy, implacably enforced, helps to maintain the 
 vague awe that has always attached to the idea 
 of administrative authority ; and such authority is 
 practically omnipotent within those limits which I 
 have already indicated. To be favoured by au- 
 thority means to experience all the illusive pleas- 
 ure of a suddenly created popularity : an entire 
 community, a whole city, is made by a word to 
 turn all the amiable side of its human nature 
 toward the favourite, — to charm him into the 
 belief that he is worthy of the best that the world 
 can give him. But suppose that the moving powers 
 happen, latter on, to find the favoured man in the 
 way of some policy — lo ! at another whispered 
 word he finds himself, without knowing why, the 
 public enemy. None speak to him or salute him or 
 smile upon him — save ironically : long-esteemed 
 friends pass him by without recognition, or, if pur- 
 sued, reply to his most earnest questions with all 
 possible brevity and caution. Most likely they do 
 not know the " why " of the matter : they only 
 know that orders have been given, and that into the 
 
470 OFFICIAL EDUCATION 
 
 reason of orders it is not good to enquire. Even 
 the street-children know this much, and mock the 
 despondent victim of fortune ; even the dogs 
 seem instinctively to divine the change and bark at 
 him as he passes by. . . . Such is the power of 
 official displeasure ; and the penalty of a blunder 
 or a breach of discipline may extend considerably 
 
 further but in feudal times the offender would 
 
 have been simply told to perform harakiri. Some- 
 times, when the wrong men get into power, the 
 force of authority may be used for malevolent ends; 
 and in such event it requires not a little courage to 
 disobey an order to act against conscience. What 
 saved Japanese society in former ages from the 
 'worst results of this form of tyranny, was the moral 
 sentiment of the mass, — the common feeling that 
 underlay all submission to authority, and remained 
 always capable, if pressed upon too brutally, of com- 
 pelling a reaction. Conditions to-day are more 
 favourable to justice ; but it requires much tact, 
 steadiness, and resolution on the part of a rising 
 official to steer himself safely among the reefs and 
 the whirlpools of the new political life. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 The reader will now be able to understand the 
 general character, aim, and results of official educa- 
 tion as a system. It will be also worth while to 
 consider in detail certain phases of student-life which 
 equally prove the survival of old conditions and old 
 
OFFICIAL EDUCATION 471 
 
 traditions. I can speak about these matters from 
 personal experience as a teacher, — an experience 
 extending over nearly thirteen years. 
 
 Readers of Goethe will remember the trustful 
 docility of the student received by Doctor Mephis- 
 topheles in the First Part of Faust, and the very 
 different demeanour of the same student when he 
 reappears, in the Second Part, as Baccalaureus. 
 More than one foreign professor in Japan must 
 have been reminded of that contrast by personal 
 experience, and must have wondered whether some 
 one of the early educational advisers to the Japanese 
 Government did not play, without malice prepense, 
 the very role of Mephistopheles. . . . The gentle 
 boy who, with innocent reverence, makes his visit 
 of courtesy to the foreign teacher, bringing for gift 
 a cluster of iris-flowers or odorous spray of plum- 
 blossoms, — the boy who does whatever he is told, 
 and charms by an earnestness, a trustfulness, a grace 
 of manner rarely met with among Western lads > 
 of the same age, — is destined to undergo the 
 strangest of transformations long before becoming 
 a baccalaureus. You may meet with him a few 
 years later, in the uniform of some Higher School, 
 and find it difficult to recognize your former pupil, 
 — now graceless, taciturn, secretive, and inclined' 
 to demand as a right what could scarcely, with pro- 
 priety, be requested as a favour. You may find 
 
472 OFFICIAL EDUCATION 
 
 him patronizing, — possibly something worse. Later 
 on, at the University, he becomes more formally cor- 
 rect, but also more far away, — so very far away from 
 his boyhood that the remoteness is a pain to one 
 who remembers that boyhood. The Pacific is less 
 wide and deep than the invisible gulf now extend- 
 ing between the mind of the stranger and the mind 
 of the student. The foreign professor is now re- 
 garded merely as a teaching-machine ; and he is 
 more than likely to regret any effort made to main- 
 tain an intimate relation with his pupils. Indeed 
 the whole formal system of official education is 
 opposed to the development of any such relation. 
 I am speaking of general facts in this connexion, 
 not of merely personal experiences. No matter 
 what the foreigner may do in the hope of finding 
 his way into touch with the emotional life of his 
 students, or in the hope of evoking that interest in 
 certain studies which renders possible an intellectual 
 tie, he must toil in vain. Perhaps in two or three 
 cases out of a thousand he may obtain something 
 precious, — a lasting and kindly esteem, based upon 
 moral comprehension ; but should he wish for more 
 he must remain in the state of the Antarctic ex- 
 plorer, seeking, month after month, to no purpose, 
 some inlet through endless cliffs of everlasting ice. 
 Now the case of the Japanese professor proves the 
 barrier natural, to a large extent. The Japanese 
 professor can ask for extraordinary efforts and 
 
OFFICIAL EDUCATION 473 
 
 obtain them; he can afford to be easily familiar 
 with his students outside of class ; and he can get 
 what no stranger can obtain, — their devotion. The 
 difference has been attributed to race-feeling; but it 
 cannot, be so easily artd vaguely explained. 
 
 Something of race-sentiment there certainly is ; 
 it were impossible that there should not be. No 
 inexperienced foreigner can converse for one half 
 hour with any Japanese — at least with any Japanese 
 who has not sojourned abroad — and avoid saying 
 something that jars upon Japanese good taste or 
 sentiment ; and few — perhaps none — among un- 
 travelled Japanese can maintain a brief conversation 
 in any European tongue without making some 
 startling impression upon the foreign listener. 
 Sympathethic understanding, between minds so 
 differently constructed, is next to impossible. But 
 the foreign professor who looks for the impossible 
 — who expects from his Japanese students the same 
 quality of intelligent comprehension that he might 
 reasonably expect from Western students — is natu- 
 rally disturbed. "Why must there always remain 
 the width of a world between us ? " is a question 
 often asked and rarely answered. 
 
 Some of the reasons should by this time be ob- 
 vious to my reader ; but one among them — and the 
 most curious — will not. Before stating it, I must 
 observe that while the relation between the foreign 
 
474 OFFICIAL EDUCATION 
 
 instructor and the Japanese student is artificial, that 
 between the Japanese teacher and the student is 
 traditionally one of sacrifice and obligation. The 
 inertia encountered by the stranger, the indifference 
 which chills him at all times, are due in great part 
 to the misapprehension arising from totally opposite 
 conceptions of duty. Old sentiment lingers long 
 after old forms have passed away ; and how much 
 of feudal Japan survives in modern Japan, no 
 stranger can readily divine. Probably the bulk of 
 existing sentiment is hereditary sentiment : the 
 ancient ideals have not yet been replaced by fresh 
 \ ones. ... In feudal times the teacher taught 
 without salary : he was expected to devote all his 
 time, thought, and strength to his profession. 
 High honour was attached to that profession ; and 
 the matter of remuneration was not discussed, — the 
 instructor trusting wholly to the gratitude of parents 
 and pupils. Public sentiment bound them to him 
 with a bond that could not be broken. Therefore 
 a general, upon the eve of an assault, would take 
 care that his former teacher should have an oppor- 
 tunity to escape from the place beleaguered. The 
 tie between teacher and pupil was in force second 
 lonly to the tie between parent and child. The 
 teacher sacrificed everything for his pupil : the 
 i pupil was ready at all times to die for his teacher. 
 Now, indeed, the hard and selfish aspects of Jap- 
 anese character are coming to the surface. But a 
 
OFFICIAL EDUCATION 475 
 
 single fact will sufficiently indicate how much of the 
 old ethical sentiment persists under the new and 
 rougher surface : Nearly all the higher educational 
 work accomplished in Japan represents, though aided 
 by Government, the results of personal sacrifice. 
 
 From the summit of society to the base, this 
 sacrificial spirit rules. That a large part of the 
 private income of their Imperial Majesties has, for 
 many years, been devoted to public education is 
 well known ; but that every person of rank or 
 wealth or high position educates students at his 
 private expense, is not generally known. In the 
 majority of cases this help is entirely gratuitous ; 
 in a minority of cases, the expenses of the student 
 are advanced only, to be repaid by instalments at 
 some future time. The reader is doubtless aware 
 that the daimyo in former times used to dispose of 
 the bulk of their incomes in supporting and helping 
 their retainers ; supplying hundreds, in some cases 
 thousands, and in some few cases, even tens of thou- 
 sands, of persons with the necessaries of life ; and 
 exacting in return military service, loyalty, and 
 obedience. Those former daimyo or their suc- 
 cessors — particularly those who are still large 
 landholders — now vie with each other in assist- 
 ing education. All who can afford it are educat- 
 ing sons or grandsons or descendants of former 
 retainers ; the subjects of this patronage being 
 annually selected from among the students of 
 
476 OFFICIAL EDUCATION 
 
 schools established in the former daimiates. It is 
 only the rich noble who can now support a num- 
 ber of students gratuitously, year after year; the 
 poorer men of rank cannot care for many. But all, 
 or very nearly all, maintain some, — and this even 
 in cases where the patron's income is so small that 
 the expense could not be borne unless the student 
 were pledged to repay it after graduation. In some 
 instances, half of the cost is borne by the patron ; 
 the student being required to repay the rest. 
 
 Now these aristocratic examples are extensively 
 followed through other grades of society. Mer- 
 chants, bankers, and manufacturers — all rich men 
 of the commercial and industrial classes — are 
 educating students. Military officers, civil service 
 officials, physicians, lawyers, men of every profes- 
 sion, in short, are doing the same thing. Persons 
 whose incomes are too small to permit of much 
 generosity are able to help students by employing 
 them as door-keepers, messengers, tutors, — giving 
 them board and lodging, and a little pocket-money 
 at times, in return for light services. In Tokyo, 
 and in most of the large cities, almost every large 
 house is guarded by students who are being thus 
 assisted. As for what the teachers do — that re- 
 quires special mention. 
 
 The majority of teachers in the public schools do 
 not receive salaries enabling them to help students 
 /with money ; but all teachers earning more than the 
 
OFFICIAL EDUCATION 477 
 
 bare necessary give aid of some sort. Among the 
 instructors and professors of the higher educational 
 establishments, the helping of students seems to be 
 thought of as a matter of course, — so much a mat- 
 ter of course that we might suspect a new " tyranny 
 of custom," especially in view of the smallness of 
 official salaries. But no tyranny of custom would 
 explain the pleasure of sacrifice and the strange per- 
 sistence of feudal idealism which are revealed by 
 some extraordinary facts. For example : A certain 
 University professor is known to have supported 
 and educated a large number of students by divid- 
 ing among them, during many years, nearly the 
 whole of his salary. He lodged, clothed, boarded, 
 and educated them, bought their books, and paid 
 their fees, — reserving for himself only the cost of 
 his living, and reducing even that cost by living upon 
 hot sweet potatoes. (Fancy a foreign professor in 
 Japan putting himself upon a diet of bread and 
 water for the purpose of educating gratuitously a 
 number of poor young men ! ) I know of two 
 other cases nearly as remarkable ; the helper, in 
 one instance, being an old man of more than sev- 
 enty, who still devotes all his means, time, and 
 knowledge to his ancient ideal of duty. How much 
 obscure sacrifice of this kind has been performed by 
 those least able to afford it never will be known : 
 indeed, the publication of the facts would only give 
 pain. I am guilty of some indiscretion in mention- 
 
478 OFFICIAL EDUCATION 
 
 ing even the cases brought to my attention — though 
 human nature is honoured by the mention. . . . Now 
 it should be evident that while Japanese students are 
 accustomed to witness self-denial of this sort on the 
 part of native professors, they cannot be much im- 
 pressed by any manifestation of interest or sym- 
 pathy on the part of the foreign professor, who, 
 though receiving a higher salary than his Japanese 
 colleagues, has no reason and small inclination to 
 imitate their example. 
 
 Surely this heroic fact of education sustained by 
 personal sacrifices, in the face of unimaginable diffi- 
 culties, is enough to redeem much humbug and 
 wrong. In spite of the corruption which has been 
 of late years rife in educational circles, — in spite of 
 official scandals, intrigues, and shams, — all needed 
 reforms can be hoped for while the spirit of generous 
 self-denial continues to rule the world of teachers and 
 students. I can venture also the opinion that most 
 of the official scandals and failures have resulted 
 from the interference of politics with modern educa- 
 tion, or from attempting to imitate foreign conven- 
 tional methods totally at variance with national moral 
 experience. Where Japan has remained true to her 
 old moral ideals she has done nobly and well : where 
 she has needlessly departed from them, sorrow and 
 trouble have been the natural consequences. 
 
 There are yet other facts in modern education 
 
OFFICIAL EDUCATION 479 
 
 suggesting even more forcibly how much of the old 
 life remains hidden under the new conditions, and 
 how rigidly race-character has become fixed in the 
 higher types of mind. I refer chiefly to the results 
 of Japanese education abroad, — a higher special 
 training in German, English, French, or American 
 Universities. In some directions these results, to 
 foreign observation at least, appear to be almost 
 negative. Considering the immense psychological 
 differentiation, — the total oppositeness of mental 
 structure and habit, — it is astonishing that Japanese 
 students have been able to do what they actually 
 have done at foreign Universities. To graduate at' 
 any European or American University of mark, — 
 with a mind shaped by Japanese culture, filled with 
 Chinese learning, crammed with ideographs, — is a 
 prodigious feat : scarcely less of a feat than it would 
 be for an American student to graduate at a Chinese 
 University. Certainly the men sent abroad to study 
 are carefully selected for ability ; and one indispen- 
 sable requisite for the mission is a power of memory 
 incomparably superior to the average Occidental 
 memory, and different altogether as to quality, — 
 a memory for details; — nevertheless, the feat is 
 amazing. But with the return to Japan of these 
 young scholars, there is commonly an end of effort 
 in the direction of the speciality studied, — unless it 
 happens to have been a purely practical subject. 
 Does this signify incapacity for independent work 
 
480 OFFICIAL EDUCATION 
 
 upon Occidental lines ? incapacity for creative 
 thought ? lack of constructive imagination ? disin- 
 clination or indifference ? The history of that ter- 
 rible mental and moral discipline to which the race 
 was so long subjected would certainly suggest such 
 limitations in the modern Japanese mind. Perhaps 
 these questions cannot yet be answered, — except, I 
 imagine, as regards the indifference, which is self- 
 evident and undisguised. But, independently of 
 any question of capacity or inclination, there is this 
 fact to be considered, — that proper encouragement 
 has not yet been given to home-scholarship. The 
 plain truth is that young men are sent to foreign 
 seats of learning for other ends than to learn how to 
 devote the rest of their lives to the study of psy- 
 chology, philology, literature, or modern philosophy. 
 They are sent abroad to fit them for higher posts in 
 Government-service ; and their foreign study is but 
 one obligatory episode in their official career. Each 
 has to qualify himself for special duty by learning 
 how Western people study and think and feel in 
 certain directions, and by ascertaining the range of 
 educational progress in those directions ; but he is 
 not ordered to think or to feel like Western people 
 — which would, in any event, be impossible for 
 him. He has not, and probably could not have, 
 i any deep personal interest in Western learning out- 
 I side of the domain of applied science. His business 
 is to learn how to understand such matters from the 
 
OFFICIAL EDUCATION 481 
 
 Japanese, not from the Occidental, point of view. 
 But he performs his part well, does exactly what he 
 has been told to do, and rarely anything more. His 
 value to his Government is doubled or quadrupled 
 by his allotted experience ; but at home — except 
 during a few years of expected duty as professor or 
 lecturer — he will probably use that experience only 
 as a psychological costume of ceremony, — a mental 
 uniform to be donned when official occasion may 
 require. 
 
 It is otherwise in the case of men sent abroad 
 for scientific studies requiring, not only intelligence 
 and memory, but natural quickness of hand and 
 eye, — surgery, medicine, military specialities. I 
 doubt whether the average efficiency of Japanese 
 surgeons can be surpassed. The study of war, I 
 need hardly say, is one for which the national mind 
 and character have inherited aptitude. But men 
 sent abroad merely to win a foreign University-de- 
 gree, and destined, after a term of educational duty, 
 to higher official life, appear to set small value upon 
 vheir foreign acquirements. However, even if they 
 could win distinction in Europe by further effort at 
 home, that effort would have to be made at a serious 
 pecuniary sacrifice, and its results could not as yet 
 be fairly appreciated by their own countrymen. 
 
 Some of us have wondered at times what the old 
 Egyptians or the old Greeks would have done if 
 21 
 
482 OFFICIAL EDUCATION 
 
 suddenly brought into dangerous contact with a 
 civilization like our own, — a civilization of applied 
 mathematics, with sciences and branch-sciences of 
 which the mere names would fill a dictionary. I 
 think that the history of modern Japan suggests 
 very clearly what any wise people, with a civiliza- 
 tion based upon ancestor-worship, would have done. 
 They would have speedily reconstructed their patri- 
 archal society to meet the sudden peril ; they would 
 have adopted, with astonishing success, all the scien- 
 tific machinery that they could use ; they would have 
 created a formidable army and a highly efficient navy ; 
 they would have sent their young aristocrats abroad 
 to study alien convention, and to qualify for diplo- 
 matic duty ; they would have established a new sys- 
 tem of education, and obliged all their children to 
 study many new things ; — but toward the higher 
 emotional and intellectual life of that alien civiliza- 
 tion, they would naturally exhibit indifference : its 
 best literature, its philosophy, its broader forms of 
 tolerant religion could make no profound appeal to 
 their moral and social experience. 
 
Industrial Danger 
 
Industrial Danger 
 
 EVERYWHERE the course of human civiliza- 
 tion has been shaped by the same evolutional 
 law ; and as the earlier history of the ancient 
 European communities can help us to understand 
 the social conditions of Old Japan, so a later period 
 of the same history can help us to divine something 
 of the probable future of the New Japan. It has been 
 shown by the author of La Cit'e Antique that the 
 history of all the ancient Greek and Latin commu- 
 nities included four revolutionary periods. 1 The 
 first revolution had everywhere for its issue the 
 withdrawal of political power from the priest-king, 
 who was nevertheless allowed to retain the religious 
 authority. The second revolutionary period wit- 
 nessed the breaking up of the gens or yeVos, the 
 enfranchisement of the client from the authority 
 of the patron, and several important changes in 
 
 1 Not excepting Sparta. The Spartan society was evolutionally much in ad- 
 vance of the Ionian societies ; the Dorian patriarchal clan having been dissolved at 
 some very early period. Sparta kept its Kings ; but affairs of civil justice were 
 regulated by the Senate, and affairs of criminal justice by the ephors, who also had 
 the power to declare war and to make treaties of peace. After the first great revolu- 
 tion of Spartan history the King was deprived of power in civil matters, in criminal 
 matters, and in military matters : he retained his sacerdotal office. See for details, 
 La Cite Antique, pp. 285-287. 
 
 485 
 
486 INDUSTRIAL DANGER 
 
 the legal constitution of the family. The third 
 revolutionary period saw the weakening of the 
 religious and military aristocracy, the entrance of 
 the common people into the rights of citizenship, 
 and the rise of a democracy of wealth, - — presently 
 to be opposed by a democracy of poverty. The 
 fourth revolutionary period witnessed the first 
 bitter struggles between rich and poor, the final 
 triumph of anarchy, and the consequent establish- 
 ment of a new and horrible form of despotism, — 
 the despotism of the popular Tyrant. 
 
 To these four revolutionary periods, the social 
 history of Old Japan presents but two correspond- 
 ences. The first Japanese revolutionary period 
 was represented by the Fujiwara usurpation of the 
 imperial civil and military authority, — after which 
 event the aristocracy, religious and military, really 
 governed Japan down to our own time. All the 
 events of the rise of the military power and the 
 concentration of authority under the Tokugawa 
 Shogunate properly belong to the first revolutionary 
 period. At the time of the opening of Japan, 
 society had not evolutionally advanced beyond a 
 stage corresponding to that of the antique Western 
 societies in the seventh or eighth century before 
 Christ. The second revolutionary period really 
 began only with the reconstruction of society in 
 1 87 1. But within the space of a single generation 
 thereafter, Japan entered upon her third revolution- 
 
INDUSTRIAL DANGER 437 
 
 ary period. Already the influence of the elder aris- 
 tocracy is threatened by the sudden rise of a new 
 oligarchy of wealth, — a new industrial power 
 probably destined to become omnipotent in politics. 
 The disintegration (now proceeding) of the clan, 
 the changes in the legal constitution of the family, 
 the entrance of the people into the enjoyment of 
 political rights, must all tend to hasten the coming 
 transfer of power. There is every indication that, 
 in the present order of things, the third revolution- 
 ary period will run its course rapidly ; and then a 
 fourth revolutionary period, fraught with serious 
 danger, would be in immediate prospect. 
 
 Consider the bewildering rapidity of recent changes, 
 — from the reconstruction of society in 1871 to the 
 opening of the first national parliament in 1891. 
 Down to the middle of the nineteenth century the 
 nation had remained in the condition common to 
 European patriarchal communities twenty-six hun- 
 dred years ago : society had indeed entered upon a 
 second period of integration, but had traversed only 
 one great revolution. And then the country was 
 suddenly hurried through two more social revolu- 
 tions of the most extraordinary kind, — signalized 
 by the abolition of the daimiates, the suppression of 
 the military class, the substitution of a plebeian for 
 an aristocratic army, popular enfranchisement, the 
 rapid formalism of a new commonalty, industrial ex- 
 
4 88 INDUSTRIAL DANGER 
 
 pansion, the rise of a new aristocracy of wealth, and 
 popular representation in government ! Old Japan 
 had never developed a wealthy and powerful middle 
 class : she had not even approached that stage of 
 industrial development which, in the ancient Euro- 
 pean societies, naturally brought about the first 
 political struggles between rich and poor. Her 
 social organization made industrial oppression im- 
 possible : the commercial classes were kept at the 
 bottom of society, — under the feet even of those 
 who, in more highly evolved communities, are most 
 at the mercy of money-power. But now those com- 
 mercial classes, set free and highly privileged, are 
 silently and swiftly ousting the aristocratic ruling- 
 class from power, — are becoming supremely im- 
 portant. And under the new order of things, forms 
 of social misery, never before known in the history 
 of the race, are being developed. Some idea of this 
 misery may be obtained from the fact that the num- 
 ber of poor people in Tokyo unable to pay their 
 annual resident-tax is upwards of 50,000 ; yet the 
 amount of the tax is only about 20 sen, or 5 pence 
 English money. Prior to the accumulation of wealth 
 in the hands of a minority there was never any such 
 want in any part of Japan, — except, of course, as a 
 temporary consequence of war. 
 
 The early history of European civilization supplies 
 analogies. In the Greek and Latin communities, 
 up to the time of the dissolution of the gens, there 
 
INDUSTRIAL DANGER 489 
 
 was no poverty in the modern meaning of that word. 
 Slavery, with some few exceptions, existed only in 
 the mild domestic form ; there were yet no commer- 
 cial oligarchies, and no industrial oppressions ; and 
 the various cities and states were ruled, after political 
 power had been taken from the early kings, by mili- 
 tary aristocracies which also exercised religious func- 
 tions. There was yet little trade in the modern 
 signification of the term ; and money, as current 
 coinage, came into circulation only in the seventh 
 century before Christ. Misery did not exist. 
 Under any patriarchal system, based upon ancestor- 
 worship, there is no misery, as a consequence 
 of poverty, except such as may be temporarily 
 created by devastation or famine. If want thus 
 comes, it comes to all alike. In such a state of 
 society everybody is in the service of somebody, and 
 receives in exchange for service all the necessaries of 
 life : there is no need for any one to trouble himself 
 about the question of living. Also, in such a patri- 
 archal community, which is self-sufficing, there is 
 little need of money : barter takes the place of trade. 
 ... In all these respects, the condition of Old 
 Japan offered a close parallel to the conditions of 
 patriarchal society in ancient Europe. While the 
 uji or clan existed, there was no misery except as 2. 
 result of war, famine, or pestilence. Throughout 
 society — excepting the small commercial class — the 
 need of money was rare ; and such coinage as existed 
 
49Q INDUSTRIAL DANGER 
 
 was little suited to general circulation. Taxes were 
 paid in rice and other produce. As the lord nour- 
 ished his retainers, so the samurai cared for his de- 
 pendants, the farmer for his labourers, the artizan for 
 his apprentices and journeymen, the merchant for 
 his clerks. Everybody was fed ; and there was no 
 need, in ordinary times at least, for any one to go 
 hungry. It was only with the breaking-up of the 
 clan-system in Japan that the possibilities of starva- 
 tion for the worker first came into existence. And 
 as, in antique Europe, the enfranchised client-class 
 and plebeian-class developed, under like conditions, 
 into a democracy clamouring for suffrage and all 
 political rights, so in Japan have the common people 
 developed the political instinct, in self-protection. 
 
 It will be remembered how, in Greek and Roman 
 society, the aristocracy founded upon religious tra- 
 dition and military power had to give way to an 
 oligarchy of wealth, and how there subsequently 
 came into existence a democratic form of govern- 
 ment, — democratic, not in the modern, but in the 
 old Greek meaning. At a yet later day the results 
 of popular suffrage were the breaking-up of this 
 democratic government, and the initiation of an 
 atrocious struggle between rich and poor. After 
 that strife had begun there was no more security 
 for life or property until the Roman conquest en- 
 forced order. . . . Now it seems not unlikely 
 that there will be witnessed in Japan, at no very 
 
INDUSTRIAL DANGER 491 
 
 distant day, a strong tendency to repeat the history 
 of the old Greek anarchies. With the constant 
 increase of poverty and pressure of population, 
 and the concomitant accumulation of wealth in the 
 hands of a new industrial class, the peril is obvious. 
 Thus far the nation has patiently borne all changes, 
 relying upon the experience of its past, and trust- 
 ing implicitly to its rulers. But should wretch- 
 edness be so permitted to augment that the 
 question of how to keep from starving becomes 
 imperative for the millions, the long patience and 
 the long trust may fail. And then, to repeat a 
 figure effectively used by Professor Huxley, the 
 Primitive Man, finding that the Moral Man has 
 landed him in the valley of the shadow of death, 
 may rise up to take the management of affairs into 
 his own hands, and fight savagely for the right of 
 existence. As popular instinct is not too dull to 
 divine the first cause of this misery in the introduc- 
 tion of Western industrial methods, it is unpleasant 
 to reflect what such an upheaval might signify. But 
 nothing of moment has yet been done to ameliorate 
 the condition of the wretched class of operatives, 
 now estimated to exceed half a million. 
 
 M. de Coulanges has pointed out 1 that the ab- 
 sence of individual liberty was the real cause of the 
 disorders and the final ruin of the Greek societies. 
 
 1 La Chi Antique, pp. 400-401. 
 
492 INDUSTRIAL DANGER 
 
 Rome suffered less, and survived, and dominated, — 
 because within her boundaries the rights of the indi- 
 vidual had been more respected. . . . Now the 
 absence of individual freedom in modern Japan 
 would certainly appear to be nothing less than a 
 national danger. For those very habits of unques- 
 tioning obedience, and loyalty, and respect for 
 authority, which made feudal society possible, are 
 likely to render a true democratic regime impossible,, 
 and would tend to bring about a state of anarchy. 
 Only races long accustomed to personal liberty, — 
 liberty to think about matters of ethics apart from 
 matters of government, — liberty to consider ques- 
 tions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, inde- 
 pendently of political authority, — are able to face 
 without risk the peril now menacing Japan. For 
 should social disintegration take in Japan the same 
 course which it followed in the old European socie- 
 ties, — unchecked by any precautionary legislation, 
 — and so bring about another social revolution, the 
 consequence could scarcely be less than utter ruin. 
 In the antique world of Europe, the total disintegra- 
 tion of the patriarchal system occupied centuries : 
 it was slow, and it was normal — not having been 
 brought about by external forces. In Japan, on 
 the contrary, this disintegration is taking place 
 under enormous outside pressure, operating with 
 the rapidity of electricity and steam. In Greek 
 societies the changes were effected in about three 
 
INDUSTRIAL DANGER 493 
 
 hundred years ; in Japan it is hardly more than 
 thirty years since the patriarchal system was legally 
 dissolved and the industrial system reshaped; yet 
 already the danger of anarchy is in sight, and the 
 population — astonishingly augmented by more than 
 ten millions — already begins to experience all the 
 forms of misery developed by want under industrial 
 conditions. 
 
 It was perhaps inevitable that the greatest free- 
 dom accorded under the new order of things should 
 have been given in the direction of greatest danger. 
 Though the Government cannot be said to have 
 done much for any form of competition within the 
 sphere of its own direct control, it has done even more 
 than could have been reasonably expected on behalf 
 of national industrial competition. Loans have been 
 lavishly advanced, subsidies generously allowed ; and, 
 in spite of various panics and failures, the results have 
 been prodigious. Within thirty years the value of 
 articles manufactured for export has risen from half 
 a million to five hundred million yen'. But this 
 immense development has been effected at serious 
 cost in other directions. The old methods of family 
 production — and therefore most of the beautiful 
 industries and arts, for which Japan has been so 
 long famed — now seem doomed beyond hope ; 
 and instead of the ancient kindly relations between 
 master and workers, there have been brought into 
 existence — with no legislation to restrain inhuman- 
 
494 INDUSTRIAL DANGER 
 
 ity — all the horrors of factory-life at its worst. The 
 new combinations of capital have actually reestab- 
 lished servitude, under harsher forms than ever 
 were imagined under the feudal era ; the misery of 
 the women and children subjected to that servitude 
 is a public scandal, and proves strange possibilities 
 of cruelty on the part of a people once renowned for 
 kindness, — kindness even to animals. 
 
 There is now a humane outcry for reform ; and 
 earnest efforts have been made, and will be made, 
 to secure legislation for the protection of operatives. 
 But, as might be expected, these efforts have been 
 hitherto strongly opposed by manufacturing com- 
 panies and syndicates with the declaration that any 
 Government interference with factory management 
 will greatly hamper, if not cripple, enterprise, and 
 hinder competition with foreign industry. Less 
 than twenty years ago the very same arguments were 
 used in England to oppose the efforts then being 
 made to improve the condition of the industrial 
 classes ; and that opposition was challenged by Pro- 
 fessor Huxley in a noble address, which every 
 Japanese legislator would do well to read to-day. 
 Speaking of the reforms in progress during 1888, 
 the professor said : — 
 
 " If it is said that the carrying out of such arrangements 
 as those indicated must enhance the cost of production, 
 and thus handicap the producer in the race of competition, 
 I venture, in the first place, to doubt the fact ; but, if it be 
 
INDUSTRIAL DANGER 495 
 
 so, it results that industrial society has to face a dilemma, 
 either alternative of which threatens destruction. 
 
 " On the one hand, a population, the labour of which 
 is sufficiently remunerated, may be physically and morally 
 healthy, and socially stable, but may fail in industrial com- 
 petition by reason of the dearness of its produce. On the 
 other hand, a population, the labour of which is insufficiently 
 remunerated, must become physically and morally un- 
 healthy, and socially unstable ; and though it may succeed 
 for a while in competition, by reason of the cheapness of 
 its produce, it must in the end fall, through hideous misery 
 and degradation, to utter ruin. 
 
 " Well, if these be the only alternatives, let us for our- 
 selves and our children choose the former, and, if need be, 
 starve like men. But I do not believe that a stable society, 
 made up of healthy, vigorous, instructed, and self-ruling 
 people would ever incur serious risk of that fate. They 
 are not likely to be troubled with many competitors of the 
 same character just yet ; and they may be safely trusted to 
 find ways of holding their own." x 
 
 If the future of Japan could depend upon her army 
 and her navy, upon the high courage of her peo- 
 ple and their readiness to die by the hundred thou- 
 sand for ideals of honour and of duty, there would be 
 small cause for alarm in the present state of affairs. 
 Unfortunately her future must depend upon other 
 qualities than courage, other abilities than those of 
 
 1 The Struggle for Existence in Human Society, " Collected Essays," Vol. IX, 
 pp. 218-219. 
 
496 INDUSTRIAL DANGER 
 
 sacrifice ; and her struggle hereafter must be one in 
 which her social traditions will place her at an 
 immense disadvantage. The capacity for industrial 
 competition cannot be made to depend upon the 
 misery of women and children ; it must depend 
 upon the intelligent freedom of the individual ; and 
 the society which suppresses this freedom, or suffers 
 it to be suppressed, must remain too rigid for com- 
 petition with societies in which the liberties of the 
 individual are strictly maintained. While Japan con- 
 tinues to think and to act by groups, even by groups 
 of industrial companies, so long she must always 
 continue incapable of her best. Her ancient social 
 experience is not sufficient to avail her for the future 
 international struggle, — rather it must sometimes 
 impede her as so much dead weight. Dead, in the 
 ghostliest sense of the word, — the viewless pressure 
 upon her life of numberless vanished generations. 
 She will have not only to strive against colossal odds 
 in her rivalry with more plastic and more forceful 
 societies ; she will have to strive much more against 
 the power of her phantom past. 
 
 Yet it were a grievous error to imagine that she 
 has nothing further to gain from her ancestral faith. 
 All her modern successes have been aided by it j 
 and all her modern failures have been marked by 
 needless breaking with its ethical custom. She could 
 compel her people, by a simple fiat, to adopt the 
 
INDUSTRIAL DANGER 497 
 
 civilization of the West, with all its pain and struggle, 
 only because that people had been trained for ages 
 in submission and loyalty and sacrifice ; and the time 
 has not yet come in which she can afford to cast 
 away the whole of her moral past. More freedom 
 indeed she requires, — but freedom restrained by 
 wisdom ; freedom to think and act and strive for 
 self as well as for others, — not freedom to oppress 
 the weak, or to exploit the simple. And the new 
 cruelties of her industrial life can find no justification 
 in the traditions of her ancient faith, which exacted 
 absolute obedience from the dependant, but equally 
 required the duty of kindness from the master. In 
 so far as she has permitted her people to depart from 
 the way of kindness, she herself has surely departed 
 from the Way of the Gods. . . . 
 
 And the domestic future appears dark. Born of 
 that darkness, an evil dream comes oftentimes to 
 those who love Japan : the fear that all her efforts 
 are being directed, with desperate heroism, only to 
 prepare the land for the sojourn of peoples older 
 by centuries in commercial experience ; that her 
 thousands of miles of railroads and telegraphs, her 
 mines and forges, her arsenals and factories, her docks 
 and fleets, are being put in order for the use of 
 foreign capital ; that her admirable army and her 
 heroic navy may be doomed to make their last sacri- 
 fices in hopeless contest against some combination 
 of greedy states, provoked or encouraged to aggres- 
 
498 INDUSTRIAL DANGER 
 
 sion by circumstances beyond the power of Govern- 
 ment to control. . . . But the statesmanship that 
 has already guided Japan through so many storms 
 should prove able to cope with this gathering peril. 
 
Reflections 
 
 — " Institutions are dependent on char- 
 acter ,- and, however changed in their 
 superficial aspects, cannot be changed in 
 their essential natures faster than character 
 changes. . ." " Sudden changes of 
 religious institutions, as of political insti~ 
 tutions, are certain to be followed by 
 reactions.'''' — Herbert Spencer, Auto* 
 biography* 
 
Reflections 
 
 IN the preceding pages I have endeavoured to 
 suggest a general idea of the social history of 
 Japan, and a general idea of the nature of 
 those forces which shaped and tempered the char- 
 acter of her people. Certainly this attempt leaves 
 much to be desired : the time is yet far away at 
 which a satisfactory work upon the subject can be 
 prepared. But the fact that Japan can be under- 
 stood only through the study of her religious and 
 social evolution, has been, I trust, sufficiently indi- 
 cated. She affords us the amazing spectacle of an 
 Eastern society maintaining all the outward forms 
 of Western civilization; using, with unquestionable 
 efficiency, the applied science of the Occident ; 
 accomplishing, by prodigious effort, the work of 
 centuries within the time of three decades, — yet 
 sociologically remaining at a stage corresponding to 
 that which, in ancient Europe, preceded the Chris- 
 tian era by hundreds of years. 
 
 But no suggestion of origins and causes should 
 diminish the pleasure of contemplating this curious 
 world, psychologically still so far away from us in 
 the course of human evolution. The wonder and 
 
 Soi 
 
5 02 REFLECTIONS 
 
 the beauty of what remains of the Old Japan cannot 
 be lessened by any knowledge of the conditions that 
 produced them. The old kindliness and grace of 
 manners need not cease to charm us because we 
 know that such manners were cultivated, for a 
 thousand years, under the edge of the ? word. The 
 common politeness which appeared, but a few years 
 ago, to be almost universal, and the rarity of quar- 
 rels, should not prove less agreeable because we h?.re 
 learned that, for generations and generations, all 
 quarrels among the people were punished with ex- 
 traordinary rigour; and that the custom of the 
 vendetta, which rendered necessary such repression, 
 also made everybody cautious of word and deed. 
 The popular smile should not seem less winning 
 because we have been told of a period, in the past 
 of the subject-classes, when not to smile in the 
 teeth of pain might cost life itself. And the Jap- 
 anese woman, as cultivated by the old home-training, 
 is not less sweet a being because she represents the 
 moral ideal of a vanishing world, and because we 
 can faintly surmise the cost, — the incalculable cost 
 in pain, — of producing her. 
 
 No : what remains of this elder civilization is full 
 of charm, — charm unspeakable, — and to witness 
 its gradual destruction must be a grief for whomso- 
 ever has felt that charm. However intolerable may 
 seem, to the mind of the artist or poet, those count- 
 less restrictions which once ruled all this fairy-world, 
 
REFLECTIONS 503 
 
 and shaped the soul of it, he cannot but admire and 
 love their best results : the simplicity of old custom, 
 
 — the amiability of manners, — the daintiness of 
 habits, — the delicate tact displayed in pleasure-giv- 
 ing, — the strange power of presenting outwardly, 
 under any circumstances, only the best and brightest 
 aspects of character. What emotional poetry, for 
 even the least believing, in the ancient home-reli- 
 gion, — in the lamplet nightly kindled before the 
 manes of the dead, the tiny offerings of food and 
 drink, the welcome-fires lighted to guide the visiting 
 ghosts, the little ships prepared to bear them back 
 to their rest ! And this immemorial doctrine of 
 filial piety, — exacting all that is noble, not less than 
 all that is terrible, in duty, in gratitude, in self- 
 denial, — what strange appeal does it make to our 
 lingering religious instincts ; and how close to the 
 divine appear to us the finer natures forged by it ! 
 What queer weird attraction in those parish-temple 
 festivals, with their happy mingling of merriment 
 and devotion in the presence of the gods ! What 
 a universe of romance in that Buddhist art which 
 has left its impress upon almost every product 
 of industry, from the toy of a child to the heir- 
 loom of a prince ; — which has peopled the soli- 
 tudes with statues, and chiselled the wayside 
 rocks with texts of sutras ! Who can forget the 
 soft enchantment of this Buddhist atmosphere ? 
 
 — the deep music of the great bells ? — the 
 
504 REFLECTIONS 
 
 green peace of gardens haunted by fearless things : 
 doves that flutter down at call, fishes rising 
 to be fed ? . . . Despite our incapacity to enter 
 into the soul-life of this ancient East, — despite 
 the certainty that one might as well hope to re- 
 mount the River of Time and share the van- 
 ished existence of some old Greek city, as to 
 share the thoughts and the emotions of Old 
 Japan, — we find ourselves bewitched forever by 
 the vision, like those wanderers of folk-tale who 
 rashly visited Elf-land. 
 
 We know that there is illusion, — not as to the 
 reality of the visible, but as to its meanings, — very 
 much illusion. Yet why should this illusion attract 
 us, like some glimpse of Paradise? — why should 
 we feel obliged to confess the ethical glamour of a 
 civilization as far away from us in thought as the 
 Egypt of Ramses ? Are we really charmed by the 
 results of a social discipline that refused to recognize 
 the individual ? — enamoured of a cult that exacted 
 the suppression of personality ? 
 
 No : the charm is made by the fact that this 
 vision of the past represents to us much more than 
 past or present, — that it foreshadows the possibili- 
 ties of some higher future, in a world of perfect 
 sympathy. After many a thousand years there may 
 be developed a humanity able to achieve, with never 
 a shadow of illusion, those ethical conditions prefig- 
 ured by the ideals of Old Japan : instinctive unself- 
 
REFLECTIONS 505 
 
 ishness, a common desire to find the joy of life in 
 making happiness for others, a universal sense of 
 moral beauty. And whenever men shall have so 
 far gained upon the present as to need no other code 
 than the teaching of their own hearts, then indeed 
 the ancient ideal of ShintS will find its supreme 
 realization. 
 
 Moreover, it should be remembered that the 
 social state, whose results thus attract us, really 
 produced much more than a beautiful mirage. Sim- 
 ple characters of great charm, though necessarily of 
 great fixity, were developed by it in multitude. Old 
 Japan came nearer to the achievement of the high- 
 est moral ideal than our far more evolved soci- 
 eties can hope to do for many a hundred years. 
 And but for those ten centuries of war which fol- 
 lowed upon the rise of the military power, the ethi- 
 cal end to which all social discipline tended might 
 have been much more closely approached. Yet if 
 the better side of this human nature had been 
 further developed at the cost of darker and sterner 
 qualities, the consequence might have proved un- 
 fortunate for the nation. No people so ruled by 
 altruism as to lose its capacities for aggression and 
 cunning, could hold their own, in the present state 
 of the world, against races hardened by the disci- 
 pline of competition as well as by the discipline of 
 war. The future Japan must rely upon the least 
 
506 REFLECTIONS 
 
 amiable qualities of her character for success in the 
 universal struggle ; and she will need to develop 
 them strongly. 
 
 * * 
 How strongly she has been able to develop 
 them in one direction, the present war with 
 Russia bears startling witness. But it is certainly 
 to the long discipline of the past that she owes the 
 moral strength behind this unexpected display of 
 aggressive power. No superficial observation could 
 discern the silent energies masked by the resigna- 
 tion of the people to change, — the unconscious 
 heroism informing this mass of forty million souls, 
 — the compressed force ready to expand at Impe- 
 rial bidding either for construction or destruction. 
 From the leaders of a nation with such a military 
 and political history, one might expect the manifes- 
 tation of all those abilities of supreme importance 
 in diplomacy and war. But such capacities could 
 prove of little worth were it not for the character of 
 the masses, — the quality of the material that moves 
 to command with the power of winds and tides. 
 The veritable strength of Japan still lies in the 
 moral nature of her common people, — her farmers 
 and ' fishers, artizaris and labourers, — the patient 
 quiet folk one sees toiling in the rice-fields, or 
 occupied with the humblest of crafts and callings in 
 city by-ways. All the unconscious heroism of the 
 race is in these, and all its splendid courage, — a 
 
REFLECTIONS 507 
 
 courage that does not mean indifference to life, but 
 the desire to sacrifice life at the bidding of the 
 Imperial Master who raises the ranks of the dead. 
 From the thousands of young men now being sum- 
 moned to the war, one hears no expression of hope 
 to return to their homes with glory; — the com- 
 mon wish uttered is only to win remembrance at 
 the Shokonsha — that "Spirit-Invoking Temple," 
 where the souls of all who die for Emperor and 
 fatherland are believed to gather. At no time was 
 the ancient faith stronger than in this hour of 
 struggle ; and Russian power will have very much 
 more to fear from that faith than from repeating 
 rifles or Whitehead torpedoes. 1 Shinto, as a reli- 
 gion of patriotism, is a force that should suffice, if 
 permitted fair-play, to affect not only the destinies 
 of the whole Far East, but the future of civiliza- 
 tion. No more irrational assertion was ever made 
 about the Japanese than the statement of their 
 indifference to religion. Religion is still, as it has 
 
 1 The following reply, made by Vice-Admiral Togo, Commander-in-Chief of 
 the Japanese fleet, to an Imperial message of commendation received after the 
 second attempt to block the entrance to Port Arthur, is characteristically Shinto : — 
 
 " The warm message which Your Imperial Majesty condescended to grant us with 
 regard to the second attempt to seal Port Arthur, has not only overwhelmed us with 
 gratitude, but may also influence the patriotic mattes of the departed heroes to hover 
 long over the battle-field and give unseen protection to the Imperial forces," . . . 
 [Translated in the Japan Times of March 31st, IQ04. 
 
 — Such thoughts and hopes about the brave dead might have been uttered by a 
 Greek admiral after the battle of Salamis. The faith and courage which helped the 
 Greeks to repel the Persian invasion were of precisely the same quality as that reli- 
 gious heroism which now helps the Japanese to challenge the power of Russia. 
 
508 REFLECTIONS 
 
 ever been, the very life of the people, — the motive 
 and the directing power of their every action : a reli- 
 gion of doing and suffering, a religion without cant 
 and hypocrisy. And the qualities especially devel- 
 oped by it are just those qualities which have startled 
 Russia, and may yet cause her many a painful sur- 
 prise. She has discovered alarming force where she 
 imagined childish weakness ; she has encountered 
 heroism where she expected to find timidity and 
 
 helplessness. 1 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 For countless reasons this terrible war (of which 
 no man can yet see the end) is unspeakably to be 
 regretted ; and of these reasons not the least are 
 industrial. War must temporarily check all ten- 
 dencies towards the development of that healthy 
 individualism without which no modern nation can 
 become prosperous and wealthy. Enterprise is 
 numbed, markets paralyzed, manufactures stopped. 
 Yet, in the extraordinary case of this extraordinary 
 people, it is possible that the social effects of the 
 contest will prove to some degree beneficial. Prior 
 to hostilities, there had been a visible tendency to 
 
 1 The case of the Japanese officers and men on the transport Kinsbu Marti, 
 sunk by the Russian warships on the 26th of last April, should have given the 
 enemy matter for reflection. Although allowed an hour's time for consideration, 
 the soldiers refused to surrender, and opened fire with their rifles on the battleships. 
 Then, before the Kinsbu Maru was blown in two by a torpedo, a number of the 
 Japanese officers and men performed harakiri. . . . This striking display of the 
 fierce old feudal spirit suggests how dearly a Russian success would be bought. 
 
REFLECTIONS 509 
 
 the premature dissolution of institutions founded 
 upon centuries of experience, — a serious likelihood 
 of moral disintegration. That great changes must 
 hereafter be made, — that the future well-being of 
 the country requires them, — would seem to admit 
 of no argument. But it is necessary that such 
 changes be effected by degrees, — not with such 
 inopportune haste as to imperil the moral constitu- 
 tion of the nation. A war for independence, — a 
 war that obliges the race to stake its all upon the 
 issue, — must bring about a tightening of the old 
 social bonds, a strong quickening of the ancient 
 sentiments of loyalty and duty, a reinforcement of 
 conservatism. This will signify retrogression in 
 some directions ; but it will also mean invigoration 
 in others. Before the Russian menace, the Soul of 
 Yamato revives again. Out of the contest Japan 
 will come, if successful, morally stronger than be- 
 fore ; and a new sense of self-confidence, a new spirit 
 of independence, might then reveal itself in the 
 national attitude toward foreign policy and foreign 
 pressure. 
 
 — There would be, of course, the danger of over- 
 confidence. A people able to defeat Russian power 
 on land and sea might be tempted to believe them- 
 selves equally able' to cope with foreign capital upon 
 their own territory ; and every means would cer- 
 tainly be tried of persuading or bullying the govern- 
 
5io REFLECTIONS 
 
 merit into some fatal compromise on the question of 
 the right of foreigners to hold land. Efforts in this 
 direction have been carried on persistently and sys- 
 tematically for years ; and these efforts seem to 
 have received some support from a class of Japan- 
 ese politicians, apparently incapable of understand- 
 ing what enormous tyranny a single privileged 
 syndicate of foreign capital would be capable of 
 exercising in such a country. It appears to me 
 that any person comprehending, even in the vaguest 
 way, the nature of money-power and the average 
 conditions of life throughout Japan, must recognize 
 the certainty that foreign capital, with right of land- 
 tenure, would find means to control legislation, to 
 control government, and to bring about a state of 
 affairs that would result in the practical domination 
 of the empire by alien interests. I cannot resist 
 the conviction that when Japan yields to foreign 
 industry the right to purchase land, she is lost 
 beyond hope. The self-confidence that might 
 tempt to such yielding, in view of immediate ad- 
 vantages, would be fatal. Japan has incomparably 
 more to fear from English or American capital than 
 from Russian battleships and bayonets. Behind 
 her military capacity is the disciplined experience of 
 a thousand years ; behind her industrial and com- 
 mercial power, the experience -of half-a-century. 
 But she has been fully warned ; and if she chooses 
 hereafter to invite her own ruin, it will not have 
 
REFLECTIONS 511 
 
 been for lack of counsel, — since she had the wisest 
 man in the world to advise her. 1 
 
 To the reader of these pages, at least, the strength 
 and the weakness of the new social organization — 
 its great capacities for offensive or defensive action 
 in military directions, and its comparative feebleness 
 in other directions — should now be evident. All 
 things considered, the marvel is that Japan should 
 have been so well able to hold her own ; and it was 
 assuredly no common wisdom that guided her first 
 unsteady efforts in new and perilous ways. Cer- 
 tainly her power to accomplish what she has accom- 
 plished was derived from her old religious and social 
 training : she was able to keep strong because, under 
 the new forms of rule and the new conditions of so- 
 cial activity, she could still maintain a great deal of 
 the ancient discipline. But even thus it was only 
 by the firmest and shrewdest policy that she could 
 avert disaster, — could prevent the disruption of her 
 whole Social structure under the weight of alien press- 
 ure. It was imperative that vast changes should be 
 made, but equally imperative that they should not 
 be of a character to endanger the foundations ; and 
 it was above all things necessary, while preparing 
 for immediate necessities, to provide against future 
 perils. Never before, perhaps, in the history of 
 human civilization, did any rulers find themselves 
 
 1 Herbert Spencer. 
 
512 REFLECTIONS 
 
 obliged to cope with problems so tremendous, so 
 complicated, and so inexorable. And of these prob- 
 lems the most inexorable remains to be solved. It 
 is furnished by the fact that although all the suc- 
 cesses of Japan have been so far due to unselfish 
 collective action, sustained by the old Shinto ideals 
 of duty and obedience, her industrial future must 
 depend upon egoistic individual action of a totally 
 opposite kind ! 
 
 * * 
 
 What then will become of the ancient morality ? 
 — the ancient cult ? 
 
 — In this moment the conditions are abnormal. 
 But it seems certain that there will be, under normal 
 conditions, a further gradual loosening of the old 
 family-bonds ; and this would bring about a further 
 disintegration. By the testimony of the Japanese 
 themselves, such disintegration was spreading rapidly 
 among the upper and middle classes of the great 
 cities, prior to the present war. Among the people 
 of the agricultural districts, and even in the country 
 towns, the old ethical order of things has yet been 
 little affected. And there are other influences than 
 legislative change or social necessity which are work- 
 ing for disintegration. Old beliefs have been rudely 
 shaken by the introduction of larger knowledge : a 
 new generation is being taught, in twenty-sevem 
 thousand primary schools, the rudiments of science 
 and the modern conception of the universe. The 
 
REFLECTIONS 5x3 
 
 Buddhist cosmology, with its fantastic pictures of 
 Mount Meru, has become a nursery-tale ; the old 
 Chinese nature-philosophy finds believers only 
 among the little educated, or the survivors of 
 the feudal era ; and the youngest schoolboy has 
 learned that the constellations are neither gods nor 
 Buddhas, but far-off groups of suns. No longer 
 can popular fancy picture the Milky Way as the 
 River of Heaven ; the legend of the Weaving- 
 Maiden, and her waiting lover, and the Bridge of 
 Birds, is now told only to children ; and the young 
 fisherman, though steering, like his fathers, by the 
 light of stars, no longer discerns in the northern sky 
 the form of Mioken Bosatsu. 
 
 Yet it were easy to misinterpret the weakening of 
 a certain class of old beliefs, or the visible tendency 
 to social change. Under any circumstances a reli- 
 gion decays slowly ; and the most conservative forms 
 of religion are the last to yield to disintegration. It 
 were a grave mistake to suppose that the ancestor- 
 cult has yet been appreciably affected by exterior 
 influences of any kind, or to imagine that it con- 
 tinues to exist merely by force of hallowed custom, 
 and not because the majority still believe. No reli- 
 gion — and least of all the religion of the dead — 
 could thus suddenly lose its hold upon the affections 
 of the race that evolved it. Even in other directions 
 the new scepticism is superficial : it has not spread 
 downwards into the core of things. There is indeed 
 
5 H REFLECTIONS 
 
 a growing class of young men with whom scepti- 
 cism of a certain sort is the fashion, and scorn of the 
 past an affectation ; but even among these no word 
 of disrespect concerning the religion of the home is 
 ever heard. Protests against the old obligations of 
 filial piety, complaints of the growing weight of the 
 family yoke, are sometimes uttered ; but the domes- 
 tic cult is never spoken of lightly. As for the com- 
 munal and other public forms of Shinto, the vigour 
 of the old religion is sufficiently indicated by the 
 continually increasing number of temples. In 1897 
 there were 191,962 Shinto temples; in 1901 there 
 were 195,256. 
 
 It seems probable that such changes as must occur 
 in the near future will be social rather than religious ; 
 and there is little reason to believe that these changes 
 — however they may tend to weaken filial piety in 
 sundry directions — will seriously affect the ancestor- 
 cult itself. The weight of the family-bond, aggra- 
 vated by the increasing difficulty and cost of life, 
 may be more and more lightened for the individ- 
 ual ; but no legislation can abolish the senti- 
 ment of duty to the dead. When that sentiment 
 utterly fails, the heart of a nation will have ceased 
 to beat. Belief in the old gods, as gods, may slowly 
 pass ; but Shinto may live on as the Religion of the 
 Fatherland, a religion of heroes and patriots ; and 
 the likelihood of such future modification is indicated 
 by the memorial character of many new temples. 
 
REFLECTIONS 515 
 
 — It has been much asserted of late years (chiefly 
 because of the profound impression made by Mr. 
 Percival Lowell's Soul of the Far East) that 
 Japan is desperately in need of a Gospel of Indi- 
 vidualism ; and many pious persons assume that 
 the conversion of the country to Christianity would 
 suffice to produce the Individualism. This assump- 
 tion has nothing to rest on except the old supersti- 
 tion that national customs and habits and modes of 
 feeling, slowly shaped in the course of thousands of 
 years, can be suddenly transformed by a mere act 
 of faith. Those further dissolutions of the old 
 order which would render possible, under normal 
 conditions, a higher social energy, can be safely 
 brought about through industrialism only, — 
 through the working of necessities that enforce 
 competitive enterprise and commercial expansion. 
 A long peace will be required for such healthy 
 transformation ; and it is not impossible that an 
 independent and progressive Japan would then 
 consider questions of religious change from the 
 standpoint of political expediency. Observation and 
 study abroad may have unduly impressed Japanese 
 statesmen with the half-truth so forcibly uttered 
 by Michelet, — that "money has a religion," — 
 that " capital is Protestant," — that the power and 
 wealth and intellectual energy of the world belong 
 to the races who cast off the yoke of Rome, and 
 freed themselves from the creed of the Middle 
 
5 i6 REFLECTIONS 
 
 Ages. 1 A Japanese statesman is said to have lately- 
 declared that his countrymen were " rapidly drifting 
 towards Christianity " ! Newspaper reports of emi- 
 nent utterances are not often trustworthy ; but the 
 report in this case is probably accurate, and the 
 utterance intended to suggest possibilities. Since 
 the declaration of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, there 
 has been a remarkable softening in the attitude of 
 safe conservatism which the government formerly 
 maintained toward Western religion. . . . But as 
 for the question whether the Japanese nation will ever 
 adopt an alien creed under official encouragement, I 
 think that the sociological answer is evident. Any 
 understanding of the fundamental structure of society 
 should make equally obvious the imprudence of at- 
 tempting hasty transformations, and the impossibility 
 of effecting them. For the present, at least, the 
 religious question in Japan is a question of social 
 integrity; and any efforts to precipitate the natural 
 course of change can result only in provoking reaction 
 and disorder. I believe that the time is far away at 
 which Japan can venture to abandon the policy of 
 
 1 No inferences can he safely drawn from the apparent attitude of the govern- 
 ment towards religious bodies -in Japan. Of late years the seeming policy has been 
 to encourage the less tolerant forms of Western religion. In curious contrast to 
 this attitude is the non-toleration of Freemasonry. Strictly speaking, Freemasonry 
 is not allowed in Japan — although, since the abolition of exterritoriality, the foreign 
 lodges at the open ports have been permitted (or rather, suffered) to exist upon certain 
 conditions. A Japanese in Europe or America is free to become a Mason ; but he 
 cannot become a Mason in Japan, where the proceedings of all societies must remain 
 open to official surveillance. 
 
REFLECTIONS 517 
 
 caution that has served her so well, I believe that 
 the day on which she adopts a Western creed, her 
 immemorial dynasty is doomed ; and I cannot help 
 fearing that whenever she yields to foreign capital 
 the right to hold so much as one rood of her soil, 
 she signs away her birthright beyond hope of re- 
 covery. 
 
 * 
 * * 
 
 With a few general remarks upon the religion of 
 the Far East, in its relation to Occidental aggres- 
 sions, this attempt at interpretation may fitly con- 
 clude. 
 
 — All the societies of the Far East are founded, 
 like that of Japan, upon ancestor-worship. This 
 ancient religion, in various forms, represents their 
 moral experience ; and it offers everywhere to the 
 introduction of Christianity, as now intolerantly 
 preached, obstacles of the most serious kind. At- 
 tacks upon it must seem, to those whose lives are 
 directed by it, the greatest of outrages and the most 
 unpardonable of crimes. A religion for which every 
 member of a community believes it his duty to die 
 at call, is a religion for which he will fight. His 
 patience with attacks upon it will depend upon the 
 degree of his intelligence and the nature of his 
 training. All the races of the Far East have not 
 the intelligence of the Japanese, nor have they been 
 -equally well trained, under ages of military disci- 
 pline, to adapt their conduct to circumstances. For 
 
518 REFLECTIONS 
 
 the Chinese peasant, in especial, attacks upon his 
 religion are intolerable. His cult remains the most' 
 precious of his possessions, and his supreme guide 
 in all matters of social right and wrong. The East 
 has been tolerant of all creeds which do not assault 
 the foundations of its societies; and if Western mis- 
 sions had been wise enough to leave those foun- 
 dations alone, — to deal with the ancestor-cult as 
 Buddhism did, and to show the same spirit of 
 tolerance in other directions, — the introduction 
 of Christianity upon a very extensive scale should 
 have proved a matter of no difficulty. That the 
 result would have been a Christianity differing con- 
 siderably from Western Christianity is obvious, — 
 the structure of Far-Eastern society not admitting 
 of sudden transformations ; — but the essentials of 
 doctrine might have been widely propagated, with- 
 out exciting social antagonism, much less race-hatred. 
 To-day it is probably impossible to undo what the 
 sterile labour of intolerance has already done. The 
 hatred of Western religion in China and adjacent 
 countries is undoubtedly due to the needless and 
 implacable attacks which have been made upon the 
 ancestor-cult. To demand of a Chinese or an 
 Annamese that he cast away or destroy his ances- 
 tral tablets is not less irrational and inhuman than 
 it would be to demand of an Englishman or a 
 Frenchman that he destroy his mother's tomb- 
 stone in proof of his devotion to Christianity. 
 
REFLECTIONS 519 
 
 Nay, it is much more inhuman, — for the Euro- 
 pean attaches to the funeral monument no such 
 idea of sacredness as that which attaches, in Eastern 
 belief, to the simple tablet inscribed with the name 
 of the dead parent. From old time these attacks 
 upon the domestic faith of docile and peaceful com- 
 munities have provoked massacres ; and, if persisted 
 in, they will continue to provoke massacres while 
 the people have strength left to strike. How for- 
 eign religious aggression is answered by native reli- 
 gious aggression ; and how Christian military power 
 avenges the foreign victims with tenfold slaughter 
 and strong robbery, need not here be recorded. It 
 has not been in these years only that ancestor-wor- 
 shipping peoples have been slaughtered, impover- 
 ished, or subjugated in revenge for the uprisings 
 that missionary intolerance provokes. But while 
 Western trade and commerce directly gain by these 
 revenges, Western public opinion will suffer no dis- 
 cussion of the right of provocation or the justice of 
 retaliation. The less tolerant religious bodies call it a 
 wickedness even to raise the question of moral right ; 
 and against the impartial observer, who dares to lift 
 his voice in protest, fanaticism turns as ferociously 
 as if he were proved an enemy of the human race. 
 
 From the sociological point of view the whole 
 missionary system, irrespective of sect and creed, 
 represents the skirmishing-force of Western civiliza- 
 tion in its general attack upon all civilizations of the 
 
5 20 REFLECTIONS 
 
 ancient type, — the first line in the forward move- 
 ment of the strongest and most highly evolved 
 societies upon the weaker and less evolved. The 
 conscious work of these fighters is that of preachers 
 and teachers ; their unconscious work is that of 
 sappers and destroyers. The subjugation of weak 
 races has been aided by their work to a degree 
 little imagined ; and by no other conceivable means 
 could it have been accomplished so quickly and so 
 surely. For destruction they labour unknowingly, 
 like a force of nature. Yet Christianity does not 
 appreciably expand. They perish ; and they really 
 lay down their lives, with more than the courage of 
 soldiers, not, as they hope, to assist the spread of 
 that doctrine which the East must still of necessity 
 refuse, but to help industrial enterprise and Occi- 
 dental aggrandizement. The real and avowed object 
 of missions is defeated by persistent indifference to 
 sociological truths ; and the martyrdoms and sacri- 
 fices are utilized by Christian nations for ends 
 essentially opposed to the spirit of Christianity. 
 
 Needless to say that the aggressions of race upon 
 race are fully in accord with the universal law of 
 struggle, — that perpetual struggle in which only the 
 more capable survive. Inferior races must become 
 subservient to higher races, or disappear before them ; 
 and ancient types of civilization, too rigid for prog- 
 ress, must yield to the pressure of more efficient and 
 
REFLECTIONS 521 
 
 more complex civilizations. The law is pitiless and 
 plain : its operations may be mercifully modified, but 
 never prevented, by humane consideration. 
 
 Yet for no generous thinker can the ethical ques- 
 tions involved be thus easily settled. We are not 
 justified in holding that the inevitable is morally 
 ordained, — much less that, because the higher races 
 happen to be on the winning side in the world- 
 struggle, might can ever constitute right. Human 
 progress has been achieved by denying the law of 
 the stronger, — by battling against those impulses 
 to crush the weak, to prey upon the helpless, which 
 rule in the world of the brute, and are no less in 
 accord with the natural order than are the courses of 
 the stars. All virtues and restraints making civili- 
 zation possible have been developed in the teeth of 
 natural law. Those races which lead are the races 
 who first learned that the highest power is acquired 
 by the exercise of forbearance, and that liberty is 
 best maintained by the protection of the weak, and 
 by the strong repression of injustice. Unless we 
 be ready to deny the whole of the moral experience 
 thus gained, — unless we are willing to assert that the 
 religion in which it has been expressed is only the 
 creed of a particular civilization, and not a religion 
 of humanity, — it were difficult to imagine any ethi- 
 cal justification for the aggressions made upon alien 
 peoples in the name of Christianity and enlighten- 
 ment. Certainly the results in China of such aggres- 
 
522 REFLECTIONS 
 
 sion have not been Christianity nor enlightenment, 
 but revolts, massacres, detestable cruelties, — the 
 destruction of cities, the devastation of provinces, 
 the loss of tens of thousands of lives, the extortion 
 of hundreds of millions of money. If all this be 
 right, then might is right indeed ; and our pro- 
 fessed religion of humanity and justice is proved to 
 be as exclusive as any primitive cult, and intended 
 to regulate conduct only as between members of the 
 same society. 
 
 But to the evolutionist, at least, the matter ap- 
 pears in a very different light. The plain teaching 
 of sociology is that the higher races cannot with 
 impunity cast aside their moral experience in dealing 
 with feebler races, and that Western civilization will 
 have to pay, sooner or later, the full penalty of its 
 deeds of oppression. Nations that, while refusing 
 to endure religious intolerance at home, steadily 
 maintain religious intolerance abroad, must eventu- 
 ally lose those rights of intellectual freedom which 
 cost so many centuries of atrocious struggle to win. 
 Perhaps the period of the penalty is not very far 
 away. With the return of all Europe to militant 
 conditions, there has set in a vast ecclesiastical 
 revival of which the menace to human liberty is 
 unmistakable ; the spirit of the Middle Ages threat- 
 ens to prevail again ; and anti-semitism has actually 
 become a factor in the politics of three Continental 
 powers. . . . 
 
REFLECTIONS 523 
 
 — It has been well said that no man can estimate 
 the force of a religious conviction until he has tried 
 to oppose it. Probably no man can imagine the 
 wicked side of convention upon the subject of 
 missions until the masked batteries of its malevolence 
 have been trained against him. Yet the question of 
 mission-policy cannot be answered either by secret 
 slander or by public abuse of the person raising it. 
 To-day it has become a question that concerns the 
 peace of the world, the future of commerce, and the 
 interests of civilization. The integrity of China 
 depends upon it ; and the present war is not foreign 
 to it. Perhaps this book, in spite of many short- 
 comings, will not fail to convince some thoughtful 
 persons that the constitution of Far-Eastern society 
 presents insuperable obstacles to the propaganda of 
 Western religion, as hitherto conducted ; that these 
 obstacles now demand, more than at any previous 
 epoch, the most careful and humane consideration ; 
 and that the further needless maintenance of an 
 uncompromising attitude towards them can result 
 in nothing but evil. Whatever the religion of 
 ancestors may have been thousands of years ago, 
 to-day throughout the Far East it is the religion of 
 family affection and duty ; and by inhumanly ignor- 
 ing this fact, Western zealots can scarcely fail to 
 provoke a few more " Boxer " uprisings. The real 
 power to force upon the world a peril from China 
 (now that the chance seems lost for Russia) should 
 
524 REFLECTIONS 
 
 not be suffered to rest with those who demand reli- 
 gious tolerance for the purpose of preaching intolsr- 
 anee. Never will the East turn Christian while 
 dogmatism requires the convert to deny his ancient 
 obligation to the family, the community, and the 
 government, — and further insists that he prove his 
 zeal for an alien creed by destroying the tablets of 
 his ancestors, and outraging the memory of those 
 who gave him life. 
 
JJi^ 
 
Appendix 
 
Appendix 
 
 HERBERT SPENCER'S ADVICE TO JAPAN 
 
 Some five years ago I was told by an American professor, then 
 residing in Tokyo, that after Herbert Spencer's death there would 
 be published a letter of advice, which the philosopher had addressed 
 to a Japanese statesman, concerning the policy by which the Em- 
 pire might be able to preserve its independence. I was not able to 
 obtain any further information ; but I felt tolerably sure, remember- 
 ing the statement regarding Japanese social disintegration in " First 
 Principles " (§ 178), that the advice would prove to have been of 
 the most conservative kind. As a matter of fact it was even more 
 conservative than I had imagined. 
 
 Herbert Spencer died on the morning of December 8th, 1903 
 (while this book was in course of preparation) ; and the letter, 
 addressed to Baron Kaneko Kentaro, under circumstances with 
 which the public have already been made familiar, was published 
 in the London Times of January 18th, 1904. 
 
 Fairfield, Pewsey, Wilts, 
 Aug. z6, 1892. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Your proposal to send translations of my two 
 letters * to Count Ito, the newly-appointed Prime Minister, is quite 
 satisfactory. I very willingly give my assent. 
 
 Respecting the further questions you ask, let me, in the first 
 place, answer generally that the Japanese policy should, I think, be 
 that of keeping Americans and Europeans as much as possible at 
 arm' s length. In presence of the more powerful races your posi- 
 tion is one of chronic danger, and you should take every precaution 
 to give as little foothold as possible to foreigners. 
 
 1 These letters have not as yet been made public. 
 2 M 529 
 
530 ^ APPENDIX 
 
 It seems to me that the only forms of intercourse which you may 
 with advantage permit are those which are indispensable for the 
 exchange of commodities — importation and exportation of physical 
 and mental products. No further privileges should h? allowed to 
 people of other races, and especially to people of the more powerful 
 races, than is absolutely needful for the achievement of these ends. 
 Apparently you are proposing by revision of the treaty with the 
 Powers of Europe and America "to open the whole Empire to 
 foreigners and foreign capital." I regret this as a fatal policy. If 
 you wish to see what is likely to happen, study the history of 
 India. Once let one of the more powerful races gain a point d'appui 
 and there will inevitably in course of time grow up an aggres- 
 sive policy which will lead to collisions with the Japanese ; these 
 collisions will be represented as attacks by the Japanese which must 
 be avenged, as the case may be ; a portion of territory will be 
 seized and required to be made over as a foreign settlement ; and 
 from this there will grow eventually subjugation of the entire Japan- 
 ese Empire. I believe that you will have great difficulty in avoid- 
 ing this fate in any case, but you will make the process easy if you 
 allow of any privileges to foreigners beyond those which I have 
 indicated. 
 
 In pursuance of the advice thus generally indicated, I should say, 
 in answer to your first question, that there should be, not only a 
 prohibition of foreign persons to hold property in land, but also a 
 refusal to give them leases, and a permission only to reside as 
 annual tenants. 
 
 To the second question I should say decidedly prohibit to 
 foreigners the working of the mines owned or worked by Govern- 
 ment. Here there would be obviously liable to arise grounds of 
 difference between the Europeans or Americans who worked them 
 and the Government, and these grounds of quarrel would be followed 
 by invocations to the English or American Governments or other 
 Powers to send forces to insist on whatever the European workers 
 claimed, for always the habit here and elsewhere among the civilized 
 peoples is to believe what their agents or sellers abroad represent to 
 them. 
 
 In the third place, in pursuance of the policy I have indicated, 
 you ought also to keep the coasting trade in your own hands and 
 forbid foreigners to engage in it. This coasting trade is clearly not 
 included in the requirement I have indicated as the sole one to be 
 recognized — a requirement to facilitate exportation and importation 
 
APPENDIX 531 
 
 of commodities. The distribution of commodities brought to Japan 
 from other places may be properly left to the Japanese themselves, 
 and should be denied to foreigners, for the reason that again the 
 various transactions involved would become so many doors open to 
 quarrels and resulting aggressions. 
 
 To your remaining question respecting the intermarriage of for- 
 eigners and Japanese, which you say is " now very much agitated 
 among our scholars and politicians ' ' and which you say is " one of 
 the most difficult problems," my reply is that, as rationally answered, 
 there is no difficulty at all. It should be positively forbidden. It 
 is not at root a question of social philosophy. It is at root a ques- 
 tion of biology. There is abundant proof, alike furnished by the 
 intermarriages of human races and by the interbreeding of animals, 
 that when the varieties mingled diverge beyond a certain slight 
 degree the result is inevitably a bad one in the long run. I have 
 myself been in the habit of looking at the evidence bearing on this 
 matter for many years past, and my conviction is based on numer- 
 ous facts derived from numerous sources. This conviction I have 
 within the last half-hour verified, for I happen to be staying in the 
 country with a gentleman who is well known and has had much 
 experience respecting the interbreeding of cattle ; and he has just, 
 on inquiry, fully confirmed my belief that when, say of the different 
 varieties of sheep, there is an interbreeding of those which are widely 
 unlike, the result, especially in the second generation, is a bad one 
 — there arise an incalculable mixture of traits, and what may be 
 called a chaotic constitution. And the same thing happens among 
 human beings — the Eurasians in India, the half-breeds in America, 
 show this. The physiological basis of this experience appears to 
 be that any one variety of creature in course of many generations 
 acquires a Certain constitutional adaptation to its particular form of 
 life, and every other variety similarly acquires its own special adapta- 
 tion. The consequence is that, if you mix the constitution of two 
 widely divergent varieties which have severally become adapted to 
 widely divergent modes of life, you get a constitution which is 
 adapted to the mode of life of neither — a constitution which will 
 not work properly, because it is not fitted for any set of conditions 
 whatever. By all means, therefore, peremptorily interdict marriages 
 of Japanese with foreigners. 
 
 I have for the reasons indicated entirely approved of the regula- 
 tions which have been established in America for restraining the 
 Chinese immigration, and had I the power I would restrict them 
 
532 APPENDIX 
 
 to the smallest possible amount, my reasons for this decision being 
 that one of two things must happen. If the Chinese are allowed 
 to settle extensively in America, they must either, if they remain 
 unmixed, form a subject race standing in the position, if not of 
 slaves, yet of a class approaching to slaves ; or if they mix they 
 must form a bad hybrid. In either case, supposing the immigra- 
 tion to be large, immense social mischief must arise, and eventually 
 social disorganization. The same thing will happen if there should 
 be any considerable mixture of European or American races with 
 the Japanese. 
 
 You see, therefore, that my advice is strongly conservative in all 
 directions, and I end by saying as I began — keep other races at 
 arm's length as much as possible. 
 
 I give this advice in confidence. I wish that it should not tran- 
 spire jbublicly, at any rate during my life, for I do not desire to 
 rouse the animosity of my fellow-countrymen. 
 
 I am sincerely yours, Herbert Spencer. 
 
 P.S. — Of course, when I say I wish this advice to be in confi- 
 dence, I do not interdict the communication of it to Count Ito, but 
 rather wish that he should have the opportunity of taking it into 
 consideration. 
 
 How fairly Herbert Spencer understood the prejudices of his 
 countrymen has been shown by the comments of the Times upon 
 this letter, — comments chiefly characterized by that unreasoning 
 quality of abuse with which the English conventional mind com- 
 monly resents the pain of a new idea opposed to immediate interests.. 
 Yet some knowledge of the real facts in the case should serve to 
 convince even the Times that if Japan is able in this moment to 
 fight for the cause of civilization in general, and for English inter- 
 ests in particular, it is precisely because the Japanese statesmen of a 
 wiser generation maintained a sound conservative policy upon the 
 very lines indicated in that letter — so unjustly called a proof of 
 "colossal egotism." 
 
 Whether the advice itself directly served at any time to influ- 
 ence government policy, I do not know. But that it fully accorded 
 with the national instinct of self-preservation, is shown by the his- 
 
APPENDIX 533 
 
 tory of that fierce opposition which the advocates of the abolition 
 of extra-territoriality had to encounter, and by the nature of the 
 precautionary legislation enacted in regard to those very matters 
 dwelt upon in Herbert Spencer's letter. Though extra-territori- 
 ality has been (unavoidably, perhaps) abolished, foreign capital 
 has not been left free to exploit the resources of the country ; and 
 foreigners are not allowed to own land. Though marriages be- 
 tween Japanese and foreigners have never been forbidden, 1 they 
 have never been encouraged, and can take place only under special 
 legal restrictions. If foreigners could have acquired, through mar- 
 riage, the right to hold Japanese real estate, a considerable amount 
 of such estate would soon have passed into alien hands. But the 
 law has wisely provided that the Japanese woman marrying a for- 
 eigner thereby becomes a foreigner, and that the children by such 
 a marriage remain foreigners. On the other hand, any foreigner 
 adopted by marriage into a Japanese family becomes a Japanese ; 
 and the children in such event remain Japanese. But they also 
 remain under certain disabilities : they are precluded from holding 
 high offices of state ; and they cannot even become officers of the 
 army or navy except by special permission. (This permission 
 appears to have been accorded in one or two cases.) Finally, it 
 is to be observed that Japan has kept her coasting-trade in her own 
 hands. 
 
 On the whole, then, it may be said that Japanese policy followed, 
 to a considerable extent, the course suggested in Herbert Spencer's 
 letter of advice ; and it is much to be regretted, in my humble 
 opinion, that the advice could not have been followed more closely. 
 Could the philosopher have .lived to hear of the recent Japanese 
 victories, — the defeat of a powerful Russian fleet without the loss 
 of a single Japanese vessel, and the rout of thirty thousand Russian 
 troops on the Yalu, — I do not think that he would have changed 
 his counsel by a hair's-breadth. Perhaps he would have commended, 
 
 1 The number of families in Tokyo representing such unions is said to be over 
 one hundred. 
 
534 APPENDIX 
 
 so far as his humanitarian conscience permitted, the thoroughness 
 of the Japanese study of the new science of war : he might have 
 praised the high courage displayed, and the triumph of the ancient 
 discipline ; — his sympathies would have been on the side of the 
 country compelled to choose between the necessities of inviting a 
 protectorate or fighting Russia. But had he been questioned again 
 as to the policy of the future, in case of victory, he would probably 
 have reminded the questioner that military efficiency is a very different 
 thing from industrial power, and have vigorously repeated his warning. 
 Understanding the structure and the history of Japanese society, he 
 could clearly perceive the dangers of foreign contact, and the direc- 
 tions from which attempts to take advantage of the industrial weakness 
 of the country were likely to be made. ... In another generation 
 Japan will be able, without peril, to abandon much of her conserva- 
 tism ; but, for the time being, her conservatism is her salvation. 
 
Bibliographical Notes 
 
 — In the preparation of this essay, I have been much indebted to 
 the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, and especially to 
 the following contributions : — 
 
 (On the Subject of Shinto) 
 
 "The Revival of Pure Shinto," by Sir Ernest Satow, — Ap- 
 pendix to Vol. III. 
 
 "The Shinto Temples of Ise," by Satow, — Vol. II. 
 "Ancient Japanese Rituals," by Satow, — Vols. VII and IX. 
 "Japanese Funeral Rites," by A. H. Lay, — Vol. XIX. 
 
 (On the Subject of Law and Custom) 
 
 "Notes on Land Tenure and Local Institutions in Old Japan," 
 by Dr. D. B. Simmons. Edited by Professor J. H. Wigmore, 
 
 — Vol. XIX. 
 
 " Materials for the Study of Private Law in Old Japan," by 
 Professor J. H. Wigmore,- — Vol. XX, Supplements I, z, 3, 5. 
 
 (On the Christian Episode of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth 
 Centuries) 
 
 '"• The Church at.Yamaguchi from 1550 to 1586," by Satow, 
 
 — Vol. VII. 
 
 " Review of the Introduction of Christianity into China and 
 Japan," by J. H. Gubbins, — Vol. VI. 
 
 " Historical Notes on Nagasaki," by W. A. Wooley, — Vol, IX. 
 " The Arima Rebellion," by Dr. Geertz, — Vol. IX. 
 
 535 
 
536 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 
 
 (On Japanese History and Sociology) 
 
 " Early Japanese History," by W. G. Aston, — Vol. XVI. 
 " The Feudal System of Japan under the Tokugawa Shoguns," 
 by J. H. Gubbins, — Vol. XV. 
 
 — The extracts quoted from "The Legacy of Iyeyasu " have 
 been taken from the translation made by J. F. Lowder. 
 
 — I regret not having been able, in preparing this essay, to avail 
 myself of the very remarkable " History of Japan during the Century 
 of Early Foreign Intercourse ( 1 542-1 65 1 )," — by James Murdoch 
 and Isoh Yamagata, — which was published at Kobe last winter. 
 This important work contains much documentary material never 
 before printed, and throws new light upon the religious history of 
 the period. The authors are inclined to believe that, allowing for 
 numerous apostasies, the total number of Christians in Japan at no 
 time much exceeded 300,000 ; and the reasons given for this opinion, 
 if not conclusive, are at least very strong. Perhaps the most inter- 
 esting chapters are those dealing with the Machiavellian policy of 
 Hideyoshi in his attitude to the foreign religion and its preachers ; but 
 there are few dull pages in the book. Help to a correct understand- 
 ing of the history of the time is furnished by an excellent set of maps, 
 showing the distribution of the great fiefs and the political partition 
 of the country before and after the establishment of the Tokugawa 
 Shogunate. Not the least merit of the work is its absolute freedom 
 from religious bias of any sort. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Ability, slight opportunity for, to rise, 
 448-449. 
 
 Adams, Will, 278, 343 ; interviewed by 
 Iyeyasu, 344-346; favoured by the 
 Emperor, 346-347 ; quoted concern- 
 ing Hideyori's intrigues and fate, 
 
 352-353- 
 
 Adoption, custom of, in patriarchal 
 family, 69, 74-75; marriage signi- 
 fied merely, 74; modern practices 
 regarding, 422. 
 
 Adultery, enactments of Iyeyasu re- 
 garding, 377-378. 
 
 Affection, limitations placed on, 79 ff. 
 
 Age of the Gods, period called the, 285. 
 
 Agnosticism, Buddhism is not, 235, 242. 
 
 Agriculture, gods of, 140, 169-170 ; no 
 degradation attached to pursuit of, 
 269. 
 
 Akindo, the commercial class, 270-271. 
 See Commerce. 
 
 Alcestis, the Japanese woman might 
 be compared to, 398. 
 
 Ancestors, imperial, worship of the, 
 122-137, 305-306. 
 
 Ancestor-worship, introduction to reli- 
 gion of, 27-38 ; the real religion of 
 Japan, 27 ; summary of three forms 
 of, 27-28 ; the family-cult of, 28-30 ; 
 characteristics of earliest, 30 ff.; 
 stability of, in Japan for two thou- 
 sand years, 38 ; summary of beliefs 
 surviving from, 37; three stages 
 of, 41-42 ; evolution of permanent 
 form from funeral-rites, 42-59 ; char- 
 acteristics of religion of, to-day, 59- 
 '61 ; bearing of, on family-organiza- 
 tion, 65 ff. ; marriage under the 
 religion of, 79-84; the develop- 
 ments of, 121 ff. ; four classes of, 
 to-day, 137-138 ; accommodation 
 
 of Buddhism to, 203-204; tolera« 
 tion of ancient European, by Roman 
 Catholicism, 211 ; Buddhist theory 
 of rebirths reconciled to, 213 n. ; 
 Confucian system founded on, 207- 
 208, 320; needless attacks on, ac- 
 count for smallness of results of 
 modern missions, 369, 517-519 ; pro* 
 tection of, by modern laws, 422-423 ; 
 obstacles presented to Christianity 
 
 by, 517-519- 
 
 Ancient Japanese Rituals, 51 n. See 
 Satow. 
 
 Animals, absence of cruelty to, 16-17 '• 
 kindness to, taught by Buddhism, 
 216-217. 
 
 Animism, development of, 145-146. 
 
 Antigone, comparison of the Japanese 
 woman to, 398. 
 
 Apes, images of Koshin's symbolic, 220, 
 
 Apprentices, obligation of, to avenge 
 masters, 321 ; past and present 
 position of, 444. 
 
 Architecture displayed in Buddhist 
 temples, 219-220. 
 
 Arima, lord of Shimabara, 354, 355. 
 
 Army, birth of modern, 410;' pay of 
 officers in, 450 n. 
 
 Art, knowledge of Japanese religion 
 necessary to understanding of, 4-5 ; 
 introduced by Buddhism, 217-218, 
 224, 503 ; forms of, in Buddhist 
 temples, 218-219; expulsion of 
 Jesuits a fortunate thing for, 371- 
 372; causes which tended to pro- 
 duction of a multitude of objects of, 
 388; effect of modern industrial 
 conditions on, 493. 
 
 Artizans, gods of, 138-139; clans of, 
 259 ; position of, under quasi-feudal 
 system, 269-270; organizations of, 
 see Guilds, 
 
 S37 
 
53» 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Arts, developed in Japan under Buddh- 
 ist teaching, 208 ; progress of the, 
 under Iyeyasu, 305. 
 
 Asada, Lieutenant, suicide of widow 
 of, 317. 
 
 Asoeticism, Shinto, 163-166. 
 
 Ashikaga shogunate, 297-299. See 
 under Iyeyasu. 
 
 Aston, W. G. , translation of the Nihongi 
 by, cited, 46, 47, 126 n., 167 n., 182 n., 
 216 n., 256 n., 258 n., 392 n. ; Early 
 Japanese History by, cited, 285 n. 
 
 Authority, deference of, to collective 
 opinion, 435-438; exercise of offi- 
 cial, on the individual, 447-434, 468- 
 470. 
 
 B 
 
 Bambetsu, " Foreign Branch," the 
 mass of the people, 259-260. 
 
 Banishment, punishment by, 108-111. 
 
 Banner-supporters {hatamoto), 267. 
 
 Bateren, Roman Catholic priests, 341 n. 
 
 Bato-Kwannon, images of, 220. 
 
 Behaviour, sumptuary regulations as 
 to, 191-194; proclamation of Sho- 
 toku Taishi regarding, 391-392. 
 
 Births, regulations as to presents on 
 occasions of, 183 ; registration of, 
 by Buddhist priests, 223-224. 
 
 Black, an Englishman, as a Japanese 
 story-teller, 14-13. 
 
 Bon-odori, dances of the festival of the 
 dead, 222. 
 
 Boundaries, gods of, 144. 
 
 Bow, etiquette of the, 192. 
 
 Boys, conduct of, regulated by the 
 community, 101-102; proverb re- 
 garding mischievousness of, 461. 
 
 Buddhism, Japanese name for (But- 
 sudo) , 27 ; mortuary tablets of, 50- 
 51, 221 ; the dead according to, 53 ; 
 reconcilement of, and Shinto, 55- 
 36; entry of, into Japan, 203-203; 
 disestablishment of (1871) , 205, 408 ; 
 charm of, to Western thinkers, 231- 
 232; summary of teachings of, 233- 
 250; influence of, under Emperor 
 Temmu, 263; obstacles to estab- 
 lishment of religious hierarchy by, 
 275 ; military development of, 295- 
 
 296; violent end to militant, 301- 
 302 ; Jesuitism mistaken for a new 
 kind of, 362-364; no essential of 
 Shinto weakened by, 413-414. 
 
 Buddhism in Translations, H. C. War- 
 ren's, 231. 
 
 Buke, the military class, 263. 
 
 Butsudan, household-shrine, 50. 
 
 Butsudo, " The Way of the Buddha," 
 
 27- 
 
 C 
 
 Capital, danger to Japan from foreign, 
 
 309-310, 317. 
 Carpenters, religious rites performed 
 
 by, 139 ; organizations of, 441-442. 
 Cassola, Francisco, 357 n. 
 Castes, division of society into, 260. 
 Cauldron and saucepan, god of the, 
 
 143- 
 
 Celibacy, forbidden by early religion, 
 68; condemned by code of Iye- 
 yasu, 381. 
 
 Charms to protect houses, 163 n. 
 
 Chastisement, punishment by, 107- 
 108, 461. 
 
 Chiara, Giuseppe, 357 n. 
 
 Chieftainships, hereditary, 259. 
 
 Children, food offered to the dead 
 might not be eaten by, 61 n. ; posi- 
 tion of, in patriarchal system, 80-82 ; 
 placing of, under protection of 
 gods, 97; as priestesses, 139; duty 
 of vengeance performed by, 321 ; 
 training of, in schools, 461-465; 
 misery of modern factory-life of, 
 
 494- 
 
 China, date of introduction of spirit- 
 tablet from, 30; religion of filial 
 piety in, 57-38; belief as to the 
 Demon-Gate imported from, 144; 
 penal codes imported from, 194; 
 arts and learning of, taught by 
 Buddhism, 223; civilization of, 
 brought to Japan by Buddhism, 
 225 ; karakiri perhaps introduced 
 from, 314; Jesuit policy in, 361, 
 367; cause for hatred of Western 
 religion in, 518; integrity of, de- 
 pends on mission-policy, 523-524. 
 
 Chori, pariahs, 271-274. 
 
INDEX 
 
 539 
 
 Chosku, clan of, 401, 402, 406, 408. 
 
 " Chronicles of Ninon." See Nihongi. 
 
 Christianity, assumption that indi- 
 vidualism would be produced by, 
 515; obstacles to, presented by 
 religion of ancestor-worship, 517- 
 519. See Jesuits and Missions. 
 
 Chu-U, the condition of, 213 n. 
 
 Circle of Perpetual Hunger for wicked 
 ghosts, 211. 
 
 Clan, cult of the, 93-95. 
 
 Clans, number of, in ancient Japan, 
 95 ; three great classes of, 259-260 ; 
 early society an aggregation of, 
 262-264, 276-277; wars between 
 the military, for supremacy, 293 ff. ; 
 misery one result of break-up of, 
 489-491. 
 
 Cleanliness exacted by Shinto, 161- 
 162. 
 
 Coffins, size of, regulated by law, 197. 
 
 Colour-prints, production of, 389. 
 
 Commerce, contempt for, 270; Portu- 
 guese, a help to Jesuit missionary 
 work, 364-365 ; rise of, to power, 
 488; dangers resulting from rise 
 of, 489-494. 
 
 Communism not a. modern growth, 
 279. 
 
 Competition, undesirability of, 452- 
 454; Government aid to national 
 industrial, 493-494. 
 
 Concubines, under patriarchal system, 
 68, 78-79, 84; remarks of Iyeyasu 
 regarding, 78, 380. 
 
 Confucianism, influence of, in Japan, 
 207-208, 320 ff. 
 
 Conscience, doctrine of, admitted by 
 Buddhism, 216. 
 
 Cooking-range, god of the, 143, 169. 
 
 Cost of living, increase in, 450-452. 
 
 Coulanges, Fustel de, 60, 290, 491; 
 quoted, 33, 77. 
 
 Courtesy, legal regulation of, 191-194. 
 
 Craft-gods, 138-139, 169-170. 
 
 Crafts, effect of Buddhism on, 208; 
 guilds connected with, 270, 276, 44c— 
 
 443- 
 Cru'-ifixionof Christians at Nagasaki, 
 
 337- 
 
 Cruelty to animals, apparent absence 
 of, 16-17; punishment of, after 
 death, 217. 
 
 D 
 
 Daimiates, under Tokugawa shogun- 
 ate, 265-266, 275; reorganization 
 of, by Iyeyasu, 304; abolition of, 
 410. 
 
 Daimyo, lords of provinces, 266 ; con- 
 version of, to Jesuitism, 334 ; Jesuits 
 work with aid of, 334, 336, 338, 369 ; 
 protection of peasantry against, 434. 
 
 Dai-Nihon-Shi, compilation of, 404. 
 
 Dances, sacred, 158-159 ; of the festival 
 of the dead, 222. 
 
 Dancing, Japanese, 222 n. 2. 
 
 Dan-no-ura, sea-fight of, 293. 
 
 Daughter, gradation of terms signify- 
 ing, 189. 
 
 Daughters, sale of, 82, 85 n. 
 
 Daughters-in-law, customs as to, 74-75. 
 
 Dead, early conceptions of fate of, 31- 
 34; rites in honour of, 42-54; 
 poems in praise of, 43 ; Buddhist 
 doctrine of, 55 ; effect of Buddhism 
 on worship of, 211-212. 
 
 Death, penalty of, inflicted for slight 
 offences, 196-197; matters relating 
 to, regulated by law, 197. 
 
 Debtors, reduction of, to slavery, 258. 
 
 Deities, punishments by tutelar, 114- 
 117; lesser Shinto, 122. See Gods 
 and Ujigami. 
 
 Demeanour, regulation of, 191-194; 
 cultivation of, as an art, 391-393. 
 
 Demon-Gate, the, 144. 
 
 Dependants, under patriarchal system, 
 86-88, 255-258; conservative atti- 
 tude of, 438 ; position of employes 
 in commercial houses, 444 ; position 
 of maid-servants, 445-447. 
 
 Deportment, code of, 191. 
 
 Deshima, Dutch factory at, 359. 
 
 Discipline, strength of, in Old Japan, 
 177-200. 
 
 Divination, systems of, 166-168; not 
 used in warfare, 168. 
 
 Divorce, in ancient family system, 68, 
 79-80, 83, 85 ; the new laws about, 
 422. 
 
540 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Dolls, rules governing presents of, 183. 
 
 Dominicans in Japan, 338; reckless 
 zeal of, 368. 
 
 Drama, introduced by Buddhism, 224; 
 the age of popular, 389 ; incidents 
 of real tragedy reproduced in, 318- 
 
 319- 
 Dress, restrictions as to, 184-186. 
 Dutch, assistance of, in putting down 
 
 Shimabara Revolt, 356-357; effect 
 
 on status of, of Shimabara Revolt, 
 
 359-360. 
 
 Ear-Monument, the, 303. 
 
 Education, effect of Buddhism on, 
 222-223 ; introduction of modern 
 system of, 410; of the State, 459- 
 481 ; the sustaining of, by personal 
 sacrifices, 475-478; of students 
 abroad, 479-481. 
 
 Embroideries, 13. 
 
 Emigration from Japan, 424. 
 
 Emma ( Yama). t judge of dead, 219. 
 
 Emperor, application of term, to early 
 rulers, incorrect, 261. 
 
 Enactments of the Kumi, 103-106. 
 
 Eta people, the, no, 271-274. 
 
 Etiquette, cultivation of, in Tokugawa 
 period, 391-393. 
 
 Evolution, Buddhism a theory of, 232. 
 
 Execution, account of an early, 195- 
 196. 
 
 Exports, rise in value of, 493. 
 
 Expression, etiquette of, 191. 
 
 Factory-life, horrors of modem, 494. 
 
 Families of the nobility, number of, 
 265. 
 
 Family, definition of Japanese term, 
 28 ; basis of the ancient, 65-67 ; 
 obligation to perpetuate the, 68-69 '• 
 constitution of the patriarchal, 70-89. 
 
 Family-cult, first stage of ancestor- 
 worship, 28-38. 
 
 Farmers, the rank of, 268-269 ! secured 
 against undue oppression, 434-435. 
 See Agriculture. 
 
 Father, gradation of terms signifying, 
 189. 
 
 Feast-days, Shinto, 115, 153. 
 
 Fencing, Japanese, an example of 
 antipodal action, n-12. 
 
 Festival of the dead, dances of the, 222. 
 
 Festival-processions, Shinto, 115. 
 
 Festivals, of the Ujigami, 96, 153, 156- 
 158; laws as to presents at boys', 
 183; Shin-SKo-Sai, 269; temple, 
 
 9°. 5°3- 
 
 Feudalism, Japanese so-called, 254- 
 262, 277. 
 
 Filial Piety, religion of, 56-59, 67, 503 ; 
 marriage a chief duty of, 75; doc- 
 trine of, reenforced and expanded 
 by Confucianism, 208. 
 
 First Principles. See Spencer. 
 
 Fiske, John, quoted, 253. 
 
 Flower-arrangement, art of, 390-391. 
 
 Flower-daughter, the, 74. 
 
 Food, use of, by ghosts, 35-36; offer- 
 ings of, to the dead, 35-36, 53 ; 
 offerings of, to gods, 51 n., 154, 
 156-157 ; for the dead might not be 
 eaten by children, 61 n. ; laws as to, 
 at weddings and funerals, 183 ; 
 offerings of, to Pretas, 211 ; decree 
 forbidding use of flesh for, 216; 
 Buddhist offerings of, 221 ; recent 
 increase in price of, 450 n. 
 
 Formosa, Ujigami not established by 
 Japanese in, 424 n. 
 
 "Forty-seven Ronin," story of the, 
 323-325 ; tombs of the, 325 n. 
 
 Four Deva Kings, the, 286 ; temple of, 
 220. 
 
 Franciscans in Japan, 337 ff., 368; 
 Iyeyasu takes measures against, 
 348-349. 
 
 Freedmen, class of, 257, 258-259. 
 
 Freemasonry in Japan, 516 n. 
 
 Fujiwara clan, rise of the, 286—287; 
 duration of rule of, 286, 292, 307; 
 final degeneration of, 292-293. 
 
 Funeral-rites, ancient, 42-54. 
 
 Funerals, laws as to food at, 183 ; laws 
 governing, 197. 
 
 Gaki, evil gods, 211, 212. 
 Gardeners, guild of, 442-443. 
 
INDEX 
 
 'A 1 
 
 Gardening, first development of, under 
 Buddhism, 208 ; modern, 442. 
 
 Gardens, holiness of, 170. 
 
 Ghost-houses, 44, 66; transformation 
 of, into Shinto temples, 72. 
 
 Ghosts, ancestor-worship coeval with 
 belief in, 30; identified in early 
 beliefs with gods, 31, 54-56, 65. 
 
 Ghost-ships, Buddhist, 222. 
 
 Gifts. See Presents. 
 
 Girl-priestesses in Shinto temples, 158- 
 159- 
 
 Girls in service, position of, 445-447. 
 
 Go, definition of, 74 n. 
 
 Goblins admitted to exist by Buddh- 
 ism, 210-211. 
 
 Go-Daigo, Mikado, revolt of, against 
 Hojo, 296 ; later vicissitudes of, 296- 
 297. 
 
 Gods, no early difference between 
 ghosts and, 31, 65 ; development of 
 distinctions between greater and 
 lesser, 31-32 ; early conceptions of, 
 32-33; Japanese conception of, 
 compared with Greek and Roman, 
 33-34; the dead and, 54-56; the 
 minor, 122 ; all Japanese consid- 
 ered as, in one sense, 132; of 
 crookedness, 132-133 ; of crafts and 
 callings, 138-139, 169-170; number 
 of Shinto, worshipped, 140-141 ; of 
 the house, 143-144 ; the great num- 
 ber of, 149-150; of industry, 169- 
 170; identity of Shinto and Buddh- 
 ist, 210-211; Buddhist evil, 211- 
 212. 
 
 God-shelves, 138; daily prayers be- 
 fore, 150-152 ; religious charms on, 
 163 n. 
 
 Go-Kameyama, Emperor, 298. 
 
 Go-Komatsu, Emperor, 298. 
 
 Goshi, yeomanry, 267. 
 
 Go-Toba, Emperor, works at sword- 
 making, 269. 
 
 Go-Tsuchi-mikado, Emperor, 299. 
 
 Government, identity of, with religion, 
 112-113. 
 
 Graves, legal dimensions of, 197 ; white 
 lanterns at, 222. 
 
 Great God of Izumo, the, 134, 136. 
 
 Greeks, parallels drawn between Japan- 
 ese and, 19-20, 33-35, 42, 44, 67, 69, 
 75. 77. 8 °. 88, 101, in, 164, 187, 
 222 n., 253, 290, 485-486, 488. 
 
 Gubbins, J. H., quoted, 335. 
 
 Guilds, 270, 276; religious organiza- 
 tion of, 138-139 ; modern workings 
 of, 440-443. 
 
 H 
 
 Hachiman, the war god, 95; acknow- 
 ledgment of, in Buddhism, 210. 
 
 Hades, development of belief in, 31. 
 
 Hair, class indicated by method of 
 wearing, 257. 
 
 Harakiri, custom of, 313-315 ; instance 
 of, in Russian war, 508 n. 
 
 Harmony, Japanese sense of, in tints 
 and colours, 12. 
 
 Hearth, gods of the, 169. 
 
 Heavenly sovereigns, worship of the, 
 122-123 1 maintained through years 
 of revolt, 305-306. 
 
 Heimin, " common folk," 271. 
 
 Hell, according to Buddhism, 215. 
 
 Hidetada, Emperor, son of Iyeyasu, 
 353- 
 
 Hideyori, son of Hideyoshi, 351-352. 
 
 Hideyoshi, career of, 302-303 ; attitude 
 of, toward Jesuits, 336-337. 
 
 Hierarchy, character of the Shinto, 98- 
 99; Shinto mythological, 122-123; 
 attempt to establish a Buddhist re- 
 ligious, 275. 
 
 Hinin, a wandering pariah, no ; " not- 
 human-beings, M 274. 
 
 Hirado, foreign factories at, 346, 356, 
 
 359- 
 Hirata, great Shinto commentator, 33, 
 403; quoted, 55,. 57, 66, 125, 131- 
 
 133. I34-I3S. 136, 150-15 1 . 161, 179 i 
 banishment and death of, 406. 
 
 History, scientific knowledge of Japan- 
 ese, impossible, 3 ; legendary, 285- 
 286; beginning of authentic, 286. 
 
 Hitogaki, the " human hedge," 46. 
 
 Hitogata, " mankind-shapes," 163-164. 
 
 Hitotsubashi, Shogun, 408. 
 
 Hiyei-san, monastery buildings burnt 
 at, 301. 
 
 Hizen, clan of, 406. 
 
542 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hojo, supremacy of the, 294; defeat 
 of and extinction, 296. 
 
 Home, gods of the, 143-144. 
 
 Honesty, Japanese, 17. 
 
 Hongwanji, Shin sect of, 301. 
 
 Horyuji, the temple called, 220. 
 
 House, building of, a religious act, 139, 
 144-145; gods of the, 143. 
 
 Houses, size of, prescribed by law, 
 182-183, l8 4l of prostitution, enact- 
 ment of Iyeyasu regarding, 379 n. ; 
 operation of labour-unions when 
 building, 441-442. 
 
 Human hedge, the, 46. 
 
 Husband, seven terms for, 189. 
 
 Husbands, position of adopted, 74-75. 
 
 Huxley, T. H., quoted concerning in- 
 dustrial reform, 494-495. 
 
 I 
 " I," gradations of the pronoun, 189. 
 Ibuku Mogusa, extract from, 335. 
 Ihal," soul-commemoration," Buddhist 
 
 mortuary tablets, 50, 221. 
 Illustration, development of art of, 
 
 389- 
 
 Images, Buddhist, 503 ; setting up of, 
 220-221. 
 
 Imperial ancestors, worship of the, 
 122-123 1 duration of, 305-306. 
 
 Individual, obligations of the, under 
 patriarchal system, 100-111 ; rela- 
 tion of, to the Ujigami, 134-135 ; 
 freedom of, did not exist, 176, 277- 
 278; modern recognition of, 410; 
 now free in theory, in practice like 
 his forefathers, 420-423, 427-428; 
 Government official authority over 
 the, 447-454. . 
 
 Individualism, assumption that Chris- 
 tianity would produce, 515. 
 
 Industries, developed in Japan under 
 Buddhist teaching, 208 ; develop- 
 ment of, under Iyeyasu, 305. 
 
 Industry, gods of, 138-139, 169-170. 
 
 Irregularity, the sesthetic value of, 12. 
 
 Ise, shrines of, 136, 137-138; every 
 Japanese expected to visit, 137-138 ; 
 worship at shrines of, 154-155. 
 
 Ishijiiua, suicide of wife of, 318. 
 
 Isolation, causes for policy of, 359. 
 
 Ito, Marquis, policy of, 426. 
 
 Iyemochi, Shogun, 408. 
 
 Iyeyasu, Tukugawa, apotheosis of, 141 ; 
 enactment of, concerning rudeness, 
 193; influence of Confucianism 
 over, 208 ; powers of daimyo re- 
 stricted by, 266; Will Adams cre- 
 ated a samurai by, 278 ; sketch of 
 career of, 303-305 ; Laws of, 304; de- 
 cree of, concerning suicide, 313 ; de- 
 cree concerning code of vengeance, 
 321; persecution of Christians by, 
 337-338, 350-353; decree dealing 
 with Jesuits, 341-342, 348; inter- 
 views of, with Will Adams, 344-346 ; 
 castle of Osaka stormed and burnt 
 by, 352 ; Legacy of, 78, 349, 377-383, 
 
 392- 
 Izanagi, the legend concerning, 48, 
 
 126-131. 
 Izanami, 126-131. 
 Izumo, farming forbidden to samurai 
 
 in, 268-269. 
 Izumo temple, the, 136; worship at, 
 
 154-155. I58-I59- 
 
 Japan in Days of Yore, Dening's, 385 n. 
 
 Jesuitism, effect of, on Japan, 358; 
 causes of early success of, 360-367 ; 
 policy of, in China, 361, 367; in- 
 ability of, to adapt itself to Jap- 
 anese social conditions, 371. 
 
 Jesuits, arrival of, in Japan, 334; fa- 
 voured by Nobunaga, 334-335 ; per- 
 secutions of, 337-338, 353-354 ; par- 
 tial expulsion of, 351 ; revolt of 
 peasantry managed by, 354-355; 
 final crushing of, 357. 
 
 J-igai, method of suicide for women, 
 
 315- 
 Jimmu, Emperor, 285; offerings at 
 
 tomb of, 45. 
 Jingo, Emperor, legend of Korean 
 
 conquest by, 285. 
 Jinrikisha-men, code of, 439-440. 
 Jito, Empress, edict of, concerning 
 
 slavery, 258 n, 
 Jiujutsu, 465. 
 
INDEX 
 
 543 
 
 Jizo, playmate of infant ghosts, 219; 
 
 first production of icons of, 220. 
 Joyousness of existence, Japanese, 16- 
 
 17- 
 Judges, salaries of, 450 n. 
 Junshi, voluntary self-sacrifice, 47-48, 
 
 312-313; decree of Iyeyasu puts 
 
 stop to, 313-314. 
 
 K 
 
 Kamakura, destruction of, 296. 
 
 Kami, " gods," 33 ; significance of, 54- 
 SS ; devotion to, the first of duties 
 according to Iyeyasu, 382. 
 
 Kannushi, office of, 155-156. 
 
 Karma, metaphysics of, 236, 237, 242, 
 243, 244, 246. 
 
 Kasuga, the deity of, 95. 
 
 Kataki-uchi, custom of, 322-323. 
 
 Kishu, Prince of, 403. 
 
 Kiyorhasa, Kato, apotheosis of, 141, 
 
 Kbbetsu, imperial families, 259. 
 
 Kobodaishi, 205. 
 
 Ko-ji-ki, " Records of Ancient Matters," 
 124-125, 140, 145 ; extract from, 126- 
 128. 
 
 Korea, Buddhism brought into Japan 
 from (552 A.D.), 204; Hideyoshi's 
 war against, 303. 
 
 Koshin, protector of highways, 220. 
 
 Kotoku, Emperor, 47, 291 ; edict of, 
 concerning slaves, 256 n. 
 
 Ko-uji, " lesser families," 70, 254. 
 
 Kublai Khan, invasion by, 295. 
 
 Kuge, noble families, 265. 
 
 Kukai, founder of Shingon sect, 205. 
 
 ^Tzwra'-enaclments, 103-106. 
 
 JiTumi-system, the, 103 n., 186-187. 
 
 Kuroda, S., quoted, 236-237, 244. 
 
 Kurumaya, code of the, 439. 
 
 Kwambaku, " regent," office of, estab- 
 lished, 288. 
 
 Kwammu, Emperor, 287-288. 
 
 Kwannon, Goddess of Mercy, 219. 
 
 Labour-unions, 440-443. See .Guilds. 
 La CiU Antique, de Coulanges', cited, 
 33. 42. 77. 485. 491- 
 
 Landscape-gardeners, union of, 442- 
 443- 
 
 Language, impossibility of mastering, 
 by adult Occidental, 13; conven- 
 tional organization of, 188-igo; 
 rules governing use of, 189-igo. 
 
 Lanterns at graves, 222. 
 
 Latrina, gods of the, 144. 
 
 Law, method and manner of adminis- 
 tration, 383-385. 
 
 Laws, sumptuary, 182-198. 
 
 Laws of Iyeyasu, the, 304. 
 
 Laws of Shotoku Taishi, 376-377, 
 
 Legacy of Iyeyasu, 78, 349, 377-383, 
 392- 
 
 Libraries under Tokugawa regime, 
 389, 404. 
 
 Literature, qualifications essential for 
 an understanding of Japanese, 5-6 ; 
 introduction of Chinese, 207-208; 
 introduced or developed by Buddh- 
 ism, 224; under patronage of 
 Iyeyasu, 305; development of, in 
 Tokugawa period, 389; the party 
 of, 404-406, 409-410. 
 
 Lowell, Percival, 15 ; on Japanese con- 
 
 , trariety, n ; Soul of tke Far East 
 of, 189 n., 515. 
 
 Lustrations, religious, 162-165. 
 
 M 
 
 Mabuchi, Shinto commentator, 177- 
 178, 286, 403. 
 
 Maid-servants, position of, 445-447. 
 
 Manners, laws as to, 191-194. 
 
 Marquez, Pedro, 357 n. 
 
 Marriage, obligatory in ancient Japan, 
 68 ; in patriarchal family, 68-70, 74- 
 77 ; signified adoption only, 74 ; 
 a chief duty of filial piety, 75 ; cere- 
 mony of, 75-77 ; of servants, 87-88 ; 
 modern innovations in, 421-422; 
 service by girls merely a prepara- 
 tion for, 445-447. 
 
 Masashige, Kusunoki, 58. 
 
 Masons, Japanese as, 516 n. 
 
 Massacre of Shimabara, 355-357. 
 
 Massacres, of priests by Nobunaga, 
 275; caused by Christian attacks 
 0:1 domestic faiths, 519, 523. 
 
544 
 
 INDEX 
 
 " Master Cold-Rice," second son 
 
 called, 73. 
 Master of Ponds, the, 143-144. 
 Matsuri-gotOi " matters of worship," 
 
 38. 
 
 Matsuri, temple-festivals, 96. 
 
 Meat, forbidden for food, 216-217 1 for- 
 bidden as offerings by Buddhism, 
 221. 
 
 Merchants, place of, in social ranking, 
 270; modern rise of, to power, 
 488. 
 
 Metempsychosis, no doctrine of, in 
 Shinto, 65 ff., 209-210. 
 
 Mikado, God of the Living, 136-137; 
 usurpation of powers of, 286-292. 
 
 Miko, girl-priestesses, 158-159. 
 
 Mimidzuka, " Ear-Monument," 303. 
 
 Minamoto, regency of the, 293-294. 
 
 Mionoseki, l£ta settlement at, 273. 
 
 Miracle-plays performed by Jesuits, 
 
 3°4- 
 
 Missions, Christian, causes of small 
 results of modern, 369, 517-520; 
 consideration of work of foreign, 
 520-522 ; importance of policy of, in 
 Far East, 523-524. See Jesuits. 
 
 MUama-San-no-tana t " shelf of the au- 
 gust spirits," 50. 
 
 Mitama-shiro, " spirit-substitutes," 50. 
 
 Mitamaya, " august - spirit - dwelling," 
 
 So- 
 Mitford, translation of Shorei-Hikki by, 
 
 quoted, 76 ; Tales of Old Japan by, 
 
 271-272, 323. 
 Mitsukuni, Prince of Mito, 404. 
 Miya, " august house"' 44, 50 n. 
 Money, first appearance of, 489. 
 Monism, higher Buddhism a species 
 
 of, 232, 242-246. 
 Mother, nine terms signifying, 189. 
 Motowori, Shinto commentator, 403 ; 
 
 quoted, 34, 167-168, 178, 179. 
 Mourning customs, ancient, 43-47. 
 Mourning-houses, 44; Shinto temples 
 
 evolve from, 49. 
 Moxa, use of. in punishment, 461. 
 Mythology, of the reigning house, 124- 
 
 133; summary of the Japanese, 
 
 129-130. 
 
 N 
 Nakatomi, noble family of, 265. 
 Nara, Ear-Monument at, 303. 
 Nature, controlled by ghosts of ances- 
 tors, according to Shinto, 118; 
 
 Buddhist interpretation of, 212- 
 
 214. 
 Navy, organization of modern, 410. 
 Nihongi, "Chronicles of Ninon," 124- 
 
 125, 129-130, 140; cited, 46, 47, 
 
 126 n., 167 n., 182 n., 216 n., 256 n. 
 
 258 n., 392 n. 
 Nirvana not preached to common 
 
 Japanese people, 209, 214-215. 
 Nobility, origin of the, 265-266. See 
 
 Daimyo. 
 Nobunaga, Odo, massacres of priests 
 
 by, 275 ; career of, 300-302 ; Jesuits 
 
 favoured by, 334-335- 
 Nomi-110-Sukune, 46. 
 M Notes on Land Tenure and Local 
 
 Institutions in Old Japan," J. H. 
 
 Wigmore's, cited, 103-106, 185, 
 
 353 n. 
 
 O 
 Obedience, rules of, 56-59, 73, 175 
 
 (see Filial Piety) ; modern reversion 
 
 to law of, 73,411-412; of individual 
 
 to the community, 101-111. 
 Obeisances, countless grades of, 191. 
 Offerings, to dead, 45 ; meat forbidden 
 
 as, 221. 
 Officers, army, pay of, 450. 
 O-karai, ceremony of purification, 16c— 
 
 163. 
 Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami, 134, 136 ; 
 
 Rough and Gentle spirits of, 140. 
 Ojin, Emperor, 95 ; Korean immigra- 
 tion in reign of, 286. 
 Osaka, Temple of the Four Deva Kings 
 
 at, 220; military headquarters of 
 
 Shin sect at, 301 ; Iy6yasu storms 
 
 castle of, 352. 
 Ostracism, the punishment by, 107- 
 
 108 ; student, 463-464. 
 O-uji, " great families," 70-72, 254, 
 Outcasts, the class of, no, 271-274. 
 Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy^ John 
 
 Fiske's, cited, 253. 
 
INDEX 
 
 545 
 
 Outlines of the Mahay&na Philosophy, 
 
 Kuroda's, 236-237, 244. 
 Owari, Prince of, 403. 
 
 Painting, effect of Buddhism on, 208 ; 
 examples of, in temples, 218-219. 
 
 Panama railroad, debt of, to religion 
 of filial piety, 58. 
 
 Papacy, interference of, in Jesuit mis- 
 sionary system, 367-368. 
 
 Parents, rights of, in patriarchal sys- 
 tem, 80-82. 
 
 Pariahs, class of, no, 271-274. 
 
 Parliament, convocation of first, 410. 
 
 Peasants, revolt of, 354-355; security 
 of, against oppression, 433-434; 
 in the quasi-feudal system, 268-269. 
 See Farmers. 
 
 Perry, Commodore, advent of, 407. 
 
 Poems in praise of dead, 43. 
 
 Poetry, contests in, during Tokugawa 
 period, 390. 
 
 Police, pay of, 450. 
 
 Politeness as an art, 391-393. 
 
 Politics, modern Japanese, 425, 454. 
 
 Pollution, death regarded as, 48-49. 
 
 Polygyny in ancient society, 77-79. 
 
 Population, alien elements in, 20-21. 
 
 Porcelains, Japanese, 13, 388-389. 
 
 Poverty resulting from modern indus- 
 trial revolution, 488-493. 
 
 Prayers, prescribed by Hirata, 150; 
 daily, 150-153. 
 
 Presents, sumptuary laws concerning, 
 183-186. 
 
 Pretas, wicked ghosts, 211. 
 
 Priests, Shinto, office and powers of, 
 98-99, 113-117, 155-156; Buddhist, 
 as teachers, 222-223 • ranked with 
 the samurai, 271 ; massacres of, in 
 sixteenth century, 275 ; Buddhist, as 
 warriors, 295, 301-302. See Jesuits. 
 
 Printing, first development of, under 
 Buddhism, 208. 
 
 Privacy, lack of, in Japan ancient and 
 modern, 112. 
 
 Professions under divine patronage, 
 169—170, 
 
 Professors, salaries of, 450 n. 
 
 Pronouns, rules as to use of, 189. 
 
 Property, laws of succession to, in Old 
 Japan, 82-83. 
 
 Prostitution, houses of, 379 n. 
 
 Psychology, difference between East- 
 ern and Western, 13. 
 
 Punishment of school-children, 461-463. 
 
 Punishments, severity of, under ancient 
 system, 106-108, 194-195; by com- 
 munities, 106-111 ; by tutelar deities, 
 114-117 ; laws as to, 194-197. 
 
 Purification, ceremonies of, 160-165; 
 by ascetic practices, 165-166. 
 
 R 
 
 Rebirth, doctrine of, inconsistent with 
 early Japanese beliefs, 65; the 
 Buddhist idea of, and ancestor- 
 worship, 213 n. 
 
 "Records of Ancient Matters," the 
 {Ko-ji-ki) t 124. 
 
 Reform, agitation for industrial, 494- 
 496. 
 
 Regency, growth of the, 288-290 ; usur- 
 pation of power by the, 290-293. 
 
 Regent, office of, established, 288. 
 
 Registrars, Buddhist priests become 
 public, 223-224. 
 
 Relationship, gradation of nouns in- 
 dicating, 189. 
 
 Religion, summary of three forms of, 
 Shinto, 27-28 ; of filial piety, 56-59, 
 67, 75, 208, 503 ; the basis of organi- 
 zation of patriarchal family, 67, 74 ; 
 marriage a rite of, 75-77; identity 
 of government with, 112-113; meta- 
 physics of Buddhist, 229-250 ; origin 
 in, of customs of the vendetta, 323 ; 
 tolerance of, by Iyeyasu (except 
 Roman Catholicism), 381-382; the 
 life of the Japanese people, 507- 
 508; obstacles to propagation of 
 Western, in Far East, 523. See An- 
 cestor-worship and Missions. 
 
 Rents, modern increase in, 450 n. 
 
 Responsibility from above downward, 
 433-438- 
 
 " Review of the Introduction of Chris- 
 tianity into China and Japan," quo* 
 tation from, 335. 
 
546 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Revolution, modern industrial, 487- 
 491 ; dangers of a social, 490-493. 
 
 Rice, divination by, 167, 168. 
 
 Rice-pot, goddess of the, 144. 
 
 Riddle of the Universe, Haeckel's, 
 cited, 243. 
 
 Roads, under protection of Buddhist 
 deities, 144. 
 
 Romans, ancient, parallels bteween 
 Japanese and, 33-35, 42, 44, 67, 75, 
 77, 80, 88, in, 164, 187, 253, 258, 
 290, 485-486, 488. 
 
 Rudeness, Japanese definition of, 
 
 193- 
 
 Russia, the war with, 506-509. 
 
 Ryobu defined, 205 n. 
 
 Ryobu-Shinto, establishment of, 205- 
 206. 
 
 S 
 
 Sacrifices, history of all religious, 
 traceable to offerings to ghosts, 36 ; 
 ancient funeral, 45-48; origin of 
 human, 312; of one's family, 318- 
 319. See Junshi. 
 
 Salaries of officials, 450 n. 
 
 Samurai, class of the, 267, 275; obli- 
 gation of, to- perform harakiri, 315 ; 
 suppression of, 410. 
 
 Sandals, laws about, 184. 
 
 Saris, Captain, account by, of an exe- 
 cution, 195-196 ; quoted, 348. 
 
 Satow, Sir Ernest, quoted, 51 u., 57, 
 78, 140 n., I57-I58 v 178-179, 342 n., 
 
 363- 
 Satsuma, clan of, 401, 402, 406. 
 Scarecrows, god of, 144, 151, 169. 
 Scholarship, advance of, in Tokugawa 
 
 period, 403-404. 
 School, training of children in, 461- 
 
 4°5- 
 
 Schools, connected with Buddhist tem- 
 ples, 223 ; Government, 464-465. 
 
 Sculpture, developed in Japan under 
 Buddhist teaching, 208; displayed 
 in roadside images, 220, 503. 
 
 Sekigahara, battle of, 304. 
 
 Self-control, legal enforcement of, 191- 
 192. 
 
 Sefpuku, Chinese term for harakiri, 
 315- 
 
 Servants, in Old Japan, 86-88; con- 
 servative attitude of, 438 ; positiun 
 of maid, 445-447.. See Apprentices 
 and Dependants. 
 
 " Shadow-Shogun," the, 294; deposi- 
 tion of, 295. 
 
 Shelf of the august spirits, 50. 
 
 Shimabara Revolt, the, 354-355. 
 
 Shimonoseki, bombardment of, 408. 
 
 Shin, sect of, defeated by Nobunaga, 
 301-302. 
 
 Shinbetsu, " divine branch " of families, 
 
 2S9- 
 
 ShinobigotOi 43. 
 
 Shin-Shd-Sai, the Ninth Festival, 269. 
 
 Shinto, signification, 27 ; forms of wor- 
 ship, 27-28 ; the morals of, 112-113; 
 relation of Japanese mythology to, 
 summarized, 129-150; origin of 
 gods of the house in, 143-144; 
 greater gods of, acknowledged by 
 Buddhism, 2x0 ; restoration of, 408 ; 
 no essential of weakened by Buddh- 
 ism, 413-414. See Ancestor-wor- 
 ship. 
 
 Shogun, authority of the, 265, 275-276; 
 significance of term, 293 ; extension 
 of power of, 293-294. 
 
 Sh5gunate, beginning of history of, 
 293; abolition of, 408. 
 
 Shdrei-Hikki, " Record of Ceremonies," 
 76. 
 
 Shoryobuni, " ghost-ships," 222. 
 
 Shrines, worship at,, 135-137, 154- 
 
 155- 
 
 Sickness, charms against, 163-164. 
 
 Simmons, Dr. D. B., 181, 257. 
 
 Sisters of Charity, comparison of Jap- 
 anese women to, 3g8. 
 
 Slavery, origin of, 257-258. 
 
 Slaves, condition of, under patriarchal 
 system, 255-256; partial emancipa- 
 tion of, 256-257 ; factory-operatives 
 regarded as, 494. 
 
 Smile, rules and regulations about the, 
 191-192. 
 
 Socialism not a modern growth, 279. 
 
 Societies, secret, 516 n. 
 
 Society, organization of Old Japanese, 
 253-282. 
 
INDEX 
 
 547 
 
 Sociology, difficulties in studying Jap- 
 anese, 3-4. 
 
 Soga brothers, the, apotheosis of, 141. 
 
 Sohodo-no-kami, god of scarecrows, 
 144, 151, 169. 
 
 Son, eleven graded terms signifying, 
 189. 
 
 Sons-in-law, significant motto concern- 
 ing, 74 ; customs as to, 74-75. 
 
 " Soul of Old Japan," the, 177. 
 
 Soul of the Far East, Lowell's, 189 n., 
 
 SIS- 
 
 Speech, non-existence of freedom of, 
 188 ; regulation of forms of, 189-190. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 29, 30, 78 n. 2, 121, 
 189 n., 232, 306, 412; quoted, 32, 
 69 n., 98 n., 199-200, 234-235, 237- 
 23 s . 239-240, 241, 245, 311. 
 
 Spirits, Rough and Gentle, 140. 
 
 Spirit-sticks, 50, 51. 
 
 Story-teller, an Englishman who is a 
 professional Japanese, 14-15. 
 
 Strangulation, suicide by, 314. 
 
 Student-revolts, significance and re- 
 sults of, 436-437. 
 
 Students, private means furnished for 
 education of, 475-478; education 
 of, abroad, 479-481. See Education. 
 
 Subsidies, Government, to industries, 
 
 493- 
 Succession, laws of, in Old Japan, 82- 
 
 83. 
 
 Sugiwara-no-Michizanfi, spirit of, 141. 
 
 Suicide, by the sword, 47-48 ; customs 
 as to, 314-318 ; modern instances 
 of female, 317; instance of, in 
 Russian war, 508 n. See Harakiri 
 and Junshi. 
 
 Suiko, Empress, 286, 287. 
 
 Suinin, Emperor, abolishes the "hu- 
 man hedge," 46. 
 
 Sun, daily greeting to the, 151-152. 
 
 Sun-goddess, worship of, 123-124, 130- 
 x 33> I 35 _I 36; acknowledged by 
 Buddhism, 210; offering of first- 
 fruits to, by Emperor, 269 n. 
 
 Surgeons, efficiency of Japanese, 481. 
 
 Sword-making most sacred of crafts, 
 139, 170, 269-270. 
 
 Swords, wearing of, prohibited, 410. 
 
 Tablets, mortuary, 50-51; Buddhist 
 mortuary (thai), 221. 
 
 Tadasuk6, Ooka, quoted, 385 n. 
 
 Taira, rise and fall of the, 292-293. 
 
 Taishi, Shotoku, proclamation of, re- 
 garding politeness, 391-392. 
 
 Takatoki, sacrificial suicide by the 
 sword originated by, 47. 
 
 Takayama, a Japanese Jesuit, 351. 
 
 Take-no-uji-no-Sukun6, apotheosis of, 
 141. 
 
 Tales of Old fafan, Mitford's, 271, 323, 
 
 Tattooing of slaves, 256. 
 
 Tea-ceremonies in Tokugawa period, 
 390-391. 
 
 Teachers, Buddhist priests as, 222-223 1 
 duties to, same as to fathers, 322; 
 salaries of, 450 n. ; relation of, to 
 pupils, 462; transformation stages 
 in attitude of pupils toward, 471- 
 473- 
 
 Temmu, Emperor, decree of, forbid- 
 ding use of meat, 216 ; reorganiza- 
 tion of castes by, 260 ; reign of, 263. 
 
 Temple of the Four Deva Kings at 
 Osaka, 220. 
 
 Temple-festivals, 96, 503. 
 
 Temples, Shinto, evolved from mourn- 
 ing-houses, 49 ; Shinto parish, dedi- 
 cated to Uji-gods (Ujigami) , 95-98 j 
 Shinto, of the first grade, 135; 
 Shinto, classification of, 137 ; propi- 
 tiatory, 142-143; forms of art in 
 Buddhist, 218-219; notable ex- 
 amples of, 220; schools connected 
 with, 223; Buddhist, burned by 
 Jesuits, 336, 338; Shinto, in For- 
 mosa, 424 n. ; number of Shinto, at 
 present, 514; memorial character 
 of new, 514. 
 
 Tenjin, worship of, 141. 
 
 Terakoya, drama of, 319 n. 
 
 Thieves sentenced to slavery, 258. 
 
 " Thou," the use of, 189. 
 
 Togo, Vice-Admiral, reply of, to Impe- 
 rial message, 507 n. 
 
 Tokugawa, shogunate of, Japanese civ- 
 ilization reaches limit of develop- 
 ment under, 375. See Iyeyasu. 
 
54 8 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Tokyo, widespread poverty in, result- 
 ing from industrial revolution, 488. 
 
 Tools, surprising shapes of, n ; sacred- 
 ness of, 169. 
 
 Tosa, clan of, 406. 
 
 Toshogu, Iyeyasu worshipped under 
 name of, 141. 
 
 Trade, mean rank of those engaged in, 
 270. See Commerce. 
 
 Tragedy, Japanese, founded on fact, 
 318-319. 
 
 Uji, the ancient family called, 70. 
 
 Ujigami, original relation of commu- 
 nity to, 93-94; as clan-deities, 94- 
 96 ; offences against, 100; relation 
 of the individual to, 134-135 ; festi- 
 vals of the, 153, 156-158 ; cults of, 
 maintained, and not supplanted, by 
 Buddhism, 413. 
 
 Uji-no-kami, " the god of the uji" 
 72. 
 
 Underworld, development of belief in, 
 
 Uneme-no-Kami, Takenaka, 354. 
 University, students at the, 465-466. 
 Utensils, domestic, sacredness of, 169; 
 
 art displayed in, 389. 
 Uy£mon no Hyog6, decree concerning 
 
 junshi disobeyed by, 313. 
 
 V 
 Variety to be found in Japanese form 
 
 of civilization, 280-282. 
 Vendetta, religious origin for customs 
 
 of, 323. 
 Vengeance, the duty of, 320-326 ; Iyfi- 
 
 yasu's decree concerning code of, 
 
 321. 
 Verb, etiquette governing uses of the, 
 
 189—190. 
 Vestals, Japanese, 158-160. 
 Vice, Iyeyasu on suppression of, 378- 
 
 379- 
 Village-laws, peasants', 433-434. 
 
 W 
 Wages of maid-servants, 446. 
 " WnnWings of Cain," Coleridge's, 
 136. 
 
 War, ten centuries of, following rise of 
 military power, 285-293 ; against 
 Korea, 303 ; with peasantry, 354- 
 355 » w i m Russia, 506-509. 
 
 Warfare, divination in, 168. 
 
 Warren, Henry Clarke, quoted, 231. 
 
 Way of the Buddha, the (Butsudo), 
 
 27- 
 
 Way of the Gods, the (Shinto) , 27, 49. 
 
 Weddings, customs as to, 75-77 ; laws 
 as to food at, 83; presents at, 183- 
 185. 
 
 Wells, the god of, 143. 
 
 Whipping, infrequency of now, as 
 punishment, 461. See Punish- 
 ments. 
 
 Wife, gradation of terms signifying, 
 189. 
 
 Wigmore, J. H., quoted, 98, 103-106, 
 181, 185, 353 n., 384. 
 
 Wind-gods, prayer to the, 157-158. 
 
 Wine, Buddhism forbids offerings of, 
 221. 
 
 Wives, position of adopted, 74. 
 
 Woman, tribute paid to the Japanese, 
 393-398. 
 
 Women, mourning rites intrusted to, 
 51 ; position of, in old Japanese 
 family, 83-84; as priestesses, 159; 
 forms of speech for use of, 190; 
 method of suicide for, 315 ; modern 
 instances of suicide by, 317, 318; 
 duty of vengeance performed by, 
 321; considered most wonderful 
 aesthetic products of Japan, 393- 
 398 ; misery of modem factory-life 
 of, 494. 
 
 Workmanship, perfection of Japanese, 
 12-13 ; under modern industrial 
 conditions, 493-494. 
 
 Worship, three forms of Shinto, 27-28 
 (see Ancestor-worship) ; of Imperial 
 ancestors, 122-123, 3°5-3°6; of 
 Sun-goddess, 123-124, 130-133, 
 I35- I 3°. i5 I - I 5 2 ; at shrines, 135- 
 '37. x 54; propitiatory, 142-143; 
 phallic, 146; daily rites of, 150- 
 153; public rites of, 153-159; of 
 th<' de;»l, effect of Buddhism on, 
 211--212. 
 
INDEX 
 
 549 
 
 Xavier, arrival of, in Japan, 334. 
 
 Yama, judge of the dead, 218-219. 
 Yamaguchi, land granted to Jesuits at, 
 
 362-363. 
 Yamato-damashi, "The Soul of Ya- 
 
 mato," 177. 
 Yedo, obligatory residence of daimyo 
 
 in, 304; Iyeyasu the founder of, 
 
 3°5- 
 
 Yeizan, Buddhist high priest, 383. 
 
 Yekken, Japanese moralist, 316 n. 
 
 Yeomanry, early Japanese, 267. 
 
 Yoritomo, founder of Minamoto dy- 
 nasty, 293-296. 
 
 "You" and "thou," usages as to, 189. 
 
 Yuriaku, Emperor, deaths inflicted by, 
 for rudeness, 194. 
 
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