Chapter XLVIII: Introduction (15)

But this does not constitute the whole of the difficulty. This method of introspective thought necessarily resulted in the doctrine of Illusion. Nothing is what it seems to be. The reality of the chariot is other than it appears. So too with the self and everything we see or think. The ignoant are perfectly under the spell of the illusion and cannot escape it. The deluded mind creates for itself the world of being, with all its woes and evils. The great enlightenment is the discovery of this fact and the power it gives to escape the illusion and to see that the world is nothing but illusion. To see that the illusion is an illusion destroys it as such. It is then no longer an illusion, but only a passing shadow. We cannot now stop to see how pessimism, the doctrine of self-salvation, and the nature of that salvation through contemplation and asceticism and withdrawal from active life, all inevitably follow from such a course of thought. That which here needs emphasis is that all this thinking renders it still more impossible to think of the self as having any intrinsic worth. On-the contrary, the self is the source of evil, of illusion. The great aim of Buddhism is necessarily to get rid of the self, with all its illusions and pains and disappointments.

Is it now clear why Buddhism failed to reach the idea of the worth of the individual self? It was due to the nature of the social order, and the nature of its introspective and speculative thinking. Lacking, therefore, the conception of individual worth, we see clearly why it failed, even after centuries of opportunity, to secure individualism in the social order and a general development of personality either as an idea or as a fact among any of the peoples to which it has gone. It is not only a fact of history, but we have seen that it could not have been otherwise. The very nature of its conception of self and, in consequence, the nature of its conception of salvation absolutely prohibited it.[CY]

We have thus far confined our view entirely to philosophic Buddhism. It is important, therefore, to state again that very few of the Japanese people outside of the priesthood have any such ideas with regard to the abstract nature of the individual, of the absolute self, and of their mutual relations as I have just described. These ideas are a part of esoteric Buddhism, the secret truth, which is an essential part of the great enlightenment, but far too profound for the vulgar multitudes. The vast majority, even of the priesthood, I am told, do not get far enough to be taught these views. The sweep of such conceptions, therefore, is very limited. That they are held, however, by the leaders, that they are the views of the most learned expounders and the most advanced students of Buddhism serves to explain why Buddhism has never been, and can never become, a power in reorganizing society in the direction of individualism.

Popular Buddhism contains many elements alien to philosophic Buddhism. For a full study of the subject of this chapter we need to ask whether popular Buddhism tended to produce "impersonality," and if so, in what sense. The doctrine of "ingwa,"[CZ] with its consequences on character, demands fresh attention at this point. According to this doctrine every event of this life, even the minutest, is the result of one's conduct in a previous life, and is unalterably fixed by inflexible law. "Ingwa" is the crude idea of fate held by all primitive peoples, stated in somewhat philosophic and scientific form. It became a central element in the thought of Oriental peoples. Each man is born into his caste and class by a law over which neither he nor his parents have any control, and for which they are without responsibility. The misfortunes of life, and the good fortunes as well, come by the same impartial, inflexible laws. By this system of thought moral responsibility is practically removed from the individual's shoulders. This doctrine is held in Japan far more widely than the philosophic doctrine of the self, and is correspondingly baleful.

This system of thought, when applied to the details of life, means that individual choice and will, and their effect in determining both external life and internal character have been practically lost sight of. As a sociological fact the origin of this conception is not difficult to understand. The primitive freedom of the individual in the early communal order of the tribe became increasingly restricted with the multiplication and development of the Hindu peoples; each class of society became increasingly specialized. Finally the individual had no choice whatever left him, because of the extreme rigidity of the communal order. As a matter of fact, the individual choice and will was allowed no play whatever in any important matter. Good sense saw that where no freedom is, there moral responsibility cannot be. All one's life is predetermined by the powers that be. Thus we again see how vital a relation the social order bears to the innermost thinking and belief of a people.

Still further. Once let the idea be firmly grounded in an individual that he has no freedom of belief, of choice, or of act, and in the vast majority of cases, as a matter of fact, he will have none. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." "According to your faith be it unto you." This doctrine of individual freedom is one of those that cannot be forced on a man who does not choose to believe it. In a true sense, it is my belief that I am free that makes me free. As Prof. James well says, the doctrine of the freedom of the will cannot be rammed down any man's intellectual throat, for that very act would abridge his real freedom. Man's real freedom is proved by his freedom to reject even the doctrine of his freedom. But so long as he rejects it, his freedom is only potential. Because of his belief in his bondage he is in bondage. Now this doctrine of fate has been the warp and woof of the thinking of the bulk of the Japanese people in their efforts to explain all the vicissitudes of life. Not only, therefore, has it failed to stimulate the volitional element of the psychic nature, but in the psychology of the Orient little if any attention has been given to this faculty. Oriental psychology practically knows nothing of personality because it has failed to note one of its central elements, the freedom of the will. The individual, therefore, has not been appealed to to exercise his free moral choice, one of the highest prerogatives of his nature. Moral responsibility has not been laid on his individual shoulders. A method of moral appeal fitted to develop the deepest element of his personality has thus been precluded.

It thus resulted that although philosophic Buddhism developed a high degree of self-consciousness, yet because it failed to discover personal freedom it did not deliver popular Buddhism from its grinding doctrine of fate, rather it fastened this incubus of social progress more firmly upon it. Philosophic and popular Buddhism alike thus threw athwart the course of human and social evolution the tremendous obstacle of fatalism, which the Orient has never discovered a way either to surmount or evade. Buddhism teaches the impotence of the individual will; it destroys the sense of moral responsibility; it thus fails to understand the real nature of man, his glory and power and even his divinity, which the West sums up in the term personality. In this sense, then, the influence of Buddhism and the condition of the Orient may be called "impersonal," but it is the impersonality of a defective religious psychology, and of communalism in the social order. Whether it is right to call this feature of Japan "impersonality," I leave with the reader to judge.

We draw this chapter to a close with a renewed conception of the inadequacy of the "impersonal" theory to explain Japanese religious and social phenomena. Further considerations, however, still merit attention ere we leave this subject.

XXXIII

TRACES OF PERSONALITY IN SHINTOISM, BUDDHISM, AND CONFUCIANISM

Regret as we sometimes must the illogicalness of the human mind, yet it is a providential characteristic of our as yet defective nature; for thanks to it few men or nations carry out to their complete logical results erroneous opinions and metaphysical speculations. Common sense in Japan has served more or less as an antidote for Buddhistic poison. The blighting curse of logical Buddhism has been considerably relieved by various circumstances. Let us now consider some of the ways in which the personality-destroying characteristics of Buddhism have been lessened by other ideas and influences.

First of all there is the distinction, so often noted, between esoteric and popular Buddhism. Esoteric Buddhism was content to allow popular Buddhism a place and even to invent ways for the salvation of the ignorant multitudes who could not see the real nature of the self. Resort was had to the use of magic prayers and symbols and idols. These were bad enough, but they did not bear so hard on the development of personality as did esoteric Buddhism.

The doctrine of the transmigration of the soul was likewise a relief from the pressure of philosophic Buddhism, for, according to this doctrine, the individual soul continues to live its separate life, to maintain its independent identity through infinite ages, while passing through the ten worlds of existence, from nethermost hell to highest heaven; and the particular world into which it is born after each death is determined by the moral character of its life in the immediately preceding stage. By this doctrine, then, a practical appeal is made to the common man to exert his will, to assert his personality, and so far forth it was calculated to undo a part of the mischief done by the paralyzing doctrine of fate and illusion.

But a more important relief from the blight of Buddhistic doctrine was afforded by its own practice. At the very time that it declared the worthlessness of the self and the impotence of the will, it declared that salvation can come only from the self, by the most determined exercise of the will. What more convincing evidence of powerful, though distorted, wills could be asked than that furnished by Oriental asceticism? Nothing in the West exceeds it. As an _idea_, then, Buddhism interfered with the development of the conception of personality; but by its _practice_ it helped powerfully to develop it as a fact in certain phases of activity. The stoicism of the Japanese is one phase of developed personality. It shows the presence of a powerful, disciplined will keeping the body in control, so that it gives no sign of the thoughts and emotions going on in the mind, however fierce they may be.

That in Japan, however, which has interfered most powerfully with the spread and dominance of Buddhism has been the practical and prosaic Confucian ethics. Apparently, Confucius never speculated. Metaphysics and introspection alike had no charm for him. He was concerned with conduct. His developed doctrine demanded of all men obedience to the law of the five relations. In spite, therefore, of the fact that he said nothing about individuality and personality, his system laid real emphasis on personality and demanded its continuous activity. In all of his teachings the idea of personality in the full and proper sense of this word is always implicit, and sometimes is quite distinct.

The many strong and noble characters which glorify the feudal era are the product of Japonicized Confucianism, "Bushido," and bear powerful witness to its practical emphasis on personality. The loyalty, filial piety, courage, rectitude, honor, self-control, and suicide which it taught, defective though we must pronounce them from certain points of view, were yet very lofty and noble, and depended for their realization on the development of personality.

Advocates of the "impersonal" interpretation of the Orient have much to say about pantheism. They assert the difficulty of conveying to the Oriental mind the idea of the personality of the Supreme Being. Although some form of pantheism is doubtless the belief of the learned, the evidence that a personal conception of deity is widespread among the people seems so manifest that I need hardly do more than call attention to it. This belief has helped to neutralize the paralyzing tendency of Buddhist fatalistic pantheism.

Shinto is personal from first to last. Every one of its myriads of gods is a personal being, many of them deified men.

The most popular are the souls of men who became famous for some particularly noble, brave, or admirable deed. Hero-worship is nothing if not personal. Furthermore, in its doctrine of "San-shin-ittai," "three gods, one body," it curiously suggests the doctrine of the Trinity.

Popular Buddhism holds an equally personal conception of deity. The objects of its worship are personifications of various qualities. "Kwannon," the goddess of mercy; "Jizo," the guardian of travelers and children; "Emma O," "King of Hell," who punishes sinners; "Fudo Sama," "The Immovable One," are all personifications of the various attributes of deity and are worshiped as separate gods, each being represented by a uniform type of idol. It is a curious fact that Buddhism, which started out with such a lofty rejection of deity, finally fell to the worship of idols, whereas Shinto, which is peculiarly the worship of personality, has never stooped to its representation in wood or stone.

Confucianism, however, surpasses all in its intimations of the personality of the Supreme Being. Although it never formulated this doctrine in a single term, nor definitely stated it as a tenet of religion, yet the entire ethical and religious thinking of the classically educated Japanese is shot through with the idea. Consider the Chinese expression "Jo-Tei," which the Christians of Japan freely use for God; it means literally "Supreme Emperor," and refers to the supreme ruler of the universe; he is here conceived in the form of a human ruler having of course human, that is to say, personal, attributes. A phrase often heard on the lips of the Japanese is:

"Aoide Ten ni hajizu; fushite Chi ni hajizu."

"Without self-reproach, whether looking up to Heaven, or down to Earth."

This phrase has reference to the consciousness of one's life and conduct, such that he is neither ashamed to look up in the face of Heaven nor to look about him in the presence of man. Paul expressed this same idea when he wrote "having a conscience void of offense to God and to man." Or take another phrase:

"Ten-mo kwaikwai so ni shite morasazu."

"Heaven's net is broad as earth; and though its meshes are large, none can escape it." This is constantly used to illustrate the certainty that Heaven punishes the wicked.

"Ten ni kuchi ari; kabe ni mimi ari."

"Heaven has a mouth and even the wall has ears," signifies that all one does is known to the ruler of heaven and earth. Another still more striking saying ascribing knowledge to Heaven is the "Yoshin no Shichi," "the four knowings of Yoshin." This sage was a Chinaman of the second century A.D. Approached with a large bribe and urged to accept it with the assurance that no one would know it, he replied, "Heaven knows it; Earth knows it; you know it; and I know it. How say you that none will know it?" This famous saying condemning bribery is well known in Japan. The references to "Heaven" as knowing, seeing, doing, sympathizing, willing, and always identifying the activity of "Heaven" with the noblest and loftiest ideals of man, are frequent in Chinese and Japanese literature. The personality of God is thus a doctrine clearly foreshadowed in the Orient. It is one of those great truths of religion which the Orient has already received, but which in a large measure lies dormant because of its incomplete expression. The advent of the fully expressed teaching of this truth, freed from all vagueness and ambiguity, is a capital illustration of the way in which Christianity comes to Japan to fulfill rather than to destroy; it brings that fructifying element that stirs the older and more or less imperfectly expressed truths into new life, and gives them adequate modes of expression. But the point to which I am here calling attention is the fact that the idea of the personality of the Supreme Being is not so utterly alien to Oriental thought as some would have us think. Even though there is no single word with which conveniently to translate the term, the idea is perfectly distinct to any Japanese to whom its meaning is explained.

The statement is widely made that because the Japanese language has no term for "personality" the people are lacking in the idea; that consequently they have difficulty in grasping it even when presented to them, and that as a further consequence they are not to be criticised for their hesitancy in accepting the doctrine of the "Personality of God." It must be admitted that if "personality" is to be defined in the various ambiguous and contradictory ways in which we have seen it defined by advocates of Oriental "impersonality" much can be said in defense of their hesitancy. Indeed, no thinking Christian of the Occident for a moment accepts it. But if "personality" is defined in the way here presented, which I judge to be the usage of thoughtful Christendom, then their hesitancy cannot be so defended. It is doubtless true that there is in Japanese no single word corresponding to our term "personality." But that is likewise true of multitudes of other terms. The only significance of this fact is that Oriental philosophy has not followed in exactly the same lines as the Occidental. As a matter of fact I have not found the idea of personality to be a difficult one to convey to the Japanese, if clear definitions are used. The Japanese language has, as we have seen, many words referring to the individuality, to the self of manhood; it merely lacks the general abstract term, "personality." This is, however, in keeping with the general characteristics of the language. Abstract terms are, compared with English, relatively rare. Yet with the new civilization they are being coined and introduced. Furthermore, the English term "personality" is readily used by the great majority of educated Christians just as they use such words as "life," "power," "success," "patriotism," and "Christianity."

In the summer of 1898, with the Rev. C.A. Clark I was invited to speak on the "Outlines of Christianity" in a school for Buddhist priests. At the close of our thirty-minute addresses, a young man arose and spoke for fifty minutes, outlining the Buddhist system of thought; his address consisted of an exposition of the law of cause and effect; he also stated some of the reasons why the Christian conception of God and the universe seemed to him utterly unsatisfactory; the objections raised were those now current in Japan--such, for example, as that if God really were the creator of the universe, why are some men rich and some poor, some high-born and some low-born. He also asked the question who made God? In a two-minute reply I stated that his objections showed that he did not understand the Christian's position; and I asked in turn what was the origin of the law of cause and effect. The following day the chief priest, the head of the school and its most highly educated instructor, dined with us. We of course talked of the various aspects of Christian and Buddhist doctrine. Finally he asked me how I would answer the question as to who created God, and as to the origin of the law of cause and effect. I explained as clearly as I could the Christian view of God, in his personality and as being the original and only source of all existence, whether of physical or of human nature. He seemed to drink it all in and expressed his satisfaction at the close in the words, "Taihen ni man zoku shimashita," "That is exceedingly satisfactory"; these words he repeated several times. This is not my first personal proof of the fact that the idea of personality is not alien or incomprehensible to the Orient, nor even to a Buddhist priest, steeped in Buddhist speculation, provided the idea is clearly stated.

Before bringing to a close this discussion of the problem of personality in Japan, it would seem desirable to trace the history of the development of Japanese personality. In view of all that has now been said, and not forgetting what was said as to the principles of National Evolution,[DA] this may be done in a paragraph.

The amalgamation of tribes, the development of large clans, and finally the establishment of the nation, with world-wide relations, has reacted on the individual members of the people, giving them larger and richer lives. This constitutes one important element of personal development. The subordination of individual will to that of the group, the desire and effort to live for the advantage, not of the individual self, but of the group, whether family, tribe, clan, nation, or the world, is not a limitation of personality. On the contrary, it is its expansion and development. Shinto and Japonicized Confucianism contributed powerful motives to this subordination, and thus to this personal development. These were attended, however, by serious limitations in that they confined their attention to the upper and ruling classes. The development of personality was thus extremely limited. Buddhism contributed to the development of Japanese personality in so far as it taught Japanese the marvels revealed by introspection and self-victory. Its contribution, however, was seriously hampered by defects already sufficiently emphasized. Japan has developed personality to a high degree in a few and to a relatively low degree in the many. The problem confronting New Japan is the development of a high degree of personality among the masses. This is to be accomplished by the introduction of an individualistic social order.

One further topic demands our attention in closing. What is the nature of personal heredity? Is it biological and inherent, or, like all the characteristics of the Japanese people thus far studied, is personality transmitted by social heredity? Distinguishing between intrinsic or inherent personality,[DB] which constitutes the original endowment differentiating man from animal, and extrinsic or acquired personality, which consists of the various forms in which the inherent personality has manifested itself in the different races of men and the different ages of "history, it is safe to say that the latter is transmitted according to the laws of association or social heredity. Intrinsic personality can be inherited only by lineal offspring, passing from father to son. Extrinsic personality may fail to be inherited by lineal descendants and may be inherited by others than lineal descendants. It is transmitted and determined by social inheritance. Yet it is through personality that the individual may break away from the dominant currents of the social order, and become thus the means for the transformation of that order. The secret of social progress lies in personality. In proportion as the social order is fitted, accordingly, widely to develop high-grade personality,[DC] is its own progress rapid and safe.

Does acquired personality react on intrinsic personality? This is the problem of "the inheritance of acquired characteristics." Into this problem I do not enter further than to note that in so far as newly developed personal traits produce transformations of body and brain transmittable from parent to offspring by the bare fact of parentage, in that degree does acquired pass over into intrinsic personality and thereby become intrinsic. In regard to the degree in which acquired has passed over into intrinsic personality, thus differentiating the leading races of mankind, we contend that it is practically non-existent. The phenomena of personality characterizing the chief races of men are due, not to intrinsic, but to acquired personality; in other words they are the products of the respective social orders and are transmitted from generation to generation by social rather than by biological heredity.

XXXIV

THE BUDDHIST WORLD-VIEW

Fully to comprehend the genius and history of Japan and her social order, we need to gain a still more thorough insight into the various conceptions of the universe that have influenced the people. What have been their views as to the nature of the ultimate reality lying behind all phenomena? What as to the relation of mankind to that Ultimate Reality? And what has been the relation of these world-views to the social order? To prepare the way for our final answer to these questions, we confine ourselves in this chapter to a study of the inner nature of the Buddhist world-view.

Since the Buddhist conception of the Ultimate Reality and of the universe is one of the three important types of world-views dominating the human mind, a type too that is hardly known in Western lands, in order to set it forth in terms intelligible to the Occidental and the Christian, it will be necessary in expounding it to contrast it with the two remaining types; namely, the Greek and the Christian. As already pointed out, according to the Buddhistic conception, the Ultimate is a thoroughgoing Abstraction. All the elements of personality are denied. It is perfectly passionless, perfectly thoughtless, and perfectly motionless. It has neither feeling, idea, nor will. As a consequence, the phenomena of the universe are wholly unrelated to it; all that is, is only illusion; it has no reality of being. Human beings who think the world real, and who think even themselves real, are under the spell. This illusion is the great misery and source of pain. Salvation is the discovery of the illusion; and this discovery is the victory over it; for no one fears the lion's skin, however much he may fear the lion. This discovery secures the dropping back from the little, limited, individual self-line, into the infinite passionless, thoughtless, and motionless existence of the absolute being, Nirvana.

The Ancient Greek and not a little modern thought, conceived of the Ultimate as a thorough-going intellectualism. One aspect of personality was perceived and emphasized. God was conceived as a thinker, as one who contemplates the universe. He does not create matter, nor force, nor does he rule them. They are eternal and real, and subject to fate. God simply observes. He is absolute reason. The Greek view is thus essentially dualistic. Sin, from the Greek point of view, is merely ignorance, and salvation the attainment of knowledge.

In vital and vitalizing contrast to both the Buddhist and Greek conceptions is the Judæo-Christian. To the Christian the Ultimate is a thoroughgoing personality. To him the central element in God is will, guided by reason and controlled by love and righteousness. God creates and rules everything. There is nothing that is not wholly subject to him. There is no dualism for the Christian, nor any illusion. Sin is an act of human will, not an illusion nor a failure of intellect. Salvation is the correction of the will, which comes about through a "new birth."

The elemental difference, then, between these three conceptions of the Ultimate is that in Buddhism the effort to rationalize and ethicize the universe of experience is abandoned as a hopeless task; the world entirely and completely resists the rational and ethical process. The universe is pronounced completely irrational and non-moral. Change is branded as illusion. There is no room for progress in philosophic, thoroughgoing Buddhism.

In the Greek view the universe is subject in part to the rationalizing process; but only in part. The effort at ethicization is entirely futile. The Greek view, equally with the Buddhistic, is at a loss to understand change. It does not brand it as unreal, but change produced by man is branded as a departure from nature. Greeks and Hindus alike have no philosophy of history. In the Christian view the universe is completely subject to the rational and ethical process. God is creator of all that is and it is necessarily good. God is an active will and He is, therefore, still in the process of creating; hence change, evolution, is justified and understood. History is rational and has a philosophy. Evolution and revelation have their place at the very heart of the universe. Hence it is that science, philosophy, and history, in a word a high-grade civilization, finds its intellectual justification, its foundation, its primary postulates, its possibility, only in a land permeated with the Christian idea of God.

In the Buddhistic conception God is an abstract vacuity; in the Greek, a static intellect; in the Christian, a dynamic will. As is the conception of God, so is the conception and character of man. The two are so intimately interdependent that it is useless at this time to discuss which is the cause and which the result. They are doubtless the two aspects of the same movement of thought. The following differences are necessary characteristics of the three religions:

The Buddhist seeks salvation through the attainment of vacuity--Nirvana--in order to escape from the world in which he says there is no reason and no morality. The Greek seeks salvation through the activity of the intellect; all that is needful to salvation is knowledge of the truth. The Christian seeks salvation through the activity of the will; this is secured through the new birth. The Buddhist leaves each man to save himself from his illusion by the discovery that it is an illusion. The Greek relies on intellectual education, on philosophy--the Christian recreates the will. The Buddhist and Greek gods make no effort to help the lost man. The Christian God is dominated by love; He is therefore a missionary God, sending even His only begotten Son to reconcile and win the world of sinning, willful children back to Himself.

In Buddhism salvation is won only by the few and after ages of toil and ceaseless re-births. In the Greek plan only the philosopher who comes to full understanding can attain salvation. In the Christian plan salvation is for all, for all are sons of God, in fact, and may through Christ become so in consciousness. In the Buddhistic plan the hopeless masses resort to magic and keep on with their idolatry and countless gross superstitions. In the Greek plan the hopeless resort to the "mysteries" for the attainment of salvation. In the Christian plan there are no hopeless masses, for all may gain the regenerated will and become conscious sons of God.

The Buddhist mind gave up all effort to grasp or even to understand reality. The Greek mind thought it could arrive at reality through the intellect. But two thousand years of philosophic study and evolution drove philosophy into the absurd positions of absolute subjective idealism on the one hand and sensationalism and absolute materialism on the other. The Christian mind lays emphasis on the will and accordingly is alone able to reach reality, a reality justifiable alike to the reason and to the heart. For will is the creative faculty in man as well as in God. As God through His will creates reality, so man through his will first comes to know reality. Mere intellect can never pass over from thought to being. Being can be known as a reality only through the will.

In consequence of the above-stated methods of thought, the Buddhist was of necessity a pessimist; the Greek only less so; while the Jew and the Christian could alone be thoroughgoing optimists. The Buddhist ever asserts the is-not; the Greek, the is; while the Jew and Christian demand the ought-to be, as the supreme thing. Hence flows the perennial life of the Christian civilization.

Those races and civilizations whose highest and deepest conception of the ultimate is that of mere reason, no less than those races and civilizations whose highest and deepest conception of reality is that of an abstract emptiness, must be landed in an unreal world, must arrive at irrational results, for they have not taken into account the most vital element of thought and life. Such races and civilizations cannot rise to the highest levels of which man is capable; they must of necessity give way to those races and that civilization which build on larger and more complete foundations, which worship Will, Human and Divine, and seek for its larger development both in self and in all mankind.

But I must not pause to trace the contrasts further. Enough has been said to show the source of Occidental belief in the infinite worth of man. In almost diametrical contrast to the Buddhist conception, according to the Christian view, man is a real being, living in a real world, involved in a real intellectual problem, fighting a real battle, on whose issue hang momentous, nay, infinite results. So great is man's value, not only to himself, but also to God, his Father, that the Father himself suffers with him in his sin, and for him, to save him from his sin. The question will be asked how widely the Buddhistic interpretation of the universe has spread in Japan. The doctrine of illusion became pretty general. We may doubt, however, whether the rationale of the philosophy was very generally understood. One Sutra, read by all Japanese sects, is taught to all who would become acquainted with the essentials of Buddhist doctrine. It is so short that I give it in full.[DD]

THE SMALLER-PRAGNA-PARAMITA-HRIDYA-SUTRA

"Adoration to the Omniscient. The venerable Bodhisattva
Avalokitesvara performing his study in the deep Pragna-paramita
[perfection of Wisdom] thought thus: There are the five Skandhas,
and these he considered as by their nature empty [phenomenal]. O
Sariputra, he said, form here is emptiness, and emptiness indeed is
form. Emptiness is not different from form, and form is not
different from emptiness. What is form that is emptiness, what is
emptiness that is form. The same applies to perception, name,
conception, and knowledge.

"Here, O Sariputra, all things have the character of emptiness;
they have no beginning, no end, they are faultless and not
faultless, they are not imperfect and not perfect. Therefore, O
Sariputra, in this emptiness there is no form, no perception, no
name, no concepts, no knowledge. No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body,
mind. No form, sound, smell, taste, touch, objects.... There is no
knowledge, no ignorance, no destruction of knowledge, no
destruction of ignorance, etc., there is no decay and death, no
destruction of decay and death; there are not the four truths,
viz., that there is pain, the origin of pain, stopping of pain, and
the path to it. There is no knowledge, no obtaining of Nirvana.

"A man who has approached the Pragna-paramita of the Bodhisattva
dwells enveloped in consciousness. But when the envelop of
consciousness has been annihilated, then he becomes free of all
fear, beyond the reach of change, enjoying final Nirvana. All
Buddhas of the past, present, and future, after approaching the
Pragna-paramita, have awakened to the highest perfect knowledge.

"Therefore one ought to know the great verse of the
Pragna-paramita, the verse of the great wisdom, the unsurpassed
verse, the peerless verse, which appeases all pain; it is truth
because it is not false; the verse proclaimed in the
Pragna-paramita: 'O wisdom, gone, gone, gone, to the other shore,
landed at the other shore, Shava.'

"Thus ends the heart of the Pragna-paramita."

A study of this condensed and widely read Buddhist Sutra will convince anyone that the ultimate conceptions of the universe and of the final reality, are as described above. However popular Buddhism might differ from this, it would be the belief of the thoughtless masses, to whom the rational and ethical problems are of no significance or concern, and who contribute nothing to the development of thought or of the social order. Those nobler and more earnestly inquiring souls whose energy and spiritual longing might have been used for the benefit of the masses, were shunted off on a side track that led only into the desert of atomistic individualism, abandonment of society, ecstatic contemplation, and absolute pessimism. The Buddhist theory of the universe and method of thought denied all intelligible reality, and necessitated the conclusion that the universe of experience is neither rational nor ethical. The common beliefs of the unreflective and uninitiated masses in the ultimate rationality and morality of the universe were felt to have no foundation either in religion or philosophy and were accordingly pronounced mere illusions.

XXXV

COMMUNAL AND INDIVIDUAL ELEMENTS IN THE EVOLUTION OF JAPANESE RELIGIOUS LIFE

Our study of Japanese religion and religious life thus far has been almost, if not exclusively, from the individualistic standpoint. An adequate statement, however, cannot be made from this standpoint alone, for religion through its mighty sanctions exerts a powerful influence on the entire communal life. Indeed, the leading characteristic of primitive religions is their communal nature. The science of religion shows how late in human history is the rise of individualistic religions.

In the present chapter we propose to study Japanese religious history from the communal standpoint. This will lead us to study her present religious problem and the nature of the religion required to solve it.

The real nature of the religious life of Japan has been and still is predominantly communal. Individualism has had a place, but, as we have repeatedly seen, only a minor place in forming the nation. From the communo-individualistic standpoint, in the study of Japan's religious and social evolution, not only can we see clearly that the three religions of Japan are real religions, but we can also understand the nature of the relations of these three religions to each other and the reasons why they have had such relations. Japanese religious history and its main phenomena become luminous in the light of communo-individualistic social principles.

Shinto, the primitive religion of Japan, corresponded well with the needs of primitive times, when the development of strong communal life was the prime problem and necessity. It furnished the religious sanctions for the social order in its customs of worshiping not only the gods, but also the Emperor and ancestors. It gave the highest possible justification of the national social order in its deification of the supreme ruler. Shinto was so completely communal in its nature that the individual aspect of religion was utterly ignored. It developed no specific moral code, no eschatological and soteriological systems, no comprehensive view of nature or of the gods. These deficiencies, however, are no proofs that it was not a religion in the proper sense of the term. The real question is, did it furnish any supra-mundane, supra-legal, supra-communal sanctions both for the conduct of the individual in his social relations and for the fact and the right of the social order. Of this there can be no doubt. Those who deny it the name of a religion do so because they judge religion only from the point of view of a highly developed individualistic religion.

In view of this undoubted fact, it is a strange commentary on the failure of Shinto leaders to realize the real function of the faith they profess that they have sought and obtained from the government the right to be considered and classified no longer as a religion, but only as a society for preserving the memories and shrines of the ancestors of the race. Thus has modern Shinto, so far as it is organized and has a mouth with which to speak, following the abdicating proclivities of the ancient social order, excommunicated itself from its religious heritage, aspiring to be nothing more than a gate-keeper of cemeteries.

The sources of the power of the Shinto sanctions lies in the nature of its conception of the universe. Although it attempted no interpretation of the universe as a whole, it conceived of the origin of the country and people of Japan as due to the direct creative energy of the gods. Japan was accordingly conceived as a divine land and the people a divine people. The Emperor was thought to have descended in direct line from the gods and thus to be a visible representative of the gods to the people, and to possess divine power and authority with which to rule the people. Whenever Japanese came into contact with foreign peoples, it was natural to consider them outside of the divine providence, aliens, whose presence in the divine land was more or less of a pollution. This world-view was well calculated to develop a spirit of submissive obedience and loyal adherence to the hereditary rulers of the land, and of fierce antagonism to foreigners. This view constituted the moral foundation for the social order, the intellectual framework within which the state developed. Paternal feudalism was the natural, if not the necessary, accompaniment of this world-view. Even to this day the scholars of the land see no other ground on which to found Imperial authority, no other basis for ethics and religion, than the divine descent of the Emperor.[DE]

The Shinto world-view, conceiving of men as direct offspring of the gods, has in it potentially the doctrine of the divine nature of all men, and their consequent infinite worth. Shinto never developed this truth, however. It did not discover the momentous implications of its view. Failing to discover them, it failed to introduce into the social order that moral inspiration, that social leaven which would have gradually produced the individualistic social order.

No attempt has been made either in ancient or modern times to square this Shinto world-view with advancing knowledge of the world, particularly with the modern scientific conception of the universe. Anthropology, ethnology, and the doctrine of evolution both cosmic and human, are all destructive of the primitive Shinto world-view. It would not be difficult to show, however, that in this world-view exists a profound element of truth. The Shinto world-conception needs to be expanded to take the universe and all races of men into its view; and to see that Japan is not alone the object of divine solicitude, but that all races likewise owe their origin to that same divine power, and that even though the Emperor is not more directly the offspring of the gods than are all men, yet in the providence of Him who ruleth the affairs of men, the Emperor is in fact the visible representative of authority and power for the people over whom he reigns. With this expansion and the consequences that flow from it, the world-view that has cradled Old Japan will come into accord with the scientific Christian world-view, and become fitted to be the foundation for the new and individualistic social order, now arising in Japan, granting full liberty of thought and action, knowing that only so can truth come out of error, and assured that truth is the only ground of permanent welfare.

Throughout the centuries including the present era of Meiji, it is the Shinto religion that has provided and that still provides religious sanctions for the social order--even for the new social order that has come in from the West. It is the belief of the people in the divine descent of the Emperor, and his consequent divine right, that to-day unifies the nation and causes it to accept so readily the new social order; desired by him, they raise no questions, make no opposition, even though in some respects it brings them trouble and anxiety.

Our study of Buddhism has brought to light its extremely individualistic nature, and its lack of asocial ideal. Its world-view we have sufficiently examined in the preceding chapter. We are told that when Buddhism came to Japan it made little headway until it adopted the Shinto deities into its theogony. What does this mean? That only on condition of accepting the Shinto sanctions for the communal order of society was it able to commend itself to the people at large. And Buddhism had no difficulty in fulfilling this condition, because it had no ideal order of society to present and no religious sanctions for any kind of social order; in this respect Buddhism had no ground for conflict with Shinto. Shinto had the field to itself; and Buddhism was perfectly at liberty to adopt, or at least to allow, any social order that might present itself. Furthermore, by its doctrines of incarnation and transmigration, according to which noble souls might appear and reappear in different worlds and different lands, Buddhism could identify Shinto deities with its own deities of Hindu origin, asserting their pre-incarnation. Having accepted the Shinto deities, ideals, and sanctions for the social order, Buddhism became not only tolerable to the people, but also exceedingly popular.

The Shinto-Buddhistic was in truth a new religion, each of the old religions supplying an essential element.

One real reason, beside its accommodation to Shintoism, why Buddhism was so popular was that it brought an indispensable element into the national life. For the first time emphasis began to be laid on the individual. Introspection and deliberate meditation were brought into play. Arts demanding individual skill were fostered. A gorgeous ritual, elaborate architecture, complex religious organism, letters and literature, all gave play to individual activity and development whether in manual, in mental, or in æsthetic lines. The hitherto cramped and primitive life of the Japanese responded to these appeals and opportunities with profound joy. The upper classes especially felt themselves growing in richness and fullness of life. They felt the stimulus in many directions. The reason, then, why Buddhism flourished so mightily, and at the same time caused the nation to bloom, was because it helped develop the individual. The reason, on the other hand, why it failed to carry the nation on from its first bloom into full fruitage was because it failed to develop individualism in the social order. Its religious individualism was, as we have seen, in reality defective. It was abstract and one-sided. It did not discover the whole of the individual. It did not know anything of personality, either human or divine. It accordingly could not recognize the individual's worth, but only his separateness and his weakness. It taught an abstract impoverished idea of self, and made, as the whole aim of the salvation it offered, the final annihilation of all separateness of this individual self. We can now see that its individualism was essentially defective in that it poured contempt on the self, and that if its individualizing salvation were consistently carried out, it was not only no help to the social order, but a positive injury to it. Its individualism was of a nature which could not become an integral part of any social order.

This character led to another inevitable difficulty. Although Buddhism ostensibly adopted Shinto deities and the Shinto sanctions for the social order, it could not wholeheartedly accept the sanctions nor take the deities into full and legitimate partnership. It found no place in its circle of doctrine to teach the important tenets of Shintoism.

It left them to survive or perish as chance would have it. In proportion as Buddhism absorbed the life and love of the people, Shinto fell into decay and with it its sanctions. Then came the centuries of civil war during which Imperial power and authority sank to a minimum, and Japan's ignominy and disorder reached their maximum. What the land now needed was the re-introduction, first, of social order, even though it must be by the hand of a dictator, and second, the development of religious sanctions for the order that should be established. The first was secured by those three great generals of Japan, Oda Nobunaga, the Taiko Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. "The first conceived the idea of centralizing all the authority of the state in a single person; the second, who has been called the Napoleon of Japan, actually put the idea into practice," but died before consolidating his work; the third, by his unsurpassed skill as a diplomat and administrator, carried the idea completely out, arranging the details of the new order so that, without special military genius or power on the part of his successors, the order maintained itself for 250 years.

Yet it is doubtful if this long maintenance of the social order introduced by Ieyasu would have been possible had he not found ready to hand a system of essentially religious sanctions for the social order he had established by force. Confucianism had lain for a thousand years a dormant germ, receiving some study from learned men, but having no special relation to the education of the day or to the political problems that became each century more pressing. In the Confucian doctrines of loyalty to ruler and piety to parents, a doctrine sanctioned by Heaven and by the customs of all the ancients, Ieyasu, with the insight of a master mind, found just the sanctions he desired. He had the Confucian classics printed--it is said for the first time in Japan--"and the whole intellect of the country became molded by Confucian ideas." The classics, edited with diacritical marks for Japanese students, "formed the chief vehicle of every boy's education." These were interpreted by learned Chinese commentators. The intelligence of the land drank of this stream as the European mind refreshed itself with the classic waters of the Renaissance. The Japanese were weary of Buddhistic puerilities and transcendental doctrines that led nowhere. They demanded sanctions for the moral life and the social order; in response to this need Buddhism gave them Nirvana--absolute mental and moral vacuity. Confucianism gave them principles whose working and whose results they could see and understand. Its sanctions appealed both to the imagination and to the reason, antiquity and learning and piety being all in their favor. The sanctions were also seen to be wholly independent of puerile superstitions and foolish fears. The Confucian ideals and sanctions, moreover, coincided with the essential elements of the old Shinto world-view and sanctions. In a true sense, the doctrines of Confucius were but the elaborated and succinctly stated implications of their primitive faith. Confucianism, therefore, swept the land. _It was _accepted as the groundwork and authority for the most flourishing feudal order the world has ever seen. Japan bloomed again.[DF]

This difference, however, is to be noted between the Shinto ideal social order and the Confucian, or rather that development of Confucian ethics and civics which arose during the Tokugawa Shogunate; Shinto appears to have been, properly speaking, nationalistic, while feudal Confucianism was tribal. Although in Confucian theory the supreme loyalty may have been due the Emperor, in point of fact it was shown to the local daimyo. Confucian ethics was communal and might easily have turned in the direction of national communalism; it would then have coincided completely with Shinto in this respect. But for various reasons it did not so turn, but developed an intensely local, a tribal communalism, and pushed loyalty to the Emperor as a vital reality entirely into the background. This was one of the defects of feudal Confucianism which finally led to its own overthrow. Shinto, as we have seen, had long been pushed aside by Buddhism and was practically forgotten by the people. The zeal for Confucian doctrine brought, therefore, no immediate revival to the Shinto cultus, although it did revive the essential elements of the old communal religion. We might say that the old religion was revived under a new name; having a new name and a new body, the real and vital connection between the two was not recognized. We thus discern how the religious history of Japan was not a series of cataclysms or of disconnected leaps in the dark, but an orderly development, one step naturally following the next, as the sun follows the dawn. The different stages of Japan's religious progress have received different names, because due to specific stimuli brought from abroad; the religious life itself, however, has been a continuous development.

Another difference between Shinto and Confucianism as it existed in Japan should not escape our attention, namely, in regard to their respective world-views. Shinto was confessedly a religion; it frankly believed in gods, whom it worshiped and on whose help it relied. Confucianism, or to use the Japanese name, Bushido, was confessedly agnostic. It did not assume to understand the universe, as Buddhism assumed. Nor did it admit the practical existence of gods or their power in this world, as Shinto believed. It maintained that, "if only the heart follows the way of truth, the gods will protect one even though he does not pray." It laid stress on practical moralities, regardless of their philosophical presumptions, into which it would not probe. When pressed it would ascribe all to "Heaven," and, as we have seen, it had many implications that would lead the inquiring mind to a belief in the personal nature of "Heaven." Had it developed these implications, Bushido would have become a genuine religion. It was indeed a system of ethics touched with emotion, it was religious, but it failed to become the religion it might have become because it insisted on its agnosticism and refused to worship the highest and best it knew.