Chapter II: Part 2

During the dark and dreary Middle Ages which followed this golden period, and which were brought about by the degeneration of the ruling nobles and by the gradually rising power of the military class, Chinese learning fled to the protecting hands of Buddhist priests; and in its quiet refuge within the monastery walls it continued to breathe its humble existence, until it found at the beginning of the sixteenth century a powerful patron in the great founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The education of the common people, too, seems to have been kept up by the monks--a fact still preserved in the word _tera-koya_, 'church seminary,' a term used, until forty years ago, to express the tiny private schools for children. It must be remembered that the education thus given was always of an exclusively secular character, basing itself on the Confucian morals.

Before passing on to the consideration of Laoism, let me say something about the so-called orthodox form of the teaching of Confucius, which is one of the latest developments of that doctrine. Orthodox Confucianism, as represented by the famous Chinese philosopher and commentator of the Confucian canon, Chu-Hsi (1130-1200), found its admirer in a Japanese scholar, Fujiwara-no-Seigwa (1560-1619), who in his youth had joined the priesthood, which however he afterwards renounced. He gave lectures on the Chinese classics at Kyôto. He was held in great esteem by Tokugawa Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa line of Shoguns, who embraced the Chinese system of ethics as preached by Chu-Hsi. During the two hundred and fifty years of the Tokugawa rule, this system, under the hereditary direction of the descendants of Hayashi Razan (1583-1657), one of the most distinguished disciples of Seigwa, was recognised as the established doctrine.

According to the somewhat hazy ideas of Chu-Hsi's philosophy, which I ask your permission to sketch here on account of the high public esteem in which we have held them for the last three centuries, the ultimate basis of the universe is Infinity, or _Tai Kieh_, which, though containing within itself all the germs of all forms of existence and excellence, is utterly void of form or sensible qualities. It consists of two qualities, _li_ and _chi_, which may be roughly rendered into 'force-element' and 'matter-element.' These are self-existences, are present in all things, and are found in their formation. The 'force-element,' or _li_, we are told, is the perfection of heavenly virtue. It is in inanimate things as well as in man and other animate beings, and pervades all space. The 'matter-element,' or _chi_, is endowed with the male and the female principles, or positive and negative polarities, as we might call them. It is, moreover, characterised by the five constituent qualities of _wood_, _fire_, _earth_, _metal_, and _water_. Hence its other name, _Wu-hsieng_, or 'Five Qualities.'

Things and animals, except human beings, get only portions of the force-element, but man receives it in full, and this becomes in his person _sing_, or real human nature. He has thus within him the perfect mirror of the heavenly virtue and complete power of understanding. There is no difference in this respect between a sage and an ordinary man. To both the force-element is uniformly given. But the matter-element, from which is derived his form and material existence, and which constitutes the basis of his mental disposition, is different in quality in different men.

Man's real nature, or _sing_, although originally perfect, becomes affected on entering into him, or is modified by his mental disposition, which differs according to the different state of the matter-element. Thus a second nature is formed out of the original. It is through this second and tainted human nature that man acts well or ill. When a man does evil, that is the result of his mental disposition covering or interfering with his original perfect nature. Wipe this vapour of corrupted thought from the surface of your mental mirror and it will shine out as brightly as if it had never been covered by a temporary mist.[9]

[9] Cp. T. Haga's _Note on Japanese Schools of Philosophy. T.A.S.J._, vol. xx. pt. i. p. 134.

Synoptically expressed and applied to the microcosm Chu-Hsi's system will be as follows:--

MAN
{Force-Element=_Original Nature of Man_.
Different Human Characters.
Infinity
{Male-Principle }Wood-quality.
}Fire- "
{Matter-Element }Earth-"
}Metal-"
{Female-Principle}Water-"
_Dispositions latent in Matter._

Such is, in its outline, Chu-Hsi's view, which received the sanction of the ruling Tokugawa family. But it was not without its opponents in Japan as well as in China. Already in his own time, Lu-Shang-Shan (b. 1140 A.D.) maintained, in opposition to the high-sounding erudition of Chu-Hsi, that the purification of the heart was the first and main point of study.[10] The same protest was more systematically urged against it by his great follower, Wang Yang-ming (1472-1528 A.D.), who found warm and able admirers in Japan in such scholars as Nakae Tôju (1603-1678), Kumazawa Hanzan (1619-1691), and Oshio Chûsai (1794-1837). Among other great opponents of the orthodox philosophy, such names as Itô Jinsai (1625-1706) and his son Tôgai (1670-1736), Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714), Ogyû Sorai (1666-1728), are to be mentioned. These scholars, getting their fundamental ideas from other Chinese thinkers, and eager to remain faithful to the true spirit of Confucianism itself, pointed out many inconsistencies in Chu-Hsi's theory, and were of the opinion that more real good was to be achieved in proceeding straight to action under the guidance of conscience which was heaven and all, than in indulging in idle talk about the subtlety of human nature.

[10] Faber's _Doctrines of Confucius_, p. 33.

The philosophy of Chu-Hsi, although he calls himself the true exponent of Confucianism, is not at all Confucian. It is greatly indebted to Buddhism and Taoism, or better, Laoism, that is to say, to the philosophy originated by Lao-tze (b. 604 B.C.), one of the greatest thinkers that China has ever produced. Since Laoism, through the wonderful _Tao-teh-king_, a small book by Lao-tze himself, but especially through _Chwang-tze_, a work in ten books by his famous follower Chwang-chow, has exercised considerable influence on our thought for twelve centuries, a word about it may not be out of place before we go on to consider the doctrine of Shâkya-muni.

In Lao-tze we find the perfect opposite of Confucius, both in the turn of his mind and in his views and methods of saving the world. Lao-tze endeavoured to reform humanity by warning them to cast off all human artifice and to return to nature. This may be taken as the whole tenor of his doctrine: Do not try to do anything with your petty will, because it is the way to hinder and spoil the spontaneous growth of the true virtue that permeates the universe. To follow Nature's dictates, while helping it to develop itself, is the very course sanctioned and followed by all the sages worthy of the name. Make away with your 'Ego' and learn to value simplicity and humiliation; for in total 'altruism' exists the completion of self, and in humble contentment and yielding pliancy are to be found real grandeur and true strength. Under the title 'Dimming Radiance' he says:[11]--

'Heaven endures and earth is lasting. And why can heaven and earth
endure and be lasting? Because they do not live for themselves. On
that account can they endure.

'Therefore the True Man puts his person behind and his person comes
to the front. He surrenders his person and his person is preserved.
Is it not because he seeks not his own? For that reason he
accomplishes his own.'

Again we hear him 'Discoursing on Virtue':--

'Superior virtue is non-virtue. Therefore it has Virtue. Inferior
virtue never loses sight of virtue. Therefore it has no virtue.
Superior virtue is non-assertive and without pretension. Inferior
virtue asserts and makes pretensions.'

[11] Cp. Dr. P. Carus's _Lao-tze Tao-teh-king_.

He talks about 'Returning to Simplicity':

'Quit the so-called saintliness; leave the so-called wisdom alone;
and the people's gain will be increased by a hundredfold.

`Abandon the so-called mercy; put away the so-called righteousness;
and the people will return to filial devotion and paternal love.

`Abandon your scheming; put away your devices; and thieves and
robbers will no longer exist.'

Such is the general purport of the doctrine expounded by Lao-tze. It is well to remember that this doctrine, which we may call for distinction's sake Laoism, has intrinsically very little to do with that form of belief now so prevalent among the Chinese, and which is known under the name of Taoism. Although this name itself is derived from Lao-tze's own word _Tao_, meaning Reason or True Path, and although the followers of Taoism see in the great philosopher its first revealer, it is in all probability nothing more than a new aspect and new appellation assumed by that aboriginal Chinese cult which was based on nature- and ancestor-worship. Ever since their appearance in history the Chinese have had their belief in Shang-ti, in spirits, and in natural agencies. This cult found, at an early date, in the mystic interpretation and solution of life as expressed by Lao-tze and his followers, the means of fresh development. The philosophical ideas of these thinkers were not properly understood, and words and phrases mostly metaphorical were construed in such a manner that they came to mean something quite different from what the original writers wished to suggest. Such an idea, for instance, as the deathlessness of a True Man by virtue of his incorporation with the grand Truth _Tao_ that pervades Heaven and Earth, breathing in the eternity of the universe, was easily misinterpreted in a very matter-of-fact manner, _e.g._, anybody who realised _Tao_ could then enjoy the much-wished-for freedom from actual death. You see how easy it is for an ordinary mind to pass from one to the other when it hears Chwang-tze say:--

'Fire cannot burn him who is perfect in virtue, nor water drown
him; neither cold nor heat can affect him injuriously; neither bird
nor beast can hurt him.'[12]

Or again:--

'Though heaven and earth were to be overturned and fall, they would
occasion him no loss. His judgment is fixed on that in which there
is no element of falsehood, and while other things change, he
changes not.'[13]

[12] Cp. _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxix.

[13] Cp. _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxix.

We want no great flight of imagination therefore to follow the traces of development of the present form of Taoism with its occult aspects. The eternity attributed to a True Man in its Laoist sense begot the idea of a deathless man in flesh and blood endowed with all kinds of supernatural powers. This in turn produced the notion that these superhuman beings knew some secret means to preserve their life and could work other wonders. Herbalism, alchemy, geomancy, and other magic arts owe their origin to this fountain-head of primitive superstition.

There is little room for reasonable doubt that in this way Taoism, although the name itself was of later development, has been in its main features the religion of China _par excellence_ from the very dawn of its history. It has from the beginning found a congenial soil in the heart of the Chinese people, who still continue to embrace the cult with great enthusiasm, and in whose helpless credulity the Taoist priests of to-day, borrowing much help from the occult sides of Buddhism and Hinduism, still find an easy prey for their necromantic arts.

Not so with Laoism. One may well wonder how such an uncongenial doctrine ever came to spring from the soil of materialistic China. Some suggest that Lao-tze was a Brahman, and not a Chinese at all. Another explanation of this anomaly is to be found in the attempted division of the whole Chinese civilisation into two geographically distinct groups, the rigid Northern and the more romantic Southern types: Laoism belonging to the latter, while Confucianism belongs to the former. In any case, the resemblance in many respects between the doctrine introduced by Lao-tze and the higher form of Buddhism is very striking. Let me take this opportunity of saying something about the religion of Shâkya-muni, which has occupied our mind and heart for the past fifteen centuries.

But, first of all, let me say that I am not unaware of the absurdity of trying to give you anything like a fair idea of a many-sided and extremely complicated system of human belief such as Buddhism in the short space which is at my disposal. Very far from it. Even a brief summary of its main features would take an able speaker at least a couple of hours. So I humbly confine myself to giving you some hints on the belief, about which most of you, I presume, have already had occasion to hear something, the religion which took its origin among the people who claim their descent from the same Aryan stock to which you yourselves belong. Those who would care to read about it will find an excellent supply of knowledge in two little books called _Buddhism_ and _Buddhism in China_, written respectively by Dr. Rhys Davids and the late Rev. S. Beal, not to mention the late Sir Monier Williams' standard work. A perusal of the Rev. A. Lloyd's paper read before the Asiatic Society of Japan in 1894, entitled 'Developments of Japanese Buddhism,' is very desirable. There are also two chapters devoted to this doctrine in Lafcadio Hearn's last work, _Japan_. This enumeration might almost exempt me from making any attempt to describe it myself.

Buddhism has, to begin with, two distinct forms, philosophical and popular, which may practically be taken as two different religions. Philosophical Buddhism--or at least the truest form of it--is a system based upon the recognition of the utter impermanency of the phenomenal world in all its forms and states. It believes in no God or gods whatever as a personal motive power. The only thing eternal is matter, or essence of matter, with the Karma, or Law of cause and effect, dwelling incorporated in it. Through the never-ceasing working of this law innumerable forms of existence develop, which, notwithstanding the appearance of stability they temporarily assume, are, in consequence of the action and reaction of the very law to which they owe their existence, constantly subject to everlasting changes. Constancy is nowhere to be found in this universe of phenomena. It is therefore an act of unspeakable ignorance on the part of human beings, themselves a product of the immutable Karma, to attach a constant value to this dreamy world and allow themselves to lose their mental harmony in the quest of shadowy desires and of their shadowy satisfaction, thus plunging themselves into the boundless sea of misery. True salvation is to be sought in the complete negation of egoism and in the unconditional absorption of ourselves in the fundamental law of the universe. Shâkya-muni was no more than one of a series of teachers whose mission it is to show us how to get rid of our fatal ignorance of this grand truth, an ignorance which is at the root of all the discontent and misery of our selfish existence.

Very different from this is the aspect assumed by the popular form of Buddhism. This is a system built up on the blind worship of personified psychic phenomena, originally meant merely as convenient symbols for their better contemplation, and in the transformation of the human teachers of truth into so many personal gods. This is the reason why Buddhism, so essentially atheistic, has come to be regarded by the ordinary Christian mind as polytheism, or as a degraded form of idolatry.

Now, in all the many sects of Buddhism which have been planted in the soil of Japan since the middle of the seventh century, some of which soon withered, while others took deep root and grew new branches, these two phases have always been recognised and utilised in their proper sphere as means of salvation. For the populace there was the lower Buddhism, while the more elevated classes found satisfaction in the higher form and in an explanation of that True Path which lies hidden beneath the complicated symbolic system.

Of the sects which have exercised great influence on Japanese mentality, the following are specially to be mentioned: the Tendai, the Shingon, the Zen, the Hokke, and the Jodo, with its offspring the Ikkô sect. Each of these chose its own means of reaching enlightenment from among those indicated by Shâkya-muni, but did not on that account entirely reject the means of salvation preferred by the others. Some give long lists of categories and antitheses, and seek to define the truth with a more than Aristotelian precision of detail, while others think it advisable to realise it by dint of faith alone. But among these means of salvation the practice advocated by the Zen sect is worthy of special consideration in this place, as it has exercised great influence in the formation of the Japanese spirit. _Zen_ means 'abstraction,' standing for the Sanskrit Dhyâna. It is one of the six means of arriving at Nirvâna, namely, (1) charity; (2) morality; (3) patience; (4) energy; (5) contemplation; and (6) wisdom. This practice, which dates from a time anterior to Shâkya himself, consists of an 'abstract contemplation,' intended to destroy all attachment to existence in thought and wish. From the earliest time Buddhists taught four different degrees of abstract contemplation by which the mind frees itself from all subjective and objective trammels, until it reaches a state of absolute indifference or self-annihilation of thought, perception, and will.[14]

[14] E. J. Eitel's _Handbook of Chinese Buddhism_, p. 49.

You might perhaps wonder how a method so utterly unpractical and speculative as that of trying to arrive at final enlightenment by pure contemplation could ever have taken root in Japan, among a people who, generally speaking, have never troubled themselves much about things apart from their actual and immediate use. An explanation of this is not far to seek. Eisai, the founder of the Rinzai school, the branch of the Contemplative sect first established on our soil, came back to Japan from his second visit to China in 1192 A.D.[15] This was the time when the short-lived rule of the Minamoto clan (1186-1219) was nearing the end of its real supremacy. Only fifteen years before that the world had seen the downfall of another mighty clan. The battle of Dannoura put an end to the Heike ascendancy after an incessant series of desperate battles extending over a century, giving our soldier-like qualities enough occasion for an excellent schooling. The whole country during this period had been under the raging sway of Mars, who swept with his fiery breath the blossoms of human prosperity, and the people high and low were obliged to recognise the folly of clinging to shadowy desires and to learn the urgent necessity for facing every emergency with something akin to indifference. To pass from glowing life into the cold grasp of death with a smile, to meet the hardest decrees of fate with the resolute calm of stoic fortitude, was the quality demanded of every man and woman in that stormy age. In the meanwhile, different military clans had been forming themselves in different parts of Japan and preparing to wage an endless series of furious battles against one another. In half a century too came the one solitary invasion of our whole history when a foreign power dared to threaten us with destruction. The mighty Kublei, grandson of the great Genghis Khan, haughty with his resistless army, whose devastating intrepidity taught even Europe to tremble at the mention of his name, despatched an embassy to the Japanese court to demand the subjection of the country. The message was referred to Kamakura, then the seat of the Hôjô regency, and was of course indignantly dismissed. Enraged at this, Kublei equipped a large number of vessels with the choicest soldiers China could furnish. The invading force was successful at first, and committed massacres in Iki and Tsushima, islands lying between Corea and Japan. The position was menacing; even the steel nerves of the trained Samurai felt that strange thrill a patriot knows. Shinto priests and Buddhist monks were equally busy at their prayers. A new embassy came from the threatening Mongol leader. The imperious ambassadors were taken to Kamakura, to be put to death as an unmistakable sign of contemptuous refusal. A tremendous Chinese fleet gathered in the boisterous bay of Genkai in the summer of 1281. At last the evening came with the ominous glow on the horizon that foretells an approaching storm. It was the plan of the conquering army victoriously to land the next morning on the holy soil of Kyûshû. But during this critical night a fearful typhoon, known to this day as the 'Divine Storm,' arose, breaking the jet-black sky with its tremendous roar of thunder and bathing the glittering armour of our soldiers guarding the coastline in white flashes of dazzling light. The very heaven and earth shook before the mighty anger of nature. The result was that the dawn of the next morning saw the whole fleet of the proud Yuan, that had darkened the water for miles, swept completely away into the bottomless sea of Genkai, to the great relief of the horror-stricken populace, and to the unspeakable disappointment of our determined soldiers. Out of the hundred thousand warriors who manned the invading ships, only three are recorded to have survived the destruction to tell the dismal tale to their crestfallen great Khan!

[15] Four years later the first temple of this school was opened in Hakata under the patronship of the Emperor Gotoba.

Then after a short interval of a score of peaceful years, Japan was plunged again into another series of internal disturbances, from which she can hardly be said to have emerged until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when order and rest were brought back by the able hand of Tokugawa Iyeyasu. During all these troublous days, the original Contemplative sect, paralleled soon after its establishment in Japan by a new school called _Sôtô_, as it was again supplemented by another, the _Ôbaku_ school, five centuries afterwards, found ample material to propagate its special method of enlightenment. This sect, which drew its patrons from the ruling classes of Japan, was unanimously looked up to as best calculated to impart the secret power of perfect self-control and undisturbable peace of mind. It must be remembered that the ultimate riddance in the Buddhist sense, the entrance into cold Nirvâna, was not what our practical mind wanted to realise. It was the stoic indifference, enabling man to meet after a moment's thought, or almost instinctively, any hardships that human life might impose, that had brought about its otherwise strange popularity.

Another charm it offered to the people of the illiterate Middle Ages, when they had to attend to other things than a leisurely pursuit of literature, was its systematic neglect of book-learning. Truth was to be directly read from heart to heart. The intervention of words and writing was regarded as a hindrance to its true understanding. A rudimentary symbolism expressed by gestures was all that a Zen priest really relied upon for the communication of the doctrine. Everybody with a heart to feel and a mind to understand needed nothing further to begin and finish his quest of the desired freedom from life's everlasting torments.

The self-control that enables us not to betray our inner feeling through a change in our expression, the measured steps with which we are taught to walk into the hideous jaws of death--in short, all those qualities which make a present Japanese of truly Japanese type look strange, if not queer, to your eyes, are in a most marked degree a product of that direct or indirect influence on our past mentality which was exercised by the Buddhist doctrine of Dhyâna taught by the Zen priests.

Another benefit which the Zen sect conferred on us is the healthy influence it exercised on our taste. The love of nature and the desire of purity that we had shown from the earliest days of our history, took, under the leading idea of the Contemplative sect, a new development, and began to show that serene dislike of loudness of form and colour. That apparent simplicity with a fulness of meaning behind it, like a Dhyâna symbol itself, which we find so pervadingly manifested in our works of art, especially in those of the Ashikaga period (1400-1600 A.D.), is certainly to be counted among the most valuable results which the Zen doctrine quickened us to produce.

In short, so far-reaching is the influence of the Contemplative sect on the formation of the Japanese spirit as you find it at present, that an adequate interpretation of its manifestations would be out of the question unless based on a careful study of this branch of Buddhism. So long as the Zen sect is not duly considered, the whole set of phenomena peculiar to Japan--from the all-pervading laconism to the hara-kiri--will remain a sealed book.

This fact is my excuse for having detained you for so long on the subject.

I now pass on to the consideration of our own native cult.

Shinto, or the 'Path of the Gods,' is the name by which we distinguish the body of our national belief from Buddhism, Christianity, or any other form of religion. It is remarkable that this appellation, like Nippon (which corresponds to your word Japan), is no purely Japanese term. Buddhism is called Buppô (from _Butsu_, Buddha, and _hô_, doctrine) or Bukkyô (_kyô_, teaching); Confucianism is known as Jukyô (_Ju_, literati); and both terms are taken from the Chinese. In keeping with these we have Shinto (_Shin_, deity, and _to_, way). This state of things in some measure explains the rather unstable condition in which Buddhism on its first arrival found our national cult. It has ever since remained in its main aspects nothing more than a form of ancestor-worship based on the central belief in the divine origin of the imperial line. A systematised creed it never was and has never become, even if we take into consideration the attempts at its consolidation made by such scholars as Yamazaki-Ansai (1618-1682), who in the middle of the seventeenth century tried to formalise it in accordance with Chu-Hsi's philosophy, or, later still, by such eager revivalists as Hirata-Atsutane (1776-1843), etc. At the time when Shintoism had to meet its mighty foe from India, its whole mechanism was very simple. It consisted in a number of primitive rites, such as the recital of the liturgy, the offering of eatables to the departed spirits of deified ancestors, patriarchal, tribal, or national. This naïve cult was as innocent of the cunning ideas and subtle formalisms of the rival creed as its shrines were free from the decorations and equipments of an Indian temple. So, although at the start Buddhism met with some obstinate resistance at the hand of the Shintoists, who attributed the visitations of pestilence that followed the introduction of the foreign belief to the anger of the native gods, its superiority in organisation soon overcame these difficulties; especially from the time when the great Buddhist priest Kûkai (774-835 A.D.) hit upon the ingenious but mischievous idea of solving the dilemma by the establishment of what is generally known in our history as Ryôbu-Shinto, or double-faced Shinto. According to this doctrine, a Shinto god was to be regarded as an incarnation of a corresponding Indian deity, who made his appearance in Japan through metamorphosis for Japan's better salvation--a doctrine which is no more than a clever application of the notion known in India as Nirmanakâya. This incarnation theory opened a new era in the history of the expansion of Buddhism in Japan, extending over a period of eleven centuries, during which Shintoism was placed in a very awkward position. It was at last restored to its original purity at the beginning of the present Meiji period, and that only after a century of determined endeavour on the part of native Shintoist scholars.

From these words you might perhaps conclude that Buddhism succeeded in supplanting the native cult, at least for more than a thousand years. But, strange to say, if we judge the case not by outward appearances, but by the religious conviction that lurks in the depth of the heart, we cannot but recognise the undeniable fact that no real conversion has ever been achieved during the past eleven centuries by the doctrine of Buddha. Our actual self, notwithstanding the different clothes we have put on has ever remained true in its spirit to our native cult. Speaking generally, we are still Shintoists to this day--Buddhists, Christians, and all--so long as we are born Japanese. This might sound to you somewhat paradoxical. Here is the explanation:--

For an average Japanese mind in present Japan, thanks to the ancestor-worship practised consciously or unconsciously from time immemorial, it is not altogether easy to imagine the spirit of the deceased, if it believes in one at all, to be something different and distant from our actual living self. The departed, although invisible, are thought to be leading their ethereal life in the same world in much the same state as that to which they had been accustomed while on earth. Like the little child so touchingly described by Wordsworth, we cannot see why we should not count the so-called dead still among the existing. The difference between the two is that of tangibility or visibility, but nothing more.

The _raison d'être_ of this illusive notion is, of course, not far to seek. Any book on anthropology or ethnology would tell you how sleep, trance, dream, hallucination, reflection in still water, etc., help to build up the spirit-world in the untaught mind of primitive man. Yet it must be remembered that these origins have led to something far higher, to something of real value to our nation, and to something which is a moral force in our daily lives that may well be compared to what is efficacious in other creeds. Notice the fact that Buddhism from the moment of its introduction in the sixth century after Christ to this very day has on the whole remained the religion, so to say, of night and gloomy death, while Shintoism has always retained its firm hold on the popular mind as the cult, if I might so express it, of daylight and the living dead. From the very dawn of our history we read of patriarchs, chieftains, and national heroes deified and worshipped as so many guardian spirits of families, of clans, or of the country. Nor has this process of deification come to an end yet, even in this age of airship and submarine boat. We continue to erect shrines to men of merit. This may look very strange to you, but is not your poet Swinburne right when he sings--

'Whoso takes the world's life on him and his own
lays down,
He, dying so, lives.'

Might not these lines explain, when duly extended, the subtle feeling that lurks behind our apparently incomprehensible custom of speaking with the departed over the altar? The present deification, is, like your custom of erecting monuments to men of merit, a way of making the best part of a man's career legible to the coming generations. The numberless shrines you now find scattered all over Japan are only so many chapters written in unmistakable characters of the lessons our beloved and revered heroes and good men have left us for our edification and amelioration. It is in the sunny space within the simple railing of these Shinto shrines, where the smiling presence of the patron spirit of a deified forefather or a great man is so clearly felt, that our childhood has played for tens of centuries its games of innocent joy. Monthly and yearly festivals are observed within the divine enclosure of a guardian god, when a whole community under his protection let themselves go in good-natured laughter and gleeful mirth before the favouring eyes of their divine patron. How different is this jovial feeling from that gloomy sensation with which we approach a Buddhist temple, recalling death and the misery of life from every corner of its mysterious interior. Such seriousness has never been congenial to the gay Japanese mind with its strong love of openness and light. Until death stares us right in the face, we do not care to be religious in the ordinary sense of the term. True, we say and think that we believe in death, but all the while this so-called death is nothing else than a new life in this present world of ours led in a supernatural way. For instance, when the father of a Japanese family begins a journey of any length, the raised part of his room will be made sacred to his memory during his temporary absence; his family will gather in front of it and think of him, expressing their devotion and love in words and gifts in kind. In the hundreds of thousands of families that have some one or other of their members fighting for the nation in this dreadful war with Russia, there will not be even one solitary house where the mother, wife, or sister is not practising this simple rite of endearment for the beloved and absent member of the family. And if he die on the field, the mental attitude of the poor bereaved towards the never-returning does not show any substantial difference. The temporarily departed will now be regarded as the forever departed, but not as lost or passed away. His essential self is ever present, only not visible. Daily offerings and salutations continue in exactly the same way as when he was absent for a time. Even in the mind of the modern Japanese with its extremely agnostic tendencies, there is still one corner sacred to this inherited feeling. You could sooner convince an ordinary European of the non-existence of a personal God. When it gets dusk every bird knows whither to wing its way home. Even so with us all when the night of Death spreads its dark folds over our mortal mind!

But ask a modern Japanese of ordinary education in the broad daylight of life, if he believes in a God in the Christian sense; or in Buddha as the creator; or in the Shinto deities; or else in any other personal agency or agencies, as originating and presiding over the universe; and you would immediately get an answer in the negative in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. Do you ask why? First, because our school education throughout its whole course has, ever since its re-establishment thirty-five years ago, been altogether free from any teaching of a denominational nature. The ethical foundations necessary for the building up of character are imparted through an adequate commentary on the moral sayings and maxims derived mostly from Chinese classics. Secondly, because the little knowledge about natural science which we obtain at school seems to make it impossible to anchor our rational selves on anything other than an impersonal law. Thirdly, because we do not see any convincing reason why morals should be based on the teaching of a special denomination, in face of the fact that we can be upright and brave without the help of a creed with a God or deities at its other end. So, for the average mind of the educated Japanese something like modern scientific agnosticism, with a strong tendency towards the materialistic monism of recent times, is just what pleases and satisfies it most.

If not so definitely thought out, and if expressed with much less learned terminology, the thought among our educated classes as regards supernatural agencies has during the past three centuries been much the same. The Confucian warning against meddling with things supernatural, the atheistic views and hermit-like conduct of the adherents of Laoism, and the higher Buddhism, all contributed towards the consolidation of this mental attitude with a conscious or unconscious belief in the existing spirit-world. Except for the philosophy which they knew how to utilise for their practical purposes, the educated felt no charm in religion. The lower form of Buddhism with its pantheon has been held as something only for the aged and the weak. For the execution of the religious rites, at funerals or on other occasions (except in the rare instances when some families for a special reason of their own preferred the Shintoist form), we have unanimously drawn on the Buddhist priesthood, just in the same way as you go to your family doctor or attorney in case of a bodily or legal complication, knowing well that religion as we have understood it is something as much outside the pale of the layman as medicine and law.

For the proper conduct of our daily life as members of society, the body of Confucian morality resting on the tripod of loyalty, filial piety, and honesty, has been the only standard which high and low have alike recognised. These ethical ideals, when embraced by that formidable warrior caste who played such an important part in feudal Japan, form the code of unwritten morality known among us as Bushido, which means the Path of the Samurai. This last word, which has found its way into your language, is the substantival derivative from the verb _samurau_ (to serve), and, like its English counterpart 'knight' (Old English _cniht_), has raised itself from its original sense of a retainer (cp. German _Knecht_) to the meaning in which it is now used. To be a Samurai in the true sense of the word has been the highest aspiration of a Japanese. Your term 'gentleman,' when understood in its best sense, would convey to you an approximate idea if you added a dash of soldier blood to it. Rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, veracity, loyalty, and a predominating sense of honour--these are the chief colours with which a novelist in the days of yore used to paint an ideal Samurai; and his list of desirable qualities was not considered complete without a well-developed body and an expression of the face that was manly but in no way brutal. No special stress was at first laid on the cultivation of thinking power and book-learning, though they were not altogether discouraged; it was thought that these accomplishments might develop other qualities detrimental to the principal character, such as sophistry or pedantry. To have good sense enough to keep his name honourable, and to act instead of talking cleverly, was the chief ambition of a Samurai.

But this view gradually became obscured. It lost its fearful rigidity in course of time, as the world became more and more sure of a lasting peace. Literature and music have gradually added softening touches to its somewhat brusque features.

It must, however, be always remembered that the keynote of Bushido was from the very beginning an indomitable sense of honour. This was all in all to the mind of the Samurai, whose sword at his side reminded him at every movement of the importance of his good name. The care with which he preserved it reached in some cases to a pathetic extreme; he preferred, for example, an instant suicide to a reputation on which doubt had been cast, however falsely. The very custom of seppuku (better known as hara-kiri), a form of suicide not known in early Japan,[16] is an outcome of this love of an unstained name, originating, in my opinion, in the metaphorical use of the word _hara_ (abdomen), which was the supposed organ for the begetting of ideas. In consequence of this curious localisation of the thinking faculty, the word _hara_ came to denote at the same time intention or idea. Therefore, in cutting open (_kiru_) his abdomen, a person whose motives had come to be suspected meant to show that his inside was free from any trace of ideas not worthy of a Samurai. This explanation is, I think, amply sustained by the constant use to this very day of the word _hara_ in the sense of one's ideas.

[16] The first mention in books of a similar mode of death dates from the latter part of the twelfth century. But it does not seem that the custom became universal until a considerably later period.

So Bushido, as you will now see, was itself but a manifestation of those same forces already at work in the formation of Japanese thought, like Buddhism, Confucianism, etc. But as it has played a most important part in the development of modern Japan, I thought it more proper to consider it as an independent factor in the history of our civilisation. Had it not been for this all-daring spirit of Bushido, Japan would never have been able to make the gigantic progress which she has been achieving in these last forty years. As soon as our ports were flung open to the reception of Western culture, Samurai, now deeply conscious of their new mission, took leave of those stern but faithful friends, their beloved swords, not without much reluctance, even as did Sir Bedivere, in order to take up the more peaceful pen, which they were determined to wield with the same knightly spirit. It is, in short, Bushido that has urged our Japan on for the last three centuries, and will continue to urge her on, on forever, onward to her ideals of the true, the good, and the beautiful. Look to the spot where every Japanese sabre and every Japanese bayonet is at present pointing with its icy edge of determined patriotism in the dreary fields of Manchuria, or think of the intrepid heroes on our men-of-war and our torpedo-boats amid blinding snowstorms and the glare of hostile searchlights, and your eyes will invariably end at the magic Path of the Samurai.

Having thus far followed my enumeration of the various factors in the formation of the present thought in Japan, some of you might perhaps be curious to know what Christianity has contributed towards the general stock of modern Japanese mentality.

It must surely have exercised a very healthy influence on our mind since its re-introduction at the beginning of the present Meiji period. Some have indeed gone so far as to say that we owe the whole success we have up to now achieved in this remarkable war to the holy inspiration we drew from the teaching of Jesus Christ.

I indorse this opinion to its full extent, but only if we are to understand by His teaching that whole body of truth and love which are of the essence of Christianity, and which we used in former days to call by other names, such as Bushido, Confucianism, etc. But if you insist on having it understood in a narrow sectarian sense, with a personal God and rigid formalities as its main features, then I should say that I cannot agree with you, for this Christianity occupies rather an awkward place in our Japanese mind, finding itself somewhere between the national worship of the living dead, and modern agnosticism, or scientific monism. In our earlier fishery for new knowledge in the Western seas, fish other than those fit for our table were caught and dressed along with some really nourishing; the result was disastrous, and we gradually came to learn more caution than at first. The Roman Catholics, more enthusiastic than discreet, committed wholesale outrages on our harmless ways of faith in the early days of the seventeenth century, which did much to leave in bad repute the creed of Jesus Christ. And since the prohibition against Christianity was removed, many a missionary has been so particular about the plate in which the truth is served as to make us doubt, with reason, if that be the spirit of the immortal Teacher. The truth and poetry that breathe in your Gospels have been too often paraphrased in the senseless prose of mere formalism. Otherwise Christianity would have rendered us better help in our eternal march towards the ideal emancipation.

There remains still one highly important thing to be considered as a formative element of the Japanese spirit. I mean the landscape and the physical aspects of Japan in general.

It is well known that an intimate connection exists between the mind and the nature which surrounds it. A moment's consideration of the development of Hellenic sculpture and of the Greek climate, or of the Teutonic mythology and the physical condition of Northern Europe, will bring conviction on that point. Is not the effect of the blue sky on Italian painting, and the influence of the dusky heaven on the, pictorial art of the Netherlands, clearly traceable in the productions of the old masters? A study of London psychology at the present moment will never be complete without special chapters on your open spaces and your fogs.

In order to convey anything like an adequate idea of the physical aspects of Japan from the geographical and meteorological points of view, it would be necessary to furnish a detailed account of the country, with a long list of statistical tables and the ample help of lantern slides. But on this occasion I must be content with naming some of the typical features of our surroundings.

Japan, as you know, is a long and narrow series of islands, stretching from frigid Kamchatka in the north to half-tropical Formosa in the south. The whole country is mountainous, with comparatively little flat land, and is perforated with a great number of volcanoes, the active ones alone numbering above fifty at present. With this is connected the annoying frequency of earthquakes, and the agreeable abundance of thermal springs--two phenomena that cannot remain without effect on the people's character.

There are two other natural agencies to be mentioned in this connection. One is the Kuro-shio, or Black Stream, so called on account of the deep black colour which the ocean current displays in cloudy weather. This warm ocean river, having a temperature of 27° centigrade in summer, begins its course in the tropical regions near the Philippine Islands, and on reaching the southern isles is divided by them into two unequal parts. The greater portion of it skirts the Japanese islands on their eastern coast, imparting to them that warm and moist atmosphere which is one source of the fertility of the soil and the beauty of the vegetation. The effect of the Kuro-shio upon the climate and productions of the lands along which it flows may be fairly compared with that of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean, which in situation, direction, and volume it resembles. To this most noticeable cause of the climatic condition of the Japanese islands must be added another agency closely related to it in its effect. Our archipelago lies in the region of the northeast monsoon, which affects in a marked degree the climate of all those parts over which the winds blow. Although the same monsoon blows over the eastern countries of the Asiatic continent, the insular character of Japan, and the proximity of the above-mentioned warm current on both sides of the islands, give to the winds which prevail a character they do not possess on the continent.

Although the effect of the chill and frost of the northern part of Japan, with its heavy snowfall and covered sky, cannot be without its depressing influence on human nature in that part of the island, this has not played any serious role in the formation of the Japanese character as a whole. It is only at a rather recent date that the northern provinces began to contribute their share to the general progress of the country. This can very easily be explained by the gradual advance of Japanese civilisation from the southwest to the northeast. Until comparatively lately the colder region of Japan north of the 37th degree of latitude has remained very nearly inactive in our history. It is almost exclusively in the more sunny south, extending down to the 31st degree, that the main activity of the Japanese mind and hand has been shown. And the effect is the sunniness of character and rather hot temperament which we, as a whole, share in a marked degree with the southern Europeans, as contrasted with the somewhat gloomy calm and deliberation noticed both among oriental and occidental northerners.

Notwithstanding the comparatively high amount of rainfall, the fact remains that as a nation we have spent most of our life under the serene canopy of blue sky characteristic of a volcanic country. Mountains, graceful rather than sublime, and fertile plains with rich verdure, its beauties changing slowly from the white blossoms of spring to the crimson leaves of autumn, have afforded us many welcome sights to rest our eyes upon; while the azure stretch of water, broken agreeably by scattered isles, washes to-day as it did in the days of the gods the white shore, rendered conspicuous by the everlasting green of the pine trees, which skirts the Land of the Rising Sun.

The winter, though it begins its dreary course with a short period of warm days known as the Little Spring, is of course not without its bleak mornings with cutting winds and icy wreaths. But the fact that even as far north as Tôkyô no elaborate system of warming rooms is at all developed, and that the occasional falling of snow is hailed even by aged men of letters, and still more by the numerous poetasters, as a fit occasion for a pedestrian excursion to some neighboring localities for a better appreciation of the silvery world, serves to show how mild the cold is in south Japan.

A people on whom the surrounding nature always smiles so indulgently can be little expected to be driven to turn their thoughts in the direction of their own self, and thus to develop such a strong sense of individuality as characterises the rigid northerners; nor are the nations panting under a scorching sun likely to share our friendly feelings towards nature, for with them Father Sun is too rigorous to allow a peaceful enjoyment of his works.

All through the four seasons, which are almost too varied even for a Thomson's pen, eventful with the constant calls of one after another of our flowery visitors--beginning with the noble plum that peeps with its tiny yellowish-white eyes from under the spotless repose of fleecy snow, and ending in the gay variety of the chrysanthemum--we have too many allurements from outside not to leap into the widespread arms of Mother Nature and dream away our simple, our contented life in her lap. True, there also are in Japan many instances of broken hearts seeking their final rest under the green turf of an untimely grave, or else in the grey mantle of the Buddhist monkhood. But in them, again, we see the characteristic determination and action of a Japanese at work. To indulge in Hamlet-like musing, deep in the grand doubt and sublime melancholy of the never-slumbering question 'To be, or not to be?' is something, so to say, too damp to occur in the sunny thought of our open-air life.

If asked to name the most conspicuous of those physical phenomena which have exercised so great an influence on our mind, no Japanese will hesitate to mention our most beloved Fuji-no-yama. This is the highest and the most beautiful of all the great mountains in the main group of the Japanese islands. Gracefully conical in shape, lifting its snowclad head against a serene background 12,365 feet above the sea, it has from the earliest time been the object of unceasing admiration for the surrounding thirteen provinces, and where it stands out of the reach of the naked eye, winged words from the poet's lyre, and flying leaves from the artist's brush, have carried its never-tiring praise to all the nooks and corners of the Land of the Gods.

Here is one of the earliest odes to Fujiyama, contained in a collection of lyrical poems called Man-yô-shû, or 'Myriad Leaves,' by Prince Moroe (died A.D. 757), somewhere in the first half of the eighth century:--

There on the border, where the land of Kahi
Doth touch the frontier of Suruga's land,
A beauteous province stretched on either hand,
See Fujiyama rear his head on high!

The clouds of heav'n in rev'rent wonder pause,
Nor may the birds those giddy heights essay,
Where melt thy snows amid thy fires away,
Or thy fierce fires lie quench'd beneath thy snows.

What name might fitly tell, what accents sing,
Thy awful, godlike grandeur? 'Tis thy breast
That holdeth Narusaha's flood at rest,
Thy side whence Fujikaha's waters spring.

Great Fujiyama, tow'ring to the sky!
A treasure art thou giv'n to mortal man,
A god-protector, watching o'er Japan:
On thee for ever let me feast mine eye!

This now extinct volcano, besides inspiring poetical efforts, has been an inexhaustible subject for our pictorial art; it is enough to mention the famous sets of colour prints, representing the thirty-six or the hundred aspects of the favourite mountain, by Hiroshige, Hokusai, etc. The groups of rural pilgrims that annually swarm from all parts of Japan during the two hottest months of the year to pay their pious visit to the Holy Mount Fuji, return to their respective villages deeply inspired with a feeling of reverence and of love for the wonders and beauty of the remarkable dawn they witnessed from its summit.