Chapter 41

[Footnote AO: Quotations from "A Japanese Philosopher" will be found in chapters xxiv. and xxvi.]

[Footnote AP: "Things Japanese," p. 133.]

[Footnote AQ: P. 213.]

[Footnote AR: P. 30.]

[Footnote AS: _Cf._ chapter vii.]

[Footnote AT: _Cf._ chapter xv. pp. 186, 187.]

[Footnote AU: _Cf._ chapters xvi. and xvii.]

[Footnote AV: Chapter xv.]

[Footnote AW: Chapters xix. and xx.]

[Footnote AX: P. 39.]

[Footnote AY: P. 36.]

[Footnote AZ: Pp. 42, 43.]

[Footnote BA: P. 45.]

[Footnote BB: P. 61.]

[Footnote BC: P. 120.]

[Footnote BD: P. 129.]

[Footnote BE: P. 130.]

[Footnote BF: Dickenson's "Japan," chapter vii.]

[Footnote BG: _Cf._ chapter xxi.]

[Footnote BH: P. 163.]

[Footnote BI: P. 169.]

[Footnote BJ: It is interesting to observe that the contempt of Old Japan for trade, and the feeling that interest and profit by commerce were in their nature immoral, are in close accord with the old Greek and Jewish ideas regarding property profits and interest. Aristotle held, for instance, that only the gains of agriculture, of fishing, and of hunting are natural gains. Plato, in the Laws, forbids the taking of interest. Cato says that lending money on interest is dishonorable, is as bad as murder. The Old Testament, likewise, forbids the taking of interest from a Jew. The reason for this universal feeling of antiquity, both Oriental and Occidental, lies in the fact that trade and money were not yet essential parts of the social order. Positive production, such as hunting and farming, seemed the natural method of making a living, while trade seemed unnatural--living upon the labor of others. That Japan ranked the farmer higher in the social scale than the merchant is, thus, natural. In moral character, too, it is altogether probable that they were much higher.]

[Footnote BK: _Cf_. chapter ix. p. 103.]

[Footnote BL: Chapter vi.]

[Footnote BM: Chapter xxix. p. 339.]

[Footnote BN: An anonymous writer, in a pamphlet entitled "How the Social Evil is Regulated in Japan," gives some valuable facts on this subject. He describes the early history of the "Social Evil," and the various classes of prostitutes. He distinguishes between the "jigoku" (unlicensed prostitutes), the "shogi" (licensed prostitutes), and the "geisha" (singing and dancing girls). He gives translations of the various documents in actual use at present, and finally attempts to estimate the number of women engaged in the business. The method of reaching his conclusions does not commend itself to the present writer and his results seem absurdly wide of the mark, when compared with more carefully gathered figures. They are hardly worth quoting, yet they serve to show what exaggerated views are held by some in regard to the numbers of prostitutes in Japan. He tells us that a moderate estimate for licensed prostitutes and for geisha is 500,000 each, while the unlicensed number at least a million, making a total of 2,000,000 or 10 per cent. of the total female population of Japan! A careful statistical inquiry on this subject has been recently made by Rev. U.G. Murphy. His figures were chiefly secured from provincial officers. According to these returns the number of licensed prostitutes is 50,553 and of dancing girls is 30,386. Mr. Murphy's figures cannot be far astray, and furnish us something of a basis for comparison with European countries. Statistics regarding unlicensed prostitutes are naturally not to be had.]

[Footnote BO: P. 148.]

[Footnote BP: June 25, 1898.]

[Footnote BQ: The last line of figures, those for 1897, is taken from Rev. U.G. Murphy's statistical pamphlet on "The Social Evil in Japan."]

[Footnote BR: It is stated that Mill's work on "Representative Government," which, translated, fills a volume of five hundred pages in Japanese, has reached its third edition.]

[Footnote BS: The _Japan Mail_ for February 5, 1896; quoting from the _Jiji Shimpo_.]

[Footnote BT: The best summary of this discussion which I have seen in English is found in the _Japan Mail_ for February 4, 1899.]

[Footnote BU: _Japan Mail, _January 14, 1899.]

[Footnote BV: _Japan Mail, _June 24, 1898.]

[Footnote BW: The constituency of the Doshisha consists principally of Kumiai Christians.]

[Footnote BX: "Occult Japan," p. 23.]

[Footnote BY: _Cf._ chapter xxiv.]

[Footnote BZ: "A Japanese Philosopher," p. 120.]

[Footnote CA: In immediate connection with this oft-quoted statement, however, I would put the following, as much more recent, and probably representing more correctly the Marquis's matured opinion. Mr. Kakehi, for some time one of the editors of the Osaka _Mainichi Shinbun_ (Daily News), after an interview with the illustrious statesman in which many matters of national importance were discussed, was asked by the Marquis where he had been educated. On learning that he was a graduate of the Doshisha, the Marquis remarked: "The only true civilization is that which rests on Christian principles, and that consequently, as Japan must attain her civilization on these principles, those young men who receive Christian education will be the main factors in the development of future Japan."]

[Footnote CB: Chamberlain's "Things Japanese," p. 358.]

[Footnote CC: "Things Japanese," p. 70, and Murray's "Hand-book for Japan," p. 37.]

[Footnote CD: "Things Japanese," p. 93.]

[Footnote CE: P. 85.]

[Footnote CF: _Cf._ chapter xxiii. p. 271.]

[Footnote CG: By the term "centralization" I mean personal centralization. Political centralization is the gathering of all the lines of governmental authority to a single head or point. Personal centralization, on the contrary, is the development in the individual of enlarging and joyous consciousness of his relations with his fellow-countrymen, and the bringing of the individual into increasingly immediate relations of interdependence with ever-increasing numbers of his fellow-men, economically, intellectually, and spiritually. These enlarging relations and the consciousness of them must be loyally and joyfully accepted. They should arouse enthusiasm. The real unity of society, true national centralization, includes both the political and the personal phase. The more conscious the process and the relation, the more real is the unity. By this process each individual becomes of more importance to the entire body, as well as more dependent upon it. While each individual becomes with increasing industrial development more specialized in economic function, if his personal development has been properly carried on, he also becomes in mind and in character a micro-community, summing up in his individual person the national unity with all its main interests, knowledge, and character.]

[Footnote CGa: P. 14.]

[Footnote CH: P. 15.]

[Footnote CI: Pp. 88, 89.]

[Footnote CJ: Pp. 203, 204.]

[Footnote CK: _Cf._ chapter viii.]

[Footnote CL: See the _Rikugo Zasshi_ for March, 1898.]

[Footnote CM: _Cf._ chapter xv.]

[Footnote CN: Buddhism is largely responsible for the wide practice of "joshi," through its doctrine that lovers whom fate does not permit to be married in this world may be united in the next because of the strength of their love.]

[Footnote CO: P. 88.]

[Footnote CP: P. 12.]

[Footnote CQ: P. 14.]

[Footnote CR: P. 15.]

[Footnote CS: In their relations with foreigners, the people, but especially the Christians, are exceedingly lenient, forgiving and overlooking our egregious blunders both of speech and of manner, particularly if they feel that we have a kindly heart. Yet it is the uniform experience of the missionary that he frequently hurts unawares the feelings of his Japanese fellow-workers. Few thoughts more frequently enter the mind of the missionary, as he deals with Christian workers, than how to say this needful truth and do that needful deed so as not to hurt the feelings of those whom he would help. The individual who feels slighted or insulted will probably give no active sign of his wound. He is too polite or too politic for that. He will merely close like a clam and cease to have further cordial feelings and relations with the person who has hurt him.]

[Footnote CT: _Cf._ chapter xiii.]

[Footnote CU: See chapter xxix.]

[Footnote CV: P. 201.]

[Footnote CW: _Cf._ chapter vii.]

[Footnote CX: It seems desirable to guard against an inference that might be made from what I have said about Hegel's "Nothing." Hegel saw clearly that his "Nothing" was only the farthest limit of abstraction, and that it was consequently absolutely empty and worthless. It was only his starting point of thought, not his end, as in the case of Brahmanism and of Buddhism. Only after Hegel had passed the "Nothing" through all the successive stages of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, and thus clothed it with the fullness of being and character, did he conceive it to be the concrete, actual Absolute. There is, therefore, the farthest possible difference between Hegel's Absolute Being and Buddha's Absolute. Hegel sought to understand and state in rational form the real nature of the Christian's conception of God. Whether he did so or not, this is not the place to say.]

[Footnote CY: I remark, in passing, that Western non-Christian thought has experienced, and still experiences, no little difficulty in conceiving the ultimate nature of being, and thus in solving the problem, into which, as a cavernous tomb, the speculative religions of the Orient have fallen. Western non-Christian systems, whether materialism, consistent agnosticism, impersonal pantheism, or other systems which reject the Christian conception of God as perfect personality endowed with all the fullness of being and character, equally with philosophic Buddhism, fail to provide any theoretic foundation for the doctrine of the value of man as man, and consequently fail to provide any guarantee for individualism in the social order and the wide development of personality among the masses.]

[Footnote CZ: _Cf._ chapter vi.]

[Footnote DA: Foot of chapter xxix.]

[Footnote DB: Chapter xxxiii. p. 498.]

[Footnote DC: It seems desirable to append a brief additional statement on the doctrine of the "personality of God," and its acceptability to the Japanese. I wish to make it clear, in the first place, that the difficulties felt by the Japanese in adopting this doctrine are not due primarily to the deficiency either of the Japanese language or to the essential nature of the Japanese mind, that is to say, because of its asserted structural "impersonality." We have seen how the entire thought of the people, and even the direct moral teachings, imply both the fact of personality in man, and also its knowledge. The religious teachings, likewise, imply the personality even of "Heaven."

That there are philosophical or, more correctly speaking, metaphysical difficulties attending this doctrine, I am well aware; and that they are felt by some few Japanese, I also know. But I maintain that these difficulties have been imported from the West. The difficulties raised by a sensational philosophy which results in denying the reality even of man's psychic nature, no less than the difficulties due to a thoroughgoing idealism, have both been introduced among educated Japanese and have found no little response. I am persuaded that the real causes of the doubt entertained by a few of the Christians in Japan as to the personality of God are of foreign origin. These doubts are to be answered in exactly the same way as the same difficulties are answered in other lands. It must be shown that the sensational and "positive" philosophies, ending in agnosticism as to all the great problems of life and of reality, are essentially at fault in not recognizing the nature of the mind that knows. The searching criticism of these assumptions and methods made by T.H. Green and other careful thinkers, and to which no answer has been made by the sensational and agnostic schools of thought, needs to be presented in intelligible Japanese for the fairly educated Japanese student and layman. So, too, the discussions of such writers and philosophical thinkers as Seth, and Illingworth, and especially Lotze, whose discussions of "personality" are unsurpassed, should be presented to Japanese thinkers in native garb. But, again I repeat, it seems to me that the difficulty felt in Japan on these subjects is due not to the "impersonality" of the language or the native mind, or to the hitherto prevalent religions, but wholly to the imported philosophies and sciences. The individuals who feel or at least express any sense of difficulty on these topics--so far at least as my knowledge of the subject goes--are not those who know nothing but their own language and their own native religions, but rather those who have had exceptional advantages in foreign study, many of them having spent years abroad in Western universities. They furnish a fresh revelation of the quickness with which the Japanese take up with new ideas. They did not evolve these difficulties for themselves, but gathered them from their reading of Western literature and by their mingling with men of unevangelical temper and thought in the West.]

[Footnote DD: "Sacred Books of the East," vol. xlix, part ii. p. 147.]

[Footnote DE: _Cf._ chapters xiii. and xxxi.]

[Footnote DF: It is not strange that in all the centers of this new learning Confucius was deified and worshiped. In connection with many schools established for the study of his works, temples were built to his honor, in which his statue alone was placed, before which a stately religious service was performed at regular intervals. Thus did Confucianism become a living and vitalizing, although, as we shall soon see, an incomplete religion.]

[Footnote DG: Writers on the history and philosophy of religion have much to say about the differences between national and universal religions. The three religions which they pronounce universal are Mahomedanism, Buddhism, and Christianity. The ground for this statement is the fact that each of these religions has developed strong individualistic characteristics. They are concerned with individual salvation. The importance of this element none will deny, least of all the writer. But I question the correctness of the descriptive adjective. Because of their individualistic character they are fitted to leap territorial boundaries and can find acceptance in every community; for this they are not dependent on the territorial expansion of the communities in which they arose.]

[Footnote DH: P. xvii.]

[Footnote DI: P. xviii.]

[Footnote DJ: P. 19.]

[Footnote DK: P. 6.]

[Footnote DL: P. 37.]

[Footnote DM: P. 83.]

[Footnote 2: Whether or not the activity modifies the transmissible nature is the problem as to the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The dictum that function produces organism does not say whether that organism is transmissible or not, either in biology or sociology.]