Chapter 14

The foregoing Buddhist positions sufficiently imply that the human consciousness is but a temporary aggregate,--not an eternal entity. There is no permanent self: there is but one eternal principle in all life,--the supreme Buddha. Modern Japanese call this Absolute the "Essence of Mind." "The fire fed by faggots," writes one of these, "dies when the faggots have been consumed; but the essence of fire is never destroyed.... All things in the Universe are Mind." So stated, the position is unscientific; but as for the conclusion reached, we may remember that Mr. Wallace has stated almost exactly the same thing, and that there are not a few modern preachers of the doctrine of a "universe of mind-stuff." The hypothesis is "unthinkable." But the most serious thinker will agree with the Buddhist assertion that the relation of all phenomena to the unknowable is merely that of waves to sea. "Every [219] feeling and thought being but transitory," says Mr. Spencer, "an entire life made up of such feelings and thoughts being but transitory,--nay, the objects amid which life is passed, though less transitory, being severally in course of losing their individualities quickly or slowly,--we learn that the one thing permanent is the Unknown Reality hidden under all these changing shapes." Here the English and the Buddhist philosophers are in accord; but thereafter they suddenly part company. For Buddhism is not agnosticism, but gnosticism, and professes to know the unknowable. The thinker of Mr. Spencer's school cannot make assumptions as to the nature of the sole Reality, nor as to the reason of its manifestations. He must confess himself intellectually incapable of comprehending the nature of force, matter, or motion. He feels justified in accepting the hypothesis that all known elements have been evolved from one primordial undifferentiated substance,--the chemical evidence for this hypothesis being very strong. But he certainly would not call that primordial substance a substance of mind, nor attempt to explain the character of the forces that effected its integration. Again, though Mr. Spencer would probably acknowledge that we know of matter only as an aggregate of forces, and of atoms only as force-centres, or knots of force, he would not declare that an atom is a force-centre, and nothing else.... But we find evolutionists [220] of the German school taking a position very similar to the Buddhist position,--which implies a universal sentiency, or, more strictly speaking, a universal potential-sentiency. Haeckel and other German monists assume such a condition for all substance. They are not agnostics, therefore, but gnostics; and their gnosticism very much resembles that of the higher Buddhism.

According to Buddhism there is no reality save Buddha: all things else are but Karma. There is but one Life, one Self: human individuality and personality are but phenomenal conditions of that Self, Matter is Karma; Mind is Karma--that is to say, mind as we know it: Karma, as visibility, represents to us mass and quality; Karma, as mentality, signifies character and tendency. The primordial substance--corresponding to the "protyle" of our Monists--is composed of Five Elements, which are mystically identified with Five Buddhas, all of whom are really but different modes of the One. With this idea of a primordial substance there is necessarily associated the idea of a universal sentiency. Matter is alive.

Now to the German monists also matter is alive. On the phenomena of cell-physiology, Haeckel claims to base his conviction that "even the atom is not without rudimentary form of sensation and will,--or, as it is better expressed, of feeling (aesthesis), and of inclination (tropesis),--that is to [221] say, a universal soul of the simplest kind." I may quote also from Haeckel's Riddle of the Universe the following paragraph expressing the monistic notion of substance as held by Vogt and others:--

"The two fundamental forms of substance, ponderable matter and ether, are not dead and only moved by extrinsic force; but they are endowed with sensation and will (though, naturally, of the lowest grade); they experience an inclination for condensation, a dislike of strain; they strive after the one, and struggle against the other."

Less like a revival of the dreams of the Alchemists is the very probable hypothesis of Schneider, that sentiency begins with the formation of certain combinations,--that feeling is evolved from the non-feeling just as organic being has been evolved from inorganic substance. But all these monist ideas enter into surprising combination with the Buddhist teaching about matter as integrated Karma; and for that reason they are well worth citing in this relation. To Buddhist conception all matter is sentient,--the sentiency varying according to condition: "even rocks and stones," a Japanese Buddhist text declares, "can worship Buddha." In the German monism of Professor Haeckel's school, the particular qualities and affinities of the atom represent feeling and inclination, "a soul of the simplest kind"; in Buddhism these qualities are made by [222] Karma,--that is to say, they represent tendencies formed in previous states of existence. The hypotheses appear to be very similar. But there is only immense, all-important difference, between the Occidental and the Oriental monism. The former would attribute the qualities of the atom merely to a sort of heredity,--to the persistency of tendencies developed under chance--influences operating throughout an incalculable past. The latter declares the history of the atom to be purely moral! All matter, according to Buddhism, represents aggregated sentiency, making, by its inherent tendencies, toward conditions of pain or pleasure, evil or good. "Pure actions," writes the author of Outlines of the Maheyena Philosophy, "bring forth the Pure Lands of all the quarters of the universe; while impure deeds produce the Impure Lands." That is to say, the matter integrated by the force of moral acts goes to the making of blissful worlds; and the matter formed by the force of immoral acts goes to the making of miserable worlds. All substance, like all mind, has its Karma; planets, like men, are shaped by the creative power of acts and thoughts; and every atom goes to its appointed place, sooner or later, according to the moral or immoral quality of the tendencies that inform it. Your good or bad thought or deed will not only affect your next rebirth, but will likewise affect in some sort the nature of worlds yet unevolved, wherein, after innumerable cycles, [223] you may have to live again. Of course, this tremendous idea has no counterpart in modern evolutional philosophy. Mr. Spencer's position is well known; but I must quote him for the purpose of emphasizing the contrast between Buddhist and scientific thought:--

"...We have no ethics of nebular condensation, or of sidereal movement, or of planetary evolution; the conception is not relevant to inorganic matter. Nor, when we turn to organized things, do we find that it has any relation to the phenomena of plant-life; though we ascribe to plants superiorities and inferiorities, leading to successes and failures in the struggle for existence, we do not associate with them praise or blame. It is only with the rise of sentiency in the animal world that the subject-matter of ethics originates."--Principles of Ethics, Vol. II, Section 326.

On the contrary, it will be seen, Buddhism actually teaches what we may call, to borrow Mr. Spencer's phrase, "the ethics of nebular condensation,"--though to Buddhist astronomy, the scientific meaning of the term "nebular condensation" was never known. Of course the hypothesis is beyond the power of human intelligence to prove or to disprove. But it is interesting, for it proclaims a purely moral order of the cosmos, and attaches almost infinite consequence to the least of human acts. Had the old Buddhist metaphysicians been acquainted with the facts of modern chemistry, they [224] might have applied their doctrine, with appalling success, to the interpretation of those facts. They might have explained the dance of atoms, the affinities of molecules, the vibrations of ether, in the most fascinating and terrifying way by their theory of Karma.... Here is a universe of suggestion,--most weird suggestion--for anybody able and willing to dare the experiment of making a new religion, or at least a new and tremendous system of Alchemy, based upon the notion of a moral order in the inorganic world!

But the metaphysics of Karma in the higher Buddhism include much that is harder to understand than any alchemical hypothesis of atom-combinations. As taught by popular Buddhism, the doctrine of rebirth is simple enough,--signifying no more than transmigration: you have lived millions of times in the past, and you are likely to live again millions of times in the future,--all the conditions of each rebirth depending upon past conduct. The common notion is that after a certain period of bodiless sojourn in this world, the spirit is guided somehow to the place of its next incarnation. The people, of course, believe in souls. But there is nothing of all this in the higher doctrine, which denies transmigration, denies the existence of the soul, denies personality. There is no Self to be reborn; there is no transmigration--and yet there [225] is rebirth! There is no real "I" that suffers or is glad--and yet there is new suffering to be borne or new happiness to be gained! What we call the Self,--the personal consciousness,--dissolves at the death of the body; but the Karma, formed during life, then brings about the integration of a new body and a new consciousness. You suffer in this existence because of acts done in a previous existence---yet the author of those acts was not identical with your present self! Are you, then, responsible for the faults of another person?

The Buddhist metaphysician would answer thus: "The form of your question is wrong, because it assumes the existence of personality,--and there is no personality. There is really no such individual as the 'you' of the inquiry. The suffering is indeed the result of errors committed in some anterior existence or existences; but there is no responsibility for the acts of another person, since there is no personality. The 'I' that was and the 'I' that is represent in the chain of transitory being aggregations momentarily created by acts and thoughts; and the pain belongs to the aggregates as condition resulting from quality." All this sounds extremely obscure: to understand the real theory we must put away the notion of personality, which is a very difficult thing to do. Successive births do not mean transmigration in the common sense of that word, but only the self-propagation of [226] Karma: the perpetual multiplying of certain conditions by a kind of ghostly gemmation,--if I may borrow a biological term. The Buddhist illustration, however, is that of flame communicated from one lamp-wick to another: a hundred lamps may thus be lighted from one flame, and the hundred flames will all be different, though the origin of all was the same. Within the hollow flame of each transitory life is enclosed a part of the only Reality; but this is not a soul that transmigrates. Nothing passes from birth to birth but Karma,--character or condition.

One will naturally ask how can such a doctrine exert any moral influence whatever? If the future being shaped by my Karma is to be in nowise identical with my present self,--if the future consciousness evolved by my Karma is to be essentially another consciousness,--how can I force myself to feel anxious about the sufferings of that unborn person? "Again your question is wrong," a Buddhist would answer: "to understand the doctrine you must get rid of the notion of individuality, and think, not of persons, but of successive states of feeling and consciousness, each of which buds out of the other,--a chain of existences interdependently united." ... I may attempt another illustration. Every individual, as we understand the term, is continually changing. All the structures of the body are constantly undergoing waste and repair; and the [227] body that you have at this hour is not, as to substance, the same body that you had ten years ago. Physically you are not the same person: yet you suffer the same pains, and feel the same pleasures, and find your powers limited by the same conditions. Whatever disintegrations and reconstructions of tissue have taken place within you, you have the same physical and mental peculiarities that you had ten years ago. Doubtless the cells of your brain have been decomposed and recomposed: yet you experience the same emotions, recall the same memories, and think the same thoughts. Everywhere the fresh substance has assumed the qualities and tendencies of the substance replaced. This persistence of condition is like Karma. The transmission of tendency remains, though the aggregate is changed....

These few glimpses into the fantastic world, of Buddhist metaphysics will suffice, I trust, to convince any intelligent reader that the higher Buddhism (to which belongs the much-discussed and little-comprehended doctrine of Nirvana) could never have been the religion of millions almost incapable of forming abstract ideas,--the religion of a population even yet in a comparatively early stage of religious evolution. It was never understood by the people at all, nor is it ever taught to them to-day. It is a religion of metaphysicians, a [228] religion of scholars, a religion so difficult to be understood, even by persons of some philosophical training, that it might well be mistaken for a system of universal negation. Yet the reader should now be able to perceive that, because a man disbelieves in a personal God, in an immortal soul, and in any continuation of personality after death, it does not follow that we are justified in declaring him an irreligious Person,--especially if he happen to be an Oriental. The Japanese scholar who believes in the moral order of the universe, the ethical responsibility of the present to all the future, the immeasurable consequence of every thought and deed, the ultimate disparition of evil, and the power of attainment to conditions of infinite memory and infinite vision,--cannot be termed either an atheist or a materialist, except by bigotry and ignorance. Profound as may be the difference between his religion and our own, in respect of symbols and modes of thought, the moral conclusions reached in either case are very much the same.

[229]

THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

The late Professor Fiske, in his Outline of Cosmic Philosophy, made a very interesting remark about societies like those of China, ancient Egypt, and ancient Assyria. "I am expressing," he said, "something more than an analogy, I am describing a real homology so far as concerns the process of development,--when I say that these communities simulated modern European nations, much in the same way that a tree-fern of the carboniferous period simulated the exogenous trees of the present time." So far as this is true of China, it is likewise true of Japan. The constitution of the old Japanese society was no more than an amplification of the constitution of the family,--the patriarchal family of primitive times. All modern Western societies have been developed out of a like patriarchal condition: the early civilizations of Greece and Rome were similarly constructed, upon a lesser scale. But the patriarchal family in Europe was disintegrated thousands of years ago; the gens and the curia dissolved and disappeared; the originally distinct classes became fused together; and a total reorganization of society was gradually [230] effected, everywhere resulting in the substitution of voluntary for compulsory cooperation. Industrial types of society developed; and a state-religion overshadowed the ancient and exclusive local cults. But society in Japan never, till within the present era, became one coherent body, never developed beyond the clan-stage. It remained a loose agglomerate of clan-groups, or tribes, each religiously and administratively independent of the rest; and this huge agglomerate was kept together, not by voluntary cooperation, but by strong compulsion. Down to the period of Meiji, and even for some time afterward, it was liable to split and fall asunder at any moment that the central coercive power showed signs of weakness. We may call it a feudalism; but it resembled European feudalism only as a tree-fern resembles a tree.

Let us first briefly consider the nature of the ancient Japanese society. Its original unit was not the household, but the patriarchal family,--that is to say, the gens or clan, a body of hundreds or thousands of persons claiming descent from a common ancestor, and so religiously united by a common ancestor-worship,--the cult of the Ujigami. As I have said before, there were two classes of these patriarchal families: the O-uji, or Great Clans; and the Ko-uji, or Little Clans. The lesser were branches of the greater, and subordinate to [231] them,--so that the group formed by an O-uji with its Ko-uji might be loosely compared with the Roman curia or Greek phratry. Large bodies of serfs or slaves appear to have been attached to the various great Uji; and the number of these, even at a very early period, seems to have exceeded that of the members of the clans proper. The different names given to these subject-classes indicate different grades and kinds of servitude. One name was tomobe, signifying bound to a place, or district; another was yakabe, signifying bound to a family; a third was kakibe, signifying bound to a close, or estate; yet another and more general term was tami, which anciently signified "dependants," but is now used in the meaning of the English word "folk." ... There is little doubt that the bulk of the people were in a condition of servitude, and that there were many forms of servitude. Mr. Spencer has pointed out that a general distinction between slavery and serfdom, in the sense commonly attached to each of those terms, is by no means easy to establish; the real state of a subject-class, especially in early forms of society, depending much more upon the character of the master, and the actual conditions of social development, than upon matters of privilege and legislation. In speaking of early Japanese institutions, the distinction is particularly hard to draw: we are still but little informed as to the condition of the subject [232] classes in ancient times. It is safe to assert, however, that there were then really but two great classes,--a ruling oligarchy, divided into many grades; and a subject population, also divided into many grades. Slaves were tattooed, either on the face or some part of the body, with a mark indicating their ownership. Until within recent years this system of tattooing appears to have been maintained in the province of Satsuma,--where the marks were put especially upon the hands; and in many other provinces the lower classes were generally marked by a tattoo on the face. Slaves were bought and sold like cattle in early times, or presented as tribute by their owners,--a practice constantly referred to in the ancient records. Their unions were not recognized: a fact which reminds us of the distinction among the Romans between connubium and contubernium; and the children of a slave-mother by a free father remained slaves.* In the seventh century, however, private slaves were declared state-property, and great numbers were [233] then emancipated,--including nearly all--probably all--who were artizans or followed useful callings. Gradually a large class of freedmen came into existence; but until modern times the great mass of the common people appear to have remained in a condition analogous to serfdom. The greater number certainly had no family names,--which is considered evidence of a former slave-condition. Slaves proper were registered in the names of their owners: they do not seem to have had a cult of their own,--in early times, at least. But, prior to Meiji, only the aristocracy, samurai, doctors, and teachers--with perhaps a few other exceptions--could use a family name. Another queer bit of evidence or, the subject, furnished by the late Dr. Simmons, relates to the mode of wearing the hair among the subject-classes. Up to the time of the Ashikaga shogunate (1334 A.D.), all classes excepting the nobility, samurai, Shinto priests, and doctors, shaved the greater part of the head, and wore queues; and this fashion of wearing the hair was called yakko-atama or dorei-atama--terms signifying "slave-head," and indicating that the fashion originated in a period of servitude.

[*In the year 645, the Emperor Kotoku issued the following edict on the subject:--

"The law of men and women shall be that the children born of a free man and a free woman shall belong to the father; if a free man takes to wife a slave-woman, her children shall belong to the mother; if a free woman marries a slave-man, the children shall belong to the father; if they are slaves of two houses, the children shall belong to the mother. The children of temple-serfs shall follow the rule for freemen. But in regard to others who become slaves, they shall be treated according to the rule for slaves.--Aston's translation of the Nihongi, Vol. II, p. 202.]

About the origin of Japanese slavery, much remains to be learned. There are evidences of successive immigrations; and it is possible that some, at least, of the earlier Japanese settlers were reduced by later invaders to the status of servitude. Again, [234] there was a considerable immigration of Koreans and Chinese, some of whom might have voluntarily sought servitude as a refuge from worse evils. But the subject remains obscure. We know, however, that degradation to slavery was a common punishment in early times; also, that debtors unable to pay became the slaves of their creditors; also, that thieves were sentenced to become the slaves of those whom they had robbed.* Evidently there were great differences in the conditions of servitude. The more unfortunate class of slaves were scarcely better off than domestic animals; but there were serfs who could not be bought or sold, nor employed at other than special work; these were of kin to their lords, and may have entered voluntarily into servitude for the sake of sustenance and protection. Their relation to their masters reminds us of that of the Roman client to the Roman patron.

[*An edict issued by the Empress Jito, in 690, enacted that a father could sell his son into real slavery; but that debtors could be sold only into a kind of serfdom. The edict ran thus: "If a younger brother of the common people is sold by his elder brother, he should be classed with freemen; if a child is sold by his parents, he should be classed with slaves; persons confiscated into slavery, by way of payment of interest on debts, are to be classed with freemen; and their children, though born of a union with a slave, are to be all classed with freemen."--Aston's Nihongi, Vol. II, p, 402.]