Chapter 16

The reader should now be able to form an approximately correct idea of the character of the old Japanese society. But the ordination of that society was much more complex than I have been able to indicate,--so complex that volumes would be required to treat the subject in detail. Once fully evolved, what we may still call Feudal Japan, for want of a better name, presented most of the features of a doubly-compound society of the militant type, with [251] certain marked approaches toward the trebly-compound type. A striking peculiarity, of course, is the absence of a true ecclesiastical hierarchy,--due to the fact that Government never became dissociated from religion. There was at one time a tendency on the part of Buddhism to establish a religious hierarchy independent of central authority; but there were two fatal obstacles in the way of such a development. The first was the condition of Buddhism itself,--divided into a number of sects, some bitterly opposed to others. The second obstacle was the implacable hostility of the military clans, jealous of any religious power capable of interfering, either directly or indirectly, with their policy. So soon as the foreign religion began to prove itself formidable in the world of action, ruthless measures were decided; and the frightful massacres of priests by Nobunaga, in the sixteenth century, ended the political aspirations of Buddhism in Japan.

Otherwise the regimentation of society resembled that of all antique civilizations of the militant type,--all action being both positively and negatively regulated. The household ruled the person; the five-family group; the household; the community, the group; the lord of the soil, the community; the Shogun, the lord. Over the whole body of the producing classes, two million samurai had power of life and death; over these samurai the daimyo held a like power; and the daimyo were subject to the Shogun. [252] Nominally the Shogun was subject to the Emperor, but not in fact: military usurpation disturbed and shifted the natural order of the higher responsibility. However, from the nobility downwards, the regulative discipline was much reinforced by this change in government. Among the producing classes there were countless combinations--guilds of all sorts; but these were only despotisms within despotisms--despotisms of the communistic order; each member being governed by the will of the rest; and enterprise, whether commercial or industrial, being impossible outside of some corporation.... We have already seen that the individual was bound to the commune--could not leave it without a permit, could not marry out of it. We have seen also that the stranger was a stranger in the old Greek and Roman sense,--that is to say an enemy, a hostis,--and could enter another community only by being religiously adopted into it. As regards exclusiveness, therefore, the social conditions were like those of the early European communities; but the militant conditions resembled rather those of the great Asiatic empires.

Of course such a society had nothing in common with any modern form of Occidental civilization. It was a huge mass of clan-groups, loosely united under a duarchy, in which the military head was omnipotent, and the religious head only an object of [253] worship,--the living symbol of a cult. However this organization might outwardly resemble what we are accustomed to call feudalism, its structure was rather like that of ancient Egyptian or Peruvian society,--minus the priestly hierarchy. The supreme figure is not an Emperor in our meaning of the word,--not a king of kings and viceregent of heaven,--but a God incarnate, a race-divinity, an Inca descended from the Sun. About his sacred person, we see the tribes ranged in obeisance,--each tribe, nevertheless, maintaining its own ancestral cult; and the clans forming these tribes, and the communities forming these clans, and the households forming these communities, have all their separate cults; and out of the mass of these cults have been derived the customs and the laws. Yet everywhere the customs and the laws differ more or less, because of the variety of their origins: they have this only in common,--that they exact the most humble and implicit obedience, and regulate every detail of private and public life. Personality is wholly suppressed by coercion; and the coercion is chiefly from within, not from without,--the life of every individual being so ordered by the will of the rest as to render free action, free speaking, or free thinking, out of the question. This means something incomparably harsher than the socialistic tyranny of early Greek society: it means religious communism doubled with a military despotism of [254] the most terrible kind. The individual did not legally exist,--except for punishment; and from the whole of the producing-classes, whether serfs or freemen, the most servile submission was ruthlessly exacted.

It is difficult to believe that any intelligent man of modern times could endure such conditions and live (except under the protection of some powerful ruler, as in the case of the English pilot Will Adams, created a samurai by Iyeyasu): the incessant and multiform constraint upon mental and moral life would of itself be enough to kill.... Those who write to-day about the extraordinary capacity of the Japanese for organization, and about the "democratic spirit" of the people as natural proof of their fitness for representative government in the Western sense, mistake appearances for realities. The truth is that the extraordinary capacity of the Japanese for communal organization, is the strongest possible evidence of their unfitness for any modern democratic form of government. Superficially the difference between Japanese social organization, and local self-government in the modern American, or the English colonial meaning of the term, appears slight; and we may justly admire the perfect self-discipline of a Japanese community. But the real difference between the two is fundamental, prodigious,--measurable only by thousands of years. It is the difference between compulsory and free [255] cooperation,--the difference between the most despotic form of communism, founded upon the most ancient form of religion, and the most highly evolved form of industrial union, with unlimited individual right of competition.

There exists a popular error to the effect that what we call communism and socialism in Western civilization are modern growths, representing aspiration toward some perfect form of democracy. As a matter of fact these movements represent reversion,--reversion toward the primitive conditions of human society. Under every form of ancient despotism we find exactly the same capacity of self-government among the people: it was manifested by the old Egyptians and Peruvians as well as by the early Greeks and Romans; it is exhibited to-day by Hindoo and Chinese communities; it may be studied in Siamese or Annamese villages quite as well as in Japan. It means a religious communistic despotism,--a supreme social tyranny suppressing personality, forbidding enterprise, and making competition a public offence. Such self-government also has its advantages: it was perfectly adapted to the requirements of Japanese life so long as the nation could remain isolated from the rest of the world. Yet it must be obvious that any society whose ethical traditions forbid the individual to profit at the cost of his fellow-men will be placed at an enormous disadvantage when forced into the [256] industrial struggle for existence against communities whose self-government permits of the greatest possible personal freedom, and the widest range of competitive enterprise.

We might suppose that perpetual and universal coercion, moral and physical, would have brought about a state of universal sameness,--a dismal uniformity and monotony in all life's manifestations. But such monotony existed only as to the life of the commune, not as to that of the race. The most wonderful variety characterized this quaint civilization, as it also characterized the old Greek civilization, and for precisely the same reasons. In every patriarchal civilization ruled by ancestor-worship, all tendency to absolute sameness, to general uniformity, is prevented by the character of the aggregate itself, which never becomes homogeneous and plastic. Every unit of that aggregate, each one of the multitude of petty despotisms composing it, most jealously guards its own particular traditions and customs, and remains self-sufficing. Hence results, sooner or later, incomparable variety of detail, small detail, artistic, industrial, architectural, mechanical. In Japan such differentiation and specialization was thus maintained, that you will hardly find in the whole country even two villages where the customs, industries, and methods of production are exactly the same.... The customs [257] of the fishing-villages will, perhaps, best illustrate what I mean. In every coast district the various fishing-settlements have their own traditional ways of constructing nets and boats, and their own particular methods of handling them. Now, in the time of the great tidal-wave of 1896, when thirty thousand people perished, and scores of coast-villages were wrecked, large sums of money were collected in Kobe and elsewhere for the benefit of the survivors; and well-meaning foreigners attempted to supply the want of boats and fishing implements by purchasing quantities of locally made nets and boats, and sending them to the afflicted districts. But it was found that these presents were of no use to the men of the northern provinces, who had been accustomed to boats and nets of a totally different kind; and it was further discovered that every fishing-hamlet had special requirements of its own in this regard.... Now the differentiations of habit and custom, thus exhibited in the life of the fishing-communities, is paralleled in many crafts and callings. The way of building houses, and of roofing them, differs in almost every province, also the methods of agriculture and of horticulture, the manner of making wells, the methods of weaving and lacquering and pottery-making and tile-baking. Nearly every town and village of importance boasts of some special production, bearing the name of the place, and unlike anything made elsewhere.... [258] No doubt the ancestral cults helped to conserve and to develop such local specialization of industries: the craft-ancestors, the patron-gods of the guild, were supposed to desire that the work of their descendants and worshippers should maintain a particular character of its own. Though individual enterprise was checked by communal regulation, the specialization of local production was encouraged by difference of cults. Family-conservatism or guild-conservatism would tolerate small improvements or modifications suggested by local experience, but would be wary, perhaps superstitious likewise, about accepting the results of strange experience.

Still, for the Japanese themselves, not the least pleasure of travel in Japan is the pleasure of studying the curious variety in local production,--the pleasure of finding the novel, the unexpected, the unimagined. Even those arts or industries of Old Japan, primarily borrowed from Korea or from China, appear to have developed and conserved innumerable queer forms under the influence of the numberless local cults.

[259]

THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER

Almost the whole of authentic Japanese history is comprised in one vast episode: the rise and fall of the military power.... It has been customary to speak of Japanese history as beginning with the accession of Jimmu Tenno, alleged to have reigned from 660 to 585 B.C., and to have lived for one hundred and twenty-seven years. Before the time of the Emperor Jimmu was the Age of the Gods,--the period of mythology. But trustworthy history does not begin for a thousand years after the accession of Jimmu Tenno; and the chronicles of those thousand years must be regarded as little better than fairy-tales. They contain records of fact; but fact and myth are so interwoven that it is difficult to distinguish the one from the other. We have legends, for example, of an alleged conquest of Korea in the year 202 A.D., by the Empress Jingo; and it has been tolerably well proved that no such conquest took place.* [*See Aston's paper, Early Japanese History, in the translations of the Asiatic Society of Japan.] The later records are somewhat less mythical than the earlier. We have traditions apparently founded on [260] fact, of Korean immigration in the time of the fifteenth ruler, the Emperor Ojin; then later traditions, also founded on fact, of early Chinese studies in Japan; then some vague accounts of a disturbed state of society, which appears to have continued through the whole of the fifth century. Buddhism was introduced in the middle of the century following; and we have record of the fierce opposition offered to the new creed by a Shinto faction, and of a miraculous victory won by the help of the Four Deva Kings, at the prayer of Shotoku Taishi,--the great founder of Buddhism, and regent of the Empress Suiko. With the firm establishment of Buddhism in the reign of that Empress (593-628 A.D.), we reach the period of authentic history, and of the thirty-third Japanese sovereign counting from Jimmu Tenno.

But although everything prior to the seventh century remains obscured for us by the mists of fable, much can be inferred, even from the half-mythical records, concerning social conditions during the reigns of the first thirty-three Emperors and Empresses. It appears that the early Mikado lived very simply--scarcely better, indeed, than their subjects. The Shinto scholar Mabuchi tells us that they dwelt in huts with mud walls and roofs of shingle; that they wore hempen clothes; that they carried their swords in simple wooden scabbards, bound round with the tendrils of a wild [261] vine; that they walked about freely among the people; that they carried their own bows and arrows when they went to hunt. But as society developed wealth and power, this early simplicity disappeared, and the gradual introduction of Chinese customs and etiquette effected great changes. The Empress Suiko introduced Chinese court-ceremonies, and first established among the nobility the Chinese grades of rank. Chinese luxury, as well as Chinese learning, soon made its appearance at court; and thereafter the imperial authority appears to have been less and less directly exerted. The new ceremonialism must have rendered the personal exercise of the multiform imperial functions more difficult than before; and it is probable that the temptation to act more or less by deputy would have been strong even in the case of an energetic ruler. At all events we find that the real administration of government began about this time to pass into the hands of deputies,--all of whom were members of the great Kuge clan of the Fujiwara.

This clan, which included the highest hereditary priesthood, represented a majority of the ancient nobility, claiming divine descent. Ninety-five out of the total one hundred and fifty-five families of Kuge belonged to it,--including the five families, Go-Sekke, from which alone the Emperor was by tradition allowed to choose his Empress. Its historic name dates only from the reign of the Emperor [262] Kwammu (782-806 A.D.), who bestowed it as an honour upon Nakatomi no Kamatari; but the clan had long previously held the highest positions at Court. By the close of the seventh century most of the executive power had passed into its hands. Later the office of Kwambaku, or Regent, was established, and remained hereditary in the house down to modern times--ages after all real power had been taken from the descendants of Nakatomi no Kamatari. But during almost five centuries the Fujiwara remained the veritable regents of the country, and took every possible advantage of their position. All the civil offices were in the hands of Fujiwara men; all the wives and favourites of the Emperors were Fujiwara women. The whole power of government was thus kept in the hands of the clan; and the political authority of the Emperor ceased to exist. Moreover the succession was regulated entirely by the Fujiwara; and even the duration of each reign was made to depend upon their policy. It was deemed advisable to compel Emperors to abdicate at an early age, and after abdicating to become Buddhist monks,--the successor chosen being often a mere child. There is record of an Emperor ascending the throne at the age of two, and abdicating at the age of four; another Mikado was appointed at the age of five; several at the age of ten. Yet the religious dignity of the throne remained undiminished, or, rather, continued [263] to grow. The more the Mikado was withdrawn from public view by policy and by ceremonial, the more did his seclusion and inaccessibility serve to deepen the awe of the divine legend. Like the Lama of Thibet the living deity was made invisible to the multitude; and gradually the belief arose that to look upon his face was death.... It is said that the Fujiwara were not satisfied even with these despotic means of assuring their own domination, and that luxurious forms of corruption were maintained within the palace for the purpose of weakening the character of young emperors who might otherwise have found the energy to assert the ancient rights of the throne.

Perhaps this usurpation--which prepared the way for the rise of the military power--has never been rightly interpreted. The history of all the patriarchal societies of ancient Europe will be found to illustrate the same phase of social evolution. At a certain period in the development of each we find the same thing happening,--the withdrawal of all political authority from the Priest-King, who is suffered, nevertheless, to retain the religious dignity. It may be a mistake to judge the policy of the Fujiwara as a policy of mere ambition and usurpation. The Fujiwara were a religious aristocracy, claiming divine origin,--clan-chiefs of a society in which religion and government were identical, and holding to that society much the same relation as that of the [264] Eupatridae to the ancient Attic society. The Mikado had originally become supreme magistrate, military commander, and religious head by consent of a majority of the clan-chiefs,--each of whom represented to his own following what the "Heavenly Sovereign" represented to the social aggregate. But as the power of the ruler extended with the growth of the nation, those who had formerly united to maintain that power began to find it dangerous. They decided to deprive the Heavenly Sovereign of all political and legal authority, without disturbing in any way his religious supremacy. At Athens, at Sparta, at Rome, and elsewhere in ancient Europe, the same policy was carried out, for the same reasons, by religious senates. The history of the early kings of Rome, as interpreted by M. de Coulanges, best illustrates the nature of the antagonism developed between the priest-ruler and the religious aristocracy; but the same thing took place in all the Greek communities, with about the same result. Everywhere political power was taken away from the early kings; but they were mostly left in possession of their religious dignities and privileges: they remained supreme priests after having ceased to be rulers. This was the case also in Japan; and I imagine that future Japanese historians will be able to give us an entirely new interpretation of the Fujiwara episode, as reviewed in the light of modern sociology. At all events, there can be little doubt [265] that, in curtailing the powers of the Heavenly Sovereign, the religious aristocracy must have been actuated by conservative precaution as well as by ambition. There had been various Emperors who made changes in the laws and customs--changes which could scarcely have been viewed with favour by many of the ancient nobility; there had been an Emperor whose diversions can to-day be written of only in Latin; there had even been an Emperor--Kotoku--who, though "God Incarnate," and chief of the ancient faith, "despised the Way of the Gods," and cut down the holy grove of the shrine of Iku-kuni-dama. Kotoku, for all his Buddhist piety (perhaps, indeed, because of it), was one of the wisest and best of rulers; but the example of a heavenly sovereign "despising the Way of the Gods," must have given the priestly clan matter for serious reflection.... Besides, there is another important fact to be noticed. The Imperial household proper had become, in the course of centuries, entirely detached from the Uji; and the omnipotence of this unit, independent of all other units, constituted in itself a grave danger to aristocratic privileges and established institutions. Too much might depend upon the personal character and will of an omnipotent God-King, capable of breaking with all clan-custom, and of abrogating clan-privileges. On the other hand, there was safety for all alike under the patriarchal rule of the clan, which [266] could cheek every tendency on the part of any of its members to exert predominant influence at the expense of the rest. But for obvious reasons the Imperial cult--traditional source of all authority and privilege--could not be touched: it was only by maintaining and reinforcing it that the religious nobility could expect to keep the real power in their hands. They actually kept it for nearly five centuries.

The history of all the Japanese regencies, however, amply illustrates the general rule that inherited authority is ever and everywhere liable to find itself supplanted by deputed authority. The Fujiwara appear to have eventually become the victims of that luxury which they had themselves, for reasons of policy, introduced and maintained. Degenerating into a mere court-nobility, they made little effort to exert any direct authority in other than civil directions, entrusting military matters almost wholly to the Buke. In the eighth century the distinction between military and civil organization had been made upon the Chinese plan; the great military class then came into existence, and began to extend its power rapidly. Of the military clans proper, the most powerful were the Minamoto and the Taira. By deputing to these clans the conduct of all important matters relating to war, the Fujiwara eventually lost their high position and influence. As soon [267] as the Buke found themselves strong enough to lay hands upon the reins of government,--which happened about the middle of the eleventh century,--the Fujiwara supremacy became a thing of the past, although members of the clan continued for centuries to occupy positions of importance under various regents.

But the Buke could not realize their ambition without a bitter struggle among themselves,--the longest and the fiercest war in Japanese history. The Minamoto and the Taira were both Kuge; both claimed imperial descent. In the early part of the contest the Taira carried all before them; and it seemed that no power could hinder them from exterminating the rival clan. But fortune turned at last in favour of the Minamoto; and at the famous sea-fight of Dan-no-ura, in 1185, the Taira were themselves exterminated.