Concerning Lafcadio Hearn Part 25

(Chap. 8.) Rites of wors.h.i.+p and of purification were many. (Chap. 9.) The rule of the dead extended to moral conduct and even to sumptuary matters, language, and amus.e.m.e.nts. (Chap. 10.) Buddhism absorbed the native ancestor-cult, but prescribed that prayers be said for them, not to them. In accordance with its principle, 'First observe the person, then preach the law'--that is, accommodate instruction to the hearer's capacity--Buddhism taught the ma.s.ses metempsychosis instead of palingenesis, and the paradise of Amida instead of the nirvana of Buddha. Buddhism rendered its greatest service to j.a.pan by education in the learning and arts of China. (Chap. 11.) The higher Buddhism is a kind of monism.

"(Chap. 12.) j.a.panese society was simply an amplification of the patriarchal family, and its clan-groups never united into a coherent body until 1871. At first the bulk of the people were slaves or serfs, but from the seventh century a large cla.s.s of freedmen--farmers and artisans--came into existence. The first period of j.a.panese social evolution was based on a national head, the Mikado, and a national cult, s.h.i.+ntoism; it began in this seventh century, but developed to the limit of its type only under the Tokugawa shoguns, in the seventeenth century.

"Next to the priest-emperor at the head came the _kuge_, or ancient n.o.bility, from whose ranks most of the latter regents and shoguns were drawn. Next ranked the _buke_ or _samurai_, which was the professional military cla.s.s, and was ruled by nearly three hundred _daimyo_, or feudal lords of varying importance. Next came the commonalty, _heimin_, with three cla.s.ses--farmers, artisans, and tradesmen, the last being despised by the _samurai_, who also could cut down any disrespectful _heimin_ with impunity. Lowest of all came the _chori_--pariahs, who were not counted j.a.panese at all, but _mono_-'things.' But even among them distinctions arose according to occupation. The close care taken of the native religion by the government precluded rise of a church. Nor was Buddhism, divided into hostile sects and opposed by the _samurai_, ever able to establish a hierarchy independent of the government.

Personal freedom was suppressed, as it would be now under Socialism, which is simply a reversion to an overcome type.

"(Chap. 13.) The second period of j.a.panese social evolution lasted from the eleventh to the nineteenth century, and was marked by dominance over the mikadoate of successive dynasties of shoguns. The permanence of this mikadoate amid all perturbations of the shogunate was owing to its religious nature. (Chap. 14.) Following the lord in death, suicide, and vendetta were customs based on loyalty, and they involved the n.o.blest self-sacrifice. (Chap. 15.) Catholic missions were suppressed lest they should lead to the political conquest of j.a.pan. (Chap. 16.) The Tokugawa shoguns exercised iron discipline, and now were brought to perfection those exquisite arts and manners of the j.a.panese. (Chap. 17.) A revival of learning, begun in the eighteenth century, slowly led to a new nationalist support of the Mikado; and when by 1891 the shogun had resigned and the daimiates been abolished, the third period in j.a.pan's social evolution began. (Chap. 18.) In spite of outward seeming, the ancient social conditions and ancestor-cult still control every action.

(Chap. 19.) The individual is still restrained by the conventions of the ma.s.ses, by communistic guilds of craftsmen, and by the government's practice of taking loyal service in all its departments without giving adequate pecuniary reward. (Chap. 20.) The educational system still maintains the old communism by training, not for individual ability, but for co-operative action. This is favoured, too, by the universal practice of rich men meeting the personal expenses of promising students. (Chap. 21.) j.a.panese loyalty and courage will support her army and navy, but industrial compet.i.tion with other peoples calls for individual freedom. (Chap. 22.) The j.a.panese are not indifferent to religion, and can be understood only by a study of their religious and social evolution. Future changes will be social, but ancestor-cult will persist, and offers an insuperable obstacle to the spread of Christianity.

"The critical reader will not have failed to meet in this summary many positions that challenge his previous knowledge, and whether these be correct or not can be determined only by an examination of the full text, which it eminently deserves. The reviewer, however, will confine himself to certain matters that seem to him the dominating errors of the whole. Probably three greater errors were never compressed into a single sentence than in this from p. 27: 'The real religion of j.a.pan, the religion still professed in one form or another by the entire nation, is that cult which has been the foundation of all civilized religion and of all civilized society--ancestor-wors.h.i.+p.' That ancestor-wors.h.i.+p is still professed by the entire nation is negatived by all we know from other sources as well as all we should expect. The ancestor-wors.h.i.+p native to j.a.pan had been appropriated by Buddhism; and, since the revolution of 1868 with its disestablishment of that church, the Butsudan, where the tablets were kept, has been largely sold as an art object or has been simply disused. The _mitamaya_ mentioned on p. 50, as if in extensive use for ancestor-wors.h.i.+p, is found only in a few purist families, and is known to the ma.s.s of j.a.panese only as the rear apartment or structure of a s.h.i.+ntoist shrine.

"That ancestor-wors.h.i.+p is 'the real religion of j.a.pan' and 'has been the foundation of all civilized religion' are errors that Mr. Hearn owes to Herbert Spencer's influence, which is confessed here, and indeed is evident throughout the work. Perhaps nothing has brought Spencer into more discredit than the lengths he went to prove this basic nature of ancestorism in his 'Principles of Sociology,' and the reader of pp.

121-24 of Mr. Hearn's work will readily see how futile also is the attempt to show that the nature-deities of s.h.i.+ntoism were only 'transfigured ghosts.' No, indeed, G.o.d did not make man and leave ghosts to make him religious. The heaven and the earth were here before ghosts, and man could personify them just as soon as he knew himself as a person, which he must have done long before he a.n.a.lyzed himself into a ghost-soul and a body. Had Mr. Hearn not ignored Reville, Max Muller, Pfleiderer, and Saussaye, while steeping himself in Spencer, he might have observed, what is plainly visible in s.h.i.+ntoism as elsewhere: that religion has _two_ tap roots, ancestorism indeed, but also naturism.

"Again, Mr. Hearn's sentence declares that ancestor-wors.h.i.+p is 'the foundation of all civilized society.' This is the prevailing view throughout the work; for example, on pp. 23, 57, 86, 99, 175, and 320.

But other pa.s.sages imply the saner view that religion and morality are coordinate functions of one man. Thus at p. 511, Mr. Hearn attributes j.a.pan's power to 'her old religious and social training.' The many and strong cases of influence of religion upon conduct that can really be shown in j.a.pan amount only to influence, of course, and not to 'foundation' or 'origination,' A quite transparent case of Mr. Hearn's error is where (p. 152) he attributes the exceptional cleanliness of the j.a.panese to their religion, which here, as usual, he sums up as ancestor-wors.h.i.+p. One wonders, however, why this world-wide phenomenon of religion should determine a j.a.panese cleanliness; why ancestor-wors.h.i.+ppers are not always clean; as for example the Chinese, who bathe most rarely. It seems saner to seek a cause for the unique daily bath of the j.a.panese in their also uniquely numerous thermal springs, which occur in no less than 388 different localities. Symbolism did indeed in j.a.pan, as elsewhere, lead to religious bathing in rivers; but bathing in rivers, as in ocean, was never popular in j.a.pan until recently learned from the foreigner; whereas the thermal springs are crowded, and the daily baths at home are always taken exceedingly hot after the thermal pattern, for these have been found not only cleansing, but curing and warming, the last quality being a great merit where winters are cold and houses unheated.

"Finally, the reader need not expect to meet here any adequate reference to those vices that have been fostered by religion in j.a.pan. The concubinage, confirmed by ancestorism, is once mentioned; and the harlotry, promoted by phallicism (the phallos was frequently found in a brothel, though not exclusively there, of course), is relegated to a simple footnote. But such matters can be learned elsewhere, whereas the close and frequent points of influence which religion exercised upon politics and morality in j.a.pan can nowhere else be so well studied as here." (292.)

THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY[41] (19) is Hearn's posthumous book. The last memories are of the "Weaving Lady of the Milky Way"; of "Goblin Poetry"; of "Ultimate Questions," which are called forth by the essay of that name written by the author of the "Synthetic Philosophy"; of the "Mirror Maiden" whom Matsumura, the priest, saved from the well, and who repaid him by good-fortune. Moreover, of the alluring maiden in the dream of Ito Norisuke--if one is to choose a ghost for a bride, who would not seek Himegimi-Sama? As a finale there is the picture of Admiral Togo sending to Tokyo "for some flowering-trees in pots--inasmuch as his responsibilities allowed him no chance of seeing the cherry-flowers and the plum-blossoms in their season."

[41] Copyright, 1905, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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