diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2510-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 21374 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2510-h/2510-h.htm | 1015 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2510.txt | 921 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2510.zip | bin | 0 -> 20346 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/invnr10.txt | 890 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/invnr10.zip | bin | 0 -> 18909 bytes |
9 files changed, 2842 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2510-h.zip b/2510-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..43ad6dd --- /dev/null +++ b/2510-h.zip diff --git a/2510-h/2510-h.htm b/2510-h/2510-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..653a795 --- /dev/null +++ b/2510-h/2510-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1015 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The Invention of a New Religion, by B. H. Chamberlain + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Invention of a New Religion, by +Basil Hall Chamberlain + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Invention of a New Religion + +Author: Basil Hall Chamberlain + +Release Date: December 22, 2008 [EBook #2510] +Last Updated: January 26, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INVENTION OF A NEW RELIGION *** + + + + +Produced by Peter Evans, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE INVENTION OF A NEW RELIGION + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By B. H. Chamberlain + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h4> + EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF JAPANESE AND PHILOLOGY<br /> AT THE IMPERIAL + UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO, JAPAN 1912 + </h4> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <div class="mynote"> + <p> + Transcriber's Notes: A few diacritical marks have had to be removed, but + Chamberlain did not use macrons to represent lengthened vowels. What + were footnotes are numbered and moved to the end of the relevant + paragraphs. + </p> + <br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + THE INVENTION OF A NEW RELIGION (1) + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + (Note 1) The writer of this pamphlet could but + skim over a wide subject. For full information see + Volume I. of Mr. J. Murdoch's recently-published + "History of Japan," the only critical work on that + subject existing in the English language. +</pre> + <p> + Voltaire and the other eighteenth-century philosophers, who held religions + to be the invention of priests, have been scorned as superficial by later + investigators. But was there not something in their view, after all? Have + not we, of a later and more critical day, got into so inveterate a habit + of digging deep that we sometimes fail to see what lies before our very + noses? Modern Japan is there to furnish an example. The Japanese are, it + is true, commonly said to be an irreligious people. They say so + themselves. Writes one of them, the celebrated Fukuzawa, teacher and type + of the modern educated Japanese man: "I lack a religious nature, and have + never believed in any religion." A score of like pronouncements might be + quoted from other leading men. The average, even educated, European + strikes the average educated Japanese as strangely superstitious, + unaccountably occupied with supra-mundane matters. The Japanese simply + cannot be brought to comprehend how a "mere parson" such as the Pope, or + even the Archbishop of Canterbury, occupies the place he does in politics + and society. Yet this same agnostic Japan is teaching us at this very hour + how religions are sometimes manufactured for a special end—to + subserve practical worldly purposes. + </p> + <p> + Mikado-worship and Japan-worship—for that is the new Japanese + religion—is, of course, no spontaneously generated phenomenon. Every + manufacture presupposes a material out of which it is made, every present + a past on which it rests. But the twentieth-century Japanese religion of + loyalty and patriotism is quite new, for in it pre-existing ideas have + been sifted, altered, freshly compounded, turned to new uses, and have + found a new centre of gravity. Not only is it new, it is not yet + completed; it is still in process of being consciously or semi-consciously + put together by the official class, in order to serve the interests of + that class, and, incidentally, the interests of the nation at large. The + Japanese bureaucracy is a body greatly to be admired. It includes most of + the foremost men of the nation. Like the priesthood in later Judaea, to + some extent like the Egyptian and Indian priesthoods, it not only governs, + but aspires to lead in intellectual matters. It has before it a complex + task. On the one hand, it must make good to the outer world the new claim + that Japan differs in no essential way from the nations of the West, + unless, indeed, it be by way of superiority. On the other hand, it has to + manage restive steeds at home, where ancestral ideas and habits clash with + new dangers arising from an alien material civilisation hastily absorbed. + </p> + <p> + Down to the year 1888, the line of cleavage between governors and governed + was obscured by the joyful ardour with which all classes alike devoted + themselves to the acquisition of European, not to say American, ideas. + Everything foreign was then hailed as perfect—everything old and + national was contemned. Sentiment grew democratic, in so far (perhaps it + was not very far) as American democratic ideals were understood. Love of + country seemed likely to yield to a humble bowing down before foreign + models. Officialdom not unnaturally took fright at this abdication of + national individualism. Evidently something must be done to turn the tide. + Accordingly, patriotic sentiment was appealed to through the throne, whose + hoary antiquity had ever been a source of pride to Japanese literati, who + loved to dwell on the contrast between Japan's unique line of absolute + monarchs and the short-lived dynasties of China. Shinto, a primitive + nature cult, which had fallen into discredit, was taken out of its + cupboard and dusted. The common people, it is true, continued to place + their affections on Buddhism, the popular festivals were Buddhist, + Buddhist also the temples where they buried their dead. The governing + class determined to change all this. They insisted on the Shinto doctrine + that the Mikado descends in direct succession from the native Goddess of + the Sun, and that He himself is a living God on earth who justly claims + the absolute fealty of his subjects. Such things as laws and constitutions + are but free gifts on His part, not in any sense popular rights. Of + course, the ministers and officials, high and low, who carry on His + government, are to be regarded not as public servants, but rather as + executants of supreme—one might say supernatural—authority. + Shinto, because connected with the Imperial Family, is to be alone + honoured. Therefore, the important right of burial, never before possessed + by it, was granted to its priests. Later on, the right of marriage was + granted likewise—an entirely novel departure in a land where + marriage had never been more than a civil contract. Thus the Shinto + priesthood was encouraged to penetrate into the intimacy of family life, + while in another direction it encroached on the field of ethics by + borrowing bits here and there from Confucian and even from Christian + sources. Under a regime of ostensible religious toleration, the attendance + of officials at certain Shinto services was required, and the practice was + established in all schools of bowing down several times yearly before the + Emperor's picture. Meanwhile Japanese polities had prospered; her warriors + had gained great victories. Enormous was the prestige thus accruing to + Imperialism and to the rejuvenated Shinto cult. All military successes + were ascribed to the miraculous influence of the Emperor's virtue, and to + the virtues of His Imperial and divine ancestors—that is, of former + Emperors and of Shinto deities. Imperial envoys were regularly sent after + each great victory to carry the good tidings to the Sun Goddess at her + great shrine at Ise. Not there alone, but at the other principal Shinto + shrines throughout the land, the cannon captured from Chinese or Russian + foes were officially installed, with a view to identifying Imperialism, + Shinto, and national glory in the popular mind. The new legend is enforced + wherever feasible—for instance, by means of a new set of festivals + celebrating Imperial official events. + </p> + <p> + But the schools are the great strongholds of the new propaganda. History + is so taught to the young as to focus everything upon Imperialism, and to + diminish as far as possible the contrast between ancient and modern + conditions. The same is true of the instruction given to army and navy + recruits. Thus, though Shinto is put in the forefront, little stress is + laid on its mythology, which would be apt to shock even the Japanese mind + at the present day. To this extent, where a purpose useful to the ruling + class is to be served, criticism is practised, though not avowedly. Far + different is the case with so-called "historical facts," such as the + alleged foundation of the Monarchy in 660 B.C. and similar statements + paralleled only for absurdity by what passed for history in mediaeval + Europe, when King Lear, Brute, King of Britain, etc., etc., were accepted + as authentic personages. For the truth, known to all critical + investigators, is that, instead of going back to a remote antiquity, the + origins of Japanese history are recent as compared with that of European + countries. The first glimmer of genuine Japanese history dates from the + fifth century AFTER Christ, and even the accounts of what happened in the + sixth century must be received with caution. Japanese scholars know this + as well as we do; it is one of the certain results of investigation. But + the Japanese bureaucracy does not desire to have the light let in on this + inconvenient circumstance. While granting a dispensation re the national + mythology, properly so called, it exacts belief in every iota of the + national historic legends. Woe to the native professor who strays from the + path of orthodoxy. His wife and children (and in Japan every man, however + young, has a wife and children) will starve. From the late Prince Ito's + grossly misleading "Commentary on the Japanese Constitution" down to + school compendiums, the absurd dates are everywhere insisted upon. This + despite the fact that the mythology and the so-called early history are + recorded in the same works, and are characterised by like miraculous + impossibilities; that the chronology is palpably fraudulent; that the + speeches put into the mouths of ancient Mikados are centos culled from the + Chinese classics; that their names are in some cases derived from Chinese + sources; and that the earliest Japanese historical narratives, the + earliest known social usages, and even the centralised Imperial form of + Government itself, are all stained through and through with a Chinese dye, + so much so that it is no longer possible to determine what percentage of + old native thought may still linger on in fragments here and there. In the + face of all this, moral ideals, which were of common knowledge derived + from the teaching of the Chinese sages, are now arbitrarily referred to + the "Imperial Ancestors." Such, in particular, are loyalty and filial + piety—the two virtues on which, in the Far-Eastern world, all the + others rest. It is, furthermore, officially taught that, from the earliest + ages, perfect concord has always subsisted in Japan between beneficent + sovereigns on the one hand, and a gratefully loyal people on the other. + Never, it is alleged, has Japan been soiled by the disobedient and + rebellious acts common in other countries; while at the same time the + Japanese nation, sharing to some extent in the supernatural virtues of its + rulers, has been distinguished by a high-minded chivalry called Bushido, + unknown in inferior lands. + </p> + <p> + Such is the fabric of ideas which the official class is busy building up + by every means in its power, including the punishment of those who presume + to stickle for historic truth. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The sober fact is that no nation probably has ever treated its sovereigns + more cavalierly than the Japanese have done, from the beginning of + authentic history down to within the memory of living men. Emperors have + been deposed, emperors have been assassinated; for centuries every + succession to the throne was the signal for intrigues and sanguinary + broils. Emperors have been exiled; some have been murdered in exile. From + the remote island to which he had been relegated one managed to escape, + hidden under a load of dried fish. In the fourteenth century, things came + to such a pass that two rival Imperial lines defied each other for the + space of fifty-eight years—the so-called Northern and Southern + Courts; and it was the Northern Court, branded by later historians as + usurping and illegitimate, that ultimately won the day, and handed on the + Imperial regalia to its successors. After that, as indeed before that, for + long centuries the government was in the hands of Mayors of the Palace, + who substituted one infant Sovereign for another, generally forcing each + to abdicate as soon as he approached man's estate. At one period, these + Mayors of the Palace left the Descendant of the Sun in such distress that + His Imperial Majesty and the Imperial Princes were obliged to gain a + livelihood by selling their autographs! Nor did any great party in the + State protest against this condition of affairs. Even in the present reign—the + most glorious in Japanese history—there have been two rebellions, + during one of which a rival Emperor was set up in one part of the country, + and a republic proclaimed in another. + </p> + <p> + As for Bushido, so modern a thing is it that neither Kaempfer, Siebold, + Satow, nor Rein—all men knowing their Japan by heart—ever once + allude to it in their voluminous writings. The cause of their silence is + not far to seek: Bushido was unknown until a decade or two ago! THE VERY + WORD APPEARS IN NO DICTIONARY, NATIVE OR FOREIGN, BEFORE THE YEAR 1900. + Chivalrous individuals of course existed in Japan, as in all countries at + every period; but Bushido, as an institution or a code of rules, has never + existed. The accounts given of it have been fabricated out of whole cloth, + chiefly for foreign consumption. An analysis of medieval Japanese history + shows that the great feudal houses, so far from displaying an excessive + idealism in the matter of fealty to one emperor, one lord, or one party, + had evolved the eminently practical plan of letting their different + members take different sides, so that the family as a whole might come out + as winner in any event, and thus avoid the confiscation of its lands. + Cases, no doubt, occurred of devotion to losing causes—for example, + to Mikados in disgrace; but they were less common than in the more + romantic West. + </p> + <p> + Thus, within the space of a short lifetime, the new Japanese religion of + loyalty and patriotism has emerged into the light of day. The feats + accomplished during the late war with Russia show that the simple ideal + which it offers is capable of inspiring great deeds. From a certain point + of view the nation may be congratulated on its new possession. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The new Japanese religion consists, in its present early stage, of worship + of the sacrosanct Imperial Person and of His Divine Ancestors, of implicit + obedience to Him as head of the army (a position, by the way, opposed to + all former Japanese ideas, according to which the Court was essentially + civilian); furthermore, of a corresponding belief that Japan is as far + superior to the common ruck of nations as the Mikado is divinely superior + to the common ruck of kings and emperors. Do not the early history-books + record the fact that Japan was created first, while all other countries + resulted merely from the drops that fell from the creator's spear when he + had finished his main work? And do not the later annals prove that true + valour belongs to the Japanese knight alone, whereas foreign countries—China + and Europe alike—are sunk in a degrading commercialism? For the + inhabitants of "the Land of the Gods" to take any notice of such creatures + by adopting a few of their trifling mechanical inventions is an act of + gracious condescension. + </p> + <p> + To quote but one official utterance out of a hundred, Baron Oura, minister + of agriculture and commerce, writes thus in February of last year:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + That the majesty of our Imperial House towers high + above everything to be found in the world, and that + it is as durable as heaven and earth, is too well + known to need dwelling on here...... If it is + considered that our country needs a religious faith, + then, I say, let it be converted to a belief in the + religion of patriotism and loyalty, the religion of + Imperialism—in other words, to Emperor-worship. +</pre> + <p> + The Rev. Dr. Ebina,(2) one of the leading lights of the Protestant + pastorate in Japan, plunges more deeply still into this doctrine, + according to which, as already noted, the whole Japanese nation is, in a + manner, apotheosised. Says he:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Though the encouragement of ancestor-worship cannot + be regarded as part of the essential teaching of + Christianity (!), it (3) is not opposed to the + notion that, when the Japanese Empire was founded, + its early rulers were in communication with the + Great Spirit that rules the universe. Christians, + according to this theory, without doing violence + to their creed, may acknowledge that the Japanese + nation has a divine origin. It is only when we + realise that the Imperial Ancestors were in close + communion with God (or the Gods), that we understand + how sacred is the country in which we live. (Dr. + Ebina ends by recommending the Imperial Rescript on + Education as a text for Christian sermons.) + + (Note 2) We quote from the translation given + by Mr. Walter Dening in one of the invaluable + "Summaries of Current Japanese Literature," + contributed by him from time to time to the + columns of the "Japan Mail," Yokohama. + + (Note 3) "It" means Christianity. +</pre> + <p> + It needs no comment of ours to point out how thoroughly the nation must be + saturated by the doctrines under discussion for such amazing utterances to + be possible. If so-called Christians can think thus, the non-Christian + majority must indeed be devout Emperor-worshippers and Japan-worshippers. + Such the go-ahead portion of the nation undoubtedly is—the students, + the army, the navy, the emigrants to Japan's new foreign possessions, all + the more ardent spirits. The peasantry, as before noted, occupy themselves + little with new thoughts, clinging rather to the Buddhist beliefs of their + forefathers. But nothing could be further removed from even their minds + than the idea of offering any organised resistance to the propaganda going + on around them. + </p> + <p> + As a matter of fact, the spread of the new ideas has been easy, because a + large class derives power from their diffusion, while to oppose them is + the business of no one in particular. Moreover, the disinterested love of + truth for its own sake is rare; the patience to unearth it is rarer still, + especially in the East. Patriotism, too, is a mighty engine working in the + interests of credulity. How should men not believe in a system that + produces such excellent practical results, a system which has united all + the scattered elements of national feeling into one focus, and has thus + created a powerful instrument for the attainment of national aims? + Meanwhile a generation is growing up which does not so much as suspect + that its cherished beliefs are inventions of yesterday. + </p> + <p> + The new religion, in its present stage, still lacks one important item—a + sacred book. Certain indications show that this lacuna will be filled by + the elevation of the more important Imperial Rescripts to that rank, + accompanied doubtless by an authoritative commentary, as their style is + too abstruse to be understanded of the people. To these Imperial Rescripts + some of the poems composed by his present Majesty may be added. In fact, a + volume on the whole duty of Japanese man, with selected Imperial poems as + texts, has already appeared. (4) + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + (Note 4) For over a thousand years the composition + of Japanese and Chinese verse has formed part of a + liberal education, like the composition of Latin + verse among ourselves. The Court has always + devoted much time to the practice of this art. + But the poems of former Emperors were little + known, because the monarchs themselves remained + shut up in their palace, and exercised no + influence beyond its walls. With his present + Majesty the case is entirely different. Moreover, + some of his compositions breathe a patriotism + formerly undreamt of. + +</pre> + <hr /> + <p> + One might have imagined that Japan's new religionists would have + experienced some difficulty in persuading foreign nations of the truth of + their dogmas. Things have fallen out otherwise. Europe and America evince + a singular taste for the marvellous, and find a zest in self-depreciation. + Our eighteenth-century ancestors imagined all perfections to be realised + in China, thanks to the glowing descriptions then given of that country by + the Jesuits. Twentieth-century Europe finds its moral and political + Eldorado in distant Japan, a land of fabulous antiquity and incredible + virtues. There is no lack of pleasant-mannered persons ready to guide + trustful admirers in the right path. Official and semi-official Japanese, + whether ambassadors and ministers-resident or peripatetic counts and + barons, make it their business to spread a legend so pleasing to the + national vanity, so useful as a diplomatic engine. Lectures are delivered, + books are written in English, important periodicals are bought up, minute + care is lavished on the concealment, the patching-up, and glossing-over of + the deep gulf that nevertheless is fixed between East and West. The + foreigner cannot refuse the bolus thus artfully forced down his throat. He + is not suspicious by nature. How should he imagine that people who make + such positive statements about their own country are merely exploiting his + credulity? HE has reached a stage of culture where such mythopoeia has + become impossible. On the other hand, to control information by consulting + original sources lies beyond his capacity. + </p> + <p> + For consider this peculiar circumstance: the position of European + investigators vis-a-vis Japan differs entirely from that of Japanese + vis-a-vis Europe. The Japanese possess every facility for studying and + understanding Europe. Europeans are warded off by well-nigh insuperable + obstacles from understanding Japan. Europe stands on a hill-top, in the + sunlight, glittering afar. Her people court inspection. "Come and see how + we live"—such was a typical invitation which the present writer + recently received. A thousand English homes are open to any Japanese + student or traveller who visits our shores. An alphabet of but + six-and-twenty simple letters throws equally wide open to him a literature + clearly revealing our thoughts, so that he who runs may read. Japan lies + in the shadow, away on the rim of the world. Her houses are far more + effectually closed to the stranger by their paper shutters than are ours + by walls of brick or stone. What we call "society" does not exist there. + Her people, though smiling and courteous, surround themselves by an + atmosphere of reserve, centuries of despotic government having rendered + them suspicious and reticent. True, when a foreigner of importance visits + Japan—some British M.P., perhaps, whose name figures often in the + newspapers, or an American editor, or the president of a great American + college—this personage is charmingly received. But he is never left + free to form his own opinion of things, even were he capable of so doing. + Circumstances spin an invisible web around him, his hosts being keenly + intent on making him a speaking-trumpet for the proclamation of their own + views. + </p> + <p> + Again, Japan's non-Aryan speech, marvellously intricate, almost defies + acquisition. Suppose this difficult vernacular mastered; the would-be + student discovers that literary works, even newspapers and ordinary + correspondence, are not composed in it, but in another dialect, partly + antiquated, partly artificial, differing as widely from the colloquial + speech as Latin does from Italian. Make a second hazardous supposition. + Assume that the grammar and vocabulary of this second indispensable + Japanese language have been learnt, in addition to the first. You are + still but at the threshold of your task, Japanese thought having + barricaded itself behind the fortress walls of an extraordinarily + complicated system of writing, compared with which Egyptian hieroglyphics + are child's play. Yet next to nothing can be found out by a foreigner + unless he have this, too, at his fingers' ends. As a matter of fact, + scarcely anyone acquires it—only a missionary here and there, or a + consular official with a life appointment. + </p> + <p> + The result of all this is that, whereas the Japanese know everything that + it imports them to know about us, Europeans cannot know much about them, + such information as they receive being always belated, necessarily meagre, + and mostly adulterated to serve Japanese interests. International + relations placed—and, we repeat it, inevitably placed—on this + footing resemble a boxing match in which one of the contestants should + have his hands tied. But the metaphor fails in an essential point, as + metaphors are apt to do—the hand-tied man does not realise the + disadvantage under which he labours. He thinks himself as free as his + opponent. + </p> + <p> + Thus does it come about that the neo-Japanese myths concerning dates, and + Emperors, and heroes, and astonishing national virtues already begin to + find their way into popular English text-books, current literature, and + even grave books of reference. The Japanese governing class has willed it + so, and in such matters the Japanese governing class can enforce its will + abroad as well as at home. The statement may sound paradoxical. Study the + question carefully, and you will find that it is simply true. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + What is happening in Japan to-day is evidently exceptional. Normal + religious and political change does not proceed in that manner; it + proceeds by imperceptible degrees. But exceptions to general rules occur + from time to time in every field of activity. Are they really exceptions, + using that term in its current sense—to denote something arbitrary, + and therefore unaccountable? Surely these so-called exceptions are but + examples of rules of rarer application. + </p> + <p> + The classic instance of the invention of a new national religion is + furnished by the Jews of the post-exilic period. The piecing together, + then, of a brand-new system under an ancient name is now so well + understood, and has produced consequences of such world-wide importance, + that the briefest reference to it may suffice. Works which every critic + can now see to be relatively modern were ascribed to Moses, David, or + Daniel; intricate laws and ordinances that had never been practised—could + never be practised—were represented as ancient institutions; a whole + new way of thinking and acting was set in motion on the assumption that it + was old. Yet, so far as is known, no one in or out of Palestine ever saw + through the illusion for over two thousand years. It was reserved for + nineteenth-century scholars to draw aside the veil hiding the real facts + of the case. + </p> + <p> + Modern times supply another instance, less important than the first, but + remarkable enough. Rousseau came in the middle of the eighteenth century, + and preached a doctrine that took the world by storm, and soon + precipitated that world in ruins. How did he discover his gospel? He tells + us quite naively:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + All the rest of the day, buried in the forest, I + sought, I found there the image of primitive ages, + whose history I boldly traced. I made havoc of men's + petty lies; I dared to unveil and strip naked man's + true nature, to follow up the course of time and of + the circumstances that have disfigured it, and, + comparing man as men have made him with man as + nature made him, to demonstrate that the so-called + improvements (of civilisation) have been the source + of all his woes, etc. (5) + + (Note 5) "Confessions," Book VIII., year 1753. +</pre> + <p> + In other words, he spun a pseudo-history from his own brain. What is + stranger, he fanatically believed in this his pure invention, and, most + extraordinary of all, persuaded other people to believe in it as + fanatically. It was taken up as a religion, it inspired heroes, and + enabled a barefoot rabble to beat the finest regular armies in the world. + Even now, at a distance of a century and a half, its embers still glow. + </p> + <p> + Of course, it is not pretended that these various systems of thought were + ARBITRARY inventions. No more were they so than the cloud palaces that we + sometimes see swiftly form in the sky and as swiftly dissolve. The germ of + Rousseau's ideas can be traced back to Fenelon and other + seventeenth-century thinkers, weary of the pomp and periwigs around them. + Rousseau himself did but fulfil the aspiration of a whole society for + something simpler, juster, more true to nature, more logical. He gave + exactly what was needed at that moment of history—what appeared + self-evident; wherefore no one so much as thought of asking for detailed + proofs. His deism, his statements concerning the "state of nature" and the + "social contract," etc., were at once recognised by the people of his day + as eternal verities. What need for discussion or investigation? + </p> + <p> + The case of Judaea is obscure; but it would seem that something analogous + must have happened there, when the continuity of national life had been + snapped by the exile. A revolutionised and most unhappy present involved a + changed attitude towards the past. Oral tradition and the scraps of + written records that had survived the shipwreck of the kingdom fell, as it + were, naturally into another order. The kaleidoscope having been turned, + the pattern changed of itself. A few gifted individuals voiced the + enthusiasm of a whole community, when they adopted literary methods which + would now, in our comparatively stable days, be branded as fraudulent. + They simply could not help themselves. The pressing need of constructing a + national polity for the present on the only basis then possible—Yahwe + worship—FORCED them into falsifying the past. The question was one + of life and death for the Jewish nationality. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Europeans there are in Japan—Europeanised Japanese likewise—who + feel outraged by the action of the Japanese bureaucracy in the matter of + the new cult, with all the illiberal and obscurantist measures which it + entails. That is natural. We modern Westerners love individual liberty, + and the educated among us love to let the sunlight of criticism into every + nook and cranny of every subject. Freedom and scientific accuracy are our + gods. But Japanese officialdom acts quite naturally, after its kind, in + not allowing the light to be let in, because the roots of the faith it has + planted need darkness in which to grow and spread. No religion can live + which is subjected to critical scrutiny. + </p> + <p> + Thus also are explained the rigours of the Japanese bureaucracy against + the native liberals, who, in its eyes, appear, not simply as political + opponents, but as traitors to the chosen people—sacrilegious + heretics defying the authority of the One and Only True Church. + </p> + <p> + "But," you will say, "this indignation must be mere pretence. Not even + officials can be so stupid as to believe in things which they have + themselves invented." We venture to think that you are wrong here. People + can always believe that which it is greatly to their interest to believe. + Thousands of excellent persons in our own society cling to the doctrine of + a future life on no stronger evidence. It is enormously important to the + Japanese ruling class that the mental attitude sketched above should + become universal among their countrymen. Accordingly, they achieve the + apparently impossible. "We believe in it," said one of them to us recently—"we + believe in it, although we know that it is not true." Tertullian said + nearly the same thing, and no one has ever doubted HIS sincerity. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Invention of a New Religion, by +Basil Hall Chamberlain + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INVENTION OF A NEW RELIGION *** + +***** This file should be named 2510-h.htm or 2510-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/1/2510/ + +Produced by Peter Evans, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + </body> +</html> diff --git a/2510.txt b/2510.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6402635 --- /dev/null +++ b/2510.txt @@ -0,0 +1,921 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Invention of a New Religion, by +Basil Hall Chamberlain + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Invention of a New Religion + +Author: Basil Hall Chamberlain + +Posting Date: December 22, 2008 [EBook #2510] +Release Date: February, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INVENTION OF A NEW RELIGION *** + + + + +Produced by Peter Evans + + + + + +THE INVENTION OF A NEW RELIGION + +By B. H. Chamberlain + +EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF JAPANESE AND PHILOLOGY AT THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY +OF TOKYO, JAPAN 1912 + + +Transcriber's Notes: A few diacritical marks have had to be removed, +but Chamberlain did not use macrons to represent lengthened vowels. +What were footnotes are numbered and moved to the end of the relevant +paragraphs. + + + + + +THE INVENTION OF A NEW RELIGION (1) + + (Note 1) The writer of this pamphlet could but + skim over a wide subject. For full information see + Volume I. of Mr. J. Murdoch's recently-published + "History of Japan," the only critical work on that + subject existing in the English language. + +Voltaire and the other eighteenth-century philosophers, who held +religions to be the invention of priests, have been scorned as +superficial by later investigators. But was there not something in their +view, after all? Have not we, of a later and more critical day, got into +so inveterate a habit of digging deep that we sometimes fail to see what +lies before our very noses? Modern Japan is there to furnish an example. +The Japanese are, it is true, commonly said to be an irreligious people. +They say so themselves. Writes one of them, the celebrated Fukuzawa, +teacher and type of the modern educated Japanese man: "I lack a +religious nature, and have never believed in any religion." A score of +like pronouncements might be quoted from other leading men. The average, +even educated, European strikes the average educated Japanese as +strangely superstitious, unaccountably occupied with supra-mundane +matters. The Japanese simply cannot be brought to comprehend how a "mere +parson" such as the Pope, or even the Archbishop of Canterbury, occupies +the place he does in politics and society. Yet this same agnostic +Japan is teaching us at this very hour how religions are sometimes +manufactured for a special end--to subserve practical worldly purposes. + +Mikado-worship and Japan-worship--for that is the new Japanese +religion--is, of course, no spontaneously generated phenomenon. Every +manufacture presupposes a material out of which it is made, every +present a past on which it rests. But the twentieth-century Japanese +religion of loyalty and patriotism is quite new, for in it pre-existing +ideas have been sifted, altered, freshly compounded, turned to new uses, +and have found a new centre of gravity. Not only is it new, it is +not yet completed; it is still in process of being consciously or +semi-consciously put together by the official class, in order to serve +the interests of that class, and, incidentally, the interests of the +nation at large. The Japanese bureaucracy is a body greatly to be +admired. It includes most of the foremost men of the nation. Like the +priesthood in later Judaea, to some extent like the Egyptian and Indian +priesthoods, it not only governs, but aspires to lead in intellectual +matters. It has before it a complex task. On the one hand, it must make +good to the outer world the new claim that Japan differs in no essential +way from the nations of the West, unless, indeed, it be by way of +superiority. On the other hand, it has to manage restive steeds at home, +where ancestral ideas and habits clash with new dangers arising from an +alien material civilisation hastily absorbed. + +Down to the year 1888, the line of cleavage between governors and +governed was obscured by the joyful ardour with which all classes alike +devoted themselves to the acquisition of European, not to say American, +ideas. Everything foreign was then hailed as perfect--everything old and +national was contemned. Sentiment grew democratic, in so far (perhaps it +was not very far) as American democratic ideals were understood. Love +of country seemed likely to yield to a humble bowing down before foreign +models. Officialdom not unnaturally took fright at this abdication of +national individualism. Evidently something must be done to turn the +tide. Accordingly, patriotic sentiment was appealed to through the +throne, whose hoary antiquity had ever been a source of pride to +Japanese literati, who loved to dwell on the contrast between Japan's +unique line of absolute monarchs and the short-lived dynasties of China. +Shinto, a primitive nature cult, which had fallen into discredit, was +taken out of its cupboard and dusted. The common people, it is true, +continued to place their affections on Buddhism, the popular festivals +were Buddhist, Buddhist also the temples where they buried their dead. +The governing class determined to change all this. They insisted on the +Shinto doctrine that the Mikado descends in direct succession from the +native Goddess of the Sun, and that He himself is a living God on earth +who justly claims the absolute fealty of his subjects. Such things as +laws and constitutions are but free gifts on His part, not in any sense +popular rights. Of course, the ministers and officials, high and low, +who carry on His government, are to be regarded not as public +servants, but rather as executants of supreme--one might say +supernatural--authority. Shinto, because connected with the Imperial +Family, is to be alone honoured. Therefore, the important right of +burial, never before possessed by it, was granted to its priests. +Later on, the right of marriage was granted likewise--an entirely novel +departure in a land where marriage had never been more than a civil +contract. Thus the Shinto priesthood was encouraged to penetrate into +the intimacy of family life, while in another direction it encroached on +the field of ethics by borrowing bits here and there from Confucian +and even from Christian sources. Under a regime of ostensible religious +toleration, the attendance of officials at certain Shinto services was +required, and the practice was established in all schools of bowing down +several times yearly before the Emperor's picture. Meanwhile Japanese +polities had prospered; her warriors had gained great victories. +Enormous was the prestige thus accruing to Imperialism and to the +rejuvenated Shinto cult. All military successes were ascribed to the +miraculous influence of the Emperor's virtue, and to the virtues of His +Imperial and divine ancestors--that is, of former Emperors and of Shinto +deities. Imperial envoys were regularly sent after each great victory +to carry the good tidings to the Sun Goddess at her great shrine at Ise. +Not there alone, but at the other principal Shinto shrines throughout +the land, the cannon captured from Chinese or Russian foes were +officially installed, with a view to identifying Imperialism, Shinto, +and national glory in the popular mind. The new legend is enforced +wherever feasible--for instance, by means of a new set of festivals +celebrating Imperial official events. + +But the schools are the great strongholds of the new propaganda. History +is so taught to the young as to focus everything upon Imperialism, and +to diminish as far as possible the contrast between ancient and modern +conditions. The same is true of the instruction given to army and navy +recruits. Thus, though Shinto is put in the forefront, little stress +is laid on its mythology, which would be apt to shock even the Japanese +mind at the present day. To this extent, where a purpose useful to +the ruling class is to be served, criticism is practised, though not +avowedly. Far different is the case with so-called "historical facts," +such as the alleged foundation of the Monarchy in 660 B.C. and similar +statements paralleled only for absurdity by what passed for history in +mediaeval Europe, when King Lear, Brute, King of Britain, etc., etc., +were accepted as authentic personages. For the truth, known to all +critical investigators, is that, instead of going back to a remote +antiquity, the origins of Japanese history are recent as compared +with that of European countries. The first glimmer of genuine Japanese +history dates from the fifth century AFTER Christ, and even the accounts +of what happened in the sixth century must be received with caution. +Japanese scholars know this as well as we do; it is one of the certain +results of investigation. But the Japanese bureaucracy does not desire +to have the light let in on this inconvenient circumstance. While +granting a dispensation re the national mythology, properly so called, +it exacts belief in every iota of the national historic legends. Woe to +the native professor who strays from the path of orthodoxy. His wife +and children (and in Japan every man, however young, has a wife and +children) will starve. From the late Prince Ito's grossly misleading +"Commentary on the Japanese Constitution" down to school compendiums, +the absurd dates are everywhere insisted upon. This despite the fact +that the mythology and the so-called early history are recorded in the +same works, and are characterised by like miraculous impossibilities; +that the chronology is palpably fraudulent; that the speeches put +into the mouths of ancient Mikados are centos culled from the Chinese +classics; that their names are in some cases derived from Chinese +sources; and that the earliest Japanese historical narratives, the +earliest known social usages, and even the centralised Imperial form of +Government itself, are all stained through and through with a Chinese +dye, so much so that it is no longer possible to determine what +percentage of old native thought may still linger on in fragments here +and there. In the face of all this, moral ideals, which were of common +knowledge derived from the teaching of the Chinese sages, are now +arbitrarily referred to the "Imperial Ancestors." Such, in particular, +are loyalty and filial piety--the two virtues on which, in the +Far-Eastern world, all the others rest. It is, furthermore, officially +taught that, from the earliest ages, perfect concord has always +subsisted in Japan between beneficent sovereigns on the one hand, and +a gratefully loyal people on the other. Never, it is alleged, has Japan +been soiled by the disobedient and rebellious acts common in other +countries; while at the same time the Japanese nation, sharing to some +extent in the supernatural virtues of its rulers, has been distinguished +by a high-minded chivalry called Bushido, unknown in inferior lands. + +Such is the fabric of ideas which the official class is busy building +up by every means in its power, including the punishment of those who +presume to stickle for historic truth. + + ***** + +The sober fact is that no nation probably has ever treated its +sovereigns more cavalierly than the Japanese have done, from the +beginning of authentic history down to within the memory of living +men. Emperors have been deposed, emperors have been assassinated; for +centuries every succession to the throne was the signal for intrigues +and sanguinary broils. Emperors have been exiled; some have been +murdered in exile. From the remote island to which he had been relegated +one managed to escape, hidden under a load of dried fish. In the +fourteenth century, things came to such a pass that two rival Imperial +lines defied each other for the space of fifty-eight years--the +so-called Northern and Southern Courts; and it was the Northern +Court, branded by later historians as usurping and illegitimate, that +ultimately won the day, and handed on the Imperial regalia to its +successors. After that, as indeed before that, for long centuries the +government was in the hands of Mayors of the Palace, who substituted one +infant Sovereign for another, generally forcing each to abdicate as soon +as he approached man's estate. At one period, these Mayors of the +Palace left the Descendant of the Sun in such distress that His Imperial +Majesty and the Imperial Princes were obliged to gain a livelihood by +selling their autographs! Nor did any great party in the State protest +against this condition of affairs. Even in the present reign--the most +glorious in Japanese history--there have been two rebellions, during one +of which a rival Emperor was set up in one part of the country, and a +republic proclaimed in another. + +As for Bushido, so modern a thing is it that neither Kaempfer, Siebold, +Satow, nor Rein--all men knowing their Japan by heart--ever once allude +to it in their voluminous writings. The cause of their silence is not +far to seek: Bushido was unknown until a decade or two ago! THE VERY +WORD APPEARS IN NO DICTIONARY, NATIVE OR FOREIGN, BEFORE THE YEAR 1900. +Chivalrous individuals of course existed in Japan, as in all countries +at every period; but Bushido, as an institution or a code of rules, +has never existed. The accounts given of it have been fabricated out of +whole cloth, chiefly for foreign consumption. An analysis of medieval +Japanese history shows that the great feudal houses, so far from +displaying an excessive idealism in the matter of fealty to one emperor, +one lord, or one party, had evolved the eminently practical plan of +letting their different members take different sides, so that the family +as a whole might come out as winner in any event, and thus avoid the +confiscation of its lands. Cases, no doubt, occurred of devotion to +losing causes--for example, to Mikados in disgrace; but they were less +common than in the more romantic West. + +Thus, within the space of a short lifetime, the new Japanese religion +of loyalty and patriotism has emerged into the light of day. The feats +accomplished during the late war with Russia show that the simple ideal +which it offers is capable of inspiring great deeds. From a certain +point of view the nation may be congratulated on its new possession. + + ***** + +The new Japanese religion consists, in its present early stage, of +worship of the sacrosanct Imperial Person and of His Divine Ancestors, +of implicit obedience to Him as head of the army (a position, by the +way, opposed to all former Japanese ideas, according to which the Court +was essentially civilian); furthermore, of a corresponding belief that +Japan is as far superior to the common ruck of nations as the Mikado is +divinely superior to the common ruck of kings and emperors. Do not the +early history-books record the fact that Japan was created first, while +all other countries resulted merely from the drops that fell from the +creator's spear when he had finished his main work? And do not the later +annals prove that true valour belongs to the Japanese knight alone, +whereas foreign countries--China and Europe alike--are sunk in a +degrading commercialism? For the inhabitants of "the Land of the Gods" +to take any notice of such creatures by adopting a few of their trifling +mechanical inventions is an act of gracious condescension. + +To quote but one official utterance out of a hundred, Baron Oura, +minister of agriculture and commerce, writes thus in February of last +year:-- + + That the majesty of our Imperial House towers high + above everything to be found in the world, and that + it is as durable as heaven and earth, is too well + known to need dwelling on here...... If it is + considered that our country needs a religious faith, + then, I say, let it be converted to a belief in the + religion of patriotism and loyalty, the religion of + Imperialism--in other words, to Emperor-worship. + +The Rev. Dr. Ebina,(2) one of the leading lights of the Protestant +pastorate in Japan, plunges more deeply still into this doctrine, +according to which, as already noted, the whole Japanese nation is, in a +manner, apotheosised. Says he:-- + + Though the encouragement of ancestor-worship cannot + be regarded as part of the essential teaching of + Christianity (!), it (3) is not opposed to the + notion that, when the Japanese Empire was founded, + its early rulers were in communication with the + Great Spirit that rules the universe. Christians, + according to this theory, without doing violence + to their creed, may acknowledge that the Japanese + nation has a divine origin. It is only when we + realise that the Imperial Ancestors were in close + communion with God (or the Gods), that we understand + how sacred is the country in which we live. (Dr. + Ebina ends by recommending the Imperial Rescript on + Education as a text for Christian sermons.) + + (Note 2) We quote from the translation given + by Mr. Walter Dening in one of the invaluable + "Summaries of Current Japanese Literature," + contributed by him from time to time to the + columns of the "Japan Mail," Yokohama. + + (Note 3) "It" means Christianity. + +It needs no comment of ours to point out how thoroughly the nation +must be saturated by the doctrines under discussion for such amazing +utterances to be possible. If so-called Christians can think thus, the +non-Christian majority must indeed be devout Emperor-worshippers and +Japan-worshippers. Such the go-ahead portion of the nation undoubtedly +is--the students, the army, the navy, the emigrants to Japan's new +foreign possessions, all the more ardent spirits. The peasantry, as +before noted, occupy themselves little with new thoughts, clinging +rather to the Buddhist beliefs of their forefathers. But nothing could +be further removed from even their minds than the idea of offering any +organised resistance to the propaganda going on around them. + +As a matter of fact, the spread of the new ideas has been easy, because +a large class derives power from their diffusion, while to oppose them +is the business of no one in particular. Moreover, the disinterested +love of truth for its own sake is rare; the patience to unearth it is +rarer still, especially in the East. Patriotism, too, is a mighty engine +working in the interests of credulity. How should men not believe in a +system that produces such excellent practical results, a system which +has united all the scattered elements of national feeling into one +focus, and has thus created a powerful instrument for the attainment of +national aims? Meanwhile a generation is growing up which does not so +much as suspect that its cherished beliefs are inventions of yesterday. + +The new religion, in its present stage, still lacks one important +item--a sacred book. Certain indications show that this lacuna will be +filled by the elevation of the more important Imperial Rescripts to that +rank, accompanied doubtless by an authoritative commentary, as their +style is too abstruse to be understanded of the people. To these +Imperial Rescripts some of the poems composed by his present Majesty +may be added. In fact, a volume on the whole duty of Japanese man, with +selected Imperial poems as texts, has already appeared. (4) + + (Note 4) For over a thousand years the composition + of Japanese and Chinese verse has formed part of a + liberal education, like the composition of Latin + verse among ourselves. The Court has always + devoted much time to the practice of this art. + But the poems of former Emperors were little + known, because the monarchs themselves remained + shut up in their palace, and exercised no + influence beyond its walls. With his present + Majesty the case is entirely different. Moreover, + some of his compositions breathe a patriotism + formerly undreamt of. + + ***** + +One might have imagined that Japan's new religionists would have +experienced some difficulty in persuading foreign nations of the truth +of their dogmas. Things have fallen out otherwise. Europe and America +evince a singular taste for the marvellous, and find a zest in +self-depreciation. Our eighteenth-century ancestors imagined all +perfections to be realised in China, thanks to the glowing descriptions +then given of that country by the Jesuits. Twentieth-century Europe +finds its moral and political Eldorado in distant Japan, a land +of fabulous antiquity and incredible virtues. There is no lack of +pleasant-mannered persons ready to guide trustful admirers in the right +path. Official and semi-official Japanese, whether ambassadors and +ministers-resident or peripatetic counts and barons, make it their +business to spread a legend so pleasing to the national vanity, so +useful as a diplomatic engine. Lectures are delivered, books are written +in English, important periodicals are bought up, minute care is lavished +on the concealment, the patching-up, and glossing-over of the deep gulf +that nevertheless is fixed between East and West. The foreigner cannot +refuse the bolus thus artfully forced down his throat. He is not +suspicious by nature. How should he imagine that people who make such +positive statements about their own country are merely exploiting his +credulity? HE has reached a stage of culture where such mythopoeia +has become impossible. On the other hand, to control information by +consulting original sources lies beyond his capacity. + +For consider this peculiar circumstance: the position of European +investigators vis-a-vis Japan differs entirely from that of Japanese +vis-a-vis Europe. The Japanese possess every facility for studying and +understanding Europe. Europeans are warded off by well-nigh insuperable +obstacles from understanding Japan. Europe stands on a hill-top, in the +sunlight, glittering afar. Her people court inspection. "Come and see +how we live"--such was a typical invitation which the present writer +recently received. A thousand English homes are open to any Japanese +student or traveller who visits our shores. An alphabet of but +six-and-twenty simple letters throws equally wide open to him a +literature clearly revealing our thoughts, so that he who runs may read. +Japan lies in the shadow, away on the rim of the world. Her houses are +far more effectually closed to the stranger by their paper shutters than +are ours by walls of brick or stone. What we call "society" does +not exist there. Her people, though smiling and courteous, surround +themselves by an atmosphere of reserve, centuries of despotic government +having rendered them suspicious and reticent. True, when a foreigner of +importance visits Japan--some British M.P., perhaps, whose name figures +often in the newspapers, or an American editor, or the president of a +great American college--this personage is charmingly received. But he is +never left free to form his own opinion of things, even were he capable +of so doing. Circumstances spin an invisible web around him, his +hosts being keenly intent on making him a speaking-trumpet for the +proclamation of their own views. + +Again, Japan's non-Aryan speech, marvellously intricate, almost defies +acquisition. Suppose this difficult vernacular mastered; the would-be +student discovers that literary works, even newspapers and ordinary +correspondence, are not composed in it, but in another dialect, partly +antiquated, partly artificial, differing as widely from the colloquial +speech as Latin does from Italian. Make a second hazardous supposition. +Assume that the grammar and vocabulary of this second indispensable +Japanese language have been learnt, in addition to the first. You +are still but at the threshold of your task, Japanese thought having +barricaded itself behind the fortress walls of an extraordinarily +complicated system of writing, compared with which Egyptian +hieroglyphics are child's play. Yet next to nothing can be found out by +a foreigner unless he have this, too, at his fingers' ends. As a matter +of fact, scarcely anyone acquires it--only a missionary here and there, +or a consular official with a life appointment. + +The result of all this is that, whereas the Japanese know everything +that it imports them to know about us, Europeans cannot know much about +them, such information as they receive being always belated, +necessarily meagre, and mostly adulterated to serve Japanese interests. +International relations placed--and, we repeat it, inevitably placed--on +this footing resemble a boxing match in which one of the contestants +should have his hands tied. But the metaphor fails in an essential +point, as metaphors are apt to do--the hand-tied man does not realise +the disadvantage under which he labours. He thinks himself as free as +his opponent. + +Thus does it come about that the neo-Japanese myths concerning dates, +and Emperors, and heroes, and astonishing national virtues already begin +to find their way into popular English text-books, current literature, +and even grave books of reference. The Japanese governing class has +willed it so, and in such matters the Japanese governing class can +enforce its will abroad as well as at home. The statement may sound +paradoxical. Study the question carefully, and you will find that it is +simply true. + + ***** + +What is happening in Japan to-day is evidently exceptional. Normal +religious and political change does not proceed in that manner; it +proceeds by imperceptible degrees. But exceptions to general rules +occur from time to time in every field of activity. Are they really +exceptions, using that term in its current sense--to denote something +arbitrary, and therefore unaccountable? Surely these so-called +exceptions are but examples of rules of rarer application. + +The classic instance of the invention of a new national religion is +furnished by the Jews of the post-exilic period. The piecing together, +then, of a brand-new system under an ancient name is now so well +understood, and has produced consequences of such world-wide importance, +that the briefest reference to it may suffice. Works which every critic +can now see to be relatively modern were ascribed to Moses, David, +or Daniel; intricate laws and ordinances that had never been +practised--could never be practised--were represented as ancient +institutions; a whole new way of thinking and acting was set in motion +on the assumption that it was old. Yet, so far as is known, no one in +or out of Palestine ever saw through the illusion for over two thousand +years. It was reserved for nineteenth-century scholars to draw aside the +veil hiding the real facts of the case. + +Modern times supply another instance, less important than the first, +but remarkable enough. Rousseau came in the middle of the eighteenth +century, and preached a doctrine that took the world by storm, and soon +precipitated that world in ruins. How did he discover his gospel? He +tells us quite naively:-- + + All the rest of the day, buried in the forest, I + sought, I found there the image of primitive ages, + whose history I boldly traced. I made havoc of men's + petty lies; I dared to unveil and strip naked man's + true nature, to follow up the course of time and of + the circumstances that have disfigured it, and, + comparing man as men have made him with man as + nature made him, to demonstrate that the so-called + improvements (of civilisation) have been the source + of all his woes, etc. (5) + + (Note 5) "Confessions," Book VIII., year 1753. + + +In other words, he spun a pseudo-history from his own brain. What is +stranger, he fanatically believed in this his pure invention, and, +most extraordinary of all, persuaded other people to believe in it as +fanatically. It was taken up as a religion, it inspired heroes, and +enabled a barefoot rabble to beat the finest regular armies in the +world. Even now, at a distance of a century and a half, its embers still +glow. + +Of course, it is not pretended that these various systems of thought +were ARBITRARY inventions. No more were they so than the cloud palaces +that we sometimes see swiftly form in the sky and as swiftly dissolve. +The germ of Rousseau's ideas can be traced back to Fenelon and other +seventeenth-century thinkers, weary of the pomp and periwigs around +them. Rousseau himself did but fulfil the aspiration of a whole society +for something simpler, juster, more true to nature, more logical. He +gave exactly what was needed at that moment of history--what appeared +self-evident; wherefore no one so much as thought of asking for detailed +proofs. His deism, his statements concerning the "state of nature" and +the "social contract," etc., were at once recognised by the people of +his day as eternal verities. What need for discussion or investigation? + +The case of Judaea is obscure; but it would seem that something +analogous must have happened there, when the continuity of national life +had been snapped by the exile. A revolutionised and most unhappy present +involved a changed attitude towards the past. Oral tradition and the +scraps of written records that had survived the shipwreck of the kingdom +fell, as it were, naturally into another order. The kaleidoscope having +been turned, the pattern changed of itself. A few gifted individuals +voiced the enthusiasm of a whole community, when they adopted literary +methods which would now, in our comparatively stable days, be branded as +fraudulent. They simply could not help themselves. The pressing need of +constructing a national polity for the present on the only basis then +possible--Yahwe worship--FORCED them into falsifying the past. The +question was one of life and death for the Jewish nationality. + + ***** + +Europeans there are in Japan--Europeanised Japanese likewise--who feel +outraged by the action of the Japanese bureaucracy in the matter of +the new cult, with all the illiberal and obscurantist measures which it +entails. That is natural. We modern Westerners love individual liberty, +and the educated among us love to let the sunlight of criticism into +every nook and cranny of every subject. Freedom and scientific accuracy +are our gods. But Japanese officialdom acts quite naturally, after its +kind, in not allowing the light to be let in, because the roots of +the faith it has planted need darkness in which to grow and spread. No +religion can live which is subjected to critical scrutiny. + +Thus also are explained the rigours of the Japanese bureaucracy against +the native liberals, who, in its eyes, appear, not simply as political +opponents, but as traitors to the chosen people--sacrilegious heretics +defying the authority of the One and Only True Church. + +"But," you will say, "this indignation must be mere pretence. Not even +officials can be so stupid as to believe in things which they have +themselves invented." We venture to think that you are wrong here. +People can always believe that which it is greatly to their interest to +believe. Thousands of excellent persons in our own society cling to +the doctrine of a future life on no stronger evidence. It is enormously +important to the Japanese ruling class that the mental attitude sketched +above should become universal among their countrymen. Accordingly, they +achieve the apparently impossible. "We believe in it," said one of +them to us recently--"we believe in it, although we know that it is +not true." Tertullian said nearly the same thing, and no one has ever +doubted HIS sincerity. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Invention of a New Religion, by +Basil Hall Chamberlain + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE INVENTION OF A NEW RELIGION *** + +***** This file should be named 2510.txt or 2510.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/1/2510/ + +Produced by Peter Evans + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/2510.zip b/2510.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c0dca0b --- /dev/null +++ b/2510.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e23d90a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #2510 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2510) diff --git a/old/invnr10.txt b/old/invnr10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fe88cd --- /dev/null +++ b/old/invnr10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,890 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Invention of a New Religion by +Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850-1935) + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +This text should not be distributed in the European Union, Brazil, +Switzerland, or any other nation that has the "life plus seventy +years" copyright rule, until 2006, or in Mexico until 2011. + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +The Invention of a New Religion + +by Basil Hall Chamberlain + +February, 2001 [Etext #2510] + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Invention of a New Religion by +Basil Hall Chamberlain +******This file should be named invnr10.txt or invnr10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, invnr10.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, invnr10.txt + + +Scanned by Peter Evans, peter@despammed.com + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any +of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-six text +files per month, or 432 more Etexts in 1999 for a total of 2000+ +If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the +total should reach over 200 billion Etexts given away this year. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only ~5% of the present number of computer users. + +At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third +of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we +manage to get some real funding; currently our funding is mostly +from Michael Hart's salary at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an +assortment of sporadic gifts; this salary is only good for a few +more years, so we are looking for something to replace it, as we +don't want Project Gutenberg to be so dependent on one person. + +We need your donations more than ever! + + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie- +Mellon University). + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails. . .try our Executive Director: +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> +hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org +if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if +it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . . + +We would prefer to send you this information by email. + +****** + +To access Project Gutenberg etexts, use any Web browser +to view http://promo.net/pg. This site lists Etexts by +author and by title, and includes information about how +to get involved with Project Gutenberg. You could also +download our past Newsletters, or subscribe here. This +is one of our major sites, please email hart@pobox.com, +for a more complete list of our various sites. + +To go directly to the etext collections, use FTP or any +Web browser to visit a Project Gutenberg mirror (mirror +sites are available on 7 continents; mirrors are listed +at http://promo.net/pg). + +Mac users, do NOT point and click, typing works better. + +Example FTP session: + +ftp metalab.unc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg +cd etext90 through etext99 etext00 and etext01 +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99] +GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books] + +*** + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** + +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +We are planning on making some changes in our donation structure +in 2000, so you might want to email me, hart@pobox.com beforehand. + + + + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + + +Etext editor's notes: A few diacritical marks have had to be +removed, but Chamberlain did not use macrons to represent lengthened +vowels. What were footnotes are numbered and moved to the end of +the relevant paragraphs. + + + +THE INVENTION OF A NEW RELIGION +BY +B. H. CHAMBERLAIN, +EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF JAPANESE AND PHILOLOGY AT THE IMPERIAL +UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO, JAPAN +1912 + + + +The Invention of a New Religion [1] + + [Note 1] The writer of this pamphlet could but + skim over a wide subject. For full information see + Volume I. of Mr. J. Murdoch's recently-published + "History of Japan," the only critical work on that + subject existing in the English language. + +Voltaire and the other eighteenth-century philosophers, who +held religions to be the invention of priests, have been +scorned as superficial by later investigators. But was there +not something in their view, after all? Have not we, of a +later and more critical day, got into so inveterate a habit of +digging deep that we sometimes fail to see what lies before +our very noses? Modern Japan is there to furnish an example. +The Japanese are, it is true, commonly said to be an +irreligious people. They say so themselves. Writes one +of them, the celebrated Fukuzawa, teacher and type of the +modern educated Japanese man: "I lack a religious nature, +and have never believed in any religion." A score of like +pronouncements might be quoted from other leading men. The +average, even educated, European strikes the average educated +Japanese as strangely superstitious, unaccountably occupied +with supra-mundane matters. The Japanese simply cannot be +brought to comprehend how a "mere parson" such as the Pope, or +even the Archbishop of Canterbury, occupies the place he does +in politics and society. Yet this same agnostic Japan is +teaching us at this very hour how religions are sometimes +manufactured for a special end--to subserve practical worldly +purposes. + +Mikado-worship and Japan-worship--for that is the new +Japanese religion--is, of course, no spontaneously generated +phenomenon. Every manufacture presupposes a material out of +which it is made, every present a past on which it rests. +But the twentieth-century Japanese religion of loyalty and +patriotism is quite new, for in it pre-existing ideas have +been sifted, altered, freshly compounded, turned to new uses, +and have found a new centre of gravity. Not only is it new, +it is not yet completed; it is still in process of being +consciously or semi-consciously put together by the official +class, in order to serve the interests of that class, and, +incidentally, the interests of the nation at large. The +Japanese bureaucracy is a body greatly to be admired. It +includes most of the foremost men of the nation. Like the +priesthood in later Judaea, to some extent like the Egyptian +and Indian priesthoods, it not only governs, but aspires to +lead in intellectual matters. It has before it a complex task. +On the one hand, it must make good to the outer world the new +claim that Japan differs in no essential way from the nations +of the West, unless, indeed, it be by way of superiority. On +the other hand, it has to manage restive steeds at home, where +ancestral ideas and habits clash with new dangers arising from +an alien material civilisation hastily absorbed. + +Down to the year 1888, the line of cleavage between governors +and governed was obscured by the joyful ardour with which all +classes alike devoted themselves to the acquisition of +European, not to say American, ideas. Everything foreign +was then hailed as perfect--everything old and national was +contemned. Sentiment grew democratic, in so far (perhaps +it was not very far) as American democratic ideals were +understood. Love of country seemed likely to yield to a humble +bowing down before foreign models. Officialdom not unnaturally +took fright at this abdication of national individualism. +Evidently something must be done to turn the tide. +Accordingly, patriotic sentiment was appealed to through the +throne, whose hoary antiquity had ever been a source of pride +to Japanese literati, who loved to dwell on the contrast +between Japan's unique line of absolute monarchs and the +short-lived dynasties of China. Shinto, a primitive nature +cult, which had fallen into discredit, was taken out of its +cupboard and dusted. The common people, it is true, continued +to place their affections on Buddhism, the popular festivals +were Buddhist, Buddhist also the temples where they buried +their dead. The governing class determined to change all this. +They insisted on the Shinto doctrine that the Mikado descends +in direct succession from the native Goddess of the Sun, and +that He himself is a living God on earth who justly claims the +absolute fealty of his subjects. Such things as laws and +constitutions are but free gifts on His part, not in any sense +popular rights. Of course, the ministers and officials, high +and low, who carry on His government, are to be regarded not +as public servants, but rather as executants of supreme--one +might say supernatural--authority. Shinto, because connected +with the Imperial Family, is to be alone honoured. Therefore, +the important right of burial, never before possessed by it, +was granted to its priests. Later on, the right of marriage +was granted likewise--an entirely novel departure in a land +where marriage had never been more than a civil contract. Thus +the Shinto priesthood was encouraged to penetrate into the +intimacy of family life, while in another direction it +encroached on the field of ethics by borrowing bits here and +there from Confucian and even from Christian sources. Under a +regime of ostensible religious toleration, the attendance of +officials at certain Shinto services was required, and the +practice was established in all schools of bowing down several +times yearly before the Emperor's picture. Meanwhile Japanese +polities had prospered; her warriors had gained great +victories. Enormous was the prestige thus accruing to +Imperialism and to the rejuvenated Shinto cult. All military +successes were ascribed to the miraculous influence of the +Emperor's virtue, and to the virtues of His Imperial and +divine ancestors--that is, of former Emperors and of Shinto +deities. Imperial envoys were regularly sent after each great +victory to carry the good tidings to the Sun Goddess at her +great shrine at Ise. Not there alone, but at the other +principal Shinto shrines throughout the land, the cannon +captured from Chinese or Russian foes were officially +installed, with a view to identifying Imperialism, Shinto, and +national glory in the popular mind. The new legend is enforced +wherever feasible--for instance, by means of a new set of +festivals celebrating Imperial official events. + +But the schools are the great strongholds of the new +propaganda. History is so taught to the young as to focus +everything upon Imperialism, and to diminish as far as +possible the contrast between ancient and modern conditions. +The same is true of the instruction given to army and navy +recruits. Thus, though Shinto is put in the forefront, little +stress is laid on its mythology, which would be apt to shock +even the Japanese mind at the present day. To this extent, +where a purpose useful to the ruling class is to be served, +criticism is practised, though not avowedly. Far different +is the case with so-called "historical facts," such as the +alleged foundation of the Monarchy in 660 B.C. and similar +statements paralleled only for absurdity by what passed for +history in mediaeval Europe, when King Lear, Brute, King of +Britain, etc., etc., were accepted as authentic personages. +For the truth, known to all critical investigators, is that, +instead of going back to a remote antiquity, the origins of +Japanese history are recent as compared with that of European +countries. The first glimmer of genuine Japanese history +dates from the fifth century AFTER Christ, and even the +accounts of what happened in the sixth century must be +received with caution. Japanese scholars know this as well as +we do; it is one of the certain results of investigation. But +the Japanese bureaucracy does not desire to have the light +let in on this inconvenient circumstance. While granting a +dispensation re the national mythology, properly so called, it +exacts belief in every iota of the national historic legends. +Woe to the native professor who strays from the path of +orthodoxy. His wife and children (and in Japan every man, +however young, has a wife and children) will starve. From +the late Prince Ito's grossly misleading "Commentary on the +Japanese Constitution" down to school compendiums, the absurd +dates are everywhere insisted upon. This despite the fact +that the mythology and the so-called early history are +recorded in the same works, and are characterised by like +miraculous impossibilities; that the chronology is palpably +fraudulent; that the speeches put into the mouths of ancient +Mikados are centos culled from the Chinese classics; that +their names are in some cases derived from Chinese sources; +and that the earliest Japanese historical narratives, the +earliest known social usages, and even the centralised +Imperial form of Government itself, are all stained through +and through with a Chinese dye, so much so that it is no +longer possible to determine what percentage of old native +thought may still linger on in fragments here and there. In +the face of all this, moral ideals, which were of common +knowledge derived from the teaching of the Chinese sages, are +now arbitrarily referred to the "Imperial Ancestors." Such, +in particular, are loyalty and filial piety--the two virtues +on which, in the Far-Eastern world, all the others rest. It +is, furthermore, officially taught that, from the earliest +ages, perfect concord has always subsisted in Japan between +beneficent sovereigns on the one hand, and a gratefully loyal +people on the other. Never, it is alleged, has Japan been +soiled by the disobedient and rebellious acts common in other +countries; while at the same time the Japanese nation, sharing +to some extent in the supernatural virtues of its rulers, has +been distinguished by a high-minded chivalry called Bushido, +unknown in inferior lands. + +Such is the fabric of ideas which the official class is +busy building up by every means in its power, including the +punishment of those who presume to stickle for historic truth. + + * * * + +The sober fact is that no nation probably has ever treated its +sovereigns more cavalierly than the Japanese have done, from +the beginning of authentic history down to within the memory +of living men. Emperors have been deposed, emperors have been +assassinated; for centuries every succession to the throne was +the signal for intrigues and sanguinary broils. Emperors have +been exiled; some have been murdered in exile. From the +remote island to which he had been relegated one managed to +escape, hidden under a load of dried fish. In the fourteenth +century, things came to such a pass that two rival Imperial +lines defied each other for the space of fifty-eight years-- +the so-called Northern and Southern Courts; and it was the +Northern Court, branded by later historians as usurping and +illegitimate, that ultimately won the day, and handed on the +Imperial regalia to its successors. After that, as indeed +before that, for long centuries the government was in the +hands of Mayors of the Palace, who substituted one infant +Sovereign for another, generally forcing each to abdicate as +soon as he approached man's estate. At one period, these +Mayors of the Palace left the Descendant of the Sun in such +distress that His Imperial Majesty and the Imperial Princes +were obliged to gain a livelihood by selling their autographs! +Nor did any great party in the State protest against this +condition of affairs. Even in the present reign--the most +glorious in Japanese history--there have been two rebellions, +during one of which a rival Emperor was set up in one part of +the country, and a republic proclaimed in another. + +As for Bushido, so modern a thing is it that neither Kaempfer, +Siebold, Satow, nor Rein--all men knowing their Japan by heart +--ever once allude to it in their voluminous writings. The +cause of their silence is not far to seek: Bushido was unknown +until a decade or two ago! THE VERY WORD APPEARS IN NO +DICTIONARY, NATIVE OR FOREIGN, BEFORE THE YEAR 1900. +Chivalrous individuals of course existed in Japan, as in all +countries at every period; but Bushido, as an institution or +a code of rules, has never existed. The accounts given of it +have been fabricated out of whole cloth, chiefly for foreign +consumption. An analysis of medieval Japanese history shows +that the great feudal houses, so far from displaying an +excessive idealism in the matter of fealty to one emperor, one +lord, or one party, had evolved the eminently practical plan +of letting their different members take different sides, so +that the family as a whole might come out as winner in any +event, and thus avoid the confiscation of its lands. Cases, +no doubt, occurred of devotion to losing causes--for example, +to Mikados in disgrace; but they were less common than in the +more romantic West. + +Thus, within the space of a short lifetime, the new Japanese +religion of loyalty and patriotism has emerged into the light +of day. The feats accomplished during the late war with +Russia show that the simple ideal which it offers is capable +of inspiring great deeds. From a certain point of view the +nation may be congratulated on its new possession. + + * * * + +The new Japanese religion consists, in its present early +stage, of worship of the sacrosanct Imperial Person and of His +Divine Ancestors, of implicit obedience to Him as head of the +army (a position, by the way, opposed to all former Japanese +ideas, according to which the Court was essentially civilian); +furthermore, of a corresponding belief that Japan is as far +superior to the common ruck of nations as the Mikado is +divinely superior to the common ruck of kings and emperors. +Do not the early history-books record the fact that Japan was +created first, while all other countries resulted merely from +the drops that fell from the creator's spear when he had +finished his main work? And do not the later annals prove +that true valour belongs to the Japanese knight alone, whereas +foreign countries--China and Europe alike--are sunk in a +degrading commercialism? For the inhabitants of "the Land of +the Gods" to take any notice of such creatures by adopting a +few of their trifling mechanical inventions is an act of +gracious condescension. + +To quote but one official utterance out of a hundred, Baron +Oura, minister of agriculture and commerce, writes thus in +February of last year:-- + + That the majesty of our Imperial House towers high + above everything to be found in the world, and that + it is as durable as heaven and earth, is too well + known to need dwelling on here...... If it is + considered that our country needs a religious faith, + then, I say, let it be converted to a belief in the + religion of patriotism and loyalty, the religion of + Imperialism--in other words, to Emperor-worship. + +The Rev. Dr. Ebina,[2] one of the leading lights of the +Protestant pastorate in Japan, plunges more deeply still into +this doctrine, according to which, as already noted, the whole +Japanese nation is, in a manner, apotheosised. Says he:-- + + Though the encouragement of ancestor-worship cannot + be regarded as part of the essential teaching of + Christianity (!), it [3] is not opposed to the + notion that, when the Japanese Empire was founded, + its early rulers were in communication with the + Great Spirit that rules the universe. Christians, + according to this theory, without doing violence + to their creed, may acknowledge that the Japanese + nation has a divine origin. It is only when we + realise that the Imperial Ancestors were in close + communion with God (or the Gods), that we understand + how sacred is the country in which we live. [Dr. + Ebina ends by recommending the Imperial Rescript on + Education as a text for Christian sermons.] + + [Note 2] We quote from the translation given + by Mr. Walter Dening in one of the invaluable + "Summaries of Current Japanese Literature," + contributed by him from time to time to the + columns of the "Japan Mail," Yokohama. + + [Note 3] "It" means Christianity. + +It needs no comment of ours to point out how thoroughly the +nation must be saturated by the doctrines under discussion +for such amazing utterances to be possible. If so-called +Christians can think thus, the non-Christian majority must +indeed be devout Emperor-worshippers and Japan-worshippers. +Such the go-ahead portion of the nation undoubtedly is--the +students, the army, the navy, the emigrants to Japan's new +foreign possessions, all the more ardent spirits. The +peasantry, as before noted, occupy themselves little with new +thoughts, clinging rather to the Buddhist beliefs of their +forefathers. But nothing could be further removed from even +their minds than the idea of offering any organised resistance +to the propaganda going on around them. + +As a matter of fact, the spread of the new ideas has been +easy, because a large class derives power from their +diffusion, while to oppose them is the business of no one in +particular. Moreover, the disinterested love of truth for its +own sake is rare; the patience to unearth it is rarer still, +especially in the East. Patriotism, too, is a mighty engine +working in the interests of credulity. How should men not +believe in a system that produces such excellent practical +results, a system which has united all the scattered elements +of national feeling into one focus, and has thus created a +powerful instrument for the attainment of national aims? +Meanwhile a generation is growing up which does not so much +as suspect that its cherished beliefs are inventions of +yesterday. + +The new religion, in its present stage, still lacks one +important item--a sacred book. Certain indications show +that this lacuna will be filled by the elevation of the more +important Imperial Rescripts to that rank, accompanied +doubtless by an authoritative commentary, as their style is +too abstruse to be understanded of the people. To these +Imperial Rescripts some of the poems composed by his present +Majesty may be added. In fact, a volume on the whole duty of +Japanese man, with selected Imperial poems as texts, has +already appeared. [4] + + [Note 4] For over a thousand years the composition + of Japanese and Chinese verse has formed part of a + liberal education, like the composition of Latin + verse among ourselves. The Court has always + devoted much time to the practice of this art. + But the poems of former Emperors were little + known, because the monarchs themselves remained + shut up in their palace, and exercised no + influence beyond its walls. With his present + Majesty the case is entirely different. Moreover, + some of his compositions breathe a patriotism + formerly undreamt of. + + * * * + +One might have imagined that Japan's new religionists would +have experienced some difficulty in persuading foreign nations +of the truth of their dogmas. Things have fallen out +otherwise. Europe and America evince a singular taste for +the marvellous, and find a zest in self-depreciation. Our +eighteenth-century ancestors imagined all perfections to be +realised in China, thanks to the glowing descriptions then +given of that country by the Jesuits. Twentieth-century +Europe finds its moral and political Eldorado in distant +Japan, a land of fabulous antiquity and incredible virtues. +There is no lack of pleasant-mannered persons ready to guide +trustful admirers in the right path. Official and semi- +official Japanese, whether ambassadors and ministers-resident +or peripatetic counts and barons, make it their business to +spread a legend so pleasing to the national vanity, so useful +as a diplomatic engine. Lectures are delivered, books are +written in English, important periodicals are bought up, +minute care is lavished on the concealment, the patching-up, +and glossing-over of the deep gulf that nevertheless is fixed +between East and West. The foreigner cannot refuse the bolus +thus artfully forced down his throat. He is not suspicious +by nature. How should he imagine that people who make such +positive statements about their own country are merely +exploiting his credulity? HE has reached a stage of culture +where such mythopoeia has become impossible. On the other +hand, to control information by consulting original sources +lies beyond his capacity. + +For consider this peculiar circumstance: the position of +European investigators vis-a-vis Japan differs entirely from +that of Japanese vis-a-vis Europe. The Japanese possess every +facility for studying and understanding Europe. Europeans +are warded off by well-nigh insuperable obstacles from +understanding Japan. Europe stands on a hill-top, in the +sunlight, glittering afar. Her people court inspection. +"Come and see how we live"--such was a typical invitation +which the present writer recently received. A thousand +English homes are open to any Japanese student or traveller +who visits our shores. An alphabet of but six-and-twenty +simple letters throws equally wide open to him a literature +clearly revealing our thoughts, so that he who runs may read. +Japan lies in the shadow, away on the rim of the world. Her +houses are far more effectually closed to the stranger by +their paper shutters than are ours by walls of brick or stone. +What we call "society" does not exist there. Her people, +though smiling and courteous, surround themselves by an +atmosphere of reserve, centuries of despotic government having +rendered them suspicious and reticent. True, when a foreigner +of importance visits Japan--some British M.P., perhaps, whose +name figures often in the newspapers, or an American editor, +or the president of a great American college--this personage +is charmingly received. But he is never left free to form his +own opinion of things, even were he capable of so doing. +Circumstances spin an invisible web around him, his hosts +being keenly intent on making him a speaking-trumpet for the +proclamation of their own views. + +Again, Japan's non-Aryan speech, marvellously intricate, +almost defies acquisition. Suppose this difficult vernacular +mastered; the would-be student discovers that literary works, +even newspapers and ordinary correspondence, are not composed +in it, but in another dialect, partly antiquated, partly +artificial, differing as widely from the colloquial speech as +Latin does from Italian. Make a second hazardous supposition. +Assume that the grammar and vocabulary of this second +indispensable Japanese language have been learnt, in addition +to the first. You are still but at the threshold of your +task, Japanese thought having barricaded itself behind the +fortress walls of an extraordinarily complicated system of +writing, compared with which Egyptian hieroglyphics are +child's play. Yet next to nothing can be found out by a +foreigner unless he have this, too, at his fingers' ends. +As a matter of fact, scarcely anyone acquires it--only a +missionary here and there, or a consular official with a +life appointment. + +The result of all this is that, whereas the Japanese know +everything that it imports them to know about us, Europeans +cannot know much about them, such information as they receive +being always belated, necessarily meagre, and mostly +adulterated to serve Japanese interests. International +relations placed--and, we repeat it, inevitably placed--on +this footing resemble a boxing match in which one of the +contestants should have his hands tied. But the metaphor +fails in an essential point, as metaphors are apt to do--the +hand-tied man does not realise the disadvantage under which +he labours. He thinks himself as free as his opponent. + +Thus does it come about that the neo-Japanese myths concerning +dates, and Emperors, and heroes, and astonishing national +virtues already begin to find their way into popular English +text-books, current literature, and even grave books of +reference. The Japanese governing class has willed it so, and +in such matters the Japanese governing class can enforce its +will abroad as well as at home. The statement may sound +paradoxical. Study the question carefully, and you will find +that it is simply true. + + * * * + +What is happening in Japan to-day is evidently exceptional. +Normal religious and political change does not proceed in that +manner; it proceeds by imperceptible degrees. But exceptions +to general rules occur from time to time in every field of +activity. Are they really exceptions, using that term in its +current sense--to denote something arbitrary, and therefore +unaccountable? Surely these so-called exceptions are but +examples of rules of rarer application. + +The classic instance of the invention of a new national +religion is furnished by the Jews of the post-exilic period. +The piecing together, then, of a brand-new system under an +ancient name is now so well understood, and has produced +consequences of such world-wide importance, that the briefest +reference to it may suffice. Works which every critic can now +see to be relatively modern were ascribed to Moses, David, or +Daniel; intricate laws and ordinances that had never been +practised-- could never be practised--were represented as +ancient institutions; a whole new way of thinking and acting +was set in motion on the assumption that it was old. Yet, so +far as is known, no one in or out of Palestine ever saw +through the illusion for over two thousand years. It was +reserved for nineteenth-century scholars to draw aside the +veil hiding the real facts of the case. + +Modern times supply another instance, less important than the +first, but remarkable enough. Rousseau came in the middle of +the eighteenth century, and preached a doctrine that took the +world by storm, and soon precipitated that world in ruins. How +did he discover his gospel? He tells us quite naively:-- + + All the rest of the day, buried in the forest, I + sought, I found there the image of primitive ages, + whose history I boldly traced. I made havoc of men's + petty lies; I dared to unveil and strip naked man's + true nature, to follow up the course of time and of + the circumstances that have disfigured it, and, + comparing man as men have made him with man as + nature made him, to demonstrate that the so-called + improvements [of civilisation] have been the source + of all his woes, etc. [5] + + [Note 5] "Confessions," Book VIII., year 1753. + + +In other words, he spun a pseudo-history from his own brain. +What is stranger, he fanatically believed in this his pure +invention, and, most extraordinary of all, persuaded other +people to believe in it as fanatically. It was taken up as a +religion, it inspired heroes, and enabled a barefoot rabble to +beat the finest regular armies in the world. Even now, at a +distance of a century and a half, its embers still glow. + +Of course, it is not pretended that these various systems of +thought were ARBITRARY inventions. No more were they so than +the cloud palaces that we sometimes see swiftly form in the +sky and as swiftly dissolve. The germ of Rousseau's ideas can +be traced back to Fenelon and other seventeenth-century +thinkers, weary of the pomp and periwigs around them. Rousseau +himself did but fulfil the aspiration of a whole society for +something simpler, juster, more true to nature, more logical. +He gave exactly what was needed at that moment of history-- +what appeared self-evident; wherefore no one so much as +thought of asking for detailed proofs. His deism, his +statements concerning the "state of nature" and the "social +contract," etc., were at once recognised by the people of +his day as eternal verities. What need for discussion or +investigation? + +The case of Judaea is obscure; but it would seem that +something analogous must have happened there, when the +continuity of national life had been snapped by the exile. +A revolutionised and most unhappy present involved a changed +attitude towards the past. Oral tradition and the scraps of +written records that had survived the shipwreck of the kingdom +fell, as it were, naturally into another order. The +kaleidoscope having been turned, the pattern changed of +itself. A few gifted individuals voiced the enthusiasm of +a whole community, when they adopted literary methods which +would now, in our comparatively stable days, be branded as +fraudulent. They simply could not help themselves. The +pressing need of constructing a national polity for the +present on the only basis then possible--Yahwe worship--FORCED +them into falsifying the past. The question was one of life +and death for the Jewish nationality. + + * * * + +Europeans there are in Japan--Europeanised Japanese likewise-- +who feel outraged by the action of the Japanese bureaucracy in +the matter of the new cult, with all the illiberal and +obscurantist measures which it entails. That is natural. We +modern Westerners love individual liberty, and the educated +among us love to let the sunlight of criticism into every nook +and cranny of every subject. Freedom and scientific accuracy +are our gods. But Japanese officialdom acts quite naturally, +after its kind, in not allowing the light to be let in, +because the roots of the faith it has planted need darkness +in which to grow and spread. No religion can live which is +subjected to critical scrutiny. + +Thus also are explained the rigours of the Japanese +bureaucracy against the native liberals, who, in its eyes, +appear, not simply as political opponents, but as traitors +to the chosen people--sacrilegious heretics defying the +authority of the One and Only True Church. + +"But," you will say, "this indignation must be mere pretence. +Not even officials can be so stupid as to believe in things +which they have themselves invented." We venture to think +that you are wrong here. People can always believe that which +it is greatly to their interest to believe. Thousands of +excellent persons in our own society cling to the doctrine +of a future life on no stronger evidence. It is enormously +important to the Japanese ruling class that the mental +attitude sketched above should become universal among their +countrymen. Accordingly, they achieve the apparently +impossible. "We believe in it," said one of them to us +recently--"we believe in it, although we know that it is not +true." Tertullian said nearly the same thing, and no one has +ever doubted HIS sincerity. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of The Invention of a New Religion +by Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850-1935) diff --git a/old/invnr10.zip b/old/invnr10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc7491b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/invnr10.zip |