Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation

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Japan: An Attempt at
Interpretation

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Title: Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation
Author: Lafcadio Hearn
Release Date: June, 2004 [EBook #5979] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 5, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JAPAN ***

[Transcriber's Note: Page numbers are retained in square brackets.]

JAPAN AN ATTEMPT AT INTERPRETATION
BY LAFCADIO HEARN

1904

Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. DIFFICULTIES.........................1
II. STRANGENESS AND CHARM................5
III. THE ANCIENT CULT....................21

IV. THE RELIGION OF THE HOME............33
V. THE JAPANESE FAMILY.................55
VI. THE COMMUNAL CULT...................81
VII. DEVELOPMENTS OF SHINTO.............107
VIII. WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION...........133
IX. THE RULE OF THE DEAD...............157
X. THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM.......183
XI. THE HIGHER BUDDHISM................207
XII. THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION............229
XIII. THE RISE OF THE MILITARY POWER.....259
XIV. THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY............283
XV. THE JESUIT PERIL...................303
XVI. FEUDAL INTEGRATION.................343
XVII. THE SHINTO REVIVAL.................367
XVIII. SURVIVALS..........................381
XIX. MODERN RESTRAINTS..................395
XX. OFFICIAL EDUCATION.................419
XXI. INDUSTRIAL DANGER..................443
XXII. REFLECTIONS........................457
APPENDIX...........................481

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES..............487
INDEX..............................489

"Perhaps all very marked national characters can be traced back to a
time of rigid and pervading discipline"--WALTER BAGEHOT.

[1] DIFFICULTIES
A thousand books have been written about Japan; but among
these,--setting aside artistic publications and works of a purely special
character,--the really precious volumes will be found to number
scarcely a score. This fact is due to the immense difficulty of
perceiving and comprehending what underlies the surface of Japanese
life. No work fully interpreting that life,--no work picturing Japan
within and without, historically and socially, psychologically and
ethically,--can be written for at least another fifty years. So vast and
intricate the subject that the united labour of a generation of scholars
could not exhaust it, and so difficult that the number of scholars willing
to devote their time to it must always be small. Even among the
Japanese themselves, no scientific knowledge of their own history is
yet possible; because the means of obtaining that knowledge have not
yet been prepared,--though mountains of material have been collected.
The want of any good history upon a modern plan is but one of many
discouraging wants. Data for the study of sociology [2] are still
inaccessible to the Western investigator. The early state of the family
and the clan; the history of the differentiation of classes; the history of
the differentiation of political from religious law; the history of
restraints, and of their influence upon custom; the history of regulative
and cooperative conditions in the development of industry; the history
of ethics and aesthetics,--all these and many other matters remain
obscure.
This essay of mine can serve in one direction only as a contribution to
the Western knowledge of Japan. But this direction is not one of the

least important. Hitherto the subject of Japanese religion has been
written of chiefly by the sworn enemies of that religion: by others it has
been almost entirely ignored. Yet while it continues to be ignored and
misrepresented, no real knowledge of Japan is possible. Any true
comprehension of social conditions requires more than a superficial
acquaintance with religious conditions. Even the industrial history of a
people cannot be understood without some knowledge of those
religious traditions and customs which regulate industrial life during
the earlier stages of its development .... Or take the subject of art. Art in
Japan is so intimately associated with religion that any attempt to study
it without extensive knowledge of the [3] beliefs which it reflects, were
mere waste of time. By art I do not mean only painting and sculpture,
but every kind of decoration, and most kinds of pictorial
representation,--the image on a boy's kite or a girl's battledore, not less
than the design upon a lacquered casket or enamelled vase,--the