The Invention of a New Religion | Page 5

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