{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_2510/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_2510","id":"gutenberg_2510","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2510","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Religious","Category: Politics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Japan -- Civilization","Japan -- Religion"],"text":"Produced by Peter Evans\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE INVENTION OF A NEW RELIGION\n\nBy B. H. Chamberlain\n\nEMERITUS PROFESSOR OF JAPANESE AND PHILOLOGY AT THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY\nOF TOKYO, JAPAN 1912\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes: A few diacritical marks have had to be removed,\nbut Chamberlain did not use macrons to represent lengthened vowels.\nWhat were footnotes are numbered and moved to the end of the relevant\nparagraphs.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE INVENTION OF A NEW RELIGION (1)\n\n    (Note 1)  The writer of this pamphlet could but\n    skim over a wide subject.  For full information see\n    Volume I. of Mr. J. Murdoch's recently-published\n    \"History of Japan,\" the only critical work on that\n    subject existing in the English language.\n\nVoltaire and the other eighteenth-century philosophers, who held\nreligions to be the invention of priests, have been scorned as\nsuperficial by later investigators. But was there not something in their\nview, after all? Have not we, of a later and more critical day, got into\nso inveterate a habit of digging deep that we sometimes fail to see what\nlies before our very noses? Modern Japan is there to furnish an example.\nThe Japanese are, it is true, commonly said to be an irreligious people.\nThey say so themselves. Writes one of them, the celebrated Fukuzawa,\nteacher and type of the modern educated Japanese man: \"I lack a\nreligious nature, and have never believed in any religion.\" A score of\nlike pronouncements might be quoted from other leading men. The average,\neven educated, European strikes the average educated Japanese as\nstrangely superstitious, unaccountably occupied with supra-mundane\nmatters. The Japanese simply cannot be brought to comprehend how a \"mere\nparson\" such as the Pope, or even the Archbishop of Canterbury, occupies\nthe place he does in politics and society. Yet this same agnostic\nJapan is teaching us at this very hour how religions are sometimes\nmanufactured for a special end--to subserve practical worldly purposes.\n\nMikado-worship and Japan-worship--for that is the new Japanese\nreligion--is, of course, no spontaneously generated phenomenon. Every\nmanufacture presupposes a material out of which it is made, every\npresent a past on which it rests. But the twentieth-century Japanese\nreligion of loyalty and patriotism is quite new, for in it pre-existing\nideas have been sifted, altered, freshly compounded, turned to new uses,\nand have found a new centre of gravity. Not only is it new, it is\nnot yet completed; it is still in process of being consciously or\nsemi-consciously put together by the official class, in order to serve\nthe interests of that class, and, incidentally, the interests of the\nnation at large. The Japanese bureaucracy is a body greatly to be\nadmired. It includes most of the foremost men of the nation. Like the\npriesthood in later Judaea, to some extent like the Egyptian and Indian\npriesthoods, it not only governs, but aspires to lead in intellectual\nmatters. It has before it a complex task. On the one hand, it must make\ngood to the outer world the new claim that Japan differs in no essential\nway from the nations of the West, unless, indeed, it be by way of\nsuperiority. On the other hand, it has to manage restive steeds at home,\nwhere ancestral ideas and habits clash with new dangers arising from an\nalien material civilisation hastily absorbed.\n\nDown to the year 1888, the line of cleavage between governors and\ngoverned was obscured by the joyful ardour with which all classes alike\ndevoted themselves to the acquisition of European, not to say American,\nideas. Everything foreign was then hailed as perfect--everything old and\nnational was contemned. Sentiment grew democratic, in so far (perhaps it\nwas not very far) as American democratic ideals were understood. Love\nof country seemed likely to yield to a humble bowing down before foreign\nmodels. Officialdom not unnaturally took fright at this abdication of\nnational individualism. Evidently something must be done to turn the\ntide. Accordingly, patriotic sentiment was appealed to through the\nthrone, whose hoary antiquity had ever been a source of pride to\nJapanese literati, who loved to dwell on the contrast between Japan's\nunique line of absolute monarchs and the short-lived dynasties of China.\nShinto, a primitive nature cult, which had fallen into discredit, was\ntaken out of its cupboard and dusted. The common people, it is true,\ncontinued to place their affections on Buddhism, the popular festivals\nwere Buddhist, Buddhist also the temples where they buried their dead.\nThe governing class determined to change all this. They insisted on the\nShinto doctrine that the Mikado descends in direct succession from the\nnative Goddess of the Sun, and that He himself is a living God on earth\nwho justly claims the absolute fealty of his subjects. Such things as\nlaws and constitutions are but free gifts on His part, not in any sense\npopular rights. Of course, the ministers and officials, high and low,\nwho carry on His government, are to be regarded not as public\nservants, but rather as executants of supreme--one might say\nsupernatural--authority. Shinto, because connected with the Imperial\nFamily, is to be alone honoured. Therefore, the important right of\nburial, never before possessed by it, was granted to its priests.\nLater on, the right of marriage was granted likewise--an entirely novel\ndeparture in a land where marriage had never been more than a civil\ncontract. Thus the Shinto priesthood was encouraged to penetrate into\nthe intimacy of family life, while in another direction it encroached on\nthe field of ethics by borrowing bits here and there from Confucian\nand even from Christian sources. Under a regime of ostensible religious\ntoleration, the attendance of officials at certain Shinto services was\nrequired, and the practice was established in all schools of bowing down\nseveral times yearly before the Emperor's picture. Meanwhile Japanese\npolities had prospered; her warriors had gained great victories.\nEnormous was the prestige thus accruing to Imperialism and to the\nrejuvenated Shinto cult. All military successes were ascribed to the\nmiraculous influence of the Emperor's virtue, and to the virtues of His\nImperial and divine ancestors--that is, of former Emperors and of Shinto\ndeities. Imperial envoys were regularly sent after each great victory\nto carry the good tidings to the Sun Goddess at her great shrine at Ise.\nNot there alone, but at the other principal Shinto shrines throughout\nthe land, the cannon captured from Chinese or Russian foes were\nofficially installed, with a view to identifying Imperialism, Shinto,\nand national glory in the popular mind. The new legend is enforced\nwherever feasible--for instance, by means of a new set of festivals\ncelebrating Imperial official events.\n\nBut the schools are the great strongholds of the new propaganda. History\nis so taught to the young as to focus everything upon Imperialism, and\nto diminish as far as possible the contrast between ancient and modern\nconditions. The same is true of the instruction given to army and navy\nrecruits. Thus, though Shinto is put in the forefront, little stress\nis laid on its mythology, which would be apt to shock even the Japanese\nmind at the present day. To this extent, where a purpose useful to\nthe ruling class is to be served, criticism is practised, though not\navowedly. Far different is the case with so-called \"historical facts,\"\nsuch as the alleged foundation of the Monarchy in 660 B.C. and similar\nstatements paralleled only for absurdity by what passed for history in\nmediaeval Europe, when King Lear, Brute, King of Britain, etc., etc.,\nwere accepted as authentic personages. For the truth, known to all\ncritical investigators, is that, instead of going back to a remote\nantiquity, the origins of Japanese history are recent as compared\nwith that of European countries. The first glimmer of genuine Japanese\nhistory dates from the fifth century AFTER Christ, and even the accounts\nof what happened in the sixth century must be received with caution.\nJapanese scholars know this as well as we do; it is one of the certain\nresults of investigation. But the Japanese bureaucracy does not desire\nto have the light let in on this inconvenient circumstance. While\ngranting a dispensation re the national mythology, properly so called,\nit exacts belief in every iota of the national historic legends. Woe to\nthe native professor who strays from the path of orthodoxy. His wife\nand children (and in Japan every man, however young, has a wife and\nchildren) will starve. From the late Prince Ito's grossly misleading\n\"Commentary on the Japanese Constitution\" down to school compendiums,\nthe absurd dates are everywhere insisted upon. This despite the fact\nthat the mythology and the so-called early history are recorded in the\nsame works, and are characterised by like miraculous impossibilities;\nthat the chronology is palpably fraudulent; that the speeches put\ninto the mouths of ancient Mikados are centos culled from the Chinese\nclassics; that their names are in some cases derived from Chinese\nsources; and that the earliest Japanese historical narratives, the\nearliest known social usages, and even the centralised Imperial form of\nGovernment itself, are all stained through and through with a Chinese\ndye, so much so that it is no longer possible to determine what\npercentage of old native thought may still linger on in fragments here\nand there. In the face of all this, moral ideals, which were of common\nknowledge derived from the teaching of the Chinese sages, are now\narbitrarily referred to the \"Imperial Ancestors.\" Such, in particular,\nare loyalty and filial piety--the two virtues on which, in the\nFar-Eastern world, all the others rest. It is, furthermore, officially\ntaught that, from the earliest ages, perfect concord has always\nsubsisted in Japan between beneficent sovereigns on the one hand, and\na gratefully loyal people on the other. Never, it is alleged, has Japan\nbeen soiled by the disobedient and rebellious acts common in other\ncountries; while at the same time the Japanese nation, sharing to some\nextent in the supernatural virtues of its rulers, has been distinguished\nby a high-minded chivalry called Bushido, unknown in inferior lands.\n\nSuch is the fabric of ideas which the official class is busy building\nup by every means in its power, including the punishment of those who\npresume to stickle for historic truth.\n\n                *****\n\nThe sober fact is that no nation probably has ever treated its\nsovereigns more cavalierly than the Japanese have done, from the\nbeginning of authentic history down to within the memory of living\nmen. Emperors have been deposed, emperors have been assassinated; for\ncenturies every succession to the throne was the signal for intrigues\nand sanguinary broils. Emperors have been exiled; some have been\nmurdered in exile. From the remote island to which he had been relegated\none managed to escape, hidden under a load of dried fish. In the\nfourteenth century, things came to such a pass that two rival Imperial\nlines defied each other for the space of fifty-eight years--the\nso-called Northern and Southern Courts; and it was the Northern\nCourt, branded by later historians as usurping and illegitimate, that\nultimately won the day, and handed on the Imperial regalia to its\nsuccessors. After that, as indeed before that, for long centuries the\ngovernment was in the hands of Mayors of the Palace, who substituted one\ninfant Sovereign for another, generally forcing each to abdicate as soon\nas he approached man's estate. At one period, these Mayors of the\nPalace left the Descendant of the Sun in such distress that His Imperial\nMajesty and the Imperial Princes were obliged to gain a livelihood by\nselling their autographs! Nor did any great party in the State protest\nagainst this condition of affairs. Even in the present reign--the most\nglorious in Japanese history--there have been two rebellions, during one\nof which a rival Emperor was set up in one part of the country, and a\nrepublic proclaimed in another.\n\nAs for Bushido, so modern a thing is it that neither Kaempfer, Siebold,\nSatow, nor Rein--all men knowing their Japan by heart--ever once allude\nto it in their voluminous writings. The cause of their silence is not\nfar to seek: Bushido was unknown until a decade or two ago! THE VERY\nWORD APPEARS IN NO DICTIONARY, NATIVE OR FOREIGN, BEFORE THE YEAR 1900.\nChivalrous individuals of course existed in Japan, as in all countries\nat every period; but Bushido, as an institution or a code of rules,\nhas never existed. The accounts given of it have been fabricated out of\nwhole cloth, chiefly for foreign consumption. An analysis of medieval\nJapanese history shows that the great feudal houses, so far from\ndisplaying an excessive idealism in the matter of fealty to one emperor,\none lord, or one party, had evolved the eminently practical plan of\nletting their different members take different sides, so that the family\nas a whole might come out as winner in any event, and thus avoid the\nconfiscation of its lands. Cases, no doubt, occurred of devotion to\nlosing causes--for example, to Mikados in disgrace; but they were less\ncommon than in the more romantic West.\n\nThus, within the space of a short lifetime, the new Japanese religion\nof loyalty and patriotism has emerged into the light of day. The feats\naccomplished during the late war with Russia show that the simple ideal\nwhich it offers is capable of inspiring great deeds. From a certain\npoint of view the nation may be congratulated on its new possession.\n\n                *****\n\nThe new Japanese religion consists, in its present early stage, of\nworship of the sacrosanct Imperial Person and of His Divine Ancestors,\nof implicit obedience to Him as head of the army (a position, by the\nway, opposed to all former Japanese ideas, according to which the Court\nwas essentially civilian); furthermore, of a corresponding belief that\nJapan is as far superior to the common ruck of nations as the Mikado is\ndivinely superior to the common ruck of kings and emperors. Do not the\nearly history-books record the fact that Japan was created first, while\nall other countries resulted merely from the drops that fell from the\ncreator's spear when he had finished his main work? And do not the later\nannals prove that true valour belongs to the Japanese knight alone,\nwhereas foreign countries--China and Europe alike--are sunk in a\ndegrading commercialism? For the inhabitants of \"the Land of the Gods\"\nto take any notice of such creatures by adopting a few of their trifling\nmechanical inventions is an act of gracious condescension.\n\nTo quote but one official utterance out of a hundred, Baron Oura,\nminister of agriculture and commerce, writes thus in February of last\nyear:--\n\n   That the majesty of our Imperial House towers high\n   above everything to be found in the world, and that\n   it is as durable as heaven and earth, is too well\n   known to need dwelling on here......  If it is\n   considered that our country needs a religious faith,\n   then, I say, let it be converted to a belief in the\n   religion of patriotism and loyalty, the religion of\n   Imperialism--in other words, to Emperor-worship.\n\nThe Rev. Dr. Ebina,(2) one of the leading lights of the Protestant\npastorate in Japan, plunges more deeply still into this doctrine,\naccording to which, as already noted, the whole Japanese nation is, in a\nmanner, apotheosised. Says he:--\n\n   Though the encouragement of ancestor-worship cannot\n   be regarded as part of the essential teaching of\n   Christianity (!), it (3) is not opposed to the\n   notion that, when the Japanese Empire was founded,\n   its early rulers were in communication with the\n   Great Spirit that rules the universe.  Christians,\n   according to this theory, without doing violence\n   to their creed, may acknowledge that the Japanese\n   nation has a divine origin.  It is only when we\n   realise that the Imperial Ancestors were in close\n   communion with God (or the Gods), that we understand\n   how sacred is the country in which we live.  (Dr.\n   Ebina ends by recommending the Imperial Rescript on\n   Education as a text for Christian sermons.)\n\n     (Note 2)  We quote from the translation given\n     by Mr. Walter Dening in one of the invaluable\n     \"Summaries of Current Japanese Literature,\"\n     contributed by him from time to time to the\n     columns of the \"Japan Mail,\" Yokohama.\n\n     (Note 3)  \"It\" means Christianity.\n\nIt needs no comment of ours to point out how thoroughly the nation\nmust be saturated by the doctrines under discussion for such amazing\nutterances to be possible. If so-called Christians can think thus, the\nnon-Christian majority must indeed be devout Emperor-worshippers and\nJapan-worshippers. Such the go-ahead portion of the nation undoubtedly\nis--the students, the army, the navy, the emigrants to Japan's new\nforeign possessions, all the more ardent spirits. The peasantry, as\nbefore noted, occupy themselves little with new thoughts, clinging\nrather to the Buddhist beliefs of their forefathers. But nothing could\nbe further removed from even their minds than the idea of offering any\norganised resistance to the propaganda going on around them.\n\nAs a matter of fact, the spread of the new ideas has been easy, because\na large class derives power from their diffusion, while to oppose them\nis the business of no one in particular. Moreover, the disinterested\nlove of truth for its own sake is rare; the patience to unearth it is\nrarer still, especially in the East. Patriotism, too, is a mighty engine\nworking in the interests of credulity. How should men not believe in a\nsystem that produces such excellent practical results, a system which\nhas united all the scattered elements of national feeling into one\nfocus, and has thus created a powerful instrument for the attainment of\nnational aims? Meanwhile a generation is growing up which does not so\nmuch as suspect that its cherished beliefs are inventions of yesterday.\n\nThe new religion, in its present stage, still lacks one important\nitem--a sacred book. Certain indications show that this lacuna will be\nfilled by the elevation of the more important Imperial Rescripts to that\nrank, accompanied doubtless by an authoritative commentary, as their\nstyle is too abstruse to be understanded of the people. To these\nImperial Rescripts some of the poems composed by his present Majesty\nmay be added. In fact, a volume on the whole duty of Japanese man, with\nselected Imperial poems as texts, has already appeared. (4)\n\n     (Note 4)  For over a thousand years the composition\n     of Japanese and Chinese verse has formed part of a\n     liberal education, like the composition of Latin\n     verse among ourselves.  The Court has always\n     devoted much time to the practice of this art.\n     But the poems of former Emperors were little\n     known, because the monarchs themselves remained\n     shut up in their palace, and exercised no\n     influence beyond its walls.  With his present\n     Majesty the case is entirely different.  Moreover,\n     some of his compositions breathe a patriotism\n     formerly undreamt of.\n\n                *****\n\nOne might have imagined that Japan's new religionists would have\nexperienced some difficulty in persuading foreign nations of the truth\nof their dogmas. Things have fallen out otherwise. Europe and America\nevince a singular taste for the marvellous, and find a zest in\nself-depreciation. Our eighteenth-century ancestors imagined all\nperfections to be realised in China, thanks to the glowing descriptions\nthen given of that country by the Jesuits. Twentieth-century Europe\nfinds its moral and political Eldorado in distant Japan, a land\nof fabulous antiquity and incredible virtues. There is no lack of\npleasant-mannered persons ready to guide trustful admirers in the right\npath. Official and semi-official Japanese, whether ambassadors and\nministers-resident or peripatetic counts and barons, make it their\nbusiness to spread a legend so pleasing to the national vanity, so\nuseful as a diplomatic engine. Lectures are delivered, books are written\nin English, important periodicals are bought up, minute care is lavished\non the concealment, the patching-up, and glossing-over of the deep gulf\nthat nevertheless is fixed between East and West. The foreigner cannot\nrefuse the bolus thus artfully forced down his throat. He is not\nsuspicious by nature. How should he imagine that people who make such\npositive statements about their own country are merely exploiting his\ncredulity? HE has reached a stage of culture where such mythopoeia\nhas become impossible. On the other hand, to control information by\nconsulting original sources lies beyond his capacity.\n\nFor consider this peculiar circumstance: the position of European\ninvestigators vis-a-vis Japan differs entirely from that of Japanese\nvis-a-vis Europe. The Japanese possess every facility for studying and\nunderstanding Europe. Europeans are warded off by well-nigh insuperable\nobstacles from understanding Japan. Europe stands on a hill-top, in the\nsunlight, glittering afar. Her people court inspection. \"Come and see\nhow we live\"--such was a typical invitation which the present writer\nrecently received. A thousand English homes are open to any Japanese\nstudent or traveller who visits our shores. An alphabet of but\nsix-and-twenty simple letters throws equally wide open to him a\nliterature clearly revealing our thoughts, so that he who runs may read.\nJapan lies in the shadow, away on the rim of the world. Her houses are\nfar more effectually closed to the stranger by their paper shutters than\nare ours by walls of brick or stone. What we call \"society\" does\nnot exist there. Her people, though smiling and courteous, surround\nthemselves by an atmosphere of reserve, centuries of despotic government\nhaving rendered them suspicious and reticent. True, when a foreigner of\nimportance visits Japan--some British M.P., perhaps, whose name figures\noften in the newspapers, or an American editor, or the president of a\ngreat American college--this personage is charmingly received. But he is\nnever left free to form his own opinion of things, even were he capable\nof so doing. Circumstances spin an invisible web around him, his\nhosts being keenly intent on making him a speaking-trumpet for the\nproclamation of their own views.\n\nAgain, Japan's non-Aryan speech, marvellously intricate, almost defies\nacquisition. Suppose this difficult vernacular mastered; the would-be\nstudent discovers that literary works, even newspapers and ordinary\ncorrespondence, are not composed in it, but in another dialect, partly\nantiquated, partly artificial, differing as widely from the colloquial\nspeech as Latin does from Italian. Make a second hazardous supposition.\nAssume that the grammar and vocabulary of this second indispensable\nJapanese language have been learnt, in addition to the first. You\nare still but at the threshold of your task, Japanese thought having\nbarricaded itself behind the fortress walls of an extraordinarily\ncomplicated system of writing, compared with which Egyptian\nhieroglyphics are child's play. Yet next to nothing can be found out by\na foreigner unless he have this, too, at his fingers' ends. As a matter\nof fact, scarcely anyone acquires it--only a missionary here and there,\nor a consular official with a life appointment.\n\nThe result of all this is that, whereas the Japanese know everything\nthat it imports them to know about us, Europeans cannot know much about\nthem, such information as they receive being always belated,\nnecessarily meagre, and mostly adulterated to serve Japanese interests.\nInternational relations placed--and, we repeat it, inevitably placed--on\nthis footing resemble a boxing match in which one of the contestants\nshould have his hands tied. But the metaphor fails in an essential\npoint, as metaphors are apt to do--the hand-tied man does not realise\nthe disadvantage under which he labours. He thinks himself as free as\nhis opponent.\n\nThus does it come about that the neo-Japanese myths concerning dates,\nand Emperors, and heroes, and astonishing national virtues already begin\nto find their way into popular English text-books, current literature,\nand even grave books of reference. The Japanese governing class has\nwilled it so, and in such matters the Japanese governing class can\nenforce its will abroad as well as at home. The statement may sound\nparadoxical. Study the question carefully, and you will find that it is\nsimply true.\n\n                *****\n\nWhat is happening in Japan to-day is evidently exceptional. Normal\nreligious and political change does not proceed in that manner; it\nproceeds by imperceptible degrees. But exceptions to general rules\noccur from time to time in every field of activity. Are they really\nexceptions, using that term in its current sense--to denote something\narbitrary, and therefore unaccountable? Surely these so-called\nexceptions are but examples of rules of rarer application.\n\nThe classic instance of the invention of a new national religion is\nfurnished by the Jews of the post-exilic period. The piecing together,\nthen, of a brand-new system under an ancient name is now so well\nunderstood, and has produced consequences of such world-wide importance,\nthat the briefest reference to it may suffice. Works which every critic\ncan now see to be relatively modern were ascribed to Moses, David,\nor Daniel; intricate laws and ordinances that had never been\npractised--could never be practised--were represented as ancient\ninstitutions; a whole new way of thinking and acting was set in motion\non the assumption that it was old. Yet, so far as is known, no one in\nor out of Palestine ever saw through the illusion for over two thousand\nyears. It was reserved for nineteenth-century scholars to draw aside the\nveil hiding the real facts of the case.\n\nModern times supply another instance, less important than the first,\nbut remarkable enough. Rousseau came in the middle of the eighteenth\ncentury, and preached a doctrine that took the world by storm, and soon\nprecipitated that world in ruins. How did he discover his gospel? He\ntells us quite naively:--\n\n   All the rest of the day, buried in the forest, I\n   sought, I found there the image of primitive ages,\n   whose history I boldly traced.  I made havoc of men's\n   petty lies; I dared to unveil and strip naked man's\n   true nature, to follow up the course of time and of\n   the circumstances that have disfigured it, and,\n   comparing man as men have made him with man as\n   nature made him, to demonstrate that the so-called\n   improvements (of civilisation) have been the source\n   of all his woes, etc. (5)\n\n     (Note 5)  \"Confessions,\" Book VIII., year 1753.\n\n\nIn other words, he spun a pseudo-history from his own brain. What is\nstranger, he fanatically believed in this his pure invention, and,\nmost extraordinary of all, persuaded other people to believe in it as\nfanatically. It was taken up as a religion, it inspired heroes, and\nenabled a barefoot rabble to beat the finest regular armies in the\nworld. Even now, at a distance of a century and a half, its embers still\nglow.\n\nOf course, it is not pretended that these various systems of thought\nwere ARBITRARY inventions. No more were they so than the cloud palaces\nthat we sometimes see swiftly form in the sky and as swiftly dissolve.\nThe germ of Rousseau's ideas can be traced back to Fenelon and other\nseventeenth-century thinkers, weary of the pomp and periwigs around\nthem. Rousseau himself did but fulfil the aspiration of a whole society\nfor something simpler, juster, more true to nature, more logical. He\ngave exactly what was needed at that moment of history--what appeared\nself-evident; wherefore no one so much as thought of asking for detailed\nproofs. His deism, his statements concerning the \"state of nature\" and\nthe \"social contract,\" etc., were at once recognised by the people of\nhis day as eternal verities. What need for discussion or investigation?\n\nThe case of Judaea is obscure; but it would seem that something\nanalogous must have happened there, when the continuity of national life\nhad been snapped by the exile. A revolutionised and most unhappy present\ninvolved a changed attitude towards the past. Oral tradition and the\nscraps of written records that had survived the shipwreck of the kingdom\nfell, as it were, naturally into another order. The kaleidoscope having\nbeen turned, the pattern changed of itself. A few gifted individuals\nvoiced the enthusiasm of a whole community, when they adopted literary\nmethods which would now, in our comparatively stable days, be branded as\nfraudulent. They simply could not help themselves. The pressing need of\nconstructing a national polity for the present on the only basis then\npossible--Yahwe worship--FORCED them into falsifying the past. The\nquestion was one of life and death for the Jewish nationality.\n\n                *****\n\nEuropeans there are in Japan--Europeanised Japanese likewise--who feel\noutraged by the action of the Japanese bureaucracy in the matter of\nthe new cult, with all the illiberal and obscurantist measures which it\nentails. That is natural. We modern Westerners love individual liberty,\nand the educated among us love to let the sunlight of criticism into\nevery nook and cranny of every subject. Freedom and scientific accuracy\nare our gods. But Japanese officialdom acts quite naturally, after its\nkind, in not allowing the light to be let in, because the roots of\nthe faith it has planted need darkness in which to grow and spread. No\nreligion can live which is subjected to critical scrutiny.\n\nThus also are explained the rigours of the Japanese bureaucracy against\nthe native liberals, who, in its eyes, appear, not simply as political\nopponents, but as traitors to the chosen people--sacrilegious heretics\ndefying the authority of the One and Only True Church.\n\n\"But,\" you will say, \"this indignation must be mere pretence. Not even\nofficials can be so stupid as to believe in things which they have\nthemselves invented.\" We venture to think that you are wrong here.\nPeople can always believe that which it is greatly to their interest to\nbelieve. Thousands of excellent persons in our own society cling to\nthe doctrine of a future life on no stronger evidence. It is enormously\nimportant to the Japanese ruling class that the mental attitude sketched\nabove should become universal among their countrymen. Accordingly, they\nachieve the apparently impossible. \"We believe in it,\" said one of\nthem to us recently--\"we believe in it, although we know that it is\nnot true.\" Tertullian said nearly the same thing, and no one has ever\ndoubted HIS sincerity.","title":"The Invention of a New Religion","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":4961}