Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic Part 24

"Heaven has a mouth and even the wall has ears," signifies that all one does is known to the ruler of heaven and earth. Another still more striking saying ascribing knowledge to Heaven is the "Yoshin no Shichi," "the four knowings of Yoshin." This sage was a Chinaman of the second century A.D. Approached with a large bribe and urged to accept it with the a.s.surance that no one would know it, he replied, "Heaven knows it; Earth knows it; you know it; and I know it. How say you that none will know it?" This famous saying condemning bribery is well known in j.a.pan. The references to "Heaven" as knowing, seeing, doing, sympathizing, willing, and always identifying the activity of "Heaven" with the n.o.blest and loftiest ideals of man, are frequent in Chinese and j.a.panese literature. The personality of G.o.d is thus a doctrine clearly foreshadowed in the Orient. It is one of those great truths of religion which the Orient has already received, but which in a large measure lies dormant because of its incomplete expression. The advent of the fully expressed teaching of this truth, freed from all vagueness and ambiguity, is a capital ill.u.s.tration of the way in which Christianity comes to j.a.pan to fulfill rather than to destroy; it brings that fructifying element that stirs the older and more or less imperfectly expressed truths into new life, and gives them adequate modes of expression. But the point to which I am here calling attention is the fact that the idea of the personality of the Supreme Being is not so utterly alien to Oriental thought as some would have us think. Even though there is no single word with which conveniently to translate the term, the idea is perfectly distinct to any j.a.panese to whom its meaning is explained.

The statement is widely made that because the j.a.panese language has no term for "personality" the people are lacking in the idea; that consequently they have difficulty in grasping it even when presented to them, and that as a further consequence they are not to be criticised for their hesitancy in accepting the doctrine of the "Personality of G.o.d." It must be admitted that if "personality" is to be defined in the various ambiguous and contradictory ways in which we have seen it defined by advocates of Oriental "impersonality" much can be said in defense of their hesitancy. Indeed, no thinking Christian of the Occident for a moment accepts it. But if "personality" is defined in the way here presented, which I judge to be the usage of thoughtful Christendom, then their hesitancy cannot be so defended. It is doubtless true that there is in j.a.panese no single word corresponding to our term "personality." But that is likewise true of mult.i.tudes of other terms. The only significance of this fact is that Oriental philosophy has not followed in exactly the same lines as the Occidental. As a matter of fact I have not found the idea of personality to be a difficult one to convey to the j.a.panese, if clear definitions are used. The j.a.panese language has, as we have seen, many words referring to the individuality, to the self of manhood; it merely lacks the general abstract term, "personality." This is, however, in keeping with the general characteristics of the language.

Abstract terms are, compared with English, relatively rare. Yet with the new civilization they are being coined and introduced.

Furthermore, the English term "personality" is readily used by the great majority of educated Christians just as they use such words as "life," "power," "success," "patriotism," and "Christianity."

In the summer of 1898, with the Rev. C.A. Clark I was invited to speak on the "Outlines of Christianity" in a school for Buddhist priests. At the close of our thirty-minute addresses, a young man arose and spoke for fifty minutes, outlining the Buddhist system of thought; his address consisted of an exposition of the law of cause and effect; he also stated some of the reasons why the Christian conception of G.o.d and the universe seemed to him utterly unsatisfactory; the objections raised were those now current in j.a.pan--such, for example, as that if G.o.d really were the creator of the universe, why are some men rich and some poor, some high-born and some low-born. He also asked the question who made G.o.d? In a two-minute reply I stated that his objections showed that he did not understand the Christian's position; and I asked in turn what was the origin of the law of cause and effect. The following day the chief priest, the head of the school and its most highly educated instructor, dined with us. We of course talked of the various aspects of Christian and Buddhist doctrine.

Finally he asked me how I would answer the question as to who created G.o.d, and as to the origin of the law of cause and effect. I explained as clearly as I could the Christian view of G.o.d, in his personality and as being the original and only source of all existence, whether of physical or of human nature. He seemed to drink it all in and expressed his satisfaction at the close in the words, "Taihen ni man zoku shimas.h.i.ta," "That is exceedingly satisfactory"; these words he repeated several times. This is not my first personal proof of the fact that the idea of personality is not alien or incomprehensible to the Orient, nor even to a Buddhist priest, steeped in Buddhist speculation, provided the idea is clearly stated.

Before bringing to a close this discussion of the problem of personality in j.a.pan, it would seem desirable to trace the history of the development of j.a.panese personality. In view of all that has now been said, and not forgetting what was said as to the principles of National Evolution,[DA] this may be done in a paragraph.

The amalgamation of tribes, the development of large clans, and finally the establishment of the nation, with world-wide relations, has reacted on the individual members of the people, giving them larger and richer lives. This const.i.tutes one important element of personal development. The subordination of individual will to that of the group, the desire and effort to live for the advantage, not of the individual self, but of the group, whether family, tribe, clan, nation, or the world, is not a limitation of personality. On the contrary, it is its expansion and development. Shinto and j.a.ponicized Confucianism contributed powerful motives to this subordination, and thus to this personal development. These were attended, however, by serious limitations in that they confined their attention to the upper and ruling cla.s.ses. The development of personality was thus extremely limited. Buddhism contributed to the development of j.a.panese personality in so far as it taught j.a.panese the marvels revealed by introspection and self-victory. Its contribution, however, was seriously hampered by defects already sufficiently emphasized. j.a.pan has developed personality to a high degree in a few and to a relatively low degree in the many. The problem confronting New j.a.pan is the development of a high degree of personality among the ma.s.ses.

This is to be accomplished by the introduction of an individualistic social order.

One further topic demands our attention in closing. What is the nature of personal heredity? Is it biological and inherent, or, like all the characteristics of the j.a.panese people thus far studied, is personality transmitted by social heredity? Distinguishing between intrinsic or inherent personality,[DB] which const.i.tutes the original endowment differentiating man from animal, and extrinsic or acquired personality, which consists of the various forms in which the inherent personality has manifested itself in the different races of men and the different ages of "history, it is safe to say that the latter is transmitted according to the laws of a.s.sociation or social heredity.

Intrinsic personality can be inherited only by lineal offspring, pa.s.sing from father to son. Extrinsic personality may fail to be inherited by lineal descendants and may be inherited by others than lineal descendants. It is transmitted and determined by social inheritance. Yet it is through personality that the individual may break away from the dominant currents of the social order, and become thus the means for the transformation of that order. The secret of social progress lies in personality. In proportion as the social order is fitted, accordingly, widely to develop high-grade personality,[DC]

is its own progress rapid and safe.

Does acquired personality react on intrinsic personality? This is the problem of "the inheritance of acquired characteristics." Into this problem I do not enter further than to note that in so far as newly developed personal traits produce transformations of body and brain transmittable from parent to offspring by the bare fact of parentage, in that degree does acquired pa.s.s over into intrinsic personality and thereby become intrinsic. In regard to the degree in which acquired has pa.s.sed over into intrinsic personality, thus differentiating the leading races of mankind, we contend that it is practically non-existent. The phenomena of personality characterizing the chief races of men are due, not to intrinsic, but to acquired personality; in other words they are the products of the respective social orders and are transmitted from generation to generation by social rather than by biological heredity.

x.x.xIV

THE BUDDHIST WORLD-VIEW

Fully to comprehend the genius and history of j.a.pan and her social order, we need to gain a still more thorough insight into the various conceptions of the universe that have influenced the people. What have been their views as to the nature of the ultimate reality lying behind all phenomena? What as to the relation of mankind to that Ultimate Reality? And what has been the relation of these world-views to the social order? To prepare the way for our final answer to these questions, we confine ourselves in this chapter to a study of the inner nature of the Buddhist world-view.

Since the Buddhist conception of the Ultimate Reality and of the universe is one of the three important types of world-views dominating the human mind, a type too that is hardly known in Western lands, in order to set it forth in terms intelligible to the Occidental and the Christian, it will be necessary in expounding it to contrast it with the two remaining types; namely, the Greek and the Christian. As already pointed out, according to the Buddhistic conception, the Ultimate is a thoroughgoing Abstraction. All the elements of personality are denied. It is perfectly pa.s.sionless, perfectly thoughtless, and perfectly motionless. It has neither feeling, idea, nor will. As a consequence, the phenomena of the universe are wholly unrelated to it; all that is, is only illusion; it has no reality of being. Human beings who think the world real, and who think even themselves real, are under the spell. This illusion is the great misery and source of pain. Salvation is the discovery of the illusion; and this discovery is the victory over it; for no one fears the lion's skin, however much he may fear the lion. This discovery secures the dropping back from the little, limited, individual self-line, into the infinite pa.s.sionless, thoughtless, and motionless existence of the absolute being, Nirvana.

The Ancient Greek and not a little modern thought, conceived of the Ultimate as a thorough-going intellectualism. One aspect of personality was perceived and emphasized. G.o.d was conceived as a thinker, as one who contemplates the universe. He does not create matter, nor force, nor does he rule them. They are eternal and real, and subject to fate. G.o.d simply observes. He is absolute reason. The Greek view is thus essentially dualistic. Sin, from the Greek point of view, is merely ignorance, and salvation the attainment of knowledge.

In vital and vitalizing contrast to both the Buddhist and Greek conceptions is the Judaeo-Christian. To the Christian the Ultimate is a thoroughgoing personality. To him the central element in G.o.d is will, guided by reason and controlled by love and righteousness. G.o.d creates and rules everything. There is nothing that is not wholly subject to him. There is no dualism for the Christian, nor any illusion. Sin is an act of human will, not an illusion nor a failure of intellect.

Salvation is the correction of the will, which comes about through a "new birth."

The elemental difference, then, between these three conceptions of the Ultimate is that in Buddhism the effort to rationalize and ethicize the universe of experience is abandoned as a hopeless task; the world entirely and completely resists the rational and ethical process. The universe is p.r.o.nounced completely irrational and non-moral. Change is branded as illusion. There is no room for progress in philosophic, thoroughgoing Buddhism.

In the Greek view the universe is subject in part to the rationalizing process; but only in part. The effort at ethicization is entirely futile. The Greek view, equally with the Buddhistic, is at a loss to understand change. It does not brand it as unreal, but change produced by man is branded as a departure from nature. Greeks and Hindus alike have no philosophy of history. In the Christian view the universe is completely subject to the rational and ethical process. G.o.d is creator of all that is and it is necessarily good. G.o.d is an active will and He is, therefore, still in the process of creating; hence change, evolution, is justified and understood. History is rational and has a philosophy. Evolution and revelation have their place at the very heart of the universe. Hence it is that science, philosophy, and history, in a word a high-grade civilization, finds its intellectual justification, its foundation, its primary postulates, its possibility, only in a land permeated with the Christian idea of G.o.d.

In the Buddhistic conception G.o.d is an abstract vacuity; in the Greek, a static intellect; in the Christian, a dynamic will. As is the conception of G.o.d, so is the conception and character of man. The two are so intimately interdependent that it is useless at this time to discuss which is the cause and which the result. They are doubtless the two aspects of the same movement of thought. The following differences are necessary characteristics of the three religions:

The Buddhist seeks salvation through the attainment of vacuity--Nirvana--in order to escape from the world in which he says there is no reason and no morality. The Greek seeks salvation through the activity of the intellect; all that is needful to salvation is knowledge of the truth. The Christian seeks salvation through the activity of the will; this is secured through the new birth. The Buddhist leaves each man to save himself from his illusion by the discovery that it is an illusion. The Greek relies on intellectual education, on philosophy--the Christian recreates the will. The Buddhist and Greek G.o.ds make no effort to help the lost man. The Christian G.o.d is dominated by love; He is therefore a missionary G.o.d, sending even His only begotten Son to reconcile and win the world of sinning, willful children back to Himself.

In Buddhism salvation is won only by the few and after ages of toil and ceaseless re-births. In the Greek plan only the philosopher who comes to full understanding can attain salvation. In the Christian plan salvation is for all, for all are sons of G.o.d, in fact, and may through Christ become so in consciousness. In the Buddhistic plan the hopeless ma.s.ses resort to magic and keep on with their idolatry and countless gross superst.i.tions. In the Greek plan the hopeless resort to the "mysteries" for the attainment of salvation. In the Christian plan there are no hopeless ma.s.ses, for all may gain the regenerated will and become conscious sons of G.o.d.

The Buddhist mind gave up all effort to grasp or even to understand reality. The Greek mind thought it could arrive at reality through the intellect. But two thousand years of philosophic study and evolution drove philosophy into the absurd positions of absolute subjective idealism on the one hand and sensationalism and absolute materialism on the other. The Christian mind lays emphasis on the will and accordingly is alone able to reach reality, a reality justifiable alike to the reason and to the heart. For will is the creative faculty in man as well as in G.o.d. As G.o.d through His will creates reality, so man through his will first comes to know reality. Mere intellect can never pa.s.s over from thought to being. Being can be known as a reality only through the will.

In consequence of the above-stated methods of thought, the Buddhist was of necessity a pessimist; the Greek only less so; while the Jew and the Christian could alone be thoroughgoing optimists. The Buddhist ever a.s.serts the is-not; the Greek, the is; while the Jew and Christian demand the ought-to be, as the supreme thing. Hence flows the perennial life of the Christian civilization.

Those races and civilizations whose highest and deepest conception of the ultimate is that of mere reason, no less than those races and civilizations whose highest and deepest conception of reality is that of an abstract emptiness, must be landed in an unreal world, must arrive at irrational results, for they have not taken into account the most vital element of thought and life. Such races and civilizations cannot rise to the highest levels of which man is capable; they must of necessity give way to those races and that civilization which build on larger and more complete foundations, which worship Will, Human and Divine, and seek for its larger development both in self and in all mankind.

But I must not pause to trace the contrasts further. Enough has been said to show the source of Occidental belief in the infinite worth of man. In almost diametrical contrast to the Buddhist conception, according to the Christian view, man is a real being, living in a real world, involved in a real intellectual problem, fighting a real battle, on whose issue hang momentous, nay, infinite results. So great is man's value, not only to himself, but also to G.o.d, his Father, that the Father himself suffers with him in his sin, and for him, to save him from his sin. The question will be asked how widely the Buddhistic interpretation of the universe has spread in j.a.pan. The doctrine of illusion became pretty general. We may doubt, however, whether the rationale of the philosophy was very generally understood. One Sutra, read by all j.a.panese sects, is taught to all who would become acquainted with the essentials of Buddhist doctrine. It is so short that I give it in full.[DD]

THE SMALLER-PRAGNA-PARAMITA-HRIDYA-SUTRA

"Adoration to the Omniscient. The venerable Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara performing his study in the deep Pragna-paramita [perfection of Wisdom] thought thus: There are the five Skandhas, and these he considered as by their nature empty [phenomenal]. O Sariputra, he said, form here is emptiness, and emptiness indeed is form. Emptiness is not different from form, and form is not different from emptiness. What is form that is emptiness, what is emptiness that is form. The same applies to perception, name, conception, and knowledge.

"Here, O Sariputra, all things have the character of emptiness; they have no beginning, no end, they are faultless and not faultless, they are not imperfect and not perfect. Therefore, O Sariputra, in this emptiness there is no form, no perception, no name, no concepts, no knowledge. No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind. No form, sound, smell, taste, touch, objects.... There is no knowledge, no ignorance, no destruction of knowledge, no destruction of ignorance, etc., there is no decay and death, no destruction of decay and death; there are not the four truths, viz., that there is pain, the origin of pain, stopping of pain, and the path to it. There is no knowledge, no obtaining of Nirvana.

"A man who has approached the Pragna-paramita of the Bodhisattva dwells enveloped in consciousness. But when the envelop of consciousness has been annihilated, then he becomes free of all fear, beyond the reach of change, enjoying final Nirvana. All Buddhas of the past, present, and future, after approaching the Pragna-paramita, have awakened to the highest perfect knowledge.

"Therefore one ought to know the great verse of the Pragna-paramita, the verse of the great wisdom, the unsurpa.s.sed verse, the peerless verse, which appeases all pain; it is truth because it is not false; the verse proclaimed in the Pragna-paramita: 'O wisdom, gone, gone, gone, to the other sh.o.r.e, landed at the other sh.o.r.e, Shava.'

"Thus ends the heart of the Pragna-paramita."

A study of this condensed and widely read Buddhist Sutra will convince anyone that the ultimate conceptions of the universe and of the final reality, are as described above. However popular Buddhism might differ from this, it would be the belief of the thoughtless ma.s.ses, to whom the rational and ethical problems are of no significance or concern, and who contribute nothing to the development of thought or of the social order. Those n.o.bler and more earnestly inquiring souls whose energy and spiritual longing might have been used for the benefit of the ma.s.ses, were shunted off on a side track that led only into the desert of atomistic individualism, abandonment of society, ecstatic contemplation, and absolute pessimism. The Buddhist theory of the universe and method of thought denied all intelligible reality, and necessitated the conclusion that the universe of experience is neither rational nor ethical. The common beliefs of the unreflective and uninitiated ma.s.ses in the ultimate rationality and morality of the universe were felt to have no foundation either in religion or philosophy and were accordingly p.r.o.nounced mere illusions.

x.x.xV

COMMUNAL AND INDIVIDUAL ELEMENTS IN THE EVOLUTION OF j.a.pANESE RELIGIOUS LIFE

Our study of j.a.panese religion and religious life thus far has been almost, if not exclusively, from the individualistic standpoint. An adequate statement, however, cannot be made from this standpoint alone, for religion through its mighty sanctions exerts a powerful influence on the entire communal life. Indeed, the leading characteristic of primitive religions is their communal nature. The science of religion shows how late in human history is the rise of individualistic religions.

In the present chapter we propose to study j.a.panese religious history from the communal standpoint. This will lead us to study her present religious problem and the nature of the religion required to solve it.

The real nature of the religious life of j.a.pan has been and still is predominantly communal. Individualism has had a place, but, as we have repeatedly seen, only a minor place in forming the nation. From the communo-individualistic standpoint, in the study of j.a.pan's religious and social evolution, not only can we see clearly that the three religions of j.a.pan are real religions, but we can also understand the nature of the relations of these three religions to each other and the reasons why they have had such relations. j.a.panese religious history and its main phenomena become luminous in the light of communo-individualistic social principles.

Shinto, the primitive religion of j.a.pan, corresponded well with the needs of primitive times, when the development of strong communal life was the prime problem and necessity. It furnished the religious sanctions for the social order in its customs of worshiping not only the G.o.ds, but also the Emperor and ancestors. It gave the highest possible justification of the national social order in its deification of the supreme ruler. Shinto was so completely communal in its nature that the individual aspect of religion was utterly ignored. It developed no specific moral code, no eschatological and soteriological systems, no comprehensive view of nature or of the G.o.ds. These deficiencies, however, are no proofs that it was not a religion in the proper sense of the term. The real question is, did it furnish any supra-mundane, supra-legal, supra-communal sanctions both for the conduct of the individual in his social relations and for the fact and the right of the social order. Of this there can be no doubt. Those who deny it the name of a religion do so because they judge religion only from the point of view of a highly developed individualistic religion.

In view of this undoubted fact, it is a strange commentary on the failure of Shinto leaders to realize the real function of the faith they profess that they have sought and obtained from the government the right to be considered and cla.s.sified no longer as a religion, but only as a society for preserving the memories and shrines of the ancestors of the race. Thus has modern Shinto, so far as it is organized and has a mouth with which to speak, following the abdicating proclivities of the ancient social order, excommunicated itself from its religious heritage, aspiring to be nothing more than a gate-keeper of cemeteries.

The sources of the power of the Shinto sanctions lies in the nature of its conception of the universe. Although it attempted no interpretation of the universe as a whole, it conceived of the origin of the country and people of j.a.pan as due to the direct creative energy of the G.o.ds. j.a.pan was accordingly conceived as a divine land and the people a divine people. The Emperor was thought to have descended in direct line from the G.o.ds and thus to be a visible representative of the G.o.ds to the people, and to possess divine power and authority with which to rule the people. Whenever j.a.panese came into contact with foreign peoples, it was natural to consider them outside of the divine providence, aliens, whose presence in the divine land was more or less of a pollution. This world-view was well calculated to develop a spirit of submissive obedience and loyal adherence to the hereditary rulers of the land, and of fierce antagonism to foreigners. This view const.i.tuted the moral foundation for the social order, the intellectual framework within which the state developed. Paternal feudalism was the natural, if not the necessary, accompaniment of this world-view. Even to this day the scholars of the land see no other ground on which to found Imperial authority, no other basis for ethics and religion, than the divine descent of the Emperor.[DE]

The Shinto world-view, conceiving of men as direct offspring of the G.o.ds, has in it potentially the doctrine of the divine nature of all men, and their consequent infinite worth. Shinto never developed this truth, however. It did not discover the momentous implications of its view. Failing to discover them, it failed to introduce into the social order that moral inspiration, that social leaven which would have gradually produced the individualistic social order.

No attempt has been made either in ancient or modern times to square this Shinto world-view with advancing knowledge of the world, particularly with the modern scientific conception of the universe.

Anthropology, ethnology, and the doctrine of evolution both cosmic and human, are all destructive of the primitive Shinto world-view. It would not be difficult to show, however, that in this world-view exists a profound element of truth. The Shinto world-conception needs to be expanded to take the universe and all races of men into its view; and to see that j.a.pan is not alone the object of divine solicitude, but that all races likewise owe their origin to that same divine power, and that even though the Emperor is not more directly the offspring of the G.o.ds than are all men, yet in the providence of Him who ruleth the affairs of men, the Emperor is in fact the visible representative of authority and power for the people over whom he reigns. With this expansion and the consequences that flow from it, the world-view that has cradled Old j.a.pan will come into accord with the scientific Christian world-view, and become fitted to be the foundation for the new and individualistic social order, now arising in j.a.pan, granting full liberty of thought and action, knowing that only so can truth come out of error, and a.s.sured that truth is the only ground of permanent welfare.

Throughout the centuries including the present era of Meiji, it is the Shinto religion that has provided and that still provides religious sanctions for the social order--even for the new social order that has come in from the West. It is the belief of the people in the divine descent of the Emperor, and his consequent divine right, that to-day unifies the nation and causes it to accept so readily the new social order; desired by him, they raise no questions, make no opposition, even though in some respects it brings them trouble and anxiety.

Our study of Buddhism has brought to light its extremely individualistic nature, and its lack of asocial ideal. Its world-view we have sufficiently examined in the preceding chapter. We are told that when Buddhism came to j.a.pan it made little headway until it adopted the Shinto deities into its theogony. What does this mean?

That only on condition of accepting the Shinto sanctions for the communal order of society was it able to commend itself to the people at large. And Buddhism had no difficulty in fulfilling this condition, because it had no ideal order of society to present and no religious sanctions for any kind of social order; in this respect Buddhism had no ground for conflict with Shinto. Shinto had the field to itself; and Buddhism was perfectly at liberty to adopt, or at least to allow, any social order that might present itself. Furthermore, by its doctrines of incarnation and transmigration, according to which n.o.ble souls might appear and reappear in different worlds and different lands, Buddhism could identify Shinto deities with its own deities of Hindu origin, a.s.serting their pre-incarnation. Having accepted the Shinto deities, ideals, and sanctions for the social order, Buddhism became not only tolerable to the people, but also exceedingly popular.