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 question of fictitious early history might be considered
unimportant, like the fact that, with us, parsons have to pretend to
believe the Bible, which some people think innocuous. But it is part of
the whole system, which has a political object, to which free thought
and free speech are ruthlessly sacrificed. As this same pamphlet says:--
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.
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