Filial piety is the basis, and includes patriotism, because the Mikado
is the father of his people. The Japanese outlook has the same kind of
superstitious absence of realism that one finds in thirteenth-century
theories as to the relations of the Emperor and the Pope. But in Europe
the Emperor and the Pope were different people, and their quarrels
promoted freedom of thought; in Japan, since 1868, they are combined in
one sacred person, and there are no internal conflicts to produce doubt.
Japan, unlike China, is a religious country. The Chinese doubt a
proposition until it is proved to be true; the Japanese believe it until
it is proved to be false. I do not know of any evidence against the view
that the Mikado is divine. Japanese religion is essentially
nationalistic, like that of the Jews in the Old Testament. Shinto, the
State religion, has been in the main invented since 1868,[88] and
propagated by education in schools. (There was of course an old Shinto
religion, but most of what constitutes modern Shintoism is new.) It is
not a religion which aims at being universal, like Buddhism,
Christianity, and Islam; it is a tribal religion, only intended to
appeal to the Japanese. Buddhism subsists side by side with it, and is
believed by the same people. It is customary to adopt Shinto rites for
marriages and Buddhist rites for funerals, because Buddhism is
considered more suitable for mournful occasions.
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