An Introduction to the History of Japan Part 1

An Introduction to the History of j.a.pan.

by Katsuro Hara.

PREFACE

The princ.i.p.al aim of this work, written at the request of the Yamato Society as the first of its projected series of publications, is to furnish a synopsis, or perhaps rather to give a general sketch, of the history of j.a.pan. The public to which it is tendered is not those professional historians and students of history now abounding in our country, who are already perplexedly enc.u.mbered with, and engrossed by, a superfluity of overdetailed materials and a plethora of contradictory conjectures and hypotheses. In short, the book is, strictly speaking, intended for those Europeans and Americans who would like to dip into the past, as well as peer into the future, of j.a.pan,--j.a.pan, not as a land of quaint curios and picturesque paradoxes only worthy to be preserved intact for a show, but as a land inhabited by a nation striving hard to improve itself, and to take a share, however humble, in the common progress of the civilisation of the world.

Having such an aim on the one hand, it becomes on the other a matter of urgent necessity for the author to exercise great caution against extolling bombastically our national merits or falling into a coa.r.s.e and futile jingoism. To be ostentatious proves, after all, some lack of sincerity and impartiality, and is the very vice which should be avoided by historians worthy of the name. In order to guard against such a blunder, however, and attain as far as possible the aim I have set before me, I thought it wisest to approximate the standpoint from which the book was to be written as nearly as possible to that of a foreigner, free from our national prejudices and at the same time intensely sympathetic with our country. Of course, it can hardly be disputed that to place oneself unerringly on the standpoint of another, different widely in thought as well as in nationality, is an affair very easy to talk of, but exceedingly difficult to put into practice. I dare not presume that I have been at all equal to the task. Still it may be of some use for the reader to learn beforehand whither my earnest efforts are directed.

There is some truth in the saying that the time is not yet ripe for a conscientious j.a.panese scholar to write a history of our country covering all ages, ancient and modern, especially if that history is to be canva.s.sed in a small volume of some three or four hundred pages. The reason generally alleged is that too many important questions in the history of j.a.pan remain yet undecided. It is to be doubted, however, whether there can be found any country in the whole world whose historical problems are all definitely solved. Therefore it would be folly to wait till the Yellow River becomes pellucid, as a Chinese proverb has it. Since the opening of our country, we have had many foreign scholars investigating ourselves, our origins and our history, which in most cases have been misunderstood and misrepresented. By some we are overestimated, flattered, caressed, and cajoled. By others we are undervalued, despised, and condemned. We are sometimes elevated to a rank so high that no earthly nation could ever deserve it, and sometimes we are mercilessly relegated to a stage of savagery, to get back to which we should have to forego our cherished long history, the beginnings of which are lost in the myths of ages. Such an astonis.h.i.+ng oscillation of opinion as regards the estimation of the merits and demerits of the j.a.panese nation and its history is more than to be endured. Surely the cause of being undervalued at one time lies in being overestimated at another, and vice versa. We must put an end to this oscillation and must be fairly represented, and in order to avoid misrepresentation we must portray ourselves as fairly as we can. We ought not to wait for the appearance of foreign authors, capable, unprejudiced, and deeply interested in our country.

It seems that there are not a few foreign publicists who suppose that j.a.pan is not yet sufficiently advanced in her civilisation to require long years of study to understand her. This is why there is such a number of tourist-writers, who skip over the whole country in a few weeks, and are presuming enough to make sweeping a.s.sertions about all sorts and conditions of things j.a.panese with which they come into touch at haphazard. Again, there is another cla.s.s of writers, who would like to rate the j.a.panese nation and its history much higher than the above-mentioned do, and who know that it is not such a very easy matter to understand them. Unluckily, however, they are generally of the opinion that it is only they, and not the j.a.panese, who are competent to take up the task of interpretation, if those things are to be understood at all. Standing upon this point of view, they would gladly accept any kind of materials furnished by the j.a.panese, but flatly refuse to listen to any theories or arguments devised by j.a.panese scholars, and systematically repudiate almost all conclusions arrived at by the latter. Writers of such a type think that the intellectual capacity of the j.a.panese as a nation is not yet so high as to be able to elaborate logical argumentations. These two sets of foreign writers mentioned above sometimes praise us _sans phrase_, it is true. They are not, however, with their eulogistic and gracious verdict, the sort of champions to dispel the misrepresentations and misunderstandings under which we suffer.

Moreover, for j.a.panese historians, the need has never been more urgent than now to make a trial in writing a history of their own country for the sake of foreign readers. On account of the Great War, the so-called European Concert, that is to say, the Areopagus of a few nations, will be superseded by the Concert of the World. The post-bellum readjustment and reconstruction, national as well as international, of countries belligerent and neutral will be an overwhelming task such as the nations of the world have never before undertaken. Perhaps there will follow a long period of peace, but the feeling of nations toward one another will in all natural probability continue sensitive and acute, and will not easily subside. And in such a nervous and critical age as that, j.a.pan's position will be an exceedingly difficult one. Hitherto every move she has made, every feat she has achieved, has been made an object of international suspicion, especially in recent times. j.a.pan, however, cannot help making progress in the future, whether welcomed by other nations or not, for where there is no progress, there is stagnation.

Hence arises the imperative necessity, at the juncture, of an attempt by the j.a.panese to explain themselves through telling their own history, and by so doing procure thorough understanding of themselves, their character and characteristics, not only as they now really are, but as they used to be in the past. That is the one object which I have pursued in this volume.

In preparing this work I acknowledge that I am greatly indebted to my colleagues in our University of Kyoto. Warmest thanks are due to Professor A. H. Sayce of Oxford, who, during his sojourn in our ancient metropolis, kindly revised that part of my ma.n.u.script dealing with the early history of j.a.pan. It is also my greatest pleasure to acknowledge my grat.i.tude to Mr. Edward Clarke, B.A. (Cantab.), Professor of English Language and Literature in this College, who went to a great deal of trouble in revising my awkward English through the whole volume.

KATSURO HARA

_College of Literature, Kyoto Imperial University, October, 1918._

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF j.a.pAN

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The history of j.a.pan may be useful to foreigners in several different ways. If we do not take into account the serviceableness of detached historical data or groups of data, that is to say, when we exclude those cases where the historical data of j.a.pan are studied not for the sake of understanding j.a.pan herself, but in behalf of some other scientific purposes, then it can be said that j.a.panese history will serve foreigners in two princ.i.p.al and distinct ways. Firstly, it will interest them as the history of one special nation among many in the world.

Secondly, it may be useful to historical study in general, seeing that it can be regarded as const.i.tuting in itself a microcosm of miniature of the history of the world manifested in that of a small nation. The former point is that which attracts most foreigners by the strength of novelty, while the latter will be none the less suggestive to comprehensive and reflective historians. Both points need some explanations. Let me begin with the first.

j.a.pan is a country inhabited by a people differing remarkably in racial features from those who now occupy the greater part of Europe. She remained for a long time shut up against the foreigners knocking at her gate, and on that account her history, compared with that of other nations, presents striking and unique characteristics. Many ancient manners and customs, some of them having their origins in ages prehistoric and unintelligible even to the present j.a.panese themselves, are handed down almost unchanged to this day. On the other hand, the history of j.a.pan is not so simple as the histories of many semi-civilised countries, which are generally nothing but incredible legends and records of chronic disturbances arising out of some inevitable natural causes. Full of charming oddities, which might provide sources of wild speculations, and at the same time not lacking a certain complexity,--a complexity indispensable if it is to become an object of interest and investigation to any scientific historian, the history of j.a.pan should prove a very fascinating study. In this it resembles the relation many rare indigenous flora and fauna bear to foreign biologists. It should be noticed, however, that biologists may safely remain constant as regards their points of view, whatever plant or animal they happen to study, while historians ought always to bear in mind that every nation and every age has its own criterion. In the study of j.a.panese history the same truth must hold good. It is a very regrettable fact, however, that many foreign j.a.panologists are too fond of neglecting the j.a.panese point of view, and would like to apply the western standard to the things j.a.panese they encounter in their researches concerning our country. Frequently they are rash enough to criticise before they have a proper understanding of those things which it is their business to criticise. Sometimes they get at a truth to which j.a.panese scholars have never attained, but they almost as a rule forget that things j.a.panese too should be considered from many sides, as occidental things should necessarily be, and inflexibly adhere to that one line of insight which they were once fortunate enough to seize. Or sometimes they attack pitilessly those legendary parts of our history, which are to be found in some school text-books or are not yet entirely expunged from some more scholarly works, on account of a national reluctance to part with those cherished memories of our forefathers.

They blame us as if no country in the world were chauvinistic except j.a.pan, and j.a.pan only. Such treatment of j.a.panese history, however, will avail them nothing at all, not to mention that we suffer very much in our outward relations from it. As chapter II. and the following, however, are chiefly devoted to the purpose of showing that the history of j.a.pan may be interpreted side by side with that of many European nations, I will cease dwelling further on this topic, and will directly go over to the second point.

To consider j.a.panese history as a miniature of the world's history is rather a new a.s.sertion, so that it requires conclusive justification. It is now generally believed or a.s.sumed that every nation continues to evolve as an individual does, till it reaches its climax of growth and begins to decay. Hence many modern historians have successively tried to extract certain principles by the process of induction from kindred historical events which took place in different countries and ages, and thus to raise the study of history to the rank of a science in the same sense as that in which the word is used when we speak of natural phenomena. It is a great pity, however, that every historical event is of a very ephemeral nature, never to be repeated in exactly the same form in which it once occurred. And if it pa.s.ses away, it pa.s.ses away forever, not to be r.e.t.a.r.ded in the midst of its course by the will of an investigator. Often one can contribute with full consciousness to the happening of an event, or can alter the course of it, but one cannot undo by any means the event itself and wash the ground as if nothing had taken place. Moreover, historical facts are very difficult to detach from their environment entirely, however isolated they seem to be, and on that account they are not fit to be made objects of laboratory experiments. In a school cla.s.sroom the pupils are taught to solve an algebraic equation of a binomial expression by supposing the value of x and y alternately to be equal to zero. How much the task of historians would be lightened, if we could for some time trace the effect of a certain cause exclusively, setting at naught other concurrent causes, as if those causes might be supposed to be standing still for a moment of observation or hypothetically cancelled for a necessary time!

Strictly speaking, the above device is out of the question in the case of any historical investigation. Setting that aside, there is still another greater difficulty to encounter in the study of history. Every school-boy knows that there is a fundamental law in physics, that when a body is set in motion by a certain impetus, it will move on continuously in one direction with the same momentum, so long as it is left uninfluenced by any other new force. It is true, however, that such a case exists very rarely even in natural phenomena, and it would be quite absurd to look for the like in the domain of history. More than one cause acts conjointly upon individuals, families, tribes, or nations, and before those causes cease to influence, other new causes generally come into play, so that the influences of the latter are interwoven with those of the former causes or groups of causes, and make discrimination between them exceedingly difficult.

Summing up the above, one cannot entirely isolate a country from its surroundings, in order to see what a country or a nation would be able to achieve, if untouched by any outward influence, that is to say, solely out of its own immanent evolving forces. Next, it is none the less difficult to observe scientifically the effects of some outward forces acting on a nation, by warding off the influx of subsequent influences and thus giving to the forces in question the full scope and time to exert their influence. It often happens, however, that what cannot be done artificially may be found produced spontaneously, and though we cannot make experiments, in the strict sense of the word, while observing historical data, it is possible that the history of a nation or of an age may be taken as a case or a phase of an experiment, if such an experiment could ever be tried at all. And indeed the history of j.a.pan may be considered as one of a few such happy cases.

Here I need not talk much about the history of our country anterior to the introduction of the Chinese civilisation. After the opening of the regular intercourse between this country and China in the beginning of the seventh century, inst.i.tutions, arts, learning, and even the manners of every day life continued for a long time to be brought thence by many official emissaries and students, and copied faithfully here, though generally with slight modifications. At that time, however, there being no country far advanced in civilisation other than China near us, the Chinese influence, the only exotic one, was allowed to take sole and full effect. Besides this, that Chinese civilisation itself was not encouraged to flow in endlessly. When, with the decay of the T'ang dynasty and the setting in of the anarchical condition following it in China, the highly finished culture attained during that dynasty, perhaps the most perfect one China had ever seen, began to degenerate there, the official intercourse between that country and j.a.pan was interrupted. Of course, I do not mean to say that even private and intermittent commercial intercourse was also suspended at the same time, for the geographical position of our country toward China does not allow the former to remain entirely isolated from the latter. The suspension of the regular intercourse itself, however, was enough to save j.a.pan from becoming entangled in the vicissitudes of the various dynasties following the T'ang, and our forefathers were left to themselves to make the best use of, that is to say, to digest, what had already been brought in abundantly. In the succeeding period the quiet process of rumination went on for several centuries. If we look back into the j.a.panese history of that time, therefore, we can ascertain fairly scientifically the effect of a high civilisation acting on a nave population not yet sufficiently organised as a nation, as our country was at that period, and likewise we can observe many traits of the old T'ang culture, which is now difficult to trace in China herself. This is our first experiment in Chinese civilisation.

Among the dynasties that followed the fall of the T'ang, that which longest held the rule was the Sung, and between China under the latter dynasty and j.a.pan merchant s.h.i.+ps plied now and then. Some j.a.panese Buddhist priests followed the track of their predecessors, and went over to China to study Buddhism. At the time of the Yuen dynasty founded by the Mongols, China sent many Buddhist missionaries successively to j.a.pan, where religious innovations were in course of progress. This is our second experiment in Chinese civilisation. In the first experiment the religious element was of course not excluded. The essential characteristic, however, of the culture of the T'ang dynasty was politico-aesthetical, and as the result of the introduction of that culture, j.a.pan became enlightened in general. In other words, the first experiment may be said to have been an aesthetical one, while the second is one apt to be termed a religious one, and by the blending of the results of the two experiments, we became a tolerably aesthetic and religious people. Still there remained much to be wished for in respect of national unification and social solidarity, and it is the culture of the Sung dynasty itself which provided that very need, being politico-ethical in its essential nature. By the introduction of that culture the doctrines of the Confucian philosophers, which were made the means of regulating the social and political organisation of j.a.pan, were inculcated widely and deeply, and forced into practice more rigorously than they were in China herself. This is our third experiment in Chinese civilisation. And when this experiment was almost finished, we were faced by the inundation of western civilisation, which at last made it impossible for us to continue the process of rumination, and compelled us to plunge headlong into the maelstrom of world history.

It is rather derogatory to our national pride to have to aver that we are so deeply indebted to Chinese civilisation. Yet the facts cannot be denied, nor the truth falsified. Moreover, we need not be ashamed that we brought in so much from China, while we gave very little to the Chinese in exchange. How could we, who were very late in commencing a civilised national life, initiate a new civilisation independent of that of China, without imitating it? Was not the Chinese civilisation too far advanced and too overpowering for the j.a.panese of that time, the j.a.panese who were still at the outset of their evolutionary march? On the contrary, justice should be done to the fact, that we not only improved ourselves by availing ourselves of such a high civilisation, but withstood it at the same time, being far from dwindling away as a result of having come into contact with it, as many uncivilised races have done in a similar case. No impartial historian would fail to observe that there is some capacity not borrowed but inborn in the j.a.panese people, by force of which they were able to consolidate themselves as a compact nation, possessing striking characteristics quite different from those of China. And it is especially to be noted to the honour of the j.a.panese, that the more we helped ourselves to Chinese culture, the wider became the divergence between the two countries.

Could such a way of introducing an alien civilisation be designated a servile imitation? I am far from trying to embellish every phase of the history of j.a.pan, whatever its due merit may be, and would be content if even a few of the wanton calumnies current vis a vis j.a.pan be set aright by making her real history understood, which is not very easy to grasp, but yet not so sterile as it is reputed to be by some foreign historians.

What I want to call attention to next is that the history of our country is not that monotonous repet.i.tion of a certain kind of historical data, however peculiar the data in themselves may be. Nay, the history of j.a.pan is full of varieties in the nature of its data. The history of Greece is sometimes stated to be a miniature of the world's history on account of the richness in variety of the historical phenomena which occurred there, it being possible to find there also most of the important subjects treated in history at large, though of course on a much reduced scale. In this regard, too, the history of j.a.pan closely resembles that of ancient Greece. Our country had been disunited for a long time, each section const.i.tuting itself a political quasi-unit governed by a certain local semi-independent lord, like the tyrant of Greek history. Those local potentates, however, were not so arrogant as not to recognise the hereditary, political and spiritual sovereignty of the Emperor. Not only that. They also reluctantly rejected the hegemony of the Shogunate, though as a matter of fact this had but a nominal existence. From this point of view, it might be a.s.serted that our country never ceased to be a united one. The bond of unity, however, became very slack at intervals, so that the very existence of the unity itself was often in doubt. In our history, therefore, there were many obstacles to progress, especially in those lines of progress which necessarily depend on the close unification of the whole country. At the same time, however, advantages are not to be neglected, which might be considered to result from the dismemberment itself. j.a.pan had many small centres at some periods. But it was, to some extent, owing to similar circ.u.mstances that those centres came into existence, and for that reason there was to be found much in common in all of them, in respect of the tone of the culture fostered in the respective centres. That is a matter of course. Among those centres, however, there arose naturally much vying with one another in the promotion of their progress, and thus the general standard of civilisation in j.a.pan came to be raised to a not inconsiderable height. Moreover, something like international relations began to grow up between those units, which contributed largely to the perfection of the culture within each of them. This is the same interesting phenomenon, which we can trace not in the history of Greece only, but in that of the Holy Roman Empire, nay, even in the history of Europe itself. The difference is simply that in Europe the same phenomenon developed on a grand scale, while it took place in j.a.pan in a very small compa.s.s. No wonder that as a result of having had a national experience of the nature stated above, the history of j.a.pan is rich in varieties of data and deserves the attention of highly qualified historians. So let me here submit to a hasty examination a few of the important items in j.a.panese history, which even to European readers, may be of no small interest, having their parallels in the histories of the West.

The first and the most important item to be mentioned is feudalism. A famous living French historian once told me that it was absurd to speak of j.a.panese feudalism, since feudalism was a special historical phenomenon originated by the Franks, and therefore not to be found outside of Europe. How is the word "feudalism" rightly to be defined then? May it not be extended to a similar system which prevailed in western Europe, but not under Frankish authority? If it can be said that feudalism also obtained in the Swabian, the Saxonian and the Marcomanian land, surely it would not be absurd to extend it a bit further so as to make it cover similar phenomena which arose in non-European countries, for example in China and especially in j.a.pan.

For centuries in Europe historians successively tried to solve the question, What is feudalism? A great number of hypotheses has been presented. Some of them held the ground against their antagonists in bitter scientific controversies, but were soon obliged to give way to clever newly-started theories, and no conclusive solution has yet been given to the problem. The cause of the failure chiefly lies in the mistaken idea, that feudalism is a kind of systematic legislation, which originated in the elaboration of some rules put together by some sagacious ruler, or in the time-honoured invention of some very gifted tribe, and starting from this erroneous supposition some scholars have believed that they would be able to generalise from those overwhelmingly chaotic materials, and thereby to establish certain fundamental principles applicable to the feudal relation of whichever country they chose. Far from their a.s.sumption being true, however, feudalism is not an invention of somebody, made consciously, nor a result of a deliberately devised enactment. A few general rules may be extracted perhaps by so-called generalising, but even these few would be provided with exceptional conditions. Therefore, the truth we reach at last by studying the historical sources concerning feudalism is rather the general spirit pervading all kinds of feudalism, and not any concrete rule applicable everywhere, as we see in the case of natural sciences.

If the granting of the usufruct of a certain extent of land in exchange for military service is the essence of feudalism, it is indisputable that feudalism existed in j.a.pan too.

Feudalism is indeed a necessity, as a Chinese servant has said in a memorable essay. It is a necessity which any nation must undergo, if that nation is to become consolidated. Feudalism is often described as a backward movement with respect to the political organisation. Primitive races, however, cannot be described as having been either centralised or decentralised, socially and politically, and the first stage which they must pa.s.s is that of a vague centralisation. In this stage, superficially observed, it appears as if the race were centralised at one point, but the truth is that in so early a stage of civilisation, it is not probable that more than one prominent centre would at once be formed conspicuous enough to attract attention. And even that one centre itself is formed, not because it is strong enough to centralise, but because centripetalism actuates the environment, and no other force is yet so strong as to compete with it. In early times, however, the degree of prominency of a single centre over all others must have been very slight. As time pa.s.ses, lesser centres begin to distinguish themselves, closely following the prominent first in strength of centralisation, and become at last so powerful as to be able to challenge the hegemony of the first centre. This state of affairs we generally denote as the age of dismemberment, as if a true centralisation had been accomplished in the age preceding. This view is utterly false. Without the power to centralise, no political centre can be said to exist really, and without any strong centre effective centralisation is not possible. The apparent centralised, that is to say, unified condition of the ancient empires, is nothing but a chaotic condition with one bright point only, and the state of being seemingly dismembered is in truth a step toward the real unification, centralisation _in partibus_ paving the way for centralisation on a larger scale. This phase in the preparatory process for the unity and consolidation of a nation is feudalism itself.

Feudalism is a test through which every nation must pa.s.s, if it aspires to become a well organised body at all. There are some tribes, indeed, which have never pa.s.sed through the feudal period in their history, but that is due to the fact that these tribes had certain defective traits which hindered them from undergoing that experience, and on account of that they have been unable to achieve a sound, well-proportioned progress in their civilisation, which must necessarily be accompanied by a well-organised political centralisation, whether it be monarchical or democratic. Other nations have pa.s.sed, it is true, the test of the feudal regime, but very imperfectly, and for that reason have had great difficulty in amending the defect afterwards.

By no means need we lament that we were under the feudal regime for a considerable time in our history. On the contrary, I am rejoiced that we were. Every political development must go side by side with the corresponding social progress. The latter, unless sheltered by the former, lacks stability, while the former, if unaccompanied by the latter, is not tenable, and will break down before long and be of no avail. Feudalism can be compared to a nut-sh.e.l.l, which protects the kernel till it quietly consummates its maturing process within. Social progress, of whatever sort it be, ought to be covered by a political regime of a certain kind, especially adapted to discharge the task of protection, and must be allowed thereby to prosecute its own development free from disturbing influences. Feudalism is one of the political regimes indispensable to perform such a function. Though it seems to be fortunate for a nation not to tarry too long in the stage of feudalism, yet it is not desirable for the nation to emerge out of this stage prematurely.

To sum up, in order that a nation may continue in its healthy progress, it should have feudalism once in its historical course, and must pa.s.s that test fairly. And as pa.s.sing a test can be fruitful only on condition that that test itself be fair, it becomes necessary as a natural consequence that a fair test must be pa.s.sed fairly. Then how is it with j.a.pan? It cannot be safely said that we have pa.s.sed the test exceedingly well, but at the same time we can presume that we have not pa.s.sed it badly. If someone should say that the j.a.panese stayed unnecessarily long in that condition and have not even yet entirely emerged from it, he must have forgotten that even the most civilised countries of Europe could not shake off the shackles of the feudal system entirely until very recent times, the first half of the nineteenth century still retaining an easily perceptible tincture of it, as we see in the survival of the patrimonial jurisdiction in some continental states of Europe. On the other hand foreign observers generally fail to see that the regime of the Tokugawa Shogunate, which I shall expatiate upon in a later chapter, is of a sort quite different from that of the European feudalism in the middle ages, and are induced to believe that the j.a.panese nation has been quit of the miserable regime for only fifty years. These views are both totally mistaken. In our relation to feudalism, we went through almost the same experience as other civilised nations did, neither more nor less. Because, in so far as we speak of the history of any nation ranging from its beginning till our day, more than half of it can be held to have been occupied by feudalism, the history of j.a.pan may also be said to have in common with other nations more than half of the essential elements which the so-called history of the world could teach.

After having seen that our history is not totally unlike that of the nations of Europe in its most essential trait, it is not strange that the history of j.a.pan should contain many other things, besides feudalism, which can be reckoned as the typical items necessary to make up the history of any civilised nation, that is to say, as the chief ingredients not to be dispensed with in the world's history,--viz., various religious movements keeping pace with the social development at large, economic evolution conditioning and conditioned by the changes of other factors const.i.tuting civilisation in general, etc. As the foreign influences can be traced comparatively distinctly, the history of j.a.pan can, to a large extent, be subjected to a scientific a.n.a.lysis. So if we look for the history of a nation, which is fit to represent the gradual evolution of national progress in general, j.a.panese history must be a select one. It is in this respect that I said that the history of our country is a miniature of the world's history. After all the history of j.a.pan is not so simple and nave as to be either an easy topic for amateur historians, or a suitable theme for ordinary anthropologists, ethnographers, or philologists, who are not specially qualified to deal with histories of civilised times. Those whom I should heartily welcome as the investigators of the history of our country, are those historians in Europe and America, who, more than amply qualified to write the history of their own countries, have continued to disdain extending their field of investigation to the corners of the world, thought by them not civilised enough to be worthy of their labour. If they care to peep into the history of our country, perhaps the result will not be so barren as to disappoint them utterly. The greatest misfortune to our country at the present day is that her history has been written by very few first-rate historians of Europe and America, those who have written upon it being mostly of the second or third rank. Nay, there are many who cannot be called historians at all. The best qualifications they have are that, by some means or other, they can write a book, or that they were once residents of j.a.pan, and if they venture to write a history about a country outside of their own, j.a.pan seems to them to be the easiest subject, the greater part of their compatriots being quite ignorant of it.

I dwell thus long, however, on the significance of the history of j.a.pan, not in order to silence these quasi-historians, nor forcibly to induce the first-rate foreign historian to study the history of j.a.pan against his own will. The former attempt is useless, while the latter may be almost hopeless. The princ.i.p.al reason for having long dwelt on the subject, is only to have it understood by foreigners, that the j.a.panese nation, which has such an advanced historical experience in the past, is not to be considered as one only recently awakened, and therefore to be admired, patted, encouraged, feared and despised in rapid succession. If once they happen to understand the true history of j.a.pan, then the fluctuations in their estimation of us will also cease; then, perhaps, we shall not be feared, or rather, made an object of scare any more, as now we are, but at the same time we shall be happy not to be disliked or rejected.

CHAPTER II

THE RACES AND CLIMATE OF j.a.pAN

Which is the more potent factor in building up the edifice of civilisation, race or climate? This has been a riddle repeatedly presented to various scholars of various ages, and has not yet been completely solved. The immanent force of the race deeply rooted in the principle of heredity on the one hand, and the influence of the physical milieu on the other, have been, are, and will be, ever the two important factors, cooperating in engendering any sort of civilisation, yet are they not always friendly forces, but, in a sense, rivals, competing for the ascendency. Looking back into the history of the interminable controversy as to the position of the two, and taking into consideration the fact that they are not the only factors contributing to the progress of civilisation, it would perhaps seem to be a waste of labour to try anew to solve the question. If one should endeavour to explain the respective importance of the two factors, putting due stress on each at the same time, he would then be in danger of falling into a self-contradiction or of begging the question endlessly; otherwise he must be satisfied with being the sermoniser of quite a commonplace truism! This is not, however, the place to enter into a discussion to determine the preponderant influence of either of the two, a discussion perhaps fruitful enough, but almost hopeless of arriving at a final solution. But as in recording the history of any country one should begin well at the beginning, I, too, cannot desist from starting with a description of the race and of the climate, with their relations to the history, of j.a.pan.

Of these two factors, I need not say much about the first. It is about forty years since meteorological observations have been regularly and continuously made in this country and the results published in periodical reports, so that almost all requisite data pertaining to the climatology of j.a.pan are at the disposal of the investigator. a.s.suming that the climate of j.a.pan at present, which can be ascertained, not exhaustively perhaps, but scientifically enough, is not a widely different one from what it was in the past, there is the less need of dwelling upon the topic, so far as the scope of this book is concerned.

I will content myself, therefore, with treating it very briefly.

Generally speaking, it must be admitted that the ideal climate for the progress of civilisation must not be either a very hot or a very cold one; in other words, it must be a temperate one. At the same time, it is necessarily true that, for the sake of fostering a civilisation, the climate should be stimulative, that is to say, should be variable, but not running to such extremes as to impede the vital activity of the population. When a climate is constant and has no seasonal change, that climate, however mild it be, is very enervating, and not fitted for any strenuous human exertion, physical or mental, and is therefore adverse to the onward march of civilisation. Judged by this standard, the climate of j.a.pan is a good one. If we put aside all the recently organised or annexed parts of the Empire, that is to say, Korea, Saghalen, Formosa, Loochoo, and Hokkaido, the remaining part, that is to say, the whole of historic j.a.pan, which includes the three princ.i.p.al islands, was formerly divided into sixty-six _kuni_ or provinces, and stretches over a wide range of lat.i.tude, extending from 31--41.5 N., so that the difference in temperature at its two extremes is very considerable. It must be remembered, however, that the difference is not so great as to necessitate totally different modes of living. In the province of Satsuma, for instance, the falling of snow can often be witnessed, while in Mutsu the temperature, in the height of summer, frequently climbs above 90 F. The southern j.a.panese, therefore, can settle in the northern provinces quite comfortably without changing many of their accustomed habits, and the northerners, on the other hand, can s.h.i.+ft their abode to the island of Kyushu, with very little modification in their ways of living. This almost similar way of living throughout the whole of historic j.a.pan, with very slight local modifications only, is the cause why the unity of the nation was accomplished comparatively easily.

As to the seasonal changes, they occur somewhat frequently in j.a.pan, and impart a highly stimulative quality to her climate. According to the interesting investigation made by an American climatologist, for a climate to be stimulative it is necessary that there should be not only marked seasonal changes, but also frequent variations within each of the seasons themselves, and it is nothing but the storms which induce such important daily climatic changes. If we may accept his conclusion, then j.a.pan may rank fairly high among the countries with the best kind of climate. For not to speak of the seasonal changes so clearly definable, in j.a.pan, the cyclonic storms, the main cause of the daily climatic changes, occur very frequently. It can be said that no one desires to have them occur more often on this account. After all, the climate of j.a.pan would have been almost an ideal one, if there had been less rain in the early summer, the long rainy season being evidently the chief cause of the enervating dampness. By the way, it should be remarked that the dampness which is the weakest point of the climate of j.a.pan, not only in the summer, but throughout the whole year, is in excess more in the regions bordering on the Sea of j.a.pan than in those facing the Pacific Ocean and the Inland Sea. This fact explains the historical phenomenon that the most momentous events in j.a.panese history have taken place not in the former but in the latter regions. If we look into the history of Europe, the Inland Sea of j.a.pan has its counterpart in the Mediterranean, the Pacific, in the Atlantic, and the Sea of j.a.pan in the Baltic Sea. Perhaps the attentive traveller will notice that the same greyish hue of the sea-surface can be perceived in the Sea of j.a.pan as in the Baltic Sea, and that very sombre colour imparts the same gloomy tone to the atmosphere of the regions bordering on those two seas. It is true that many mythical legends of our country have their scenes in the coastal regions along the Sea of j.a.pan, the so-called "Back of j.a.pan,"

and, moreover, in standard of civilisation, these regions, compared with the other parts of the Empire, decidedly do not rank low. That is due, however, not to the influence of the fair climate prevailing in those parts of j.a.pan, but to the proximity of the Asiatic continent. For, as the result of that proximity, there must have been very intimate relations between those regions of j.a.pan and the continental tribes on the opposite sh.o.r.e, some of whom are sometimes supposed to have had the same origin as the j.a.panese. At present the influence of the climatic drawback in those districts is very evident, and it will be in the distant future that the time will arrive when the "Back of j.a.pan" will become more thriving and enlightened than the other side of j.a.pan facing the Pacific, unless there should be a sudden upheaval in the progress of the civilisation, and in the growth of prosperity, on the opposite continental sh.o.r.e.

Between northern and southern j.a.pan, it is not very easy to distinguish what influence the climates of the two regions had on their history. It is certain that northern j.a.pan is inferior to southern j.a.pan in climatic conditions, if we consider the impediments put on human activity there, on account of the intense cold during the winter. It is doubtful, however, whether the backwardness of the North in the forward march of civilisation can be solely attributed to its climatic inferiority. Even in the depth of winter, the cold in the northern provinces of Hon-to cannot be said to be more unbearable and unfit for the strenuous activity of the inhabitants, than that of the Scandinavian countries or of northeastern Germany. The princ.i.p.al cause of the r.e.t.a.r.dation of progress in northern j.a.pan lies rather in the fact that it is a comparatively recently exploited part of the Empire. Since the beginning of historic times, the j.a.panese have pushed their settlements more and more toward the north, so that the population in those regions has grown denser and denser. If this process had continued with the same vigour until today, the northern provinces might have become far more populous, civilised, and prosperous, than we see them now. Unfortunately for the North, however, just at the most critical time in its development, the attention of the nation was compelled to turn from inner colonisation to foreign relations. Besides, the subsequent acquisition of new dominions oversea made the nation still more indifferent to the exploitation of the less remunerative northern half of Hon-to. As to the climatic conditions of Hokkaido and Loochoo, it is needless to say that they are far different from that of the historic part of the Empire, and each of them needs special consideration. They have had, however, very little to do with the history of j.a.pan. The same may also be said still more emphatically about Formosa, Saghalen, and Korea, though the influence of their climates on the destiny of future j.a.pan will without doubt be immense; but as these regions do not come within the purview of my book, I can, without prejudice, omit further reference to them.

Together with the climate, the race stands forth as an indispensable factor in the promotion of its civilisation. Then to what race do the j.a.panese belong? Can all the people of j.a.pan be h.o.m.ogeneously comprised under a single racial appellation, or must they be treated as an agglomeration of several different races? Are the j.a.panese, or the bulk at least of the j.a.panese, indigenous or immigrant? If the j.a.panese are an immigrant race, then whence did they originate, and what is the probable date of their immigration into this country? What race, if not the j.a.panese, are the aborigines of these islands? Questions of this kind, and others of a similar nature have stood waiting for solution these many years! But none of them has yet been completely answered, though attempts have been made not only by a large number of native investigators, professional as well as amateur, but also by not a few foreign philologists and archaeologists, who were tolerably well-versed in things j.a.panese. Recently many interesting excavations of ancient tombs and historical sites have been made, and various remains pertaining to the old inhabitants of the islands have been submitted to the speculative scrutiny of specialists. They have served, however, rather to lead one to deeper, more obstinate, scepticism, than to shed light on those doubtful and tentative answers and indecisive controversies. It is very much to be regretted that we have no authentic record of the early immigration into j.a.pan from the pen of a contemporaneous writer, so that we could thereby verify the interpretations a.s.signed to the remains found in the ancient tombs. This is to be attributed to the lack of the use of written characters among the aboriginal people, as well as to the illiteracy of the early immigrants. If we had as remains of prehistoric j.a.pan such valuable historic materials as have been excavated in Europe and Western Asia, we should have been able to deduce the history of its early ages with a tolerable degree of certainty from the remains themselves, independently of any doc.u.mental evidence. Unfortunately, however, in this respect also, our prehistoric remains consist only of a few kinds of earthenware, mostly with very simple patterns on them, and some other kinds of primitive utensils of daily use, such as saddles, bridles, sword-blades, and the like. Huge tombstones are sometimes found, but they have no such inscriptions as we see on many Greek sarcophagi, being provided only with a few unintelligible, perhaps meaningless, scratches.

As to the primitive j.a.panese ornaments, very few historical data can be gathered from them, for they are generally beads of very simple design, and of three or four different shapes. It is quite hopeless to think that we should ever be able to dig out a single dwelling, not to speak of a whole palace, village, or town, on any j.a.panese historical site, since no stone, brick or other durable material was ever used in the construction of buildings. As our stock of reliable, authentic information concerning our origins is so scanty, it is at the disposal of any one to manufacture whatever hypothesis he chooses, however wild a speculation it be, and sustain it as long as he likes against any antagonist, not by proving it positively and convincingly, but by pointing out the impossibility of the opposing hypothesis, so that the present state of archaeological research in j.a.pan may be summed up as an intellectual skirmish carried on by regular as well as by irregular militant scholars. Therefore, in spite of the fact that j.a.pan now abounds in ethnologists, big and small, each fas.h.i.+oning some new hypothesis every day, there can be perceived only a very slow progress in the solution of the fundamental question, "Who are the j.a.panese?" We are almost at a loss to decide to which a.s.sertion we can most agreeably give our countenance with the least risk of receiving an immediate setback. So I shall be content to state here only those hypotheses, which may be considered comparatively safe, although they may not rise far above the level of conjecture.

The only thing virtually agreed to by all investigators engaged in ethnological inquiry concerning j.a.pan, is that the Ainu is the aboriginal race, and that the j.a.panese so called belongs to a stock different from the Ainu. Once for a time there prevailed a hypothesis that there was a people settled in this country previous to the coming of the Ainu, who must be therefore an immigrant race. It is said that the Ainu called this people by the name of Koropokkuru. But very little indeed is known about these supposed autochthons, except that they were very small in stature, and that this pigmy race receded and vanished before the advancing Ainu. The theory had its foundation only in some Ainu legends, and was not supported by any archaeological remains, which could be attributed, not to the Ainu, but to a special pigmy race only.

Much reliance, therefore, could not be placed upon this hypothesis, or rather vague suggestion, and it was speedily dropped. Still it is not yet decided whether the Ainu is the real autochthon in j.a.pan or an immigrant from some quarter outside the Empire. Most of the Ainologists are rather inclined to the opinion that the Ainu himself is also an immigrant, though no other race prior to him had settled in j.a.pan. But then there arises among scholars another disagreement, that about the original home of the race. Some hold the opinion that the Ainu came over to the j.a.panese islands from the north or the northwest, that is, from some coastal region of the Asiatic continent on the other side of the Sea of j.a.pan. And there are not a few, too, who not only trace the origin of the race into the heart of Asia, but even go so far as to say that the Ainu came from the same cradle as the Caucasian race. Some go still further and localise the origin of the race more minutely, identifying the race as a branch of the protonordic race, akin to the modern Scandinavians. On the other hand there is a certain number of ethnologists, who entertain the opinion that the Ainu immigrated into j.a.pan, from the south, and not from the north; but no specified locality in the south has yet been designated as the original home of the race.

The last hypothesis seems, however, not to be untenable, when we consider that in historic times the j.a.panese drove the Ainu more and more northward, till the latter lost entirely its foothold in Hon-to, and was at last hemmed in within a small area in the island of Hokkaido and the adjacent islets. From this fact it can be imagined with some probability that the same direction of expansion might have been taken by the Ainu also in prehistoric times. The custom of tattooing, also, which can be very seldom seen among the northern Asiatic tribes, suggests to us, though faintly, the possibility of the existence of a certain kind of affinity between the Ainu and the inhabitants of the tropical regions. On the other hand, if we turn our attention to the outward features of the Ainu race, and remember that races very much resembling the Ainu are still lingering on the northeastern sh.o.r.es of Asia, the immigration from the northwest becomes not utterly improbable.

Even the supposition that the Ainu belongs to the Aryan stock cannot be rejected as quite a worthless speculation, if the paleness of the complexion, the shape of the skull, and some other characteristic features be taken into account. In short, the ethnological uncertainty regarding the Ainu race is, in all likelihood, one of the princ.i.p.al causes of the obscurity concerning j.a.panese race-origins. Sometime in the future, I have no doubt, the racial riddle concerning the Ainu will be cleared from the haze in which it is now shrouded. Here, however, especially as I am not now treating of ethnology, I will avoid forming any hasty conclusion, and leave the question as it stands.