a madman. Every man is to follow the "Way" with unshaken heart in the station in which he was born. To think certain acts virtuous is the error of the ignorant and the heretical."42

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

For all evil is disarrangement. Confusion is the essence of evil. Strictly speaking there is no other evil. Nothing is bad by nature but everything is good, yet with a distinction of rank." When this distinction of rank is preserved all are good. But this ideal goodness is rarely realized. "The gods are the activity of Heaven and Earth, the excellent power of the In and Yō, and of the true law.' But as the gods come to the world there is both good and evil. For though the working throughout the four seasons of the five elements is of . . . no evil at all, still as that' spirit' is scattered throughout the universe and confused there arise unexpected winds, heat, cold and storms." 143 So is it with man and all that is his. As a part of nature he too is good, originally good, but as his "nature is individualized both good and evil appear.' 44 Let him put himself in harmony with the true nature,--above all let him obey with unshaken heart, and all will be well.

The ancient

"In the time

So with the state, crime is "confusion." order has been lost and therefore evil appears. of old the Sage was on the throne; the Superior Man was next in authority and all who ruled were wise, the stupid occupying their natural position below the rest. So from highest to lowest wisdom determined the rank and there was none evil. The only distinction was of superior and inferior." And the Sage ruled by doing "nothing." It was enough that he was enrobed, enthroned, with folded

45

arms. Not by vain exertions and strife may the empire or the individual be ruled. It is by doing nothing, by letting nature have its way that a Divine excellence is attained.

THE DEEPER SELF.

Let

Man's deepest "self" lies hidden far below his changing “self” of act and thought and desire and will. In mysterious darkness it is nourished and by doing naught. not man break in on that depth; let him not direct and will and wish. The springs of his being reach down to the springs of the universe itself. Without selfishness, without rash self-determination, let the truer, deeper "self" be nourished and from that strength the life will come and then in act and word there shall be no danger of a fall.46 And at at death man shall return to the all pervading spirit, “as a vapour in the sky melts away, as a drop mingles with the sea, as fire disappears in fire.”47 He can have no immortal soul. For his conscious self there is "nothing beyond slipping into the grave." His highest hope is that his influence for good may survive; and his greatest fear is that his memory may be accursed." He worships his ancestors as commanded by the Sages, but that worship does not necessarily imply the doctrine of a conscious, personal immortality.49 The soul wholly dis

46 P. 60 below. Compare a certain phase of Christian mysticism:-"Oh to be nothing, nothing;" "A broken and empty vessel;" "Emptied, that He might fill me;" "Broken, that so unhindered, His life through me might flow."

47 The Okina Mondō, Vol. V p. 26.

48 P. 40 below.

49 The worship of ancestors remains an inconsistency difficult of explanation in Shushi's philosophy. He teaches (in the Gorui *) that at death we are like the flame: it ascends and disappears yet we cannot say that it has ceased to be. It is the law that man's spirit (ki) dissolves at death, vanishes into thin air; but there are exceptions. When men naturally, and, so to speak, willingly die the spirit thus dissolves, but when they die violently, with strong protest, the spirit remains for a time collected and may return and show it

solves at death but my spirit is one with the spirit of my ancestors. So though all other spirits dissolve yet does the root of this remain and when I worship their spirits gather again. So it was that the Sages enforced this worship. And as my spirit is one with the spirit of my ancestors, so is the spirit of the noble one with the spirit of his dominion, and when he worships the spirits of the dead respond When I speak of the universe there is indeed only one spirit; when I speak of myself, my spirit is the spirit of my ancestors and so it is that when I feel,' they 'respond.'

6

ADOPTED ON FAITH.

Without critical examination and upon faith Japan accepted the Chinese philosophy. Once it had accepted the Chinese ethics in alliance with the Buddhist religion; as trustingly it adopted the philosophy of Tei-Shu with all its hostility to the Indian faith. Nor did the "eclipse of faith" cost the scholars of the period of the Tokugawa any heart burnings. Buddhism went at once at the bidding of this new comer and left "not a wrack behind." In acceptance and rejection alike no native originality emerges, nothing beyond a vigorous power of adoption and assimilation. No improvements in the new philosophy were even attempted. Wherein it was defective and indistinct, defective and indistinct it remained. The system was not thought out to its end and independently adopted. Polemics, ontology, ethics, theology, marvels, heroes, all were enthusiastically adopted on faith. superior to the shown.

It is to be added that the new system was old, and this much of discrimination was

It is not my purpose to discuss the Chinese philosophy, not even the Tei-Shu philosophy as represented in Japan. self and work harm. A man who was killed by his adulterous wife appeared to her undoing, for his hatred held his spirit together until vengeance was executed. But such exceptions are only for a time; finally all alike return to the primeval spirit. Shushi thus saves his philosophy and his orthodoxy.

I desire to represent the spirit and thought of Old Japan, of the educated men of the Tokugawa period. And a Japanese can best do this, a Japanese who gives his account with undisturbed faith and who is a recognized master among his countrymen. In the Shundai Zatsuwa of Kyusō Murō we have the ruling ideas of the Japan that has forever passed

away.

MURO NAOKIYO.

Muro Naokiyo was born in Yanaka, in Musashi, on the 30th March, 1658. From the home of his ancestors, Egagori in Bichu, he called himself Ega. From his earliest childhood he was distinguished for his love of books and unremitting diligence in study. His life was the wholly uneventful career of a professional scholar. When fifteen years of age he went to Kaga and was employed by the prince of that province. Here he lived in a dismantled cottage which he named The Pigeon-nest, and from the cottage he adopted the same name for himself, Kyu-sō, a name by which he was thenceforth known, and that is inscribed on his tomb.

Once when expounding The Great Learning before his prince the latter was so greatly pleased that he sent Kyusō to Kyoto to continue his studies in the school of the celebrated Kinoshita Jun-an. Here Kyuso took first rank and made great progress both in acquirements and in literary style.

From the year 1711 until his death he was employed by the Tokugawa Government and wrote several books at its command. He received the highest honour the Government could bestow, and rose to great influence and authority. He was the devoted advocate of the Tokugawa family and of the orthodox school of Chinese philosophy, and made small attempt to moderate his expressions when writing of their enemies. It was during his life that the famous forty-seven ronin performed their exploit, and Kyusō gave them the name by which they are still remembered, Gi-shi, the Righteous. Samurai.

He died on the 9th September, 1734, and was buried at his own request in Edo, Odzuka, Tsukuba-yama-no-ushiro, his grave marked by a simple stone engraved, "Kyusō Murō Sensei no Haka," the grave of the scholar Kyusō Murō.50

Since his death his reputation has increased, and he has taken a distinguished place among the scholars of Japan, being especially remembered for his great learning.

THE SHUNDAI ZATSUWA.

The Shundai Zatsuwa, Suruga Dai Miscellany, thus named from Kyuso's residence on Suruga Dai, is a posthumous work first published by his grandson in the year 1750. It purports to be a collection of talks with his friends and pupils. They would linger a while after Kyusō had completed his exposition of the Chinese books, asking questions and discussing themes suggested by the lecture. And these conversations written down were made into this book. It belongs to the class called “ miscellanies," the works which best represent the spirit and the attainments of the Japanese scholars.51

The Sundai Zatsuwa covers a somewhat wide range. It contains polemic against the enemies of the faith, metaphysics, fundamental ethical principles, politics, religion, the art of war, and the laws of literature and poetry.

It has not been necessary for my purpose to translate all. The literary criticisms, the discussions of poetry and of military strategy have been omitted. So too have many of the historical incidents. Where these incidents illustrate

50 The is the authority for these statements. His burial place is in the section of the city now called Koishikawa. He wrote many books; among them the most celebrated are the following: 大學新疏義人錄 五常五倫名 六偷衍義大意 駿台雜話 朝鮮客舍詩 文稿 士說正成諸士教 國喪正義 献可錄 神儒問答 西銘洋議 大極 圖述

51 Such collections are among the most valuable of the writings of the Chinese also, Confucius and Shushi, among others, using this method.