One to whom the boundary line between the Creator and his world is
perfectly clear, one who knows the eternal difference between mind and
matter, one born amid the triumphs of science can but faintly realize
the mental condition of the millions of Japan to whom there is no
unifying thought of the Creator-Father. Faith in the unity of law is the
foundation of all science, but the average Asiatic has not this thought
or faith. Appalled at his own insignificance amid the sublime mysteries
and awful immensities of nature, the shadows of his own mind become to
him real existences. As it is affirmed that the human skin, sensitive to
the effects of light, takes the photograph of the tree riven by
lightning, so, on the pagan mind lie in ineffaceable and exaggerated
grotesqueness the scars of impressions left by hereditary teaching, by
natural phenomena and by the memory of events and of landmarks. Out of
the soil of diseased imagination has sprung up a growth as terrible as
the drunkard's phantasies. The earthquake, flood, tidal wave, famine,
withering or devastating wind and poisonous gases, the geological
monsters and ravening bird, beast and fish, have their representatives
or supposed incarnations in mythical phantasms.
Pages:
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50