"--Ps. xxvi. 6.
CHAPTER II - SHINT[=O]: MYTHS AND RITUAL
The Japanese a Young Nation.
What impresses us in the study of the history of Japan is that, compared
with China and Korea, she is young. Her history is as the story of
yesterday. The nation is modern. The Japanese are as younger children in
the great family of Asia's historic people. Broadly speaking, Japan is
no older than England, and authentic Japanese history no more ancient
than British history. In Albion, as in the Honorable Country, there are
traditions and mythologies that project their shadows aeons back of
genuine records; but if we consider that English history begins in the
fifth, and English literature in the eighth century, then there are
other reasons besides those commonly given for calling Japan "the
England of the East."
No trustworthy traditions exist which carry the known history of Japan
farther back than the fifth century. The means for measuring and
recording time were probably not in use until the sixth century. The
oldest documents in the Japanese language, excepting a few fragments of
the seventh century, do not antedate the year 712, and even in these the
Chinese characters are in many instances used phonetically, because the
meaning of the words thus transliterated had already been forgotten.
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