In a critical study, either of the general body of national tradition or
of the ancient documents, we must continually be on our guard against
the usual assumption that Chinese civilization came in earlier than it
really did. This assumption colors all modern Japanese popular ideas,
art and literature. The vice of the pupil nations surrounding the Middle
Kingdom is their desire to have it believed that Chinese letters and
culture among them is an nearly coeval with those of China as can be
made truly or falsely to appear. The Koreans, for example, would have us
believe that their civilization, based on letters and introduced by
Kishi, is "four thousand years old" and contemporaneous with China's
own, and that "the Koreans are among the oldest people of the world."[5]
The average modern Japanese wishes the date of authentic or official
history projected as far back as possible. Yet he is a modest man
compared with his mediaeval ancestor, who constructed chronology out of
ink-stones. Over a thousand years ago a deliberate forgery was
officially put on paper. A whole line of emperors who never lived was
canonized, and clever penmen set down in ink long chapters which
describe what never happened.[6] Furthermore, even after, and only eight
years after the fairly honest "Kojiki" had been compiled, the book
called "Nihongi," or Chronicles of Japan, was written.
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