While the Japanese for a thousand years only
repeated and recited--merely talking aloud in their intellectual sleep
but not reflecting--China was awake and thinking hard. Japan's continued
civil wars, which caused the almost total destruction of books and
manuscripts, secured also the triumph of Buddhism which meant the
atrophy of the national intellect. When, after the long feuds and
battles of the middle ages, Confucianism stepped the second time into
the Land of _Brave_ Scholars, it was no longer with the simple rules of
conduct and ceremonial of the ancient days, nor was it as the ally of
Buddhism. It came like an armed man in full panoply of harness and
weapons. It entered to drive Buddhism out, and to defend the intellect
of the educated against the wiles of priestcraft. It was a full-blown
system of pantheistic rationalism, with a scheme of philosophy that to
the far-Oriental mind seemed perfect as a rule both of faith and
practice. It came in a form that was received as religion, for it was
not only morality "touched" but infused with motion. Nor were the
emotions kindled, those of the partisan only, but rather also those of
the devotee and the martyr. Henceforth Buddhism, with its inventions,
its fables, and its endless dogmatism, was for the common people, for
women and children, but not for the Samurai.
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