It is a medley which the ancient sage could no more recognize than
would Jesus know much of the Christianity that casts out devils in his
name.
Contrast between the Chinese and Japanese Intellect.
Here we must draw a contrast between the Chinese and Japanese intellect
to the credit of the former; China made, Japan borrowed. While history
shows that the Chinese mind, once at least, possessed mental initiative,
and the power of thinking out a system of philosophy which to-day
satisfies largely, if not wholly, the needs of the educated Chinaman,
there has been in the Japanese mind, as shown by its history, apparently
no such vigor or fruitfulness. From the literary and philosophical
points of view, Confucianism, as it entered Japan, in the sixth century,
remained practically stationary for a thousand years. Modifications,
indeed, were made upon the Chinese system, and these were striking and
profound, but they were less developments of the intellect than
necessities of the case. The modifications were made, as molten metal
poured into a mould shaped by other hands than the artist's own, rather
than as clay made plastic under the hand of a designer. Buddhism, being
the dominant force in the thoughts of the Japanese for at least eight
hundred years, furnished the food for the requirements of man on his
intellectual and religious side.
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