Broadly speaking, it may be said that the Japanese, receiving passively
the Chinese classics, were content simply to copy and to recite what
they had learned. As compared with their audacity in not only going
beyond the teachings of Buddha, but in inventing systems of Buddhism
which neither Gautama nor his first disciples could recognize, the
docile and almost slavish adherence to ancient Confucianism is one of
the astonishing things in the history of religions in Japan. In the
field of Buddhism we have a luxuriant growth of new and strange species
of colossal weeds that overtower and seem to have choked out whatever
furze of original Buddhism there was in Japan, while in the domain of
Confucianism there is a barren heath. Whereas, in China, the voluminous
literature created by commentators on Confucius and the commentaries on
the commentators suggests the hyperbole used by the author of John's
Gospel,[8] yet there is probably nothing on Confucianism from the
Japanese pen in the thousand years under our review which is worth the
reading or the translation.[9] In this respect the Japanese genius
showed its vast capabilities of imitation, adoption and assimilation.
As of old, Confucianism again furnished a Chinese wall, within which the
Japanese could move, and wherein they might find food for the mind in
all the relations of life and along all the lines of achievement
permitted them.
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