been worse than merely unprofitable servants in the world we were born to serve. It will be with us, I hope, as with Huxley, when his splendid work, which had nothing to say to money, was accomplished. Looking back upon it from the peaceful arm-chair of his old age, the peaceful garden which it was

his last occupation to tend, he said, 'I have warmed both hands at the fire of life.' Or, as with Renan, whose inherited politeness was conspicuous in his parting remark: 'I have had so much pleasure out of life that I am really not justified in claiming a compensation beyond the grave.'

THE intellectual life of less self-conscious ages than ours has had no independent existence. Men have sought some other primary purpose, and given to philosophy, to poetry, to story-telling, only that time and attention which they could spare from more strenuous, or at least outwardly more energetic, pursuits. The minnesinger or troubadour played on his viol and poetized when he was not wielding the sword. When men first begin to devote themselves entirely to the joys of the spirit, their fate is that of Ruteboeuf,-grinding poverty, and the gray misery of an outcast's life; unless perchance they may come to enjoy the patronage of some Mæcenas. From these humiliations, they cannot, with Dr. Johnson, proudly declare themselves independent, until another age has dawned, an age in which the things of the mind are valued in and for themselves.

Japan is but now emerging from a state of culture which it shared with mediæval Europe throughout a remarkable parallelism of historic development. In Japan, as in Europe, it was the priest who philosophized, though

his first duty was to pray; it was the samurai, the warrior, who developed poetry, in the moments of relaxation from the severities of military discipline and warlike combat. Yet, though intellectual life under these conditions can develop only as it connects itself in an ancillary way with the two great interests of war and religion, nevertheless the clear purpose and well-defined ideals that are apt to animate an age of action are favorable to the creation of literary masterpieces, so that there may be a literature though there are no literary men. But even in Dante, the temper of priest and warrior is predominant.

In old Japan, art and philosophy were hieratic, or courtly and precious. Under the Tokugawa régime a new era dawned with the popularizing of literature through Bakin, and the picturing of the humbler phases of life in the Ukiyoye. Then with the Restoration a flood of new experiences and emotions burst upon the Japanese, carrying them along toward a more varied and specialized civilization. Yet the substructure of Japanese society is so

firm that the earlier influences and ideas are still powerful, and we cannot understand the intellectual struggles and triumphs of modern Japan unless we often revert to the literary activities of the priests and the samurai, or rather of those among them who had a feeling for the things of the mind.

With the new era has come a reign of general education. Illiteracy has almost disappeared, and a large reading public has come into being. We can not, indeed, expect the same taste and discrimination that characterized the courtly circles of the earlier age, but there is a broader field in which intellectual life of higher or lower aspirations-may flourish. Old class distinctions and trade-groupings have broken down, and the simple activities of the earlier societies have multiplied and have become specialized in the endless complexity of modern life. Thus there has come about an opportunity for men to devote themselves more exclusively to science, literature, or philosophy. In dignity and independence their position is not equal to that which savants have obtained in Western countries, but something has been achieved in that direction. The limitations inherited from the earlier society still condition these activities, but they are emerging constantly into greater prominence and repute.

Whoever desires to grasp the essential currents of Japanese thought, and picture to himself the modern develop ment of Japanese psychology, is beset with innumerable difficulties, which all, however, contribute to the deep interest of the problem. The adjustment of an old culture, itself highly refined and complex, to entirely new conditions; trying demands upon faculties which had not been cultivated before; the adoption of new processes and modes of thought, and their amalgamation with those elements which had

been retained from the past-these are the main requirements imposed upon Japan by her new situation. Of transcendent interest to the student of psychology is the rapid development of faculties such as the mathematical, which in the feudal society were considered unworthy of cultivation, being looked down upon as mercenary and plebeian.

Nor is the Japanese mind perplexed only by the difficulty of choosing between the old and the new. Added to this great problem of policy and conduct, is one common to the entire civilized world to-day, but which under Japanese conditions assumes a peculiarly troublesome aspect. It concerns the relation of the demands of material development and technical perfection to those deeper elements of culture the art of literary and pictorial expression, the emotional life of poetry, and all that mankind yearns after when its highways have been constructed and its harvests garnered. The necessities of national self-defense and maintenance have in Japan emphasized everything that makes for material strength; and have put on the defensive, even more than in Western countries, those pursuits and enthusiasms whose value transcends mathematical demonstration.

The student of Japanese psychology will also note many other interesting likenesses to other civilizations. Though in character and temperament the Japanese have much in common with the French, yet in their intellectual and scientific culture, they have followed rather the English and the Germans. During the present era, the star of the French has not been in the ascendant; they are not preeminently a successful race. And disregarding to a certain extent intellectual sympathies, Japan has turned to those who, under present conditions, stand for

Before entering upon a survey of the intellectual life of Japan, it is necessary that we should divest ourselves entirely of the superficial theory, so frequently put forward, that there is an impassable gulf between the psychology of the East and that of the West. If such a view is to be held at all, we ought to accept it only after it has been forced upon us unavoidably as the result of long observation and .comparison in many fields of intellectual life. Nothing is easier than to enunciate a startling and absolute theory and then give a few examples which to the superficial view bear out the aphorism. No matter how different from our own may be the Japanese mental attitude and manner of expression, it is not necessary to accept such a transcendental explanation when we still have the effects of social structure and physical environment to take into account as determining factors. Were we to enter upon this matter at this place, it would be easy to make a prima facie case for the identity of psychological organization and intellectual activity among Japanese and Europeans; but this is not our purpose. We would rather look at life as it presents itself and, above all, endeavor to appreciate the multitude of shades that distinguish apparently similar relations and phenomena. Thus, shunning generalization of a sweeping kind, we shall pass in review certain types of Japanese intellectual experience, and attempt to gather by accretion a composite view of the operation of intellectual forces in the Japan of to-day.

The type of priest who is also a philosopher and man of learning is still found in Japan, though modernized and adapted to new conditions. Let us look for a moment at the career of Count Kōzui Otani, by inheritance

the great western monastery of the Shin sect of Buddhism. This young man, destined for the most influential position in the Buddhist Church in Japan, prepared himself for his duties and responsibilities by a long period of study abroad. He spent four years in Europe examining the relations of religion to political life, looking inte the details of the government of the Established Church in England and Germany, as well as into the religious difficulties of France. Nor was he without the companionship of numerous other Buddhist students, men of high rank who were following learning with a similar purpose and from a similar point of view in the great centres of European education.

After completing his European studies, Count Otani went to India, where he carried on researches in the early history of Buddha and his religion. He gathered many inscriptions and other historical data, proceeding in the collection and criticism of historical material according to approved scientific methods. The death of the reigning Lord Abbot called him back to Japan in 1903. Here an abundance of work lay ready to his hand. Buddhist missionaries were sent to the United States and to China, and the Buddhist societies in California were given assistance and encouragement. When the great war came, a service of chaplains for the army had to be organized. The patriotic outburst of the war aroused in Buddhist endeavor new vigor and enthusiasm. Especially in the field of China was missionary work taken up with redoubled energy. Fertile in resources, an active and efficient organizer, the Lord Abbot has been the soul of the great Buddhist expansion of these recent years. Meanwhile, he leads the simplest of lives, ascetic in his conduct, living without ostentation or a large

household, but full of energy and enthusiasm in his action.

The sermons of another Buddhist ecclesiastic, Sōyen Shaku, Lord Abbot of the great Kamakura monastery, which were delivered to audiences in the United States, also give us an insight into the intellectual awakening among the higher Buddhist clergy. Not only are internal questions of belief and ethical principle dealt with in a broad and modern spirit, but these sermons also contain highly significant discussions of the relation of Buddhism to Oriental and Western culture. There is a great deal of preaching in Japan, and many books of sermons are published. These discourses are less formal than with us, they contain little of purely doctrinal matter, but discuss ethical teaching in its relation to life, and are enlivened with many ancedotes and quaint applications of folk-wisdom.

In its first effects, the Restoration in Japan was not favorable to religious fervor. The revival of Shintō proceeded from purely political motives and did not imply a strengthening of religious sentiment except as it expressed itself in loyalty to the throne and to national traditions. Whatever religious zeal was aroused by this feeling was turned into channels of state action. The attitude of mind of the leaders in this great transformation was purely secular. They judged of religions by their fruits, that is, by the ethical impulse they imparted. Nor were they inclined to view with enthusiasm the achievements of the older forms of religion in the matter of ethical culture.

Kunitake Kume has described for us, with a touch of humor, the experience of a group of representative Japanese in 1872. In that year Prince Iwakura went to America and Europe at the head of a mission of which such prominent men as Kido, Okubo, and

Itō were members. Kume, who accompanied the mission in the capacity of an expert on Chinese and literary subjects, was detailed, with another member, to make an investigation of the state of religion in the West. In their zeal to begin work, they early on the voyage accosted a Roman Catholic priest, and questioned him about Western religion. They got an account of the Ten Commandments and of the Trinity; but soon the tables were turned, and they were themselves questioned on the religion of Japan. The answers which they gave did not satisfy either themselves or their hearers. So a council of war was held in the smoking-room that night. What attitude should the mission take when questioned about Japanese religion? It was first suggested that they might claim Buddhism as the religion of Japan, but it had to be confessed that there was no one in the mission who knew enough of Buddhism to give a trustworthy account of it, especially on doctrinal matters. Confucianism might be professed, but this would not help matters, as Occidentals look upon the doctrines of the great sage as merely a politico-ethical system. Shinto was ruled out, as it was then too little known in the West, and also because a religion which lacks sacred books, and one whose observances are so archaic, might not particularly impress the Western mind. There remained no alternative but to confess that Japan had no religion — an unfortunate situation, because heathen are considered but little better than wild beasts in the West.

This dilemma did not, however, prove fatal to the mission, for they were not questioned as to their religion during all the remainder of their trip. On their part they had the amusement of wondering at the strangeness of Western ceremonies and at the piety of their host, when Sir Harry Parkes took

them to a service of the Established Church in England. In relating this experience, Kume dwells upon the change which has come over the educated Japanese in the matter of religion. In the earlier part of the Meiji era most men of education shunned religion as unworthy of a rational mind and corrupting in its practices. Now they no longer denounce and repudiate religion, but admitting the importance of religious sentiment, direct their shafts of satire against beliefs and practices that seem superstitious.

On the other hand, it is apparent that the educated classes of Japan are not entirely free from what may be truly called superstition, from the personal belief that man is surrounded by beneficent as well as by evil spirits or influences, which may be propitiated by befitting observances. Fanciful suppositions of occult influences by which the course of human destiny is determined, are common in Japan. During the Russian War, carloads of ikons were shipped to the frontier by the Orthodox believers; but the Japanese, also, did not disdain to court the favor of mystic powers by wearing amulets, and observing special rites.

It is difficult to draw the line between superstition and higher forms of religion, and the ceremonies observed by such great leaders as Togo and Kodama undoubtedly bear witness to the awakening of religious feeling under the spur of the tremendous struggle for national life. But other practices common among the people are plainly superstitious certain sounds are be lieved to forebode ill, there are lucky and unlucky ways of beginning an undertaking. Wonder-working priests have a great many adherents, even among the educated and the wealthy; nor have the superstitious practices of such sects as the Jisshukyō, whose activities are devoted mainly to exor

cism and divination, abated with the progress of enlightenment.

The fading of the first flush of rationalism which dominated the beginning of the Meiji era, has thus resulted not only in a revival of religious sentiment, but also in a recrudescence of superstitious feelings and observances. In the masses of the people, rationalism had made little headway, and the grosser superstitions current among them have never been energetically combated by the priests, who profit by popular ignorance in these matters. There is, however, in Japanese superstition much that is poetical, much that has a deep meaning, approaching to a profound wisdom in matters of human destiny, as is well known to those who have read Hearn's marvelous studies in the borderland of psychic mystery.

Religious life is not stationary in Japan, or in other Oriental countries. New sects are being thrown off by the main stocks of religion, new tendencies are being developed in individual groups. Such a new sect is that of Shingaku, which attempts to represent in itself the best elements of Shintō, Confucianism, and the Buddhist faith. There are two recent Shinto sects, the Remmon Kyōkai and the Tenri Kyōkai, which seem to many to be but baneful and superstitious corruptions of Shinto.

Tenri Kyōkai (the teaching of heavenly bliss) has a strange similarity to the Christian Science movement in America, especially in the matter of healing disease through prayer. The sect was founded by a woman, Omiki, who died in 1879, and who exercised a great personal ascendancy over her followers. Its doctrines are simple. They have a tinge of individualism as well as of communism, inculcating the sacredness of labor, coöperation in the activities of life, and mutual assist