Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/281

 inventors of both cults showed profound knowledge of human nature, for they saw that in order to popularise a system of high morality it must be associated with ceremonies that appeal to a comparatively low range of feelings. Four cardinal virtues constituted the basis of Shukô's system: they were urbanity, courtesy, purity, and imperturbability (ka-kei-sei-jaku), this last including repose of manner, a prime essential of polite intercourse.

Before considering the exoteric side of the cult, a word must be said about its history. If to Shukô belongs the credit of conceiving the system, the Ashikaga Shōgun Yoshimasa was the means of bringing it at once into prominence. On his retirement from public life (1472), this singular man devoted himself almost exclusively to sthetic pursuits, and by the advice of three great artists, Noami, Geami, and Soami, who stood high in his favour, he sought the acquaintance of Shukô, then known chiefly as a connoisseur of painting and an expert in the art of "flower-setting." Shukô seized the occasion to obtain a powerful patron for his special cult, and Yoshimasa, charmed by the novelty as well as the quaint grace of the conception, espoused it vigorously. He had just planned his celebrated Silver Pavilion, and he added to it the first "tea chamber" ever built in Japan, calling it Shukô-an, after its deviser, and writing the name with his own hand on a tablet which was placed