Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/148



ISTORICAL note having been cursorily taken in a preceding chapter of the numerous philosophical sects that grew out of the moral activity of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and of their political influences, it remains now to refer to their effect in moulding the mind of the nation.

Broadly speaking, the educated section of the nation—that is to say, the military class—ranged itself under the banners of two schools, that of the Chinese philosopher Chu, as interpreted chiefly by Hayashi Razan and his descendants, and that of Wang Yang-min, as expounded by Nakaye Tōju and his followers. The salient difference between the two schools is that Chu's philosophy is inductive, Wang's deductive. Chu flourished in the eleventh century; Wang in the fifteenth and sixteenth. Chu taught that all knowledge is acquired, even the knowledge of good and evil; therefore any attempt to determine the moral law must be preceded by scientific investigation, any study of noumena by acquaint-