Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/162

 standard to be raised was not of rebellion, but of righteousness. In turning over the pages of Japan's annals, it is repeatedly seen that, while the "divine right" was uniformly recognised in theory, prince after prince, minister after minister, subordinate after subordinate, did not scruple to contrive the compulsory retirement of sovereign, Shōgun, or feudal chief, easily persuading himself, or being honestly forced by circumstances to believe, that his own elevation to the place of the deposed ruler would make for the good of the people. Shintō educated no such tendency. Buddhism did not educate it. Whence, then, its origin but in Chinese philosophy? It has become crystallised in the ethics of the nation. Scarcely a Japanese, however lowly his origin or humble his station, lacks the conviction that he carries a natural mandate to redress wrong in a superior, and that the method of redress depends upon his own choice, provided that his failure in "submission" be compensated by strength of "sincerity," — the coördinates of loyal obedience. Practical illustrations of this characteristic are to to be found in the field of modern Japanese politics, as of ancient.

It is seen that Japan received from China a philosophy only. Her religion was her own, in so far as concerned a future state, the immortality of the soul, the cosmogony and the providence of the gods.