Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/276

 on her bosom, and walking on high clogs, the jealous woman proceeds to a temple at the hour of the Ox (midnight), and nails to some sacred tree a straw effigy of her rival. But, on the whole, the idea of invoking aid from deity or demon for the purpose of working mischief was never widely entertained in Japan.

This record might be very much extended, but it has already reached almost excessive length. It suggests that the Japanese are eminently superstitious; and so they certainly are with a reservation, namely, that the upper classes are perhaps as little troubled by such phantasies as any people in the world. What has been written above applies almost entirely to the middle and lower orders of the people. They unquestionably allow a considerable element of the supernatural to obtrude itself into their daily lives, and the fact may suggest to some critics a low estimate of Japanese intellectual development. Yet when the student recalls the history of Occidental credulity from the days of the Alexandrian Platonists to the times of Swedenborg and Werner and the era of American spirit-materialisers, he may be less disposed to pronounce harsh judgments on the traditional mysticism which has been handed down from generation to generation in the secluded family circle of the Japanese nation.