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108 that so many graduate shows that no extraordinary capacity is required to do so; indeed, it is the capacity for incapacity that is necessary. Plodding perseverance is what wins the day. For the course is terrifically arduous and terribly long.

To the purification of the spirit, the road lies through the cleansing of the body. To this end the two chief exercises are washing (suigyō) and fasting (danjiki). Unlimited bathing, with most limited meals; such is the backbone of the regimen. The external treatment, being the more important of the two, claims notice first.

Washing is the most obvious kind of purification the world over. Cleanliness, we say, is next to godliness; though at times in individual specimens the two would seem not to have made each other's acquaintance. But in Japan cleanliness very nearly is godliness. This charming compatibility is due possibly to the godliness being less, but certainly chiefly to the cleanliness being more.

Even secularly the Japanese are supernaturally cleanly. Every day of their lives forty millions of folk parboil like one. Nor do they hurry themselves in the act. The