Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/18

8 Why should height come to be everywhere associated with excellence and rank? Herbert Spencer's characteristic contribution to the solution of this problem is as follows: "In battle it is important to get the force of gravity to fight on your side, and hence the anxiety to seize a position above that of the foe. Conversely the combatant who is thrown down cannot further resist without struggling against his own weight as well as against his antagonist's strength. Hence being below is so habitually associated with defeat as to have made maintainancemaintenance [sic] of this relation (literally expressed by the words superior and inferior) a leading element in ceremony at large." To this it may be added that the upper part of the human body—namely, the head—is also the most important and honourable. "Chief" is derived from caput: "capital," as an adjective, means excellent. "Headman," "head-centre," "head and front of my offending," are familiar phrases which involve the assumption of the superior importance of the head. A Japanese raises to his head a present or other object to which he wishes to show respect. A further and decisive consideration is the circumstance that the most incomparably glorious, excellent, and majestic thing with which we are acquainted is also immeasurably the highest. Even pre-religious man cannot have been wholly insensible to the glory of the sky—"hoc sublime candens"—with its sun and moon, its dawns and sunsets, its clouds, thunders, and storms. No wonder that the words heavenly and celestial have come to convey the idea of supreme excellence.

The following quotations will help us to realize more fully what the Japanese mean by the word Kami. Motoöri says:—

"The term Kami is applied in the first place to the various deities of Heaven and Earth who are mentioned in the ancient records as well as to their spirits (mi-tama) which reside in the shrines where they are worshipped.