Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/253

Rh certain interferences with agricultural operations are the only offences against the moral law which it enumerates. The Kojiki speaks of a case of homicide being followed by a purification of the actor in it. But the homicide is represented as justifiable, and the offence was therefore not so much moral as ritual. Modern Japanese boldly claim this feature of their religion as a merit. Motoöri thought that moral codes were good for Chinese, whose inferior natures required such artificial means of restraint. His pupil Hirata denounced systems of morality as a disgrace to the country which produced them. In 'Japan,' a recent work published in English by Japanese authors, we are told that "Shinto provides no moral code, and relies solely on the promptings of conscience for ethical guidance. If man derives the first principles of his duties from intuition, a schedule of rules and regulations for the direction of every-day conduct becomes not only superfluous but illogical."

But although there was little religious sanction of morality in ancient Japan, it by no means follows that there was no morality. We have seen that there are moral elements in the character of the Sun-Goddess as delineated in myth. Law, which is the enforcement by penalties of a minimum altruistic morality, certainly existed. A Chinese author, in a description of Japan as it was in the later Han period (A.D. 25-220), says that "the wives and children of those who break the laws are confiscated, and for grave crimes the offender's family is extirpated. ... The laws and customs are strict." In 490 we hear of two men being thrown into prison for crimes. The Mikado Muretsu (488-506) is said to have been fond of criminal investigation. The Nihongi condemns theft, robbery, rebellion, and non-payment of taxes, none of which matters is taken formal cognizance of by Shinto. Without some law, unwritten and ill-defined though it was, and unequal and fluctuating