Page:TASJ-1-3.djvu/132

 In the next passage the existence of the first three male deities is attributed to the working of the Heavenly Mode by itself, and the production of four pairs of male and female deities to the joint working of the Heavenly and Earthly Modes. The Negative and Positive Essences, and the Heavenly and Earthly Modes were philosophic terms utterly unknown to the ancient Japanese, and are the inventions of ignorant men, who instead of accepting with faith the true traditions which have been handed down from the beginning of time, endeavour to discover explanations for what man with his limited intelligence can never comprehend. The deities referred to as having been produced by the working of the Heavenly and Earthly Modes, came into existence by the spirits of Takami-musubi no kami and Kami-musubi no kami. What the process was is beyond our ken; we have only to accept the fact. To call Izanagi no kami the “Positive Deity,” and Izanami no kami “Negative Deity,” as the Nihongi does, is to make use of terms which are entirely foreign to the Japanese language, which would have called them the “Male Deity” and “Female Deity.” The effect of this Chinese phraseology is to cause men to believe that Izanagi no kami and Izanami no kami are abstract principles, whereas they are living powers. A proof that the terms “Positive Essence” and “Negative Essence” were imported from abroad, if one were needed, lies in the fact that the sun-deity is female and the moon-deity male according to the ancient native traditions, which is in diametrical opposition to the Chinese theory, according to which the sun is Male or Positive and the moon Female or Negative. Most of the speeches in the Nihongi, attributed to Jimmu Tennô, Sûjin Tennô and other ancient Mikados, contain passages which in their meaning and form are wholly Chinese, and cannot therefore be regarded as otherwise than fictitious. The Shoku-Nihongi contains speeches of the Mikados in both Chinese and native style, and if the speeches made in the 8th century contained so few traces of Chinese expression, it is pretty certain that those which were spoken