Page:TASJ-1-3.djvu/162

 waning as it goes. The process by which the sun, earth and moon were thus produced resembles the separation of the umbilical cord and the placenta at the birth of a child, and the detachment of a ripened seed from the capsule. It is not merely a fortuitous resemblance, but the processes are identical in all three cases.

As it was Japan which lay directly opposite to the sun when it had sprouted upwards and separated from the earth, it is quite clear that Japan lies on the summit of the globe. It is equally evident that all other countries were formed at a much later period by the spontaneous consolidation of the foam of the sea and the collection of mud in various localities, when Izanagi and Izanami brought forth the eight islands of Japan, and separated the land from the water. Foreign countries were of course produced by the power of the creator gods, but they were not begotten by Izanagi and Izanami, nor did they give birth to the goddess of the sun, which is the cause of their inferiority. The traditions about the origin of the world which are preserved in foreign countries are naturally incorrect, just as the accounts of an event which has happened at the capital become distorted when they travel to a province, and it finally comes to be believed that the province was the actual scene of the event. The fact is patent that the Mikado is the true Son of Heaven, who is entitled to reign over the four seas and the ten thousand countries.

People who have been misled by their foreign studies are wont to say that Japan is a little country, as if extent of territory were any criterion of the importance or rank of a state; and they also point to her tardy civilisation. But every one knows that great minds develope late; for example Ota Nobunaga, who was commonly called Baka dono (Lord Idiot), until he was past the age of twenty, and the same was the case with the famous Ôishi Kuranoske, whose fame will endure to the end of time. Animals and birds know how to pick up and eat grain and insects as soon as they are born, and some have offspring when they are only two or three months old. If man were