Page:The Awakening of Japan, by Okakura Kakuzō; 1905.djvu/80

 development also explains, in a certain measure, that attitude of liberalism and apparent indifference which our modern statesmen of Japan display toward religious questions,—an attitude often construed as a false idea of European statecraft, if not of agnosticism. The demarcation of the political from the religious life, the divorce of state and church, is no new idea with us. Indeed, despite our temples and monasteries, we have no church. The innate individualism of the Buddhist ideal, unlike that of the papal church of Europe, which is even now a source of concern to some nations, has ever prevented the formation of a single powerful organization to impose its influence on the state. The temporal power exercised by some of our monks was due solely to their personal