in which the national traditions are thus unmistakably tampered with, and which is moreover written in Chinese instead of in the native tongue, has enjoyed such a much greater share of popularity than the more genuine work?
The answer lies on the surface: the concessions made to Chinese notions went far towards satisfying minds trained on Chinese models, while at the same time the reader had his respect for the old native emperors increased, and was enabled to preserve some sort of belief in the native gods. People are rarely quite logical in such matters, particularly in an early stage of society; and difficulties are glossed over rather than insisted upon. The beginning of the world, for instance, or, to use Japanese phraseology, the “separation of heaven and earth” took place a long time ago; and perhaps, although there could of course be no philosophical doubt as to the cause of this event having been the interaction of the Passive and Active Essences, it might also somehow be true that Izanngi and Izanami (the “Male-Who-Invites” and the “Female-Who-Invites”) were the progenitor and progenitrix of Japan. Who knows but what in them the formative principles may not have been embodied, represented, or figured forth after a fashion not quite determined, but none the less real? As a matter of fact, the two deities in question have often been spoken of in Japanese books under such designations as the “Yin Deity” and the “Yang Deity,” and in his Chinese Preface the very compiler of these “Records” lends his sanction to the use of such phraseology, though, if we look closely at the part taken by the goddess in the legend narrated in Sect. IV, it would seem but imperfectly applicable. If again early sovereigns, such as the Empress Jin-gō, address their troops in sentences cribbed from the “Shu Ching,[1]” or, like the Emperor Kei-kō, describe the Ainos in terms that would only suit the pages of a Chinese topographer,—both these personages being supposed to have lived prior to the opening up of intercourse with the continent of Asia,—the anachronism was partly hidden by the fact of the work which thus recorded their doings being itself written in the Chinese language, where such phrases only sounded natural. In some instances, too, the Chinese usage had so completely
- ↑ 書經.
