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viously made. It seems plausible enough to say that the heavens are merely air, and are without any definite form. If this be true there is nothing but air outside the earth, and this air must be either infinite or finite in extent. If it is infinite in extent, we cannot fix on any point as its centre, so that it is impossible to understand why the earth should be at rest; for if it be not in the centre it cannot be at rest. If it be finite, what causes the air to condense in one particular spot, and what position shall we assign to it? In any case, all these things are miraculous and strange. How absurd to take these miracles for granted, and at the same time to disbelieve in the wonders of the divine age. Think again of the human body. Seeing with the eyes, hearing with the ears, speaking with the mouth, walking on the feet and performing all manner of acts with the hands are strange things; so also the flight of birds and insects through the air, the blossoming of plants and trees, the ripening of their seeds and fruits are strange; and the strangest of all is the transformation of the fox and tanuki into human form. If rate, weasels and certain birds can see in the dark, why should the gods not have been endowed with a similar faculty?
In reply to an observation of Ichikawa’a that “to obey and revere a sovereign, no matter whether he be good or bad, is the part of women,” after an argument intended to prove that it is not safe to allow subjects to criticise the acts of their prince, Motoöri says, “Thus, even if the prince be bad, to venerate respect and obey him in all things, though it may seem like a woman’s duty, is the right way of action, which does not allow of the obligations of a subject towards his prince ever being violated.”
All the moral ideas which man requires are implanted in his bosom by the gods, and are of the same nature as the instincts which impel him to eat when he is hungry and to drink when he is thirsty. But the morals inculcated by the Chinese philosophers are inventions, and contain something more in addition to natural morality.
