In our examination of this system of morality we must first note the nature of the agencies which lent to the moral ideal its characteristic cast. Among the various forces molding and modifying the ethical type we shall find the most important to have been the family and clan system, ancestor worship, the monarchy of supposed divine origin, feudalism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Western civilization.
The family and clan system
As in China, so in Old Japan the family rather than the individual was the social unit. Through the expansion of the family arose the clan, which in the sentiments and feelings which governed its members was simply a large patriarchal household. This organization of early Japanese society, with the family and its outgrowth, the clan, forming the basis of the fabric, was, as we shall learn, a potent force in the creation of the moral type of the nation. The relationships of the kinship group determined the duties and virtues of its members and constituted the chief sphere of their moral activity. Here was the nursery of Japanese morality.
Shinto, or ancestor worship
The influence of religion has mingled with that of the family sentiment. Throughout all the past the vital religious element in the life of the Japanese peoples has been the Shinto cult, and this is now the established religion of the state. The system in its essence is ancestor and hero worship, the spirits of the dead being revered as guardian divinities. This cult has created moral feelings and family duties like those called into existence by the same cult in China. Out of these rudimentary family virtues, as from a central root, have sprung many of those virtues of wider relationships which have helped to give to the Japanese type of moral excellence its essential features.
The monarchy of divine origin
The central teaching of Shinto is that the Emperor is of divine descent and that his person is sacred and inviolate.[191] This doctrine of the divine nature of the monarchy[192] has exerted a profound influence upon the moral ideal of Japan and has had consequences of great moment. It has made unquestioning obedience and absolute loyalty to the Emperor the religious duties and preëminent virtues of the subject.
Feudalism
In times preceding the twelfth century there grew up in Japan a feudal system which in many respects was remarkably like the feudal system of medieval Europe. The unit of the system was the clan, the members of which, forming a close brotherhood, were bound to their lord by ties of affection and fidelity like those which in Europe theoretically bound the retainer to his lord.[193] This system exerted a great influence upon the moral type. It developed a martial ideal of character known as Bushido, many of the virtues of which are almost identical with corresponding virtues in the European ideal of chivalry. Probably this system has had more to do with creating in Japan a moral consciousness in many respects like our own than has any other single agency. To the lack in the Chinese social system of any institution like Japanese feudalism may be ascribed in part at least the wide difference which exists between the moral ideals of the two peoples, especially in regard to the rank assigned the military virtues.
Confucianism