This controversy raised a landmark in the intellectual history of China.[6] The thoughts of men were turned toward deep and acute inquiry into the nature and use of things in general. This thinking resulted in a literature which to-day is the basis of the opinions of the educated men in all Chinese Asia. Instead of a sapling we now have a mighty tree. The chief of the Chinese writers, the Calvin of Asiatic orthodoxy, who may be said to have wrought Confucianism into a developed philosophy, and who may be called the greatest teacher of the mind, of modern China, Korea and Japan, is Chu Hi, who reverently adopted the criticisms on the Chinese classics of the brothers Cheng.[7] It is evident that in Chu Hi's system, we have a body of thought which may be called the result of Chinese reflection during a millennium and a half. It is the ethics of Confucius transfused with the mystical elements of Taoism and the speculations of Buddhism. As the common people of China made an amalgam of the three religions and consider them one, so the philosophers have out of these three systems made one, calling that one Confucianism. The dominant philosophy in Japan to-day is based upon the writings of Chu Hi (in Japanese, Shu Shi) and called the system of Téi-Shu, which is the Japanese pronunciation of the names of the Cheng brothers and of Chu (Hi). It is a medley which the ancient sage could no more recognize than would Jesus know much of the Christianity that casts out devils in his name.
Contrast between the Chinese and Japanese Intellect.
Here we must draw a contrast between the Chinese and Japanese intellect to the credit of the former; China made, Japan borrowed. While history shows that the Chinese mind, once at least, possessed mental initiative, and the power of thinking out a system of philosophy which to-day satisfies largely, if not wholly, the needs of the educated Chinaman, there has been in the Japanese mind, as shown by its history, apparently no such vigor or fruitfulness. From the literary and philosophical points of view, Confucianism, as it entered Japan, in the sixth century, remained practically stationary for a thousand years. Modifications, indeed, were made upon the Chinese system, and these were striking and profound, but they were less developments of the intellect than necessities of the case. The modifications were made, as molten metal poured into a mould shaped by other hands than the artist's own, rather than as clay made plastic under the hand of a designer. Buddhism, being the dominant force in the thoughts of the Japanese for at least eight hundred years, furnished the food for the requirements of man on his intellectual and religious side.
Broadly speaking, it may be said that the Japanese, receiving passively the Chinese classics, were content simply to copy and to recite what they had learned. As compared with their audacity in not only going beyond the teachings of Buddha, but in inventing systems of Buddhism which neither Gautama nor his first disciples could recognize, the docile and almost slavish adherence to ancient Confucianism is one of the astonishing things in the history of religions in Japan. In the field of Buddhism we have a luxuriant growth of new and strange species of colossal weeds that overtower and seem to have choked out whatever furze of original Buddhism there was in Japan, while in the domain of Confucianism there is a barren heath. Whereas, in China, the voluminous literature created by commentators on Confucius and the commentaries on the commentators suggests the hyperbole used by the author of John's Gospel,[8] yet there is probably nothing on Confucianism from the Japanese pen in the thousand years under our review which is worth the reading or the translation.[9] In this respect the Japanese genius showed its vast capabilities of imitation, adoption and assimilation.
As of old, Confucianism again furnished a Chinese wall, within which the Japanese could move, and wherein they might find food for the mind in all the relations of life and along all the lines of achievement permitted them. The philosophy imported from China, as shown again and again in that land of oft-changing dynasties, harmonizing with arbitrary government, accorded perfectly with the despotism of the Tokugawas, the "Tycoons" who in Yedo ruled from 1603 to 1868. Nothing new was permitted, and any attempt at modification, enlargement, or improvement was not only frowned and hissed down as impious innovation, but usually brought upon the daring innovator the ban of the censor, imprisonment, banishment, or death by enforced suicide.[10] In Yedo, the centre of Chinese learning, and in other parts of the country, there were, indeed, thinkers whose philosophy did not always tally with what was taught by the orthodox,[11] but as a rule even when these men escaped the ban of the censor, or the sword of the executioner, they were but us voices crying in the wilderness. The great mass of the gentry was orthodox, according to the standards of the Séido College, while the common people remained faithful to Buddhism. In the conduct of daily life they followed the precepts which had for centuries been taught them by their fathers.
Philosophical Confucianism the Religion of the Samurai.
What were the features of this modern Confucian philosophy, which the Japanese Samurai exalted to a religion?[12] We say philosophy and religion, because while the teachings of the great sage lay at the bottom of the system, yet it is not true since the early seventeenth century, that the thinking men of Japan have been satisfied with only the original simple ethical rules of the ancient master. Though they have craved a richer mental pabulum, yet they have enjoyed less the study of the original text, than acquaintance with the commentaries and communion with the great philosophical exponents, of the master. What, then, we ask, are the features of the developed philosophy, which, imported from China, served the Japanese Samurai not only as morals but for such religion as he possessed or professed?
We answer: The system was not agnostic, as many modern and western writers assert that it is, and as Confucius, transmitting and probably modifying the old religion, had made the body of his teachings to be. Agnostic, indeed, in regard to many things wherein a Christian has faith, modern Confucianism, besides being bitterly polemic and hostile to Buddhism, is pantheistic.
Certain it is that during the revival of Pure Shintō in the eighteenth century, the scholars of the Shintō school, and those of its great rival, the Chinese, agreed in making loyalty[13] take the place of filial duty in the Confucian system. To serve the cause of the Emperor became the most essential duty to those with cultivated minds. The newer Chinese philosophy mightily influenced the historians, Rai Sanyo and those of the Mito school, whose works, now classic, really began the revolution of 1868. By forming and setting in motion the public opinion, which finally overthrew the Shōgun and feudalism, restored the Emperor to supreme power, and unified the nation, they helped, with modern ideas, to make the New Japan of our day. The Shintō and the Chinese teachings became amalgamated in a common cause, and thus the philosophy of Chu Hi, mingling with the nationalism and patriotism inculcated by Shintō, brought about a remarkable result. As a native scholar and philosopher observes, "It certainly is strange to see the Tokugawa rule much shaken, if not actually overthrown, by that doctrine which generations of able Shōguns and their ministers had earnestly encouraged and protected. It is perhaps still more remarkable to see the Mito clan, under many able and active chiefs, become the centre of the Kinno[14] movement, which was to result in the overthrow of the Tokugawa family, of which it was itself a branch."