The Japanese Spirit

by Yoshisaburo Okakura

I indorse this opinion to its full extent, but only if we are to understand by His teaching that whole body of truth and love which are of the essence of Christianity, and which we used in former days to call by other names, such as Bushido, Confucianism, etc. But if you insist on having it understood in a narrow sectarian sense, with a personal God and rigid formalities as its main features, then I should say that I cannot agree with you, for this Christianity occupies rather an awkward place in our Japanese mind, finding itself somewhere between the national worship of the living dead, and modern agnosticism, or scientific monism. In our earlier fishery for new knowledge in the Western seas, fish other than those fit for our table were caught and dressed along with some really nourishing; the result was disastrous, and we gradually came to learn more caution than at first. The Roman Catholics, more enthusiastic than discreet, committed wholesale outrages on our harmless ways of faith in the early days of the seventeenth century, which did much to leave in bad repute the creed of Jesus Christ. And since the prohibition against Christianity was removed, many a missionary has been so particular about the plate in which the truth is served as to make us doubt, with reason, if that be the spirit of the immortal Teacher. The truth and poetry that breathe in your Gospels have been too often paraphrased in the senseless prose of mere formalism. Otherwise Christianity would have rendered us better help in our eternal march towards the ideal emancipation.

There remains still one highly important thing to be considered as a formative element of the Japanese spirit. I mean the landscape and the physical aspects of Japan in general.

It is well known that an intimate connection exists between the mind and the nature which surrounds it. A moment's consideration of the development of Hellenic sculpture and of the Greek climate, or of the Teutonic mythology and the physical condition of Northern Europe, will bring conviction on that point. Is not the effect of the blue sky on Italian painting, and the influence of the dusky heaven on the, pictorial art of the Netherlands, clearly traceable in the productions of the old masters? A study of London psychology at the present moment will never be complete without special chapters on your open spaces and your fogs.

In order to convey anything like an adequate idea of the physical aspects of Japan from the geographical and meteorological points of view, it would be necessary to furnish a detailed account of the country, with a long list of statistical tables and the ample help of lantern slides. But on this occasion I must be content with naming some of the typical features of our surroundings.

Japan, as you know, is a long and narrow series of islands, stretching from frigid Kamchatka in the north to half-tropical Formosa in the south. The whole country is mountainous, with comparatively little flat land, and is perforated with a great number of volcanoes, the active ones alone numbering above fifty at present. With this is connected the annoying frequency of earthquakes, and the agreeable abundance of thermal springs—two phenomena that cannot remain without effect on the people's character.

There are two other natural agencies to be mentioned in this connection. One is the Kuro-shio, or Black Stream, so called on account of the deep black colour which the ocean current displays in cloudy weather. This warm ocean river, having a temperature of 27° centigrade in summer, begins its course in the tropical regions near the Philippine Islands, and on reaching the southern isles is divided by them into two unequal parts. The greater portion of it skirts the Japanese islands on their eastern coast, imparting to them that warm and moist atmosphere which is one source of the fertility of the soil and the beauty of the vegetation. The effect of the Kuro-shio upon the climate and productions of the lands along which it flows may be fairly compared with that of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean, which in situation, direction, and volume it resembles. To this most noticeable cause of the climatic condition of the Japanese islands must be added another agency closely related to it in its effect. Our archipelago lies in the region of the northeast monsoon, which affects in a marked degree the climate of all those parts over which the winds blow. Although the same monsoon blows over the eastern countries of the Asiatic continent, the insular character of Japan, and the proximity of the above-mentioned warm current on both sides of the islands, give to the winds which prevail a character they do not possess on the continent.

Although the effect of the chill and frost of the northern part of Japan, with its heavy snowfall and covered sky, cannot be without its depressing influence on human nature in that part of the island, this has not played any serious role in the formation of the Japanese character as a whole. It is only at a rather recent date that the northern provinces began to contribute their share to the general progress of the country. This can very easily be explained by the gradual advance of Japanese civilisation from the southwest to the northeast. Until comparatively lately the colder region of Japan north of the 37th degree of latitude has remained very nearly inactive in our history. It is almost exclusively in the more sunny south, extending down to the 31st degree, that the main activity of the Japanese mind and hand has been shown. And the effect is the sunniness of character and rather hot temperament which we, as a whole, share in a marked degree with the southern Europeans, as contrasted with the somewhat gloomy calm and deliberation noticed both among oriental and occidental northerners.

Notwithstanding the comparatively high amount of rainfall, the fact remains that as a nation we have spent most of our life under the serene canopy of blue sky characteristic of a volcanic country. Mountains, graceful rather than sublime, and fertile plains with rich verdure, its beauties changing slowly from the white blossoms of spring to the crimson leaves of autumn, have afforded us many welcome sights to rest our eyes upon; while the azure stretch of water, broken agreeably by scattered isles, washes to-day as it did in the days of the gods the white shore, rendered conspicuous by the everlasting green of the pine trees, which skirts the Land of the Rising Sun.

The winter, though it begins its dreary course with a short period of warm days known as the Little Spring, is of course not without its bleak mornings with cutting winds and icy wreaths. But the fact that even as far north as Tôkyô no elaborate system of warming rooms is at all developed, and that the occasional falling of snow is hailed even by aged men of letters, and still more by the numerous poetasters, as a fit occasion for a pedestrian excursion to some neighboring localities for a better appreciation of the silvery world, serves to show how mild the cold is in south Japan.

A people on whom the surrounding nature always smiles so indulgently can be little expected to be driven to turn their thoughts in the direction of their own self, and thus to develop such a strong sense of individuality as characterises the rigid northerners; nor are the nations panting under a scorching sun likely to share our friendly feelings towards nature, for with them Father Sun is too rigorous to allow a peaceful enjoyment of his works.