Note 342 — Chapter XXI · FREETHOUGHT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

A curious example of sporadic freethought occurs in a pamphlet published towards the end of the eighteenth century. In 1771 a writer named Motoōri began a propaganda in favour of Shintôism with the publication of a tract entitled Spirit of Straightening. This tract emphatically asserted the divinity of the Mikado, and elicited a reply from another writer named Ichikawa, who wrote: “The Japanese word kami (God) was simply a title of honour; but in consequence of its having been used to translate the Chinese character shin (shên) a meaning has come to be attached to it which it did not originally possess. The ancestors of the Mikados were not Gods, but men, and were no doubt worthy to be reverenced for their virtues; but their acts were not miraculous nor supernatural. If the ancestors of living men were not human beings, they are more likely to have been birds or beasts than Gods.” Art.: “The Revival of Pure Shinto,” by Sir E. N. Satow, in Trans. Asiatic Society of Japan. ↑