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 Seido 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. T