ment for the Columbian Exposition,
we find such statements as these:

"From the time that Amaterasu-Omikami made Ninigi-no-mikoto to descend
from the heavens and subject to his administrative sway
Okini-nushi-no-mikoto and other offspring of the deities in the land,
descendants of the divine beings have sat upon the throne, generation
after generation in succession."[AH] "Descended in a direct line from
the heavenly deities, the Emperor has stood unshaken in his high place
through all generations, his prestige and dignity immutable from time
immemorial and independent of all the vicissitudes of the world about
him."[AI] "Never has there been found a single subject of the realm
who sought to impair the Imperial prestige."[AJ] It is true that in a
single passage the traditions of the "age of the Deities" are
described as "strange and incredible legends," but it is added that,
however singular they are, in order to understand the history of the
Empire's beginnings, they must be studied. Then follows, without a
word of criticism or dissent, the account of the doings of the
heavenly deities, in creating Japan and its people, as well as the
myriads of gods. There is no break between the age of the gods and the
history of men. The first inventions and discoveries, such as those of
fire, of mining, and of weaving are ascribed to Amate rasu-Omikami
(the Sun Goddess). According to these traditions and the modern
histories built upon them, the Japanese race came into existence
wholly independently of all other races of men. Such is the
authoritative teaching in the schools to-day.

Occidental scholars do not accept these statements or dates. That the
Japanese will evince historical and critical ability in the study of
their own early history, as soon as the social order will allow it,
can hardly be doubted. Those few who even now entertain advanced ideas
do not dare to avow them. And this fact throws an interesting light on
the way in which the social order, or a despotic government, may
thwart for a time the natural course of development. The present
apparent credulity of Japanese historical scholarship is due neither
to race character nor to superstitions lodged in the inherited race
brain, but simply to the social system, which, as yet, demands the
inviolability of the Imperial line.

Now that the Japanese have been so largely relieved from the incubus
of the older social order, the question rises whether they are showing
p