scenery and emotions are well described.... Had he
learned in the 'Way' of the sages, he had not fallen into
Buddhism."[BZ] The tendency of all persons trained in Confucian
classics was toward thoroughgoing skepticism as to divine beings and
their relation to this world. For this reason, beyond doubt, has
Western agnosticism found so easy an entrance into Japan. This ready
acceptance of Western agnosticism is a second fact that has tended to
give the West the impression referred to above. Complete indifference
to religion is characteristic of the educated classes of to-day.
Japanese and foreigners, Christians and non-Christians, alike, unite
in this opinion. The impression usually conveyed by this statement,
however, is that agnosticism is a new thing in Japan. In point of
fact, the old agnosticism is merely re-enforced by the support it
receives from the agnosticism of the West.

The Occidental impression of Japanese irreligious race nature is
further strengthened by the frequent assertion of it by writers, some
of whom at least are neither partial nor ignorant. Prof. Basil H.
Chamberlain, for instance, repeatedly makes the assertion or
necessitates the inference. Speaking of pilgrimages, he remarks that
the Japanese "take their religion lightly." Discussing the general
question of religion, he speaks of the Japanese as "essentially
undevotional," but he guards against the inference that they are
therefore specially immoral. Yet, in the same paragraph, he adds,
"Though they pray little and make light of supernatural dogma, the
religion of the family binds them down in truly social bonds."
Percival Lowell also, as we have seen, makes light of Japanese
religion.

This conclusion of foreigner observers is rendered the more convincing
to the average reader when he learns that such an influential man as
Mr. Fukuzawa declares that "religion is like tea," it serves a social
end, and nothing more; and that Mr. Hiroyuki Kato, until recently
president of the Imperial University, and later Minister of Education,
states that "Religion depends on fear." Marquis Ito, Japan's most
illustrious statesman, is reported to have said: "I regard religion
itself as quite unnecessary for a nation's life; science is far above
superstition, and what is religion--Buddhism or Christianity--but
superstition, and therefore a possible source of weakness to a nation?
I do not regret the tendency to free thought and atheism, which is
almost univers