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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
The main interest of the world's history centres so indisputably in the doings of the Aryan and Semitic races, that even those whose attention has been chiefly devoted to other areas of human development cannot but concur in the judgment which assigns to the object of their studies a secondary place. At the same time, the second place, and even the third, has a claim to some hearing; and if we grant (as we are bound to do) the second place to China as the intellectual, and to some extent the political leader of Eastern Asia, the third place will perhaps be allowed to belong to Japan. Pending the settlement of the disputed Accadian question, Japanese literature takes us back many centuries further than the oldest documents of the Mongols, Mantchus, Turks, Finns, or any other nation of the Altaic stock; and, as the Archaic Japanese language may, on account of its superior antiquity, lay claim to the title of the Sanskrit of the Altaic tongues, so, also, is it to be presumed that the early Japanese civilization and religion present us with the most original features of Altaic thought and life.
page 317 note 1 How little reliance can be placed on the assertions of the Japanese historians with regard to periods previous to 400 B.C. is instanced by the fact that the “Ch'ien Tzŭ Wên” (
), one of the two books which they mention as having been brought over to Japan at a date corresponding to 285 A.D. by Wani, the reputed first teacher of letters, was not composed till more than two centuries later, while the monarch to whose reign the occurrence is referred is credited with attaining the age of one hundred and ten, or one hundred and thirty (the two histories differ here, as in many other cases).
Ces ouvrages sont, en grande partie, ceux auquels le Yamato-lumi a fait des emprunts, comme je l'ai dit, sans nous fournir de citations precises.
page 322 note 1 The following anachronisms are all culled from the account of one reign, which is placed thousands of years before the Christian era, and which is itself made to extend over more than a century. The Denotation of Ranks by Different Headdresses is mentioned, though it was first introduced from China in the reign of the Empress Suiko, A.D. 603; Paper and Indian Ink are mentioned, though the “ Nihon-Qi ”tells us that they were first introduced from Koma, one of the ancient Korean States, in A.D. 610; the Imperial Chariot is mentioned, though it too was only used in imitation of Chinese custom; the Abdication of the Emperor is mentioned here and perpetually elsewhere, though it was a custom which only came in with Buddhism; Lanterns are mentioned, though they did not gradually begin to supplant the older torches till the latter half of the fifteenth century of our era. Other instances might be adduced from almost every page to show the ludicrously modern nature of the actions ascribed to the supposititious ancient Japanese personages written of; but the very palpable anachronisms here pointed out may suffice as specimens. They occur in vol. ii. pp. 24–32.
page 322 note 2 
or 
page 327 note 1 Pronounced wên in modern Mandarin. Fade and Kami are supposed to be derived respectively from 
and 
, whose modern Mandarin pronunciation is pi and chien.
page 329 note 1 This fact, though adverted to by Ban Nobutomo as a sufficient proof of the spuriousness of the “Hi-fit-mi” (i.e. “one, two, three”) alphabet, even if noother were forthcoming, does not seem to have been yet remarked by any European scholar. Had it been noticed by Mr. Kempermann, the sole European scholar in Japan who has—though with hesitation—subscribed to the genuineness of the “Divine Characters,” it might have caused him to alter his decision.
