ese were the servants and general
humanity. Even after the status of man was reached, there were
gradations and degradations through fractions down to ciphers and indeed
to minus quantities, for there existed in the Country of Brave Warriors
some tens of thousands of human beings bearing the names of _eta_
(pariah) and _h[=i]-nin_ (non-human), who were far below the pale of
humanity.

The Paramount Idea of Loyalty.

The one idea which dominated all of these classes,[13]--in Old Japan
there were no masses but only many classes--was that of loyalty. As the
Japanese language shows, every faculty of man was subordinated to this
idea. Confucianism even conditioned the development of Japanese grammar,
as it also did that of the Koreans, by multiplying honorary prefixes and
suffixes and building up all sociable and polite speech on perpendicular
lines. Personality was next to nothing and individuality was in a
certain sense unknown. In European languages, the pronoun shows how
clearly the ideas of personality and of individuality have been
developed; but in the Japanese language there really are no pronouns, in
the sense of the word as used by the Germanic nations, at least,
although there are hundreds of impersonal and topographical substitutes
for them.[14] The mirror, of the language itself, reflects more truth
upon this point of inquiry than do patriotic assertions, or the protests
of those who in the days of this Meiji era so handsomely employ the
Japanese language as the medium of thought. Strictly speaking, the ego
disappears in ordinary conversation and action, and instead, it is the
servant speaking reverently to his master; or it is the master
condescending to the object which is "before his hand" or "to the side"
or "below" where his inferior kneels; or it is the "honorable right"
addressing the "esteemed left."

All the terms which a foreigner might use in speaking of the duties of
sovereign and minister, of lord and retainer and of master and servant,
are comprehended in the Japanese word, Kun-shin, in which is
crystallized but one thought, though it may relate to three grades of
society. The testimony of history and of the language shows, that the
feelings which we call loyalty and reverence are always directed upward,
while those which we term benevolence and love invariably look downward.

Note herein the difference between the teachings of Christ and those of
the Chinese sage. According to the latter,