enses than those of sight, such as odour or sound, while
the wind, which is neither seen, heard, nor smelt is recognized by
the impression which it makes upon our bodies. [Motoori Norinaga].

"Although numbers of Japanese cannot state with any certainty from
what gods they are descended, all of them have tribal names (kabane)
which were originally bestowed by the Mikado, and those who make it
their province to study genealogies can tell from a man's ordinary
surname who his remotest ancestor must have been. From the fact of
the divine descent of the Japanese people proceeds their immeasurable
superiority to the natives of other countries in courage and
intelligence.*

*Although Hirata claims the superiority for his own countrymen, he
frankly acknowledges the achievements of the Dutch in natural
science.

". . . The accounts given in other countries, whether by Buddhism or
by Chinese philosophy, of the form of the heavens and earth and the
manner in which they came into existence, are all inventions of men
who exercised all their ingenuity over the problem, and inferred that
such things must actually be the case. As for the Indian account, it
is nonsense fit only to deceive women and children, and I do not
think it worthy of reflection. The Chinese theories, on the other
hand, are based upon profound philosophical speculations and sound
extremely plausible, but what they call the absolute and the finite,
the positive and negative essences, the eight diagrams, and the five
elements, are not real existences, but are fictitious names invented
by the philosophers and freely applied in every direction. They say
that the whole universe was produced by agencies, and that nothing
exists which is independent of them. But all these statements are
nonsense. The principles which animate the universe are beyond the
power of analysis, nor can they be fathomed by human intelligence,
and all statements founded upon pretended explanations of them are to
be rejected. All that man can think and know is limited by the powers
of sight, feeling, and calculation, and what goes beyond these
powers, cannot be known by any amount of thinking. . . .

"The Chinese accounts sound as if based upon profound principles, and
one fancies that they must be right, while the Japanese accounts
sound shallow and utterly unfounded in reason. But the former are
lies while the latter are the truth, so that as time goes on and
thought attains greater accurac