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Fashioning Japanese Subcultures 1st Edition Yuniya
Kawamura Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Yuniya Kawamura
ISBN(s): 9781847889485, 1847889484
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 4.27 MB
Year: 2013
Language: english
Fashioning Japanese Subcultures
This page intentionally left blank
Fashioning Japanese Subcultures

Yuniya Kawamura

London • New York

 English edition
First published in 2012 by
Berg
Editorial offices:
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP, UK
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA

© Yuniya Kawamura 2012

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form
or by any means without the written permission of Berg.

Berg is an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kawamura, Yuniya, 1963–

Fashioning Japanese subcultures / Yuniya Kawamura.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84788-948-5 (hardback)—ISBN 978-1-84788-947-8—
ISBN 978-0-85785-216-8 1. Fashion—Japan. 2. Fashion design—Japan.
3. Subculture—Japan. 4. Japan—Social life and customs. I. Title.
GT1560.K35 2012
391.00952—dc23 2012004413

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

PDF ISBN 978 0 85785 215 1

ISBN 978 1 84788 948 5 (Cloth)
978 1 84788 947 8 (Paper)
e-ISBN 978 0 85785 215 1 (institution)
978 0 85785 216 8 (individual)

www.bergpublishers.com
To My Family
This page intentionally left blank
 Contents

List of Plates and Tables ix

Acknowledgments xiii

I: INTRODUCTION

1 Understanding Subcultural Studies: Dick Hebdige Revisited 7

2 Placing Tokyo on the Fashion Map: From Catwalk to Street Style 21

3 Japanese Youth in a Changing Society 33

II: GEOGRAPHICALLY AND STYLISTICALLY DEFINED

JAPANESE SUBCULTURES

4 Shibuya: The Youth in Outspoken Rebellion 51

5 Harajuku: The Youth in Silent Rebellion 65

6 Akihabara and Ikebukuro: Playing with Costume as Entertainment 76

7 Shinjuku: Girls of the Nightlife Using Beauty and Youth as Weapons 85

8 Kouenji and Other Fashion Districts: From Secondhand

Clothes Lovers to Fast Fashion Followers 93

9 Individual and Institutional Networks within a Subcultural

System: Efforts to Validate and Valorize New Tastes in Fashion 99

III: THE POWER OF THE YOUTH: TRICKLE-UP/

BUBBLE-UP THEORY REVISITED

10 The Deprofessionalization of Fashion 119

11 The Globalization of Japanese Subcultures

and Fashion: Future Possibilities and Limitations 126

– vii –
viii CONTENTS

Conclusion: The Future of Japanese Subcultures 136

Appendix 139

Notes 149

References and Further Reading 155

Index 173
 List of Plates and Tables

PLATES

Plate 1: Shibuya 109 department store.

Plate 2: A group of Gyaru in Shibuya.

Plate 3: A group of Gyaru-o in Shibuya.

Plate 4: A flyer for Yusuke Arai’s retirement party.

Plate 5: A Gyaru at her retirement party in Shibuya.

Plate 6: Manami Abe in Classical Lolita.

Plate 7: Sara in Punk Lolita.

Plate 8: Momo Matsuura in Classical Lolita (left) and Sphere

in Ouji (right).

Plate 9: Zuki (left) and Haru (right) in Twin Lolita.

Plate 10: Haru in Sweet/Pink Lolita.

Plate 11: Cosplayers on Jingu Bridge in Harajuku.

Plate 12: Cosplayers on Jingu Bridge in Harajuku.

Plate 13: A maid café waitress handing out flyers in Akihabara.

Plate 14: A waitress in a high school uniform at Cosplay Café.

Plate 15: Rice and curry served at a cosplay restaurant in Akihabara.

Plate 16: Cosplayers at Comic Market.

Plate 17: A cosplayer at Comic Market.

Plate 18: Ayumi Saito in a Ninja character in Nintama Rantaro.

– ix –
x LIST OF PLATES AND TABLES

Plate 19: Otaku Lolita in Akihabara.

Plate 20: Black Lolita ensemble (left), Princess Decoration

ensemble (center), and Mori Girl ensemble (right).

Plate 21: A girl posing for photographers in Harajuku.

Plate 22: A boy posing for photographers in Harajuku.

Plate 23: A Lolita and a cosplayer posing for

photographers in Harajuku.

Plate 24: A boy dressed in Ouji (Prince) lining up for a magazine

photo shoot in Shinjuku.

Plate 25: Silvia Nodari, an Italian Lolita.

Plate 26: American Lolita at FIT’s Lolita Tea Party in 2010.

Plate 27: American cosplayer at NY Comic Con and Anime Festival

in 2010.

Plate 28: American cosplayers at NY Comic Con and Anime Festival

in 2010.

Plate 29: American cosplayer at NY Anime Festival in 2007.

Plate 30: American cosplayers at NY Anime Festival in 2007.

TABLES

3.1: Japan’s Prime Ministers and Terms of Office since 1989 139

3.2: Full-time and Part-time Employment in the Nonagricultural

Sector in Japan (1990–2011) 139

3.3: Suicide Rate in Japan (2000–2010) 140

3.4: Men’s and Women’s Average Age at First Marriage

in Japan (1950–2008) 140

3.5: Fertility Rate in Japan (1975–2010) 141

3.6: Divorce Rate in Japan (1987–2010) 141

3.7: Average Annual Income in Japanese Single-parent

Households by Employment Status (2003) 142
 LIST OF PLATES AND TABLES xi

6.1: Cosplay Events and Anime Conventions in Europe

and the United States (June–November 2011) 142

7.1: Most Desired Occupations among Z-Generation

Girls in Japan in 2007 (N = 1,935) 144

7.2: Most Desired Occupations among Z-Generation

Girls in Japan in 2008 (N = 1,154) 145

7.3: Sample Monthly Incomes of Women Who Work Full-time

and Part-time as Bar Hostesses and Monthly
Incomes of Their Other Part-time Jobs (N = 28) 146

8.1: Mori Girl Community Sites on Mixi (as of June 2011) 147

9.1: Basic Differences between Subcultural Fashion

and High Fashion 109

11.1: Number of Participants (Labels) at Japan Fashion Week

in Tokyo (2005–2011) 132

11.2: Winners of the Shinmai Creators Project by School

Affiliation and Winners’ Country of Origin (2009–2011) 134
This page intentionally left blank
 Acknowledgments

My appreciation goes to the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) of the State

University of New York for granting me a sabbatical leave and relieving me of my
teaching duties during the spring 2010 semester to work on this project. I have
been working on this topic since 2004, and I needed the time to concentrate
on my fieldwork in Tokyo so that I could start writing a book. I am grateful to
Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of the Museum at FIT, for giving me
the opportunity to contribute an article, “Japanese Fashion Subcultures,” to
her exhibition catalog Japan Fashion Now! (Yale University Press, 2010) and to
give a presentation at the exhibition symposium in November 2010.
I am thankful to all my colleagues in the Social Sciences Department who are
supportive of my work: Yasemin Celik, Paul Clement, Luis Zaera, Ernest Poole,
Spencer Schein, Meg Miele, Joseph Maiorca, Roberta Paley, Praveen Chaudhry,
Emre Ozsoz, Dan Benkendorf, and Jung-Whan (Marc) de Jong. Students in my
Clothing and Society and Cultural Expressions of Non-Western Dress/Fashion
classes provided a valuable sounding board for the development of my ideas.
My gratitude also goes to Hiroshi Ishida, my former professor at the Gradu-
ate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University, who is now at the In-
stitute of Social Science, Tokyo University, for sponsoring my residence there
as a visiting fellow from January to August 2010. He also gave me the op-
portunity to speak at his Contemporary Japan Study Group in June 2010. The
feedback I received from the audience was constructive and encouraging.
While I was in Japan, Reiko Koga of Bunka Women’s University and Takashi
Machimura of Hitotsubashi University also invited me to present my research
in their graduate classes.
Discussions with my former classmates in graduate school, Takeshi Wada
of Tokyo University, and Tsutomu Nakano of the Graduate School of Business
at Aoyoama Gakuin University, have been very productive.
I have given a number of presentations on Japanese fashion and subcul-
tures at several academic conferences, such as at the European Sociological
Association conference in Milan; the First Global Conference: Urban Popcul-
tures in Prague, Czech Republic; and the Dressing Rooms: Current Perspec-
tives on Fashion and Textile conference, in Oslo, Norway. I am grateful to the
Center for Excellence in Teaching and Scott Stoddart, dean of liberal arts at
FIT, for funding many of my conference trips.

– xiii –
xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank all the organizations and museums that invited me to give a pre-
sentation on my book even before its completion: Asia Society in New York;
Parsons the New School for Design; the Museum of Arts and Design in New
York; the University of California, Los Angeles; Potsdam University in Ger-
many; the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C.; the Japanese-American As-
sociation of New York; the Japanese-Americans, Japanese in America in New
York; Copenhagen Business School in Denmark; and the Centre for Fashion
Studies in Sweden.
This is the fourth book that I am publishing with Berg, and it is always a
pleasure working with their efficient and professional editorial team. I am
grateful to Julia Hall, Anna Wright, Emily Medcalf, Noa Vazquez, Agnes Upshall,
and Ian Buck at Berg.
I am thankful for the gracious assistance provided by the library staff at the
Fashion Institute of Technology, Columbia University, and Bunka University.
My appreciation also goes to my friends in Tokyo—Yutaka Ishibashi, Takuo
Tsuchida, Hideki Shimizu, and Satoko Iye—whom I called and e-mailed when-
ever I needed a distraction from writing.
I am eternally indebted to all the members of the Japanese subcultures
who sat down with me and told me their candid stories and experiences.
This book would not have been possible without their contributions. I am es-
pecially thankful to Momo Matsuura, Zuki, Haru, Yusuke Arai, Sphere, Ayumi
Saito, Yutaka Toyama, Mayumi Abe, Sara, and Silvia Nodari for allowing me to
use their original pictures.
I dedicate this book to my family, Yoya, Yoko, and Maya Kawamura, who
have always been there for me whenever I needed them. I could not have com-
pleted this book without their love and encouragement. I am who I am today
because of them.
Yuniya Kawamura
New York and Tokyo
 I: INTRODUCTION

Japanese street fashion and youth subcultures have been topics of inter-
est for many journalists, editors, bloggers, museum curators, and photog-
raphers both in and outside Japan (Aoki 2001, 2006; Evers, Macias, and
Nonaka 2007; Godoy 2007, 2009; Keet 2007; Narumi 2010; Yoshinaga and
Ishikawa 2007), who provide fascinating accounts as well as photographs
that capture everyday clothes worn by ordinary but fashionable Japanese
boys and girls on the streets. Japanese youth dress is indeed visually ap-
pealing, but more than that, it is vital to the theoretical understanding of sub-
cultures to which many of the youth belong. My intention in writing this book
is to provide theoretical frameworks within which the Japanese subcultural
phenomenon can be analyzed. My study will make a contribution as a case
study to subcultural studies and theories in general. The scholarly literature
on Japanese fashion often focuses on major Japanese designers (English
2007, 2011; Fukai et al. 2010; Kawamura 2004; Koda 2008; Kondo 1997;
Mears 2010; Mitchell 2006), such as Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo, and Yohji
Yamamoto, or traces the cultural and social history of Japanese kimono or
textiles (Brandon et al. 2005; Dalby 2001; Imperatore and Maclardy 2001;
Munsterberg 1996; Slade 2010), and they do not pay much attention to Japan-
ese youth fashion.
Thus, the purpose of this book is to fill the void between academic and non-
academic perspectives since Japanese youth subcultures and their unique
stylistic expressions as a research topic deserve scholarly and intellectual
considerations just as punks, goths, mods, skinheads, and hippies in the
West are studied in scholarship on youth subcultures (Baron 1989; Brake
1980; Haenfler 2006, 2009; Hebdige 1979; Hodkinson 2002; Issitt 2009,
2011; Muggleton 2000). My focus is not on any street fashion, which is a
term used loosely to indicate any type of youth fashion. My attention is specif-
ically on the members of different subcultural communities in Tokyo and their
outward appearances. Like many other subcultures in the West, I argue that
the Japanese subcultural phenomenon is an ideological one. By popularizing
a subcultural style as a fashion trend, the legitimate taste in fashion is trans-
forming and expanding with the help of the related industries, and they to-
gether constitute an institution and establish an alternative fashion system
that goes against the mainstream system of fashion.

–1–
2 FASHIONING JAPANESE SUBCULTURES

Fashioning Japanese Subcultures is a study of Japanese youth subcultures

in Tokyo based on my empirical research between 2004 and 2010. I wanted
to explore what these Japanese subcultures are. Why do the youth in these
subcultures dress so differently from the mainstream? Is it just fashion for
them? Do they want attention? What is their lifestyle? To what extent are they
involved in the group? What does it meant to them to shop in these districts
and not buy items online? What elements do they share or not share with the
subcultures in the West? I was eager to identify and uncover any latent func-
tions that these subcultures may have. My task, as a researcher, is to discern
the hidden messages inscribed in code on the surfaces of style, to trace them
as symbols that represent the very contradictions they struggle to resolve or
conceal.
In addition, this research is partly an analytical extension and applica-
tion of my previous work on high fashion within the French fashion system
(Kawamura 2004), which consists of various macro-structural factors as well
as micro-interactionist individual social networks in transforming clothing into
fashion and legitimating designers’ creativity. I compare and contrast youth
fashion subcultures with high-fashion communities and examine theoretically
their systemic similarities and differences in promoting and diffusing fashion.
I attempt to show how the youth fashion subcultures are created/produced,
disseminated, maintained, reproduced, and perpetuated with the help of fash-
ion institutions.
To answer my research questions, this study crosses disciplinary bound-
aries. I draw on different theoretical perspectives, such as diffusion theories,
micro- and macro-level sociological theories, subcultural theories, and media/
textual studies. Furthermore, I point out that empirical research on subcul-
tures in general often neglects the girls’ and women’s perspectives and ig-
nores a non-Western or a multicultural focus. It is necessary to pose to what
extent the components found in U.S. and British subcultures can be found in
other, non-Western cultures, such as Japan.
My interests in Japanese youth fashion began in 2003, when I was vis-
iting Sydney with an old friend from college. As we were strolling down the
streets of Sydney talking about our days in college, we happened to pass by
the Powerhouse Museum, which was holding a photography exhibition called
FRUiTS. I first thought it was an exhibition about Australian produce and did
not think much of it since at the time I did not know anything about the maga-
zine FRUiTS. A huge poster of a Japanese boy and girl wearing flashy clothes
hung in front of the museum building. Initially, it did not appear to be all that
interesting. My friend insisted on going inside, so I reluctantly followed her.
Inside were about a hundred life-size photographs of boys and girls dressed
in very creative and fashionable outfits taken in Harajuku, one of the major
youth fashion districts in Tokyo. I was fascinated by these images. They were
 INTRODUCTION 3

new, fresh, and different. This was the first time I had become aware of what
the Japanese youth wore on the streets of Tokyo. The timing was also appro-
priate since I had just finished writing my book on Japanese designers in Paris,
and I was searching for a new topic to delve into. I immediately knew what my
next research topic was going to be. FRUiTS, a monthly magazine published
by photographer Shoichi Aoki, contains only pictures taken in Harajuku and
has no text.1 Aoki explained to me why he started this project: “I started tak-
ing pictures of young people in Harajuku to keep a record of what is happen-
ing on the streets of Harajuku.” My work on Japanese youth and subcultures
evolved and developed from that experience in Sydney. It took me another few
years before I decided to focus on different subcultures in different districts.
I later came across two books written in Japanese by members of a Japan-
ese subculture: The Anthropology of Gyaru and Gyaru-o2 (2009) by Yusuke
Arai, who was a leader of the Gyaru-o gang in Shibuya, and The World, Myself
and Lolita Fashion3 (2007) by Momo Matsuura, a Lolita herself. The stories
these authors tell in their books are partially autobiographical since the au-
thors either are or were insiders to the group. Nonetheless, the authors make
an attempt to write about their own world as objectively as possible.4 I have
met both of them at different occasions and interviewed them extensively
about the group to which they belong. They gave me their contacts and be-
came an important source of information to begin my fieldwork in Tokyo.
Angela McRobbie (1991: xv) explains her interest in subcultures as
follows:

There are two reasons why I have been interested in subcultures: first, because
they have always appeared to me . . . as popular aesthetic movements, or “con-
stellations” . . . and second, because in a small way they have seemed to possess
the capacity to change the direction of young people’s lives, or at least to sharpen
their focus by confirming some felt, but as yet unexpressed intent or desire.
Subcultures are aesthetic movements whose raw materials are by definition,
“popular” in that they are drawn from the world of the popular mass media. It
is not necessary to have an education in the avant-garde or to know the history
of surrealism to enjoy the Sex Pistols or to recognise the influence of Vivienne
Westwood’s fashion. This kind of knowledge (of pop music or fashion images) is
relatively easy to come by and very different from the knowledge of the high arts
or the literary canon found in the academy.

I share many of McRobbie’s views. Indeed, subcultures are “aesthetic

movements.” Nonetheless, while I personally find the different styles emer-
ging out of Japanese subcultures extremely original and creative, I have come
to discover that others take them as an offense to a good taste in fashion
since subcultures are not considered part of high culture.5 The devaluation of
4 FASHIONING JAPANESE SUBCULTURES

Japanese subcultures as a group and their styles was one of my unexpected

findings on which I will further elaborate in the subsequent chapters.
While Tokyo as a fashion city is still marginal from a global perspective
(despite the efforts made by the fashion trade organization in Japan), the
Japanese youth play a crucial role in forming a separate fashion community
and producing the latest styles that express their subcultural affiliation and
identity. Youth fashion in Japan—in Tokyo in particular—is geographically and
stylistically defined. Subcultures are defined by where they congregate, the
music they listen to, the celebrities they worship and idolize, the magazines
they read, and, most importantly, the way they dress.
The study of Japanese youth subcultures needs to be conducted both the-
oretically as well as empirically, and thus my research is based on in-depth
ethnographical fieldwork in various fashion districts in Tokyo. A visual inves-
tigation of Japanese youth subcultures focusing on their outward appear-
ances is the first step to understanding their worldview, values, and norms,
which have changed drastically over the past few decades. The way they dress
serves as a marker of social background and subcultural allegiance. Fash-
ion always reflects the prevailing ideology of a society, and today’s Japanese
youth are the case in point. When the Japanese media started to pay at-
tention to youth subcultures in the mid-1990s, there were only two or three
groups, and they were easily recognizable because of their distinct styles.
Since that time, these subcultures have branched out intricately in different
areas and into many smaller sub-subcultures; their social networks are be-
coming very complex.
I examine several different areas of Tokyo, and I am aware that each chap-
ter on a district could be expanded into one book. But my goal here is to intro-
duce various youth subcultures and their stylistic expressions and show the
common threads across all the subcultures mentioned in this book as well
their uniqueness in each group. I pay particular attention to the subcultures
in which the members treat their appearance or image making very seriously,
and make it one of the key components of their group membership. Dick
Hebdige (1979) called British punks “a spectacular subculture,” implying the
crucial significance of their external appearance, while I call Japanese subcul-
tures “fashion subcultures.”
I investigate the nature of the Japanese subcultures found in different
districts in Tokyo and explore its relationship to the structural problems of
a wider socioeconomic structure. I argue that there is an ironic correlation
between Japan’s economic slump and the increase in the youth’s creativity.
The style and imagery of the subculture need a hermeneutic perspective
that considers the meaning the subculture may have for potential members
and for society at large. I also make an analysis of mass media’s mediation of
the nature of the subculture. Furthermore, in comparison with or in contrast to
 INTRODUCTION 5

high fashion, I analyze the social organization of subcultural fashion. The

values, norms, symbols, images, and behavior of the subculture need to be
considered in terms of their social and economic contexts. The subculture is
unlikely to remain unaltered, and the shifting boundaries of the subculture as
well as its changing form need to be considered as well. Methodological strat-
egies used in my research are explained in subsequent chapters.

OUTLINE OF THE BOOK

This book is divided into three parts. Part I is comprised of three chapters.
Chapter 1 provides an overview and the historical background of subcultural
studies and revisits Dick Hebdige’s classical work on the punk subculture.
I trace a brief history of cultural studies that emerged out of the Centre for
Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham in England in
the 1950s, which was started by Richard Hoggart, a British literary critic, and
refer to different studies on subcultures that emerged in the West. Chapter 2,
“Placing Tokyo on the Fashion Map,” is reproduced from World’s Fashion Cities
(Kawamura 2006c) edited by Christopher Breward and David Gilbert, explain-
ing two ways to place Tokyo as a fashion city in the urban hierarchy. Chap-
ter 3 addresses the social, economic, cultural, and political transformations
that Japan has gone through to understand what today’s Japanese youth are
facing, since a fashion phenomenon is never independent of its external sur-
roundings. I refer to suicide rates, divorce rates, marriage rates, and other
statistics to explain the changing structure of Japan’s economy, labor market,
and employment systems.
Part II examines geographically and stylistically defined subcultures in
Tokyo since the mid-1990s. Chapters 4 through 8 cover each district and the
specific fashion subcultures that are affiliated with the district; specifically,
Shibuya, Harajuku, Akihabara/Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, and Kouenji. Chapter 9
analyzes the growing subcultural trends in Japan among the youth and ex-
amines institutional and individual networks within the subcultural system. I
investigate the similarities and the differences among these subcultures and
also make a systematic comparison between high fashion and youth fashion.
Part III discusses the influential power of the Japanese youth, and the
trickle-up/bubble-up theory of fashion is revisited. Chapter 10 explores the
deprofessionalization of various occupations in the Japanese fashion indus-
try and the growing number of street photographers and amateur models, as
more and more magazines include pages on ordinary, but very fashionable,
kids on the streets. The line between professional and amateur is becoming
blurry. At the same time, young consumers are becoming increasingly so-
phisticated such that they themselves can become the producers of fashion
Other documents randomly have
different content
 Thus is Religion analyzed, explained and justified. Its varied forms
have been shown to be unessential and temporary; its uniform
substance to be essential and permanent. Belief has melted away
under the comparative method; Faith has remained behind. From
two sides, however, objections may be raised to the results of this
analysis. Those who admit no ultimate residuum of truth in the
religious sentiment at all, may hold that I have done it too much
honor in conceding so much; while those who adhere to some more
positive theology than is admitted here, will think that I have left
scarcely anything worth the having in conceding so little.
To the first class of objectors I may perhaps be permitted to point
out the extreme improbability of the presence in human nature of a
universally-felt emotion without a corresponding object. Even if they
themselves do not realize in their own minds the force of that
emotion they will at least not deny its historical manifestations. They
will scarcely question that it has been in all ages known to history as
an inspiring force, and often an overmastering passion. They will
believe the evidence of those who affirm that they are conscious of
that emotion now, and cannot attribute it to anything but the kind of
Cause which religion postulates. The actual presence of the emotion
they will not deny, though the explanation attempted of its origin
they will. But those who make the rather startling assertion that a
deep-seated and wide-spread emotion is absolutely without any
object resembling that which it imagines to be its source, are bound
to give some tenable account of the genesis of that emotion. How
did it come into being at all? How having come into being, did it
continue and extend? How did it come to mistake a subjective
illusion for an objective reality?
These are questions pressing for an answer from those who ask
us to believe that one of our strongest feelings exists merely to
deceive. But it will be found, I believe, that all explanations tending
to show that this emotion is illusory in its nature assume the very
unreality they seek to prove. Should it, for example, be contended
that human beings, conscious of a force in their own bodies, extend
the conception of this force to a superhuman being, which extension
is illegitimate, it is assumed, not proved, in such an argument as
this, that the force manifested in the universe at large is not in some
way akin to that manifested in human beings. Again, should it be
urged that man, being aware of design in his own works, fancies a
like design in the works of nature, it is a mere assumption that this
attribution of the ideas of his own mind to a mind greater than his is
an unwarrantable process. The argument from design may be, and
in my opinion is, open to other grave objections; but its mere
presence cannot be used as explaining the manner in which the
religious emotion has come to exist. Rather is it the religious
emotion which has found expression in the argument from design.
The same criticism applies to all accounts of this sentiment which
aim at finding an origin for it sufficient to explain its presence
without admitting its truth. They all of them assume the very point
at issue.
But the real difficulty that is felt about religion lies deeper than in
the mere belief that a given emotion may be deceptive. It lies in the
doubt whether a mere emotion can be taken in evidence of the
presence in nature of any object at all. Emotions are by their very
nature vague, and this is of all perhaps the vaguest. Nor are
emotions vague only; they are inexpressible in precise language, and
even when we express them as clearly as we can, they remain
unintelligible to those who have not felt them. Now this general and
unspecific character of emotions renders it hard for those who are
wanting in any given emotion to understand its intensity in others,
and even fully to believe in their statements about it. Were religion a
case of sensible perception they would have no such doubt. Color-
blind persons do not question the faculty of distinguishing colors in
others. But while the sharp definitions of these senses compel us to
believe in the existence of their objects, the comparatively hazy
outlines drawn by the emotions leave us at least a physical
possibility of disputing the existence of theirs.
 Yet the cases are in their natures identical. We see a table, and
because we see it we infer the existence of a real thing external to
ourselves. The presence of the sensations is conceived to be an
adequate warrant for asserting the presence of their cause. Precisely
in the same way, we feel the Unknowable Being, and because we
feel it we infer the existence of a real object both external to
ourselves and within ourselves. The presence of the emotion is
conceived to be an adequate warrant for asserting the presence of
its cause. Undoubtedly, the supposed object of the sensations and
the supposed object of the emotion might be both of them illusory.
This is conceivable in logic, though not in fact. But there can be no
reason for maintaining the unreality of the emotional, and the reality
of the sensible object. Existence is believed in both instances on the
strength of an immediate, intuitional inference. The mental
processes are exactly parallel. And if it be contended that sensible
perception carries with it a stronger warrant for our belief in the
existence of its objects than internal feeling, the reasons for this
contention must be exhibited before we can be asked to accept it;
otherwise, it will again turn out to be a pure assumption,
constituting, not a reason for the rejection of religion by those who
now accept it, but a mere explanation of the conduct of those who
do not.
In fact, however, the denial of the truth of religion is no less
emotional than its affirmation. It is not denied because those who
disbelieve in it have anything to produce against it, but because the
inner sense which results in religion is either absent in them, or too
faint to produce its usual consequences. For this of course they are
not to blame, and nothing can be more irrational than to charge
them with moral delinquency or culpable blindness. If the Unknown
Cause is not perceptible to them, that surely is not a deficiency to be
laid to their charge. But when they quit the emotional stronghold
wherein they are safe to speak of those to whom that Unknown
Cause is perceptible as the victims of delusion, these latter may
confidently meet them on the field which they themselves have
chosen.
 First, then, it is at least a rather startling supposition that their
fellow creatures have always been, and are still, the victims of a
universal delusion, from which they alone enjoy the privilege of
exemption. Presumption, at all events, is against a man who asserts
that everybody but himself sees wrongly. He may be the only person
whose eyes have not deceived him, but we should require him to
give the strongest proof of so extraordinary an assertion. And in all
cases which are in the least degree similar, this condition is complied
with without the smallest hesitation. There are, so far as I am
aware, no instances of proved universal delusions, save those arising
from the misleading suggestions of the senses. That the earth is a
flat surface, that the sun moves round it, that the sun and moon are
larger than the stars, that the blue sky begins at a fixed place, are
inferences which the uninstructed observer cannot fail to draw from
the most obvious appearances. But those who have combated these
errors have not done so by merely telling the world at large that it
was mistaken; they have pointed out the phenomena from which the
erroneous inferences were drawn, and have shown at the same time
that other phenomena, no less evident to the senses than these,
were inconsistent with the explanation given. They have then
substituted an explanation which accounted for all the phenomena
alike, both the more obvious phenomena and the less so. Precisely
similar is the method of procedure in history and philosophy, though
the methods of proof in these sciences are not equally rigorous.
Great historical delusions—such as the Popish plot—are put to rest
by showing the misinterpreted facts out of which they have grown,
exposing the misinterpretation, and substituting true interpretation.
Imperfect psychological analysis, say of an emotion, is superseded
by showing from what facts this analysis has been obtained, and
what other facts it fails to account for.
Observe, then, that in all these cases the appeal is made from the
first impressions of the mistaken person to his own impressions on
further examination; not to those of another. Considerations are laid
before him which it is supposed will cause him to change his mind,
and in all that class of cases where strict demonstration is possible
actually do so. To a man who believes the earth to be a flat
extended surface we point out the fact that the top of a ship's mast
is the first part of it to appear, and that this and other kindred
phenomena imply sphericity. Our appeal is from the senses to the
senses better informed; not from another man's senses to our own.
And we justly assume that were all the world in possession of the
facts we have before us, all the world would be of our opinion.
What, then, is the conclusion from these analogies? It surely is,
that those who would deny the reality of the object of religious
emotion must show from what appearances, misunderstood, the
belief in that object has arisen, and must point out other
appearances leading to other emotions which are in conflict with it.
As the astronomer appeals from sensible perception to sensible
perception, so they must appeal from emotion to emotion. But it
must not be their own emotions to which they go as forming a
standard for ours. They can demand no hearing at all until they
attempt to influence the emotions of those whom they address.
Generality of belief need not, for the purposes of this argument,
be taken as even a presumption of truth. We can grant our
adversaries this advantage which, in the parallel cases of the
illusions of the senses, was neither asked nor given. But we must
ask them in return to concede to us that, if the generality of a belief
entitles it to no weight in philosophic estimation, the singularity of a
belief entitles it to none either. All mankind may be deluded: well
and good: a fortiori a few individuals among mankind may be
deluded too. Grant that the human faculties at large are subject to
error and deception, it follows from this that the faculties of
individuals lie under the same disability. No word can be said as to
the general liability to false beliefs, which does not carry with it the
liability to false beliefs of the very persons who are seeking to
convince us.
By whom, in fact, are we asked to admit, in the interests of their
peculiar theory, the prevalence of a universal deception, and a
deception embracing in its grasp not only the ignorant multitude, but
men of science, thinkers and philosophers of the very highest
altitude of culture? By whom is it that the great mass of humankind
is charged with baseless thoughts, illusory emotions, and untenable
ideas? By those who, in thus denying the capacity of the whole
human race to perceive the truth, nevertheless maintain their own
capacity to see over the heads of their fellow men so far as to assert
that they are all the victims of an error. By those who, while bidding
us distrust the strongest feelings, nevertheless require us to trust
them so far as to banish, at their bidding, those feelings from our
hearts. Not from our reason to our more instructed reason do they
appeal, only from our reason to their own. But I deny the
competence of the tribunal; and I maintain that until not merely
disbelief, but disproof, of the position of Religion can be offered,
Religion must remain in possession of the field.
Yet there is one mistake which, as it may tend to obscure the
issue, it will be desirable to clear away. It is often contended, oftener
perhaps tacitly assumed, that the burden of proof must rest on
those who in any case maintain the affirmative side of a belief, while
the negative on its side requires no proof, but can simply claim
reception until the affirmative is established. Now this principle is
true, where the negative is simply a suspension of judgment; the
mere non-acceptance of a fact asserted, without a counter-assertion
of its opposite. To understand the true application of the rule we
must distinguish between what I will term substantial affirmations or
negations, and affirmations or negations in form. Thus, to assert
that A. B. is six feet tall, is a substantial affirmation. Out of many
possible alternatives it selects one, and postulates that one as true,
while all the rest it discards as false. Since, however, there are
numerous possibilities besides this one with regard to A. B.'s height
—since he may be either taller or shorter by various degrees—the
negative, in the absence of all knowledge on the subject, is
inherently more probable, for it covers a larger ground. It is a
substantial negation. That is, it affirms nothing at all, but simply
questions the fact affirmed, leaving the field open to countless other
substantial affirmations. So, in law, it is the prosecution which is
required to prove its case; for the prosecution affirms that this man
was at a given place at a given time and did the criminal action. The
opposite hypothesis of this covers innumerable alternatives: not this
man but another, may have been at that place, or he may have been
there and not done the action charged, or some other man may
have done it, or the crime may have not been committed at all, and
so forth. These are cases of substantial affirmations; asserting one
alone out of many conceivable possibilities, and therefore needing
proof. And their opposites are substantial negations; questioning
only the one fact affirmed, and even with reference to that merely
maintaining that in the absence of proof there is an inherent
probability in favor of the negative side.
Widely different is the case before us. Here the affirmation and
negation are affirmative and negative in form alone. The assertions,
"An Unknowable Being exists," and "An Unknowable Being does not
exist," are not opposed to one another as the affirmative and the
negative sides were opposed in the previous cases. The latter
proposition does not cover a number of possible alternatives
whereof the former selects and affirms a single one. Both
propositions are true and substantial affirmations. Both assert a
supposed actual fact. And the latter does not, as the previous
negative propositions did, leave the judgment in simple suspense. It
requires assent to a given doctrine. That the one cast is in a
negative form is the mere accident of expression, and without in any
way affecting their substance, their positions in this respect may be
reversed. Thus, we may say for the first, "The universe cannot exist
without an Unknowable Being;" and for the second, "The universe
can exist without an Unknowable Being." There are not here a
multitude of alternatives, but two only, and of these each side
affirms one. Each proposition is equally the assertion of a positive
belief. Thus, the reason which, in general, causes the greater
antecedent probability of a denial as against a positive assertion, in
no way applies to the denial of the fundamental postulate of
Religion. The statement that there is nobody in a certain room is not
in itself more probable than the statement that there is somebody.
And the proposition: "all men are not mortal," though negative in
form, is truly as affirmative as the counter-proposition: "all men are
mortal."
But this argument, inasmuch as it places the denial of all truth in
the religious emotion on a level with its affirmation, fails to do justice
to the real strength of the case. There are not here two contending
beliefs, of which the one is as probable as the other. In conceding so
much to the skeptical party we have given them a far greater
advantage than they are entitled to demand. Generality of belief is,
in the absence of evidence or argument to the contrary, a
presumption of truth; for, unless its origin from some kind of fallacy
can be shown, its generality is in itself a proof that it persists in
virtue of the general laws of mind which forbid the separation of its
subject from its predicate. And it is not only that we have here a
general belief, or, more correctly speaking, a general emotion, but
we have categories in the human mind which are not filled up or
capable of being filled up by the objective element in the religious
idea. There is, for example, the category of Cause; Nature presents
us not with Cause, but with causes; and these causes are mere
antecedents, physical causation in general being nothing whatever
but invariable antecedents and invariable sequence. But this analysis
of the facts of nature by no means satisfies the conception of
causation which is rooted in the human mind. That conception
imperiously demands a cause which is not a mere antecedent, but a
Power. Without that, the idea would remain as a blank form, having
no reality to fill it. And how do we come to be in the firm possession
of this idea if there be nothing in nature corresponding to it? From
what phenomena could it be derived? Akin to our notion of Cause is
our notion of Force. When the scientific man speaks of a Force, he
merely means an unknown something which effects certain
movements. And Science cannot possibly dispense with the
metaphysical idea of Force. Yet Force is not only unknowable; but it
is the Unknowable manifested in certain modes. Again, therefore, I
ask, whence do we derive ineradicable feeling of the manifestation
of Force, if that feeling be a mere illusion? Similar remarks apply to
other categories which, like these, have no objects in actual
existence in the conformity of the religious sentiment to truth be
denied. Such is the category of Reality. Imagination cannot picture
the world save as containing, though in its essence unknown to us,
some real and permanent being. We know it only as a compound of
phenomena, all of them fleeting, variable, and unsubstantial. There
is nothing in the phenomena which can satisfy our mental demand
for absolute being. As being transient, and as being relative, the
phenomena in fact are nothing. But our intellectual, our emotional,
and our moral natures demand the τό ὃντως ὄν—that which really
is, as the necessary completion of
τὰ φαινόμεα—that which only appears. And it is precisely the
unshakeable belief in an unchangeable, though unknowable Reality;
an everlasting Truth amid shifting forms, a Substance among
shadows, which forms the universal foundation of religious faith.
A ship that has been driven from her intended course is drifting,
with a crew who have no clear knowledge of her whereabouts, upon
an unexplored ocean. Suddenly her captain exclaims that he sees
land in the distance. The mate, however, summoned to verify the
captain's observation, fancies that the black speck on the horizon is
not land, but a large vessel. The sailors and passengers take part,
some with the one, some with the other; while many of them form
opinions of their own not agreeing with that of either, one
maintaining it to be a whale, another a dark cloud, a third something
else, and so forth. Minor differences abound. Those who take it to
be land are at issue as to its being a plain or a mountain, those who
think it a vessel cannot agree as to the description of the craft. One
solitary passenger sees nothing at all. Instead of drawing what
would appear to be the most obvious conclusion, that he is either
more shortsighted or less apt to discover distant objects than the
rest, he infers that his vision alone is right, and that of all the others,
captain, passengers, and crew, defective and misleading. Oblivious
of the fact that the mere failure to perceive an object is no proof of
its non-existence, he persists in asserting not only that the speck
seen in the distance, being so variously described, probably does not
resemble any of the ideas formed of it on board the ship, but that
there is no speck at all. Even the fact that the crews of many other
ships, passing in this direction, perceive the same dim outline on the
horizon, does not shake his conviction that it is a mere "idol of the
tribe." Such is the procedure of those who deny the reality of the
object of the religious idea. Instead of drawing from the diversity of
creeds the legitimate inference that the Being of whom they
severally speak is of unknown nature, they conclude, from the mere
absence of the idea of that Being in their individual consciousness,
that its very existence is a dream.
Lastly, a few words, and a few only, must be said in reply to those
who will think that the cenception of the Unknowable resulting from
our analysis is too vague and shadowy to form the fitting foundation
for religious feeling. They will probably object that the Being whom
that feeling requires is not an inconceivable Cause or Substance of
the Universe, but a Personal God; not an undefined something which
we can barely imagine, but a definite Some one whom we can adore
and love. There is nothing, they will say, in such a conception as this
either to satisfy the affections or to impress the moral sentiments.
And both purposes were fulfilled by the Christian ideal of a loving
Father and a righteous Judge.
To these objections I would reply, first of all, that I have simply
attempted to analyze religion as I found it, neither omitting what
was of the essence of the religious idea, nor inserting what was not.
If this analysis is in any respect defective, that is a matter for
criticism and discussion. But if it has been correctly performed—of
which I frankly admit there is abundant room for doubt—then I am
not responsible for not finding in the universal elements of religion
that which is not contained within them. The expression found for
the ultimate truths must embrace within it, if possible, the crude
notions of deity formed by the savage, and the highly abstract ideal
formed by the most eminent thinkers of modern times. Even then, if
I myself held the doctrines of the personality and the fatherhood of
God, I could not have required from others any admission of these
views of mine as universal ingredients in religious faith. The utmost I
could have done would have been to tack them on as supplementary
developments of the idea of the ultimate Being. And thus it is still
open to any one who wishes it to do. Difficult as it is to reconcile the
ideas of Love and Justice with unlimited Power and absolute
Existence, yet if there are some who find it possible to accomplish
the reconciliation, it may be well for them so to do.[104]
Undoubtedly, however, all such efforts do appear to me mere
hankerings after an incarnation of that idea which, by its very
nature, does not admit of representation by incarnate forms, even
though those forms be moral perfections. And I would reply,
secondly, to the above objection, that, while we lose something by
giving up the definite personality of God, we gain something also. If
we part with the image of a loving Father, we part also with that of a
stern monarch and an implacable judge. If we can no longer indulge
in the contemplation of perfect virtue, embodied in an actual Person,
we are free from the problem that has perplexed theologians of
every age: how to reconcile the undoubted evil in the world with the
omnipotence of that Person. I know that there are some who think it
possible to retain the gentler features in the popular conception of
deity, while dropping all that is harsh and repulsive. To them the idea
of God is as free from terror as the idea of the Unknowable, and the
first of these gains is therefore no gain to them. But the problem of
the existence of evil presses perhaps with greater severity upon
them than upon any other class of theologians. To suppose that God
could not prevent the presence of wickedness, or could not prevent
it without some greater calamity, is to deny his omnipotence; to
suppose that he could, and did not, is to question his benevolence.
But even admitting the improvement made by purging from the
character of God all its severity, its vindictiveness, and its tendency
to excessive punishment, the fact remains that the conception thus
attained is not that of the popular creed at all, but that of a few
enlightened thinkers. And it is with the former, not with the latter,
that the doctrine of the Unknowable must be compared, in order
fairly to estimate its advantages or disadvantages in relation to the
current belief in a personal God.
Moreover, it must be borne in mind that the dim figure we have
shadowed out of an inconceivable and all-embracing ultimate
Existence, if widely different from the more ordinary theological
embodiments of the religious idea, is altogether in harmony with
many of its expressions by the most devoutly religious minds. If
religion has always had a tendency to run to seed in dogma, it has
also always had a tendency to revert to its fundamental mysticism.
The very best and highest minds have continually evinced this
tendency to mysticism, and it has mixed itself up with the logical
definitions of others who did not rise to so exalted a level. So that
the examination of the writings of religious men will continually
disclose that profound impression of the utterly incomprehensible
and mysterious nature of the Supreme Being which is now, in its
complete development in the form of Agnosticism, stigmatized as
incompatible with genuine religious faith.
That tendency to be deeply sensible of the impossibility of
conceiving the Absolute which Religion has thus evinced, it is the
result of Science to strengthen and to increase. Science shows the
imperfection of all the concrete expressions which have been found
for the Unknowable. It proves that we cannot think of the
Unknowable as entering in any peculiar sense into special objects in
nature, dwelling in special places, or speaking through special
channels. Miraculous phenomena, which were supposed to
constitute the peculiar sphere of its manifestations, are thrown by
Science completely out of the account. But all phenomena
whatsoever are shown to manifest the Unknowable. Thus, while
scientific inquiry tends to diminish the intensity of religious ideas, it
tends to widen their extension. They do not any longer cling to
partial symbols. They do not attach themselves with the same fervor
to individual embodiments. But, in becoming more abstract, they
become also more pervading. Religion is found everywhere and in
everything. All nature is the utterance of the idea. And, as it gains in
extension while losing in intensity in reference to the external world,
it goes through a similar process in relation to human life. No longer
a force seizing on given moments of our existence, at one moment
inspiring devotional observances, at the next forgotten in the
pleasures or the business of the day; at one time filling men with the
zeal of martyrs or crusaders, at another leaving them to the
unrestrained indulgence of gross injustice or revolting cruelty, it
becomes a calm, all-pervading sentiment, shown (if it be shown at
all) in the general beauty and spirituality of the character, not in the
stated exercises of a rigorous piety, or in the passionate outbursts of
an enthusiastic fervor.
But these considerations would lead me on to a subject which I
had once hoped to treat within the boundaries of the present
volume, but which I am now compelled, owing to the enlargement
of the scheme, to postpone to a future time. That subject is the
relation of religion to ethics. It may have struck some readers as an
omission that I have said nothing of religion as a force inspiring
moral conduct, which is the principal aspect under which it is
regarded by some competent authorities. But the omission has been
altogether intentional. It would take me a long time to explain what
in my judgment has been the actual influence of religion upon
morals in the past, and what is likely to be its influence in the future.
Meanwhile I merely note the fact that this analysis professes to be
complete in its own kind; that I have endeavored to probe the
religious sentiment to the bottom, and to discover all that it
contains. Thus, if religion be not only an emotion, but a moral force,
it must acquire this character in virtue of the relation of its emotional
elements to human character, not in virtue of the presence of ethical
elements actually belonging to the religious emotion, and
comprehended under it by the same indefeasible title as the sense of
the Unknowable itself.
At present, however, I can attempt no answer to the objection
which will no doubt be urged, that so abstract and cold a faith as
that expounded here can afford no satisfaction to the moral
sentiments. Indeed I must to a certain extent admit the reality of the
loss which the adoption of this faith entails. There is consolation no
doubt in the thought of a Heavenly Father who loves us; there is
strength in the idea that he sees and helps us in our continual
combat against evil without and evil within; there is happiness in the
hope that he will assign us in another life an infinite reward for all
the endurances of this. Above all, there is comfort in the reflection
that when we are parted by death we are not parted for ever; that
our love for those whom we have cherished on earth is no
temporary bond, to be broken ere long in bitterness and despair, but
a possession never to be lost again, a union of souls interrupted for
a little while by the separation of the body, only to be again renewed
in far greater perfection and carried on into far higher joys than can
be even imagined here. All this is beautiful and full of fascination:
why should we deny it? Candor compels us to admit that in giving it
up with the other illusions of our younger days we are resigning a
balm for the wounded spirit for which it would be hard to find an
equivalent in all the repertories in Science, and in all the treasures of
philosophy. Yet it must be borne in mind that every step from a
lower to a higher creed involves a precisely similar loss. How much
more beautiful was nature (as Schiller has shown us in his poem on
the gods of Greece) when every fountain, tree and river had its
presiding genius, when the Sun was driven by a divine charioteer,
when the deities of Olympus intervened in the affairs of men to
prevent injustice and to maintain the right. How cold and lifeless,
nay, how profoundly irreligious, would our modern conception of the
earth and the solar system have appeared to the worshiper of
Poseidon and Apollon. And if the loss of the Christian as compared to
the Pagan is thus great, how great also is the loss of the enlightened
Protestant as compared to the ignorant Catholic peasant. What
comfort must be found in the immediate intervention of the Virgin in
answer to prayer, what security afforded by the protection of the
local saint. Or again, how great the pleasure of contributing by our
piety to the release of a friend from purgatorial torment, and of
knowing that our friends will do us the same kindly service.
 Even without contrasting such broad and conspicuous divisions of
Christianity as these, we shall find enough of the same kind of
difference within the limits of Protestantism itself. What mere
intellectual conviction of a future state can vie with the consoling
certainty offered by the Spiritualistic belief, that those whom we
have lost on earth still hover around us in our daily course;
sometimes even appear to us in bodily form, and converse with us in
human speech. No mere hope of meeting them again can for a
moment equal the delight of seeing their well-known shapes and
hearing their familiar tones. Hence the Spiritualist has undoubtedly a
source of comfort in his faith which more rational creeds can offer
nothing to supply. But who that does not share it can envy them so
baseless a conviction, so illusory a joy?
It is, in fact, the very condition of progress that, as we advance in
knowledge and in culture, we give up something on the road. But it
is also a condition that we do not feel the need of that which we
have lost. Not only as we become men do we put away childish
things, but we can no longer realize in thought the enjoyment which
those childish things brought with them. Other interests, new
occupations, deeper affections take the place of the interests, the
occupations, and the affections of our early years. So too should it
be in religion. Men have dwelt upon the love of God because they
could not satisfy the craving of nature for the love of their fellow
men. They have looked forward to eternal happiness in a future life
because they could not find temporary happiness in this. It is these
reflections which point out the way in which the void left by the
removal of the religious affections should hereafter be supplied. The
effort of those who cannot turn for consolation to a friend in heaven
should be to strengthen the bonds of friendship on earth, to widen
the range of human sympathy and to increase its depth. We should
seek that love in one another which we have hitherto been required
to seek in God. Above all, we should sweep away those barriers of
convention and fancied propriety which continually hinder the free
expression of affection, and force us to turn from the restrictions of
the world to One towards whom there need be no irksome
conformity to artificial regulation, and in speaking to whom we are
under no shadow of reserve.
Were we thus permitted to find in our fellow creatures that
sympathy which so many mourners, so many sufferers, so many
lonely hearts, have been compelled to find only in the idea of their
heavenly Father, I hesitate not to say that the consolations of the
new religion would far surpass in their strength and their perfection
all those that were offered by the old. Towards such increasing and
such deepening of the sympathies of humanity I believe that we are
continually tending even now. Meantime, while we are still far from
the promised land, the adherents of the universal religion are not
without a happiness of their own. Their faith is at least a faith of
perfect peace. Untroubled by the storms of controversy, in which so
many others are tossed about, they can welcome all men as
brothers in faith, for all of them, even the most hostile, contribute to
supply the stones of the broad foundation upon which their
philosophy is built. Those therefore who contend against them, be it
even with vehemence and passion, yield, them involuntary help in
bringing the materials upon which their judgment is formed. No man
can truly oppose their religion, for he who seems to be hostile to it is
himself but one of the notes struck by the Unknowable Cause, which
so plays upon the vast instrument of humanity as to bring harmony
out of jangling sounds, and to produce the universal chords of truth
from the individual discords of error. Scientific discoveries and
philosophic inquiries, so fatal to other creeds, touch not the universal
religion. They who accept it can but desire the increase of
knowledge, for even though new facts and deeper reasoning should
overthrow something of what they have hitherto believed and
taught, they will rejoice that their mistakes should be corrected, and
their imperfections brought to light. They desire but the Truth, and
the Truth has made them free. And as in their thoughts they can
wish nothing so much as to know and to believe that which is true,
so in their lives they will express the serenity which that desire will
inevitably bring. They are not pained or troubled because other men
see not as they see. They have no vain hope of a unity of thought
which the very conditions of our being do not permit. They aim not
at conquering the minds of men; far rather would they stimulate and
help them to discover a higher Truth than they themselves have
been permitted to know. And as their action will thus be inspired
with hope of contributing their mite to the treasury of human
knowledge, well-being, and moral good, so their death will be the
expression of that, peaceful faith which has sustained their lives.
Even though torn away when, in their own judgment, they have still
much to do, they will not repine at the necessity of leaving it
undone, even though they are well aware that their names, which
might have been illustrious in the annals of our race, will now be
buried in oblivion. For the disappearance of a single life is but a
ripple on the ocean of humanity, and humanity feels it not. Hence
they will meet their end "sustained and soothed by an unfaltering
trust,"

"Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."

But the opposite fate, sometimes still more terrible, that of

continuing to live when the joys of life are gone, and its purest
happiness is turned into the bitterest pain, will be accepted too.
Thus they will be willing, it need be, to remain in a world where their
labor is not yet ended, even though that labor be wrought through
suffering, despondency, and sorrow; willing also, if need be, to meet
the universal lot—even though it strike them in the midst of
prosperity, happiness, and hope; bowing in either case to the verdict
of fate with unmurmuring resignation and fearless calm.
THE END.
 INDEX.
Abhidharma-Pitaka, its metaphysics, 473-476
Abiogenesis, the theory of, 690;
its destined functions, 702
Abraham, a Hanyf, 195;
story of, 545-546
Acts, the book of, its value, 604;
review of, 604-617
Aditi, the godess, 437
Africa, burial rites in, 430;
divination in, 114;
ordeals in, 119
Africans, western, sacrifice among, 42;
drink-offerings among, 47
Agag hewn in pieces, 598
Age, a golden, traditions of, 538, 539
Agni, the god, 430
Agnosticism allied to mysticism, ii. 489
Ahab, his troubles, 598
Ahuna-Vairya, the, 503, 504
Ahura-Mazda, and Zarathustra, 182, 183;
the god of the Parsees, 185;
ancient worship of, 486, 487;
praise of, 487, 488;
rank and character, 489;
address to, 489, 490;
 worship of, 490-492;
fire and water given by, 493;
questioned by Zarathustra, 497-504;
things which please and things which displease, 497, 498;
prescribes for medical training, 499;
the same as Ormazd, 505;
throughout the god of the Parsees, 508;
creates the world, 535
Aischylos, his conception of the commercial relation between
gods and men, 38
Akaba, the vow of the first and second, 188
Ali, sign at his birth, 226
Amatongo, sacrifice to the, 40
Amuzulus, sacrifice among the, 47
sneezing as an omen among, 111
Amos, his prophecy and history, 61;
conduct towards Amaziah, 573
Anâgâmin, the, 478, 479 (note)
Analysis, ultimate metaphysical, 464
Ananda and the Matangi girl, 285;
and Buddha, 134, 136
Ananias and his wife, story of, 607
Ancestors, worship of, in Fiji and among the Kafirs, 650, 651;
in Peru, 651.
Angekoks, the, consecration of, 100, 101
Apocalypse, the, its author, 634;
its style, 634;
compared with the "Pilgrim's Progress," 634;
its visions, 635, 636
Apollo, worship of, 38;
 his sense of gratitude appealed to, 38;
oracle of the Clarian, 127
Âranyakas, the, 127
Arhats, the, rank of, 444, 445, 457, 458
Asceticism, various degrees of, 89;
in Mexico and Peru, 90-92;
rules of Chinese, 461
Ashem-Vohû, the, 503, 504
Asiti, the Rishi, the child and Buddha, 231
Asoka, the Buddhist king, 450, 451
Astrology, 118
Astrologers in Thibet, 144
Asvagosha, a Buddhist preacher, 122
Atharva-Veda-Sanhitâ, the, 426, 427
Atman, 661
Atmospheric currents, an illustration, 471
Automatism, apparent puzzle of, resolved, 464-466
Australia, burial rites in, 77

Babel, confusion at, 597

Balaam, treatment of, 597
Balaki, the Brahman, 446
Banshee, the Irish, 114
Baptism, a general religious rite, 58;
in Fantee, 59;
among the Cherokees, Aztecs, &c., 59;
in Mexico, 59;
in Mongolia and Thibet, 61;
 among the Parsees, 61;
in the Christian Church, 61, 62;
meaning of the rite, 62, 63
Barabbas, 215, 216
Barnabas, and Paul in Antioch, 611;
taken for Zeus, 611;
separation, 613
Beatitudes, the, 350, 351
Beauty and Bands, allegory of, 573
Beliefs, necessary, vindication of, 678-680;
conditions of, 680;
example, 695, 696
Benfey, translation of the Sâma-Veda Sanhitâ, 425
Bhikshu, a defined, 95
Bhikshus and Bhikshunîs, the, 479
Bible, the, though above, yet among the sacred books of the
world, 369, 370;
forced interpretations of 379, 380;
mostly anonymous, 386;
style of, 389, 390
Birth, religious rites at, among savage nations, 57, 58;
in Mexico, 59, 60;
in Mongolia and Thibet, 61
Bodhisattva, 175-180;
in the womb, 225;
the nature of, 477, 478;
their sacrifice of Nirvâna, 478
Bogda, thaumaturgic powers of, 122
Books, sacred, all civilized nations nearly have, 370, 371;
Greeks and Romans without, 370;
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