THE CAUSE OF THE JAPANESE VIO TORIES.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXII, Issue 12436, 8 April 1908, Page 4

THE CAUSE OF THE JAPANESE VIO TORIES.

In a French magazine Loo-Py writes on the Chinese and the Japanese, and seeks to correct the general but erroneous idea in Europe that these two nations are of the same race. The Chinese belong to the Mongolian race and thje Japanese to the Malayan race, and it is this difference in origin which has determined their distinctico characters. The Japanese, /free politically and religiously, voluntarily come into contact with Europeans, and borrow their ideas, manners, and modern inventions. The Chinese, proud of their ancient civilisation, conscious of their strength, and distrusting the Westerns who have entered the Asiatic continent to commit all sorts of misdeeds, only accept the teachings of Europe after much hesitation and under the pressure of events. The Japanese have transformed themselves into Europeans with the spirit of juveniles, as they formerly tried to become Chinese, even in their vices. In Chinese society the family is much more solidly constituted than it is in Japan. The writer concludes with some interesting remarks on the true causes of the spirit of heroism of the Japanese army. This spirit of heroism, he says, is to be found in the firm belief of the Japanese in the doctrine of metempsychosis, spread by Buddhism. The Japanese are more fervent than the Chinese, and according to the most recent census the seven chief sects of Japanese Buddhism possessed no fewer than 88,000 temples. According to their system of metempsychosis there are six kinds of transmigration of the soul after the death of the human body. In the first, the soul of a man who has lived honestly in his first mortal life passes into the body ofprinces, nobles, superior officers, and ministers. In the second, bad subjects are punished by being reincarnated in the bodies of widowers, orphans, blind persons, and cripples. In the third, the wicked become horses and beasts of burden in expiation of their crimes. The fourth converts them into animals of lower degree; the fifth changes them into fishes and other aquatic creatures, and the sixth condemns them to become insects or more hideous creatures. These beliefs animate the Japanese soldier with admirable courage and contempt for death.