102 FUNCTIONAL INERTIA 



" Buddhism eventually overspread the national 

 life, and coloured all the national thought. Yet 

 the extraordinary conservatism of the ancient 

 ancestor-cult its inherent power of resisting fusion 

 was exemplified by the readiness with which 

 the two religions fell apart on the disestablish- 

 ment of Buddhism, 1871." * " After having 

 been literally overlaid by Buddhism for nearly a 

 thousand years, Shinto immediately resumed its 

 archaic simplicity and re-established the unaltered 

 forms of its earliest rites." Here, indeed, is psychic 

 inertia causing the swing-back of the national 

 pendulum after a thousand years ; the national 

 psychic rocking-stone had here a very slow swing. 

 The relations of national psychic inertia to in- 

 heritance that <f something" that stands over against 

 environment are well expressed in the following 

 passages : f " even to-day the manners of the 

 people ^ everywhere still reveal the nature of the 

 old discipline " (Shinto) : "all these ordinary 

 actions have a charm of seeming naturalness that 

 mere teaching seems incapable of producing : " 

 " and this is still more true of the higher 

 etiquette . . . particularly as displayed by women." 

 Again, :i we must suppose that the capacity to 

 acquire such manners depends considerably upon 

 inheritance, that it could only have been formed 

 by the past experience of the race under discip- 

 line." While all this is true of the degree of psychic 



* Lafcadio Hearne, " Japan, an Attempt at Interpretation," 

 p. 205. (London: Macmillan, 1904.) f Ibid. p. 192. 



