Oct. 28, 1880] 



NATURE 



613 



religions of the West, and wlio spoke English well. "It 

 may be interesting," Sir Edward says, "to some of my 

 readers to learn that this excellent priest, possessing a 

 knowledge of England and the English, and also the 

 chief priest who was our host on this occasion, find em- 

 braced in their section of the Buddhist faith all that they 

 consider good and true in the Christian religion, and are 

 not without hope of seeing England adopt this view, and 

 with it the tenets and practice of their faith, which they 

 consider most excellent. It wiU be gratifying, dotibtless, 

 to the many good people at home who look upon Buddhists 

 as eligible for conversion to their particular views of the 

 Christian religion (whatever they may happen to be in 

 each case), to find their own generous and beneficent 

 intentions so entirely reciprocated." 



Over Sir Edward, as over others who have been to 

 Japan, the quiescent (not necessarily extinct) volcano, 

 Fuji-yama, seems to have exercised an influence akin to 



fascination. He was never tired of looking at the snow- 

 covered cone, rising nearly 13,000 feet above the sea in 

 solitary grandeur, and like no other mountain in the 

 world. For hundreds of miles around it is the prominent 

 feature in the landscape, and the first object that meets 

 the traveller's sight coming from south or east. "But 

 the best evidence of the sacred character of Fuji is 

 to be found, I think, in the fact that every person who 

 speaks or writes about it seems naturally to rise more or 

 less into a reverent state of feeling as he does so. It has 

 a real, a strong, and a solemnising influence on all who 

 behold it. Even when it is viewed from beyond other 

 mountains, its sovereign character is very striking ; and 

 when it is seen springing with one tremendous and 

 sublime flight from sea to sky, it is of more sovereign 

 character still." 



But the record of what Sir Edward Reed saw while he 

 was in Japan forms a comparatively small part of the two 



-Curious Japanese Bridge. 



volumes he has written. His interest in the country and 

 its people is so great that he has put himself to consider- 

 able trouble to master their history, their religions, their 

 poUtical and social systems, their art and manufactures, 

 in short ever)'thing that could enable him to understand 

 a civilisation so leal, but so entirely different from any- 

 thing in Europe. The results of all this study, with the 

 conclusions he has come to both from this and from his 

 visit to the country, occupy a considerable part of the 

 work. That a man of the scientific eminence and political 

 experience of Sir Edward Reed should take so much 

 interest in Japan seems to us a proof that it really de- 

 serves the attention of all thoughtful men; and whatever 

 conclusions such an observer may come to ought to have 

 considerable weight with those who are not quite sure 

 what to think of the strange social and political pheno- 

 menon that has been taking place for upwards of ten years 

 in the farthest East. Unless, however, the subject is 



approached in the spirit with which Sir Edward Reed 

 has taken it up, a spirit of thorough seriousness, with an 

 adequate idea of the worthiness of the subject for earnest 

 inquiry, it had better be left alone. A httle learning 

 here is a dangerous thing, and has led some triflers to 

 find only amusement in Japanese history and Japanese 

 ways, as if this were merely a toy civilisation, and 

 not a complicated system which has been the deve- 

 lopment of ages. Sir Edward traces, in his first volume, 

 the history of the Japanese from the earliest " God- 

 period" down to the present time ; discusses their two 

 great religions, the native Shintoism and imported 

 Buddhism, their political and social system, their foreign 

 relations, the recent reforms, and the existing govern- 

 ment. In the second volume, besides the narrative of 

 his journey, he has interesting chapters on art and on the 

 proverbs and phrases of the people ; and both in the 

 second volume and in the introduction he has elaborate 



