﻿380 THE SEVENTH DISCOURSE I 



"ble argument, if the preceding part of this discourse, 

 on the origin of the Chinese, be thought to contain 

 just reasoning. In the first place, it seems incon- 

 ceivable that the Japanese , who never appear to have 

 been conquerors or conquered, should have adopted 

 the whole system of Chinese literature with all its in- 

 conveniences and intricacies, if an immemorial con- 

 nexion had not subsisted between the two nations, or, 

 in other words, if the bold and ingenious race who 

 peopled Japan in the middle of the thirteenth cen- 

 tury before Christ, and, about six hundred years 

 afterwards established their monarchy, had not car- 

 ried with them the letters and learning which they 

 and the Chinese had possessed in common ; but my 

 principal argument is, that the Hindu or Egyptian 

 idolatry has prevailed in Japan from the earliest ages ; 

 and among the idols worshipped, according to 

 K<empfer, in that country before the innovations of 

 Sacya or Buddha, whom the Japanese also called Ami- 

 da, we find many of those which we see every day 

 in the temples of Bengal ; particularly the goddess 

 ivith many arms, representing the powers of nature ; in 

 Egypt named Isis, and here Isani or Isi; whose image, 

 as it is exhibited by the German traveller, all the 

 Brahmans to whom I showed it, immediately recog- 

 nized with a mixture of pleasure and enthusiasm. — 

 It is very true that the Chinese differ widely from 

 the natives of Japan in their vernacular dialects, in 

 external manners, and perhaps in the strength of their 

 mental faculties ; but as wide a difference is observa- 

 ble among all the nations of the Gothic family ; and 

 we might account even for a greater dissimilarity, by 

 considering the number of ages during which the se- 

 veral swarms have been separated from the great In- 

 dian hive, to which they primarily belonged. The 

 modern Japanese gave Kampfer the idea of polished 

 Tartars ; and it is reasonable to believe, that the peo- 

 ple of Japan, who were originally Hindus of the mar- 



