Shinto (the Way of the Gods)Aston, W. G. (William George)
Religion
Shinto (the Way of the Gods)
Aston, W. G. (William George)
Shinto
The deification of men, although involving a contradiction in terms,
has yet a substantial and most important truth associated with it.
Great captains, wise rulers, inspired poets, sages and seers, whether
alive or dead, deserve honour to which it is not easy to place a limit.
Napoleon said that one of his generals was worth an army division. Who
shall estimate the value to their respective races, and, indeed, to
humanity, of such men as Shakespeare, Confucius, Mahomet, or Buddha?
Nor are they dead. They live in their works, and subjectively in
the hearts and minds of their countrymen. And may we not go a step
further? Our actions, even the most insignificant, do not remain
locked up in ourselves. As by sensation the whole universe affects us,
so does every impulse of our ego react upon the universe, leaving an
impression which is indelible. The physical world is different for the
most trifling act of the meanest human being that ever lived. All our
emotions and thoughts have a counterpart in our physical constitution,
which is resolvable into motion, and is therefore indestructible. The
doctrine of the conservation of energy is the physical counterpart of
the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Each involves the other.
Assuming, therefore, that all motion is accompanied by something
akin to sensation, it will be seen that dead men may continue to have
perhaps even a sentient existence equal to the sum of the reactions of
their ego upon its environment, animate or inanimate, during life. It
is the remembered total energies of the man which, I take it, form the
object of honour and worship after he is dead, and not his corpse or
ghost. The latter is a mere accident, of secondary origin, and is by no
means universally recognized.
In justification of man-worship, it may also be pleaded that if the
nature-deity is truer, the man-deity is nearer to us and more capable
of vivid realization. And as it is from the sympathetic recognition
of life in our fellow men that we proceed to the recognition of life
in the so-called inanimate universe, so it is by the contemplation of
the highest types of humanity that we are able to refine and exalt our
conception of divinity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account