Oriental Philology – Japanese Studies

To live classically and to realize antiquity practically within oneself is the summit and goal of philology.

Philologists, who chase
A panting syllable through time and space,
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark,
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark.

Among us, the so-called "higher criticism," which reigns supreme in the domain of philology has also taken possession of our historical literature. This higher criticism has been the pretext for introducing all the anti-historical monstrosities that a vain imagination could suggest. Here we have the other method of making the past a living reality; putting subjective fancies in the place of historical data; fancies whose merit is measured by their boldness, that is, the scantiness of the particulars on which they are based, and the peremptoriness with which they contravene the best established facts of history.