Not even officials can be so stupid as to believe in things
which they have themselves invented." We venture to think
that you are wrong here. People can always believe that which
it is greatly to their interest to believe. Thousands of
excellent persons in our own society cling to the doctrine
of a future life on no stronger evidence. It is enormously
important to the Japanese ruling class that the mental
attitude sketched above should become universal among their
countrymen. Accordingly, they achieve the apparently
impossible. "We believe in it," said one of them to us
recently--"we believe in it, although we know that it is not
true." Tertullian said nearly the same thing, and no one has
ever doubted HIS sincerity.