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question is often put by foreigners, ‘Why was this particular part of the body selected for the operation of self-immolation?’ I may say it can only be answered by referring them to a physiological belief as to the seat of the soul. Where lies the essence of life? is a query put forth and meditated upon by the wise men of all ages. The old Jewish prophets said in the bowels, the Greeks in the thumos or phren, the French in the ventre, the Japanese in the hara. Now, hara is a comprehensive term meaning the whole lower front part of the trunk. The large ganglionic centres in the abdomen, which are exceedingly sensitive to any psychic action, gave rise to the belief that there lay the seat of the soul. When Shakespeare puts into Brutus’ mouth, ‘Thy (Cæsar’s) spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords into our proper entrails,’ did he not put the great weight of his authority toward making such a belief plausible? To the practical and labour-saving mind of the West nothing could seem more unnecessary and foolish than to go through all this painful operation when a pistol-shot or a dose of arsenic would answer the purpose just as well. It must be remembered, however, that the Bushido idea of seppuku was not soley ‘to end the thousand and one ills to which flesh is heir.’ Death, as such, was not ‘a consummation devoutly to be wished for.’ Honour was what decided this action in life or death and honour never tolerates the idea of sneaking out of existeuce. The cool deliberation without which seppuku would be impossible was to prove that it was not adopted in haste or in a fit of madness. A clear conscience marked each step of the undertaking. The pain which it necessitated was the measure of the fortitude with which it was borne. In one word the committer of seppuku could say: ‘Bear witness that I die the death of the brave. I shirk no requirement that is demanded of courage.’ Then, too, to the Samurai, death, be it on the field of battle or on the mats (as we say) in peace was to be the crowning glory—‘the last of life, for which the first was made,’ and hence it was to be attended with full honour.

Seppuku is no longer a mode of punishment. The new criminal system code knows nothing of the time-honoured customs and institutions. A new ‘enlightened’ generation of jurists has risen who abhor such relics of barbarism. Youths who have never borne a sword, who have not learned what depth there is in shame and what heights in honour, and who find their standard of right and wrong only in physiology and in statute-books, are fast coming to the front. I mean no offence to Christian teachings, if indeed Christ did teach anything definite against self-murder, when I state that that day will be a sorry day for Japan when her sons shall grow