thear gouvernours and superiores." (Will Adams, early in the seventeenth century.)
"Bold,… heroic,… revengeful,… desirous of fame,… very industrious and enured to hardships,… great lovers of civility and good manners, and very nice in keeping themselves, their cloaths and houses, clean and neat… As to all sorts, of handicrafts, either curious or useful, they are wanting neither proper materials, nor industry and application, and so far is it, that they should have any occasion to send for masters from abroad, that they rather exceed all other nations in ingenuity and neatness of workmanship, particularly in brass, gold, silver and copper… Now if we proceed farther to consider the Japanese, with regard to sciences and the embellishments of our mind, Philosophy perhaps will be found wanting. The Japanese indeed are not so far enemies to this Science, as to banish the Country those who cultivate it, but they think it an amusement proper for monasteries, where the monks leading an idle lazy life, have little else to trouble their heads about. However, this relates chiefly to the speculative part, for as to the moral part, they hold it in great esteem, as being of a higher and divine origin I confess indeed, that they are wholly ignorant of musick, so far as it is a science built upon certain precepts of harmony. They like wise know nothing of mathematicks, more especially of its deeper and speculative parts. No body ever cultivated these sciences but we Europeans, nor did any other nations endeavour to embellish the mind with the clear light of mathematical and demonstrative reasoning They profess a great respect and veneration for their Gods, and worship them in various ways: And I think I may affirm, that in the practice of virtue, in purity of life, and outward devotion, they far out-do the Christians: Careful for the Salvation of their Souls, scrupulous to excess in the expiation of their crimes, and extremely desirous of future happiness. Their Laws and Constitutions are excellent, and strictly observed, severe penalties being put upon the least transgression of any. (Engelbert Kaempfer, end of seventeenth century.)
