ABSTRACT
KUME KUNITAKE, the author of the Bei-Ō Kairan Jikki (a true account of the tour of the Special Embassy to the US and Europe), is also well known as one of the first professors of history at the Imperial University who was forced to resign because of his article, ‘Shinto wa saiten no kozoku’ (Shintoism is a Primitive Custom of Heaven Worship). The so-called Kume Affair is regarded as a conflict between science of history and politics or ethics.1
