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Title: Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic

Author: Sidney Lewis Gulick

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVOLUTION OF
THE JAPANESE, SOCIAL AND PSYCHIC ***

Evolution of the Japanese

Social and Psychic
BY

SIDNEY L. GULICK, M.A.
Missionary of the American Board in Japan

NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 63 Washington Street
Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 30 St. Mary Street

THE GROWTH OF THE
KINGDOM OF GOD
By
SIDNEY L. GULICK, M.A.
Illustrated with Twenty-six Diagrams
12 mo, Cloth, $1.50
“Commends itself to thoughtful,
earnest men of any nation as a most
valuable missionary paper. Mr.
Gulick traces the Christian religion
through history and up to now. The
survey is calm, patient, thoroughly
honest, and quietly assured.”
--Evangelist.

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
Publishers

PREFACE
The present work is an attempt to interpret the characteristics of modern
Japan in the light of social science. It also seeks to throw some light on the
vexed question as to the real character of so-called race-nature, and the
processes by which that nature is transformed. If the principles of social
science here set forth are correct, they apply as well to China and India as to
Japan, and thus will bear directly on the entire problem of Occidental and
Oriental social intercourse and mutual influence.
The core of this work consists of addresses to American and English
audiences delivered by the writer during his recent furlough. Since
returning to Japan, he has been able to give but fragments of time to the
completion of the outlines then sketched, and though he would gladly
reserve the manuscript for further elaboration, he yields to the urgency of
friends who deem it wise that he delay no longer in laying his thought
before the wider public.
To Japanese readers the writer wishes to say that although he has not
hesitated to make statements painful to a lover of Japan, he has not done it
to condemn or needlessly to criticise, but simply to make plain what seem
to him to be the facts. If he has erred in his facts or if his interpretations
reflect unjustly on the history or spirit of Japan, no one will be more glad
than he for corrections. Let the Japanese be assured that his ruling motive,
both in writing about Japan and in spending his life in this land, is profound
love for the Japanese people. The term "native" has been freely used
because it is the only natural correlative for "foreign." It may be well to say
that neither the one nor the other has any derogatory implication, although
anti-foreign natives, and anti-native foreigners, sometimes so use them.
The indebtedness of the writer is too great to be acknowledged in detail.
But whenever he has been conscious of drawing directly from any author
for ideas or suggestions, effort has been made to indicate the source.
Since the preparation of the larger part of this work several important
contributions to the literature on Japan have appeared which would have

been of help to the writer, could he have referred to them during the
progress of his undertaking. Rev. J.C.C. Newton's "Japan: Country, Court,
and People"; Rev. Otis Cary's "Japan and Its Regeneration"; and Prof. J.
Nitobe's "Bushido: The Soul of Japan," call for special mention. All are
excellent works, interesting, condensed, informative, and well-balanced.
Had the last named come to hand much earlier it would have received
frequent reference and quotation in the body of this volume, despite the fact
that it sets forth an ideal rather than the actual state of Old Japan.
Special acknowledgment should be made of the help rendered by my
brothers, Galen M. Fisher and Edward L. Gulick, and by my sister, Mrs.
F.F. Jewett, in reading and revising the manuscript. Acknowledgment
should also be made of the invaluable criticisms and suggestions in regard
to the general theory of social evolution advocated in these pages made by
my uncle, Rev. John T. Gulick, well known to the scientific world for his
contributions to the theory as well as to the facts of biological evolution.
S.L.G.
MATSUYAMA, JAPAN.

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 13

I. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
Occidental conceptions of the recent history of Japan—Japan seems to be
contradicting our theory of national evolution—Similarities of ancient and
modern Japan—Japanese evolution is "natural"—The study of Japanese
social evolution is of unusual interest, because it has experienced such
marked changes—Because it is now in a stage of rapid growth—And is
taking place before our eyes—Also because here is taking place a unique
union of Occidental and Oriental civilizations—Comparison between India
and Japan, 23
II. HISTORICAL SKETCH
Mythology and tradition—Authentic history—Old Japan—The transition
from Old to New Japan—New Japan—Compelled by foreign nations to
centralize—Ideals and material instruments supplied from abroad—
Exuberant Patriotism—"Ai-koku-shin," 35

III. THE PROBLEM OF PROGRESS
Is Japan making progress?—Happiness as a criterion—The oppressive rule
of militarism—The emptiness of the ordinary life—The condition of
woman—"The Greater Learning for Woman"—Divorce—Progress defined
—Deficiency of the hedonistic criterion of progress, 52

IV. THE METHOD OF PROGRESS

Progress a modern conception and ideal—How was the "cake of custom"
broken?—"Government by discussion" an insufficient principle of progress
—Two lines of progress, Ideal and Material—The significance of Perry's
coming to Japan—Effect on Japan of Occidental ideas—The material
element of progress—Mistaken praise of the simplicity of Old Japan, L.
Hearn—The significance of the material element of civilization—Mastery
of nature—The defect of Occidental civilization, 61

V. JAPANESE SENSITIVENESS TO ENVIRONMENT
Our main question—Illustrations—Japanese students abroad—
Sensitiveness to ridicule—Advantages and disadvantages of this
characteristic—National sensitiveness to foreign criticism—Nudity—
Formosa—Mental and physical flexibility—Adjustability—Some apparent
exceptions—Chinese ideographs—How account for these characteristics,
72
VI. WAVES OF FEELING—ABDICATION
The Japanese are emotional—An illustration from politics—The tendency
to run to extremes—Danger of overemphasizing this tendency—Japanese
silent dissent—Men of balance in public life—Abdication—Gubbins
quoted—Is abdication an inherent trait? 82

VII. HEROES AND HERO-WORSHIP
Popular national heroes—The craving for modern heroes—Townsend
Harris's insight into Oriental character—Hero-worship an obstacle to
missionary work—Capt. Jaynes—An experience in Kumamoto—"The sage
of Omi"—"The true hero"—Moral heroes in Japan—The advantage and
disadvantage of hero-worship—Modern moral heroes—Hero-worship
depends on personality and idealism—The new social order is producing
new ideals and new heroes, 89

VIII. LOVE FOR CHILDREN

Japanese love for children—Children's festivals—Toys and toy-stores—Do
Japanese love children more than Americans do?—Importance in Japan of
maintaining the family line—The looseness of the Japanese family tie—
Early cessation of demonstrative affection—Infanticide, 96
IX. MARITAL LOVE
Affection between husband and wife—Occidental and Oriental estimate of
woman contrasted—This a subject easily-misunderstood—Kissing a social
habit unknown in Japan—Demonstrative affection a social, not a racial
characteristic—Some specific illustrations, Dr. Neesima—A personal
experience—Illegitimate children—Fraudulent registration—Adult
adoption—Divorce—Monogamy, polygamy, and prostitution—Race
character, social order, and affection—Position of women—The social
order and affection—The social order and the valuation of man and woman
—The new social order and the valuation of man—The spread of Christian
ideals and the re-organization of the family, 102

X. CHEERFULNESS—INDUSTRY—TRUTHFULNESS—
SUSPICIOUSNESS
Japanese cheerfulness—Festivals—Pessimism existent, but easily
overlooked—The ubiquity of children gives an appearance of cheerfulness
—Industry—Illustrations—Easy-going—Sociological interpretation—
Mutual confidence and trustfulness—Relation to communalistic feudalism
—Changes in the social order and in character—The American Board's
experience in trusting Japanese honor—The Doshisha and its difficulties—
Suspiciousness—Necessary under the old social order—The need of
constant care in conversation, 115

XI. JEALOUSY—REVENGE—HUMANE FEELINGS
Jealousy particularly ascribed to women—How related to the social order—
Is jealousy limited to women?—Revenge—Taught as a moral duty—
Revenge and the new social order—Are the Japanese cruel?—First
impressions—Treatment of the insane—Of lepers—The cruelty and

hardness of heart of Old Japan—Buddhistic teaching and practice—
Buddhist and Christian Orphan Asylums—Treatment of horses—Torture in
Old Japan—Crucifixion and transfixion by spears—Hard-heartedness
cultivated under feudalism—Cruelty and the humane feelings in the
Occident—Abolition of cruel customs in ancient and in Old Japan—Cruelty
a sociological, not a biological characteristic—The rise of humane feelings
—Doctors and hospitals—Philanthropy, 127
XII. AMBITION—CONCEIT
Ambition, both individual and national—The "Kumamoto Band"—Self-
confidence and conceit—Refined in nature—Illustrations in the use of
English—Readiness of young men to assume grave responsibilities—A
product of the social order—Assumptions of inferiority by the common
people—Obsequiousness—Modern self-confidence and assumptions not
without ground—Self-confidence and success—Self-confidence and
physical size—Young men and the recent history of Japan—The self-
confidence and conceit of Western nations—The open-mindedness of most
Japanese, 137

XIII. PATRIOTISM—APOTHEOSIS—COURAGE
"Yamato-Damashii": "The Soul of Japan"—Patriotism and the recent war
with China—Patriotism of Christian orphans—Mr. Ishii—Patriotism is for a
person, not for country—National patriotism is modern—Passionate
devotion to the Emperor—A gift of 20,000,000 yen to the Emperor—The
constitution derives its authority from the Emperor—A quotation from Prof.
Yamaguchi—Japanese Imperial succession is of Oriental type—Concubines
and children of the reigning Emperor—Apotheosis, Oriental and Occidental
—Apotheosis and national unity—The political conflict between Imperial
and popular sovereignty—Japanese and Roman apotheosis—Prof. Nash
quoted—Courage—Cultivated in ancient times—A peculiar feature of
Japanese courage—"Harakiri"—E. Griffis quoted—A boy hero—Relation
of courage to social order—Japanese courage not only physical—modern
instance of moral courage, 144

XIV. FICKLENESS—STOLIDITY—STOICISM
Illustrations of fickleness—Prof. Chamberlain's explanation—Fickleness a
modern trait—Continuity of purpose in spite of changes of method—The
youth of those on whom responsibility rests—Fluctuation of interest in
Christianity not a fair illustration—The period of fluctuation is passing
away—Impassiveness—"Putty faces"—Distinguish between stupidity and
stoicism—Stupid stolidity among the farmers—Easily removed—Social
stolidity cultivated—Demanded by the old social order—The influence of
Buddhism in suppressing expression of emotion—An illustration of
suppressed curiosity—Lack of emotional manifestations when the Emperor
appears in public—Stolidity a social, not a racial trait—A personal
experience—The increased vivacity of Christian women—Relations of
emotional to intellectual development and to the social order, 159

XV. ÆSTHETIC CHARACTERISTICS
The wide development of the æsthetic sense in Japan—Japanese æsthetic
development is unbalanced—The sense of smell—Painting—Japanese art
pays slight attention to the human form—Sociological interpretation—The
nude in Japanese art—Relation to the social order—Art and immorality—
Caricature—Fondness for the abnormal in nature—Abnormal stones—Tosa
cocks—Æsthetics of speech—The æsthetic sense and the use of personal
pronouns—Deficiency of the æsthetic development in regard to speech—
Sociological explanations—Close relation of æsthetics and conduct—
Sociological explanation for the wide development of the æsthetic sense—
The classes lived in close proximity—The spirit of dependence and
imitation—Universality of culture more apparent than real—Defects of
æsthetic taste—Defective etiquette—How accounted for—Old and new
conditions—"Western taste debasing Japanese art"—Illustration of
aboriginal æsthetic defects—Colored photographs—Æsthetic defects of
popular shrines—The æsthetics of music—Experience of the Hawaiian
people—Literary æsthetic development—Aston quoted—Architectural
æsthetic development—Æsthetic development is sociological rather than
biological, 170

XVI. MEMORY—IMITATION
Psychological unity of the East and the West—Brain size and social
evolution—The size of the Japanese brain—Memory—Learning Chinese
characters—Social selection and mnemonic power—Japanese memory in
daily life—Memory of uncivilized and semi-civilized peoples—Hindu
memory—Max Müller quoted—Japanese acquisition of foreign languages
—The argument from language for the social as against the biological
distinction of races—The faculty of imitation; is not to be despised—Prof.
Chamberlain's over-emphasis of Japanese imitation—Originality in
adopting Confucianism and Buddhism—"Shinshu"—"Nichirenshu"—
Adoption of Chinese philosophy—Dr. Knox's over-emphasis of servile
adoption—Our ignorance of Japanese history of thought—A reason for
Occidental misunderstanding—The incubus of governmental initiative—
Relation of imitation to the social order, 189
XVII. ORIGINALITY—INVENTIVENESS
Originality in art—Authoritative suppression of originality—Townsend
Harris quoted—Suppression of Christianity and of heterodox Confucianism
—Modern suppression of historical research—Yet Japan is not wholly
lacking in originality—Recent discoveries and inventions—Originality in
borrowing from the West—Quotations from a native paper, 203

XVIII. INDIRECTNESS—"NOMINALITY"
"Roundaboutness"—Some advantages of this characteristic—Illustrations—
Study of English for direct and accurate habits of thought—Rapid modern
growth of directness—"Nominality"—All Japanese history an illustration—
The Imperial rule only nominal—The daimyo as a figure-head
—"Nominality" in ordinary life—In family relations—Illustrations in
Christian work—A "nominal" express train—"Nominality" and the social
order, 210

XIX. INTELLECTUALITY

Do Japanese lack the higher mental faculties?—Evidence of inventions—
Testimony of foreign teachers—Japanese students, at home and abroad—
Readiness in public speech—Powers of generalization in primitive Japan
—"Ri" and "Ki," "In" and "Yo"—Japanese use of Chinese generalized
philosophical terms—Generalization and the social order—Defective
explanation of puerile Oriental science—Relation to the mechanical
memory method of education—High intellectuality dependent on social
order, 218

XX. PHILOSOPHICAL ABILITY
Do Japanese lack philosophical ability?—Some opinions—Some
distinctions—Japanese interest in metaphysical problems—Buddhist and
Confucian metaphysics—Metaphysics and ethics—Japanese students of
Occidental philosophy—A personal experience—"The little philosopher"—
A Buddhist priest—Rarity of original philosophical ability and even interest
—Philosophical ability and the social order in the West, 225

XXI. IMAGINATION
Some criticisms of Japanese mental traits—Wide range of imaginative
activity—Some salient points—Unbalanced imaginative development—
Prosaic matter-of-factness—Visionariness—Impractical idealism—
Illustrations—An evangelist—A principal—Visionariness in Christian work
—Visionariness in national ambition—Imagination and optimism—Mr.
Lowell's opinion criticised—Fancy and imagination—Caricature—
Imagination and imitation—Sociological interpretation of visionariness—
And of prosaic matter-of-factness—Communalism and the higher mental
powers—Suppression of the constructive imagination—Racial intellectual
characteristics are social rather than inherent, 233

XXII. MORAL IDEALS

Loyalty and filial piety as moral ideals—Quotations from an ancient
moralist, Muro Kyuso—On the heavenly origin of moral teaching—On
self-control—Knowledge comes through obedience—On the impurity of
ancient literature—On the ideal of the samurai in relation to trade—Old
Japan combined statute and ethical law—"The testament of Iyeyasu"—
Ohashi's condemnation of Western learning for its impiety—Japanese moral
ideals were communal—Truthfulness undeveloped—Relations of samurai
to tradesman—The business standards are changing with the social order—
Ancient Occidental contempt for trade—Plato and Aristotle, 249

XXIII. MORAL IDEALS (Continued)
The social position of woman—Valuation of the individual—Confucian and
Buddhistic teaching in regard to concubinage and polygamy—Sociological
interpretation—Japan not exceptional—Actual morality of Old Japan—
Modern growth of immorality—Note on the "Social Evil"—No ancient
teaching in regard to masculine chastity—Mr. Hearn's mistaken contention
—Filial obedience and prostitution—How could the social order produce
two different moral ideals?—The new Civil Code on marriage—Divorce—
Statistics—Modern advance of woman—Significance of the Imperial Silver
Wedding—The Wedding of the Prince Imperial—Relation of Buddhism and
Confucianism to moral ideals and practice—The new spirit of Buddhism—
Christian influence on Shinto; Tenri Kyo—The ancient moralists confined
their attention to the rulers—The Imperial Edict in regard to Moral
Education, 258

XXIV. MORAL PRACTICE
The publicity of Japanese life—Public bathing—Personal experience at a
hot-spring—Mr. Hearn on privacy—Individualism and variation from the
moral standard—Standards advancing—Revenge—Modern liberty of travel
—Increase of wealth—Increasing luxury and vice—Increase of
concubinage—Native discussions—Statistics—Business honesty—A native
paper quoted—Some experiences with Christians—Testimony of a
Japanese consul—Difference of gifts to Buddhist and to Christian

institutions—Christian condemnation of Doshisha mismanagement—
Misappropriation of trust funds in the West—Business honesty and the
social order—Fitness of Christianity to the new social order—A summary
—Communal virtues—Individual Vices—The authority of the moral ideal
—Moral characteristics are not inherent, but social, in nature, 273

XXV. ARE THE JAPANESE RELIGIOUS?
Prof. Pfleiderer's view—Percival Lowell's definition of religion—Japanese
appearance of irreligion due to many facts—Skeptical attitude of Confucius
towards the gods—Ready acceptance of Western agnosticism—Prof.
Chamberlain's assertion that the Japanese take their religion lightly—
Statements concerning religion by Messrs. Fukuzawa, Kato, and Ito—
Statements of Japanese irreligion are not to be lightly accepted—
Incompetence of many critics—We must study all the religious phenomena
—Pilgrimages—Statistics—Mr. Lowell's criticism of "peripatetic picnic
parties"—Is religion necessarily gloomy?—God and Buddha shelves
universal in Japan—Temples and shrines—Statistics, 286

XXVI. SOME RELIGIOUS PHENOMENA
Stoical training conceals religious emotions—The earnestness of many
suppliants—Buddhistic and Shinto practice of religious ecstasy—The revolt
from Buddhism a religious movement—Muro Kyu-so quoted—"Heaven's
Way"—"God's omnipresence"—Pre-Christian teachers of Christian truth—
Interpretation of modern irreligious phenomena—Japanese apparent lack of
reverence—Not an inherent racial characteristic—Sketch of Japanese
religious history—Shinto—Buddhism—Confucianism—Christianity—
Roman Catholicism—Protestantism—Religious characteristics are social,
not essential or racial, 296

XXVII. SOME RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS

Japanese conceptions as to deity—The number and relation of the gods to
the universe—Did the Japanese have the monotheistic conception?—
Attractiveness of Christian monotheism—Confucian and Buddhist monism
—Religious conception of man—Conception of sin—Defective
terminology—Relation of sin to salvation—"Holy water"—Holy towels and
the spread of disease—The slight connection between physical and moral
pollution—W.E. Griffis quoted—Exaggerated cleanliness of the Japanese—
Public bathing houses—Consciousness of sin in the sixteenth century—A
recent experience—Doctrine of the future life—Salvation from fate
—"Ingwa"—These are important doctrines—"Mei" (Heaven's decree)—
Japan not unique—Sociological interpretations of religious characteristics,
310

XXVIII. SOME RELIGIOUS PRACTICES
Loyalty and filial piety as religious phenomena—Gratitude as a religions
trait—Hearn quoted—Unpleasant experiences of ingratitude—Modern
suppression of phallicism—Brothels and prostitutes at popular shrines—
The failure of higher ethnic faiths to antagonize the lower—Suppression of
phallicism due to Western opinion—The significance of this suppression to
sociological theory—Religious liberty—Some history—Inconsistent
attitude of the Educational Department—Virtual establishment of
compulsory state religion—Review and summary—The Japanese ready
learners of foreign religions—The significance of this to sociology—
Japanese future religion is to be Christianity, 322

XXIX. SOME PRINCIPLES OF NATIONAL EVOLUTION
Progress is from smaller to larger communities—Arrest of development—
The necessity of individualism—The relation of communal to individual
development—A possible misunderstanding—The problem of distribution
—Personality, 332

XXX. ARE THE JAPANESE IMPERSONAL?

Assertion of Oriental impersonality—Quotations from Percival Lowell—
Defective and contradictory definitions—Arguments for impersonality
resting on mistaken interpretations—Children's festivals—Occidental and
Oriental method of counting ages—Argument for impersonality from
Japanese art—From the characteristics of the Japanese family—The bearing
of divorce on this argument—Do Japanese "fall in love"?—Suicide and
murder for love—Occidental approval and Oriental condemnation of
"falling in love"—Sociological significance of divorce and of "falling in
love," 344
XXXI. THE JAPANESE NOT IMPERSONAL
The problem stated—Definitions—Remarks on definitions—Characteristics
of a person—Impersonality defined—A preliminary summary statement—
Definitions of Communalism and Individualism—The argument for
"impersonality" from Japanese politeness—Some difficulties of this
interpretation—The sociological interpretation of politeness—The
significance of Japanese sensitiveness—Altruism as a proof of
impersonality—Japanese selfishness and self-assertiveness—Distinction
between communal and individualistic altruism—Deficiency of personal
pronouns as a proof of impersonality—A possible counter-argument—
Substitutes for personal pronouns—Many personal words in Japanese—
Origin of pronouns, personal and others—The relation of the social order to
the use of personal pronouns—Japanese conceive Nationality only through
Personality—"Strong" and "weak" personality—Strong personalities in
Japan—Feudalism and strong personalities, 356

XXXII. IS BUDDHISM IMPERSONAL?
Self-suppression as a proof of impersonality—Self-suppression cannot be
ascribed to a primitive people—Esoteric Buddhism not popular—Buddhism
emphasized introspection and self-consciousness—Mr. Lowell on the
teaching of Buddha—Consciousness of union with the Absolute a
developed, not a primitive, trait—Buddhist self-suppression proves a
developed self—Buddhist self-salvation and Christian salvation by faith—
Buddhism does not develop rounded personality—Buddhism attributes no
worth to the self—Buddhist mercy rests on the doctrine of transmigration,

not on the inherent worth of man—Analysis of the diverse elements in the
asserted "Impersonality "—Why Buddhism attributed no value to the self—
The Infinite Absolute Abstraction—Buddhism not impersonal but abstract
—Buddhist doctrine of illusion—Popular Buddhism not philosophical—
Relation of "ingwa," Fate, to the development of personality—Relation of
belief in freedom to the fact of freedom—Sociological consequences of
Buddhist doctrine, 377

XXXIII. TRACES OF PERSONALITY IN SHINTOISM, BUDDHISM,
AND CONFUCIANISM
Human illogicalness providential—Some devices for avoiding the evils of
logical conclusions—Buddhistic actual appeal to personal self-activity—
Practical Confucianism an antidote to Buddhist poison—Confucian ethics
produced strong persons—The personal conception of deity is widespread
—Shinto gods all persons—Popular Buddhist gods are personal—
Confucian "Heaven" implies personality—The idea of personality not
wholly wanting in the Orient—The idea of divine personality not difficult
to impart to a Japanese—A conversation with a Buddhist priest—Sketch of
the development of Japanese personality—Is personality inherent?—
Intrinsic and phenomenal personality—Note on the doctrine of the
personality of God, 389

XXXIV. THE BUDDHIST WORLD-VIEW
Comparison of Buddhist, Greek, and Christian conceptions of God—
Nirvana—The Buddhistic Ultimate Reality absolute vacuity—Greek
affirmation of intelligence in the Ultimate Reality—Christian affirmation of
Divine Personality—The Buddhist universe is partly rational and ethical—
The Greek universe is partly rational and ethical—Corresponding views of
sin, salvation, change, and history—Resulting pessimism and optimism—
Consequences to the respective civilizations and their social orders, 398

XXXV. COMMUNAL AND INDIVIDUAL ELEMENTS IN THE
EVOLUTION OF JAPANESE RELIGIOUS LIFE
Japanese religious life has been predominantly communal—Shinto
provided the sanctions for the social order—Recent abdication of Shinto as
a religion—Primitive Shinto world—view—Shinto and modern science—
Shinto sanctions for the modern social order—Buddhism is individualistic
—Lacks social ideals and sanctions—Hence it could not displace Shinto—
Shinto and Buddhism are supplementary—Produced a period of prosperity
—The defect of Buddhist individualism—Imperfect acceptance of Shinto—
Effect of political history—Confucianism restored the waning communal
sanctions—The difference between Shinto and Confucian social ideals and
sanctions—The difference between Shinto and Confucian world-views—
Rejection of the Confucian social order—An interpretation—The failure of
Confucianism to become a religion—Western intercourse re-established
Shinto sanctions—Japan's modern religious problem—Difficulty of
combining individual and communal religious elements—Christianity has
accomplished it—Individualism in and through communalism—A modern
expansion of communal religion—Shared by Japan—Some Japanese
recognize the need of religion for Japan—Sociological function of
individualistic religion in the higher human evolution—Obstacle to
evolution through the development of intellect—The Japanese mind is
outgrowing its old religious conceptions—The dependence of religious
phenomena on the ideas dominating society—Note on National and
Universal religions—Buddhism not properly classified as Universal—The
classification of religions, 404

XXXVI. WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF
THE ORIENT
The conclusion reached in this work—Contrary to the opinion of tourists,
residents, and many sociologists—Professor Le Bon quoted—Social
psychic characteristics not inherent—Evolution and involution—Advocates
of inherent Oriental traits should catalogue those traits—An attempt by the
London Daily Mail—Is the East inherently intuitive, and the West logical?
—The difficulty of becoming mutually acquainted—The secret of genuine

acquaintance—Is the East inherently meditative and the West active?—
Oriental unity and characteristics are social, not inherent—Isolated
evolution is divergent—Mutual influence of the East and the West—
Summary statement, 422

XXXVII. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
Review of our course of thought—Purpose of this chapter—The problem
studied in this work—Interrelation of social and psychic phenomena—
Heredity defined and analyzed—Evolution defined—Exact definition of our
question, and our reply—What would be an adequate disproof of our
position—Reasons for limiting the discussion to advanced races—
Divergent evolution dependent on segregation—Distinction between racial
and social unity—Relation of the individual psychic character to the social
order—"Race soul" a convenient fiction—Psychic function produces
psychic organism—Causes and nature of plasticity and fixity of society—
Relation of incarnate ideas to character and destiny—Valuelessness of
"floating" ideas—Progress is at once communal and individual—
Personality is its cause, aim, and criterion—Progress in personality is
ethico-religious—Japanese social and psychic evolution not exceptional,
438

INTRODUCTION
The tragedy enacted in China during the closing year of the nineteenth
century marks an epoch in the history of China and of the world. Two
world-views, two types of civilization met in deadly conflict, and the
inherent weakness of isolated, belated, superstitious and corrupt paganism
was revealed. Moreover, during this, China's crisis, Japan for the first time
stepped out upon the world's stage of political and military activity. She was
recognized as a civilized nation, worthy to share with the great nations of
the earth the responsibility of ruling the lawless and backward races.
The correctness of any interpretation as to the significance of this conflict
between the opposing civilizations turns, ultimately, on the question as to
what is the real nature of man and of society. If it be true, as maintained by
Prof. Le Bon and his school, that the mental and moral character of a people
is as fixed as its physiological characteristics, then the conflict in China is at
bottom a conflict of races, not of civilizations.
The inadequacy of the physiological theory of national character may be
seen almost at a glance by a look at Japan. Were an Oriental necessarily and
unchangeably Oriental, it would have been impossible for Japan to have
come into such close and sympathetic touch with the West.
The conflict of the East with the West, however, is not an inherent and
unending conflict, because it is not racial, but civilizational. It is a conflict
of world-views and systems of thought and life. It is a conflict of heathen
and Christian civilizations. And the conflict will come to an end as soon as,
and in proportion as, China awakes from her blindness and begins to build
her national temple on the bedrock of universal truth and righteousness. The
conflict is practically over in Japan because she has done this. In loyally
accepting science, popular education, and the rights of every individual to
equal protection by the government, Japan has accepted the fundamental
conceptions of civilization held in the West, and has thus become an
integral part of Christendom, a fact of world-wide significance. It proves
that the most important differences now separating the great races of men

are civilizational, not physiological. It also proves that European, American,
and Oriental peoples may be possessed by the same great ideals of life and
principles of action, enabling them to co-operate as nations in great
movements to their mutual advantage.
While even we of the West may be long in learning the full significance of
what has been and still is taking place in Japan and more conspicuously just
now, because more tragically, in China, one thing is clear: steam and
electricity have abolished forever the old isolation of the nations.
Separated branches of the human race that for thousands of years have been
undergoing divergent evolution, producing radically different languages,
customs, civilizations, systems of thought and world-views, and have
resulted even in marked physiological and psychological differences, are
now being brought into close contact and inevitable conflict. But at bottom
it is a conflict of ideas, not of races. The age of isolation and divergent
evolution is passing away, and that of international association and
convergent social evolution has begun. Those races and nations that refuse
to recognize the new social order, and oppose the cosmic process and its
forces, will surely be pushed to the wall and cease to exist as independent
nations, just as, in ancient times, the tribes that refused to unite with
neighboring tribes were finally subjugated by those that did so unite.
Universal economic, political, intellectual, moral, and religious intercourse
is the characteristic of the new æon on which we are entering. What are to
be the final consequences of this wide intercourse? Can a people change its
character? Can a nation fully possessed by one type of civilization reject it,
and adopt one radically different? Do races have "souls" which are fixed
and incapable of radical transformations? What has taken place in Japan, a
profound, or only a superficial change in psychical character? Are the
destinies of the Oriental races already unalterably determined?
The answers to these questions have already been suggested in the
preceding paragraphs, in regard to what has already taken place in Japan.
But we may add that that answer really turns on our conception as to the
nature of the characteristics separating the East from the West. In proportion
as national character is reckoned to be biological, will it be considered fixed
and the national destiny predetermined. In proportion as it is reckoned to be

sociological, will it be considered alterable and the national destiny subject
to new social forces. Now that the intercourse of widely different races has
begun on a scale never before witnessed, it is highly important for us to
know its probable consequences. For this we need to gain a clear idea of the
nature both of the individual man and of society, of the relation of the social
order to individual and to race character, and of the law regulating and the
forces producing social evolution. Only thus can we forecast the probable
course and consequences of the free social intercourse of widely divergent
races.
It is the belief of the writer that few countries afford so clear an illustration
of the principles involved in social evolution as Japan. Her development has
been so rapid and so recent that some principles have become manifest that
otherwise might easily have escaped notice. The importance of
understanding Japan, because of the light her recent transformations throw
on the subject of social evolution and of national character and also because
of the conspicuous rôle to which she is destined as the natural leader of the
Oriental races in their adoption of Occidental modes of life and thought,
justifies a careful study of Japanese character. He who really understands
Japan, has gained the magic key for unlocking the social mysteries of China
and the entire East. But the Japanese people, with their institutions and their
various characteristics, merit careful study also for their own sakes. For the
Japanese constitute an exceedingly interesting and even a unique branch of
the human race. Japan is neither a purgatory, as some would have it, nor a
paradise, as others maintain, but a land full of individuals in an interesting
stage of social evolution.
Current opinions concerning Japan, however, are as curious as they are
contradictory. Sir Edwin Arnold says that the Japanese "Have the nature
rather of birds or butterflies than of ordinary human beings." Says Mr. A.M.
Knapp: "Japan is the one country in the world which does not disappoint ...
It is unquestionably the unique nation of the globe, the land of dream and
enchantment, the land which could hardly differ more from our own, were it
located in another planet, its people not of this world." An "old resident,"
however, calls it "the land of disappointments." Few phenomena are more
curious than the readiness with which a tourist or professional journalist,
after a few days or weeks of sight-seeing and interviewing, makes up his
mind in regard to the character of the people, unless it be the way in which

certain others, who have resided in this land for a number of years, continue
to live in their own dreamland. These two classes of writers have been the
chief contributors of material for the omnivorous readers of the West.
It appears to not a few who have lived many years in this Far Eastern land,
that the public has been fed with the dreams of poets or the snap-judgments
of tourists instead of with the facts of actual experience. A recent editorial
article in the Japan Mail, than whose editor few men have had a wider
acquaintance with the Japanese people or language, contains the following
paragraph:
"In the case of such writers as Sir Edwin Arnold and
Mr. Lafcadio Hearn it is quite apparent that the logical
faculty is in abeyance. Imagination reigns supreme. As
poetic nights or outbursts, the works of these authors on
Japan are delightful reading. But no one who has
studied the Japanese in a deeper manner, by more
intimate daily intercourse with all classes of the people
than either of these writers pretends to have had, can
possibly regard a large part of their description as
anything more than pleasing fancy. Both have given
rein to the poetic fancy and thus have, from a purely
literary point of view, scored a success granted to few....
But as exponents of Japanese life and thought they are
unreliable.... They have given form and beauty to much
that never existed except in vague outline or in
undeveloped germs in the Japanese mind. In doing this
they have unavoidably been guilty of
misrepresentation.... The Japanese nation of Arnold and
Hearn is not the nation we have known for a quarter of
a century, but a purely ideal one manufactured out of
the author's brains. It is high time that this was pointed
out. For while such works please a certain section of the
English public, they do a great deal of harm among a
section of the Japanese public, as could be easily shown
in detail, did space allow."—Japan Mail, May 7, 1898.

But even more harmful to the reading public of England and America are
the hastily formed yet, nevertheless, widely published opinions of tourists
and newspaper correspondents. Could such writers realize the inevitable
limitations under which they see and try to generalize, the world would be
spared many crudities and exaggerations, not to say positive errors. The
impression so common to-day that Japan's recent developments are
anomalous, even contrary to the laws of national growth, is chiefly due to
the superficial writings of hasty observers. Few of those who have dilated
ecstatically on her recent growth have understood either the history or the
genius of her people.
"To mention but one among many examples," says Prof.
Chamberlain, "the ingenious Traveling Commissioner
of the Pall Mall Gazette, Mr. Henry Norman, in his
lively letters on Japan published nine or ten years ago,
tells the story of Japanese education under the fetching
title of 'A Nation at School'; but the impression left is
that they have been their own schoolmasters. In another
letter on 'Japan in Arms,' he discourses concerning 'The
Japanese Military Re-organizers,' 'The Yokosuka
dockyard,' and other matters, but omits to mention that
the reorganizers were Frenchmen, and that the
Yokosuka dockyard was also a French creation.
Similarly, when treating of the development of the
Japanese newspaper, he ignores the fact that it owed its
origin to an Englishman, which surely, to a man whose
object was reality, should have seemed an object worth
recording. These letters, so full and apparently so frank,
really so deceptive, are, as we have said, but one
instance among many of the way in which popular
writers on Japan travesty history by ignoring the part
which foreigners have played. The reasons for this are
not far to seek. A wonderful tale will please folks at a
distance all the better if made more wonderful still.
Japanese progress, traced to its causes and explained by
references to the means employed, is not nearly such
fascinating reading as when represented in the guise of

a fairy creation, sprung from nothing, like Aladdin's
palace."—"Things Japanese," p. 116.
But inter-racial misunderstanding is not, after all, so very strange. Few
things are more difficult than to accommodate one's self in speech, in
methods of life, and even in thought, to an alien people; so identifying one's
deepest interest with theirs as really to understand them. The minds of most
men are so possessed by notions acquired in childhood and youth as to be
unable to see even the plainest facts at variance with those notions. He who
comes to Japan possessed with the idea that it is a dreamland and that its old
social order was free from defects, is blind to any important facts
invalidating that conception; while he who is persuaded that Japan, being
Oriental, is necessarily pagan at heart, however civilized in form, cannot
easily be persuaded that there is anything praiseworthy in her old
civilization, in her moral or religious life, or in any of her customs.
If France fails in important respects to understand England; and England,
Germany; and Germany, its neighbors; if even England and America can so
misunderstand one another as to be on the verge of war over the boundary
dispute of an alien country, what hope is there that the Occident shall
understand the Orient, or the Orient the Occident?
Though the difficulty seems insurmountable, I am persuaded that the most
fruitful cause of racial misunderstandings and of defective descriptions both
of the West by Orientals, and of the East by Occidentals, is a well-nigh
universal misconception as to the nature of man, and of society, and
consequently of the laws determining their development. In the East this
error arises from and rests upon its polytheism, and the accompanying
theories of special national creation and peculiar national sanctity. On these
grounds alien races are pronounced necessarily inferior. China's scorn for
foreigners is due to these ideas.
Although this pagan notion has been theoretically abandoned in the West, it
still dominates the thought not only of the multitudes, but also of many who
pride themselves on their high education and liberal sentiments. They bring
to the support of their national or racial pride such modern sociological
theories as lend themselves to this view. Evolution and the survival of the

fittest, degeneration and the arrest of development, are appealed to as
justifying the arrogance and domineering spirit of Western nations.
But the most subtle and scholarly doctrine appealed to in support of
national pride is the biological conception of society. Popular writers
assume that society is a biological organism and that the laws of its
evolution are therefore biological. This assumption is not strange, for until
recent times the most advanced professional sociologists have been
dominated by the same misconception. Spencer, for example, makes
sociology a branch of biology. More recent sociological writers, however,
such as Professors Giddings and Fairbanks, have taken special pains to
assert the essentially psychic character of society; they reject the biological
conception, as inadequate to express the real nature of society. The
biological conception, they insist, is nothing more than a comparison, useful
for bringing out certain features of the social life and structure, but harmful
if understood as their full statement. The laws of psychic activity and
development differ as widely from those of biologic activity and
development as these latter do from those that hold in the chemical world.
If the laws which regulate psychic development and the progress of
civilization were understood by popular writers on Japan, and if the recent
progress of Japan had been stated in the terms of these laws, there would
not have been so much mystification in the West in regard to this matter as
there evidently has been. Japan would not have appeared to have "jumped
out of her skin," or suddenly to have escaped from the heredity of her past
millenniums of development. This wide misunderstanding of Japan, then, is
not simply due to the fact that "Japanese progress, traced to its causes and
explained by reference to the means employed, is not nearly such
fascinating reading as when represented in the guise of a fairy creation," but
it is also due to the still current popular view that the social organism is
biological, and subject therefore to the laws of biological evolution. On this
assumption, some hold that the progress of Japan, however it may appear, is
really superficial, while others represent it as somehow having evaded the
laws regulating the development of other races. A nation's character and
characteristics are conceived to be the product of brain-structure; these can
change only as brain structure changes. Brain is held to determine
civilization, rather than civilization brain. Hampered by this defective view,
popular writers inevitably describe Japan to the West in terms that

necessarily misrepresent her, and that at the same time pander to Occidental
pride and prejudice.
But this misunderstanding of Japan reveals an equally profound
misunderstanding in regard to ourselves. Occidental peoples are supposed
to be what they are in civilization and to have reached their high
attainments in theoretical and applied science, in philosophy and in
practical politics, because of their unique brain-structures, brains secured
through millenniums of biological evolution. The following statement may
seem to be rank heresy to the average sociologist, but my studies have led
me to believe that the main differences between the great races of mankind
to-day are not due to biological, but to social conditions; they are not
physico-psychological differences, but only socio-psychological
differences. The Anglo-Saxon is what he is because of his social heredity,
and the Chinaman is what he is because of his social heredity. The profound
difference between social and physiological heredity and evolution is
unappreciated except by a few of the most recent sociological writers. The
part that association, social segregation, and social heredity take in the
maintenance, not only of once developed languages and civilizations, but
even in their genesis, has been generally overlooked.
But a still more important factor in the determination of social and psychic
evolution, generally unrecognized by sociologists, is the nature and function
of personality. Although in recent years it has been occasionally mentioned
by several eminent writers, personality as a principle has not been made the
core of any system of sociology. In my judgment, however, this is the
distinctive characteristic of human evolution and of human association, and
it should accordingly be the fundamental principle of social science. Many
writers on the East have emphasized what they call its "impersonal"
characteristics. So important is this subject that I have considered it at
length in the body of this work.
Sociological phenomena cannot be fully expressed by any combination of
exclusively physical, biological, and psychic terms, for the significant
element of man and of society consists of something more than these—
namely, personality. It is this that differentiates human from animal
evolution. The unit of human sociology is a self-conscious, self-
determinative being. The causative factor in the social evolution of man is

his personality. The goal of that evolution is developed personality.
Personality is thus at once the cause and the end of social progress. The
conditions which affect or determine progress are those which affect or
determine personality.
The biological evolution of man from the animal has been, it is true, frankly
assumed in this work. No attempt is made to justify this assumption. Let not
the reader infer, however, that the writer similarly assumes the adequacy of
the so-called naturalistic or evolutionary origin of ethics, of religion, or
even of social progress. It may be doubted whether Darwin, Wallace, Le
Conte, or any exponent of biological evolution has yet given a complete
statement of the factors of the physiological evolution of man. It is certain,
however, that ethical, religious, and social writers who have striven to
account for the higher evolution of man, by appealing to factors exclusively
parallel to those which have produced the physiological evolution of man,
have conspicuously failed. However much we may find to praise in the
social interpretations of such eminent writers as Comte, Spencer, Ward,
Fiske, Giddings, Kidd, Southerland, or even Drummond, there still remains
the necessity of a fuller consideration of the moral and religious evolution
of man. The higher evolution of man cannot be adequately expressed or
even understood in any terms lower than those of personality.

EVOLUTION OF THE
JAPANESE

I
PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

Said a well educated and widely read Englishman to the writer while in
Oxford, "Can you explain to me how it is that the Japanese have succeeded
in jumping out of their skins?" And an equally thoughtful American,
speaking about the recent strides in civilization made by Japan, urged that
this progress could not be real and genuine. "How can such a mushroom-
growth, necessarily without deep roots in the past, be real and strong and
permanent? How can it escape being chiefly superficial?" These two men
are typical of much of the thought of the West in regard to Japan.
Seldom, perhaps never, has the civilized world so suddenly and completely
reversed an estimate of a nation as it has that with reference to Japan.
Before the recent war, to the majority even of fairly educated men, Japan
was little more than a name for a few small islands somewhere near China,
whose people were peculiar and interesting. To-day there is probably not a
man, or woman, or child attending school in any part of the civilized world,
who does not know the main facts about the recent war: how the small
country and the men of small stature, sarcastically described by their foes as
"Wojen," pygmy, attacked the army and navy of a country ten times their
size.
Such a universal change of opinion regarding a nation, especially regarding
one so remote from the centers of Western civilization as Japan, could not
have taken place in any previous generation. The telegraph, the daily paper,
the intelligent reporters and writers of books and magazine articles, the
rapid steam travel and the many travelers—all these have made possible
this sudden acquisition of knowledge and startling reversal of opinion.
There is reason, however, to think that much misapprehension and real
ignorance still exists about Japan and her leap into power and world-wide
prestige. Many seem to think that Japan has entered on her new career

through the abandonment of her old civilization and the adoption of one
from the West—that the victories on sea and land, in Korea, at Port Arthur,
and a Wei-hai-wei, and more recently at Tientsin and Pekin, were solely due
to her Westernized navy and army. Such persons freely admit that this
process of Westernization had been going on for many years more rapidly
than the world at large knew, and that consequently the reputation of Japan
before the war was not such as corresponded with her actual attainments.
But they assume that there was nothing of importance in the old
civilization; that it was little superior to organized barbarism.
These people conceive of the change which has taken place in Japan during
the past thirty years as a revolution, not as an evolution; as an abandonment
of the old, and an adoption of the new, civilization. They conceive the old
tree of civilization to have been cut down and cast into the fire, and a new
tree to have been imported from the West and planted in Japanese soil. New
Japan is, from this view-point, the new tree.
Not many months ago I heard of a wealthy family in Kyoto which did not
take kindly to the so-called improvements imported from abroad, and which
consequently persisted in using the instruments of the older civilization.
Even such a convenience as the kerosene lamp, now universally adopted
throughout the land of the Rising Sun, this family refused to admit into its
home, preferring the old-style andon with its vegetable oil, dim light, and
flickering flame. Recently, however, an electric-light company was
organized in that city, and this brilliant illuminant was introduced not only
into the streets and stores, but into many private houses. Shortly after its
introduction, the family was converted to the superiority of the new method
of illumination, and passed at one leap from the old-style lantern to the
latest product of the nineteenth century. This incident is considered typical
of the transformations characteristic of modern Japan. It is supposed that
New Japan is in no proper sense the legitimate product through evolution of
Old Japan.
In important ways, therefore, Japan seems to be contradicting our theories
of national growth. We have thought that no "heathen" nation could
possibly gain, much less wield, unaided by Westerners, the forces of
civilized Christendom. We have likewise held that national growth is a slow
process, a gradual evolution, extending over scores and centuries of years.

In both respects our theories seem to be at fault. This "little nation of little
people," which we have been so ready to condemn as "heathen" and
"uncivilized," and thus to despise, or to ignore, has in a single generation
leaped into the forefront of the world's attention.
Are our theories wrong? Is Japan an exception? Are our facts correct? We
instinctively feel that something is at fault. We are not satisfied with the
usual explanation of the recent history of Japan. We are perhaps ready to
concede that "the rejection of the old and the adoption of Western
civilization" is the best statement whereby to account for the new power of
Japan and her new position among the nations, but when we stop to think,
we ask whether we have thus explained that for which we are seeking an
explanation? Do not the questions still remain—Why did the Japanese so
suddenly abandon Oriental for Occidental civilization? And what mental
and other traits enabled a people who, according to the supposition, were
far from civilized, so suddenly to grasp and wield a civilization quite alien
in character and superior to their own; a civilization ripened after
millenniums of development of the Aryan race? And how far, as a matter of
fact, has this assimilation gone? Not until these questions are really
answered has the explanation been found, So that, after all, the prime cause
which we must seek is not to be found in the external environment, but
rather in the internal endowment.
An effort to understand the ancient history of Japan encounters the same
problem as that raised by her modern history. What mental characteristics
led the Japanese a thousand years ago so to absorb the Chinese civilization,
philosophy, and language that their own suffered a permanent arrest? What
religious traits led them so to take on a religion from China and India that
their own native religion never passed beyond the most primitive
development, either in doctrine, in ethics, in ritual, or in organization? On
the other hand, what mental characteristics enabled them to preserve their
national independence and so to modify everything brought from abroad,
from the words of the new language to the philosophy of the new religions,
that Japanese civilization, language, and religion are markedly distinct from
the Chinese? Why is it that, though the Japanese so fell under the bondage
of the Chinese language as permanently to enslave and dwarf their own
beautiful tongue, expressing the dominant thought of every sentence with
characters (ideographs) borrowed from China, yet at the same time so

transformed what they borrowed that no Chinaman can read and understand
a Japanese book or newspaper?
The same questions recur at this new period of Japan's national life. Why
has she so easily turned from the customs of centuries? What are the mental
traits that have made her respond so differently from her neighbor to the
environment of the nineteenth-century civilization of the West Why is it that
Japan has sent thousands of her students to these Western lands to see and
study and bring back all that is good in them, while China has remained in
stolid self-satisfaction, seeing nothing good in the West and its ways? To
affirm that the difference is due to the environment alone is impossible, for
the environment seems to be essentially the same. This difference of
attitude and action must be traced, it would seem, to differences of mental
and temperamental characteristics. Those who seek to understand the secret
of Japan's newly won power and reputation by looking simply at her newly
acquired forms of government, her reconstructed national social structure,
her recently constructed roads and railroads, telegraphs, representative
government, etc., and especially at her army and navy organized on
European models and armed with European weapons, are not unlike those
who would discover the secret of human life by the study of anatomy.
This external view and this method of interpretation are, therefore,
fundamentally erroneous. Never, perhaps, has the progress of a nation been
so manifestly an evolution as distinguished from a revolution. No foreign
conquerors have come in with their armies, crushing down the old and
building up a new civilization. No magician's wand has been waved over
the land to make the people forget the traditions of a thousand years and fall
in with those of the new régime. No rite or incantation has been performed
to charm the marvelous tree of civilization and cause it to take root and
grow to such lofty proportions in an unprepared soil.
In contrast to the defective views outlined above, one need not hesitate to
believe that the actual process by which Old Japan has been transformed
into New Japan is perfectly natural and necessary. It has been a continuous
growth; it is not the mere accumulation of external additions; it does not
consist alone of the acquisition of the machinery and the institutions of the
Occident. It is rather a development from within, based upon already
existing ideas and institutions. New Japan is the consequence of her old

endowment and her new environment. Her evolution has been in progress
and can be traced for at least a millennium and a half, during which she has
been preparing for this latest step. All that was necessary for its
accomplishment was the new environment. The correctness of this view and
the reasons for it will appear as we proceed in our study of Japanese
characteristics. But we need to note at this point the danger, into which
many fall, of ascribing to Japan an attainment of western civilization which
the facts will not warrant. She has secured much, but by no means all, that
the West has to give.
We may suggest our line of thought by asking what is the fundamental
element of civilization? Does it consist in the manifold appliances that
render life luxurious; the railroad, the telegraph, the post office, the
manufactures, the infinite variety of mechanical and other conveniences?
Or is it not rather the social and intellectual and ethical state of a people?
Manifestly the latter. The tools indeed of civilization may be imported into
a half-civilized, or barbarous country; such importation, however, does not
render the country civilized, although it may assist greatly in the attainment
of that result. Civilization being mental, social, and ethical, can arise only
through the growth of the mind and character of the vast multitudes of a
nation. Now has Japan imported only the tools of civilization? In other
words, is her new civilization only external, formal, nominal, unreal? That
she has imported much is true. Yet that her attainments and progress rest on
her social, intellectual, and ethical development will become increasingly
clear as we take up our successive chapters. Under the new environment of
the past fifty years, this growth, particularly in intellectual, in industrial, and
in political lines, has been exceedingly rapid as compared with the growths
of other peoples.
This conception of the rise of New Japan will doubtless approve itself to
every educated man who will allow his thought to rest upon the subject. For
all human progress, all organic evolution, proceeds by the progressive
modification of the old organs under new conditions. The modern
locomotive did not spring complete from the mind of James Watt; it is the
result of thousands of years of human experience and consequent evolution,
beginning first perhaps with a rolling log, becoming a rude cart, and being
gradually transformed by successive inventions until it has become one of
the marvels of the nineteenth century. It is impossible for those who have

attained the view-point of modern science to conceive of discontinuous
progress; of continually rising types of being, of thought, or of moral life, in
which the higher does not find its ground and root and thus an important
part of its explanation, in the lower. Such is the case not only with
reference: to biological evolution; it is especially true of social evolution.
He who would understand the Japan of to-day cannot rest with the bare
statement that her adoption of the tools and materials of Western civilization
has given her her present power and place among the nations. The student
with historical insight knows that it is impossible for one nation, off-hand,
without preparation, to "adopt the civilization" of another.
The study of the evolution of Japan is one of unusual interest; first, because
of the fact that Japan has experienced such unique changes in her
environment. Her history brings into clear light some principles of
evolution which the visual development of a people does not make so clear.
In the second place, New Japan is in a state of rapid growth. She is in a
critical period, resembling a youth, just coming to manhood, when all the
powers of growth are most vigorous. The latent qualities of body and mind
and heart then burst forth with peculiar force. In the course of four or five
short years the green boy develops into a refined and noble man; the
thoughtless girl ripens into the full maturity of womanhood and of
motherhood. These are the years of special interest to those who would
observe nature in her time of most critical activity.
Not otherwise is it in the life of nations. There are times when their growth
is phenomenally rapid; when their latent qualities are developed; when their
growth can be watched with special ease and delight, because so rapid. The
Renaissance was such a period in Europe. Modern art, science, and
philosophy took their start with the awakening of the mind of Europe at that
eventful and epochal period of her life. Such, I take it, is the condition of
Japan to-day. She is "being born again"; undergoing her "renaissance." Her
intellect, hitherto largely dormant, is but now awaking. Her ambition is
equaled only by her self-reliance. Her self-confidence and amazing
expectations have not yet been sobered by hard experience. Neither does
she, nor do her critics, know how much she can or cannot do. She is in the
first flush of her new-found powers; powers of mind and spirit, as well as of
physical force. Her dreams are gorgeous with all the colors of the rainbow.

Her efforts are sure, to be noble in proportion as her ambitions are high. The
growth of the past half-century is only the beginning of what we may
expect to see.
Then again, this latest and greatest step in the evolution of Japan has taken
place at a time unparalleled for opportunities of observation, under the
incandescent light of the nineteenth century, with its thousands of educated
men to observe and record the facts, many of whom are active agents in the
evolution in progress. Hundreds of papers and magazines, native and
European, read by tens of thousands of intelligent men and women, have
kept the world aware of the daily and hourly events. Telegraphic dispatches
and letters by the million have passed between the far East and the West. It
would seem as if the modernizing of Japan had been providentially delayed
until the last half of the nineteenth century with its steam and electricity,
annihilators of space and time, in order that her evolution might be studied
with a minuteness impossible in any previous age, or by any previous
generation. It is almost as if one were conducting an experiment in human
evolution in his own laboratory, imposing the conditions and noting the
results.
For still another reason is the evolution of New Japan of special interest to
all intelligent persons. To illustrate great things by small, and human by
physical, no one who has visited Geneva has failed to see the beautiful
mingling of the Arve and the Rhone. The latter flowing from the calm
Geneva lake is of delicate blue, pure and limpid. The former, running direct
from the glaciers of Mont Blanc and the roaring bed of Chamouni, bears
along in its rushing waters powdered rocks and loosened soil. These rivers,
though joined in one bed, for hundreds of rods are quite distinct; the one,
turbid; the other, clear as crystal; yet they press each against the other, now
a little of the Rhone's clear current forces its way into the Arve, soon to be
carried off, absorbed and discolored by the mass of muddy water around it.
Now a little of the turbid Arve forces its way into the clear blue Rhone, to
lose there its identity in the surrounding waters. The interchange goes on,
increasing with the distance until, miles below, the two-rivers mingle as
one. No longer is it the Arve or the old Rhone, but the new Rhone.
In Japan there is going on to-day a process unique in the history of the
human race. Two streams of civilization, that of the far East and that of the

far West, are beginning to flow in a single channel. These streams are
exceedingly diverse, in social structure, in government, in moral ideals and
standards, in religion, in psychological and metaphysical conceptions. Can
they live together? Or is one going to drive out and annihilate the other? If
so, which will be victor? Or is there to be modification of both? In other
words, is there to be a new civilization—a Japanese, an Occidento-Oriental
civilization?
The answer is plain to him who has eyes with which to see. Can the
Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? No more can Japan lose
all trace of inherited customs of daily life, of habits of thought and
language, products of a thousand years of training in Chinese literature,
Buddhist doctrine, and Confucian ethics. That "the boy is father to the man"
is true of a nation no less than of an individual. What a youth has been at
home in his habits of thought, in his purpose and spirit and in their
manifestation in action, will largely determine his after-life. In like manner
the mental and moral history of Japan has so stamped certain characteristics
on her language, on her thought, and above all on her temperament and
character, that, however she may strive to Westernize herself, it is
impossible for her to obliterate her Oriental features. She will inevitably
and always remain Japanese.
Japan has already produced an Occidento-Oriental civilization. Time will
serve progressively to Occidentalize it. But there is no reason for thinking
that it will ever become wholly Occidentalized. A Westerner visiting Japan
will always be impressed with its Oriental features, while an Asiatic will be
impressed with its Occidental features. This progressive Occidentalization
of Japan will take place according to the laws of social evolution, of which
we must speak somewhat more fully in a later chapter.
An important question bearing on this problem is the precise nature of the
characteristics differentiating the Occident and the Orient. What exactly do
we mean when we say that the Japanese are Oriental and will always bear
the marks of the Orient in their civilization, however much they may absorb
from the West? The importance and difficulty of this question have led the
writer to defer its consideration till toward the close of this work.

If one would gain adequate conception of the process now going on, the
illustration already used of the mingling of two rivers needs to be
supplemented by another, corresponding to a separate class of facts. Instead
of the mingling of rivers, let us watch the confluence of two glaciers. What
pressures! What grindings! What upheavals! What rendings! Such is the
mingling of two civilizations. It is not smooth and Noiseless, but attended
with pressure and pain. It is a collision in more ways than one. The
unfortunates on whom the pressures of both currents are directed are often
quite destroyed.
Comparison is often made between Japan and India. In both countries
enormous social changes are taking place; in both, Eastern and Western
civilizations are in contact and in conflict. The differences, however, are
even more striking than the likenesses. Most conspicuous is the fact that
whereas, in India, the changes in civilization are due almost wholly to the
force and rule of the conquering race, in Japan these changes are
spontaneous, attributable entirely to the desire and initiative of the native
rulers. This difference is fundamental and vital. The evolution of society in
India is to a large degree compulsory; in a true sense it is an artificial
evolution. In Japan, on the other hand, evolution is natural. There has not
been the slightest physical compulsion laid on her from without. With two
rare exceptions, Japan has never heard the boom of foreign cannon carrying
destruction to her people. During these years of change, there have been
none but Japanese rulers, and such has been the case throughout the entire
period of Japanese history. Their native rulers have introduced changes such
as foreign rulers would hardly have ventured upon. The adoption of the
Chinese language, literature, and religions from ten to twelve centuries ago,
was not occasioned by a military occupancy of Japanese soil by invaders
from China. It was due absolutely to the free choice of their versatile
people, as free and voluntary as was the adoption by Rome of Greek
literature and standards of learning. The modern choice of Western material
civilization no doubt had elements of fear as motive power. But impulsion
through a knowledge of conditions differs radically from compulsion
exercised by a foreign military occupancy. India illustrates the latter; Japan,
the former.
Japan and her people manifest amazing contrasts. Never, on the one hand,
has a nation been so free from foreign military occupancy throughout a

history covering more than fifteen centuries, and at the same time, been so
influenced by and even subject to foreign psychical environment. What was
the fact in ancient times is the fact to-day. The dominance of China and
India has been largely displaced by that of Europe. Western literature,
language, and science, and even customs, are being welcomed by Japan,
and are working their inevitable effects. But it is all perfectly natural,
perfectly spontaneous. The present choice by Japan of modern science and
education and methods and principles of government and nineteenth-
century literature and law,—in a word, of Occidental civilization,—is not
due to any artificial pressure or military occupancy. But the choice and the
consequent evolution are wholly due to the free act of the people. In this, as
in several other respects, Japan reminds us of ancient Greece. Dr. Menzies,
in his "History of Religion," says: "Greece was not conquered from the
East, but stirred to new life by the communication of new ideas." Free
choice has made Japan reject Chinese astronomy, surgery, medicine, and
jurisprudence. The early choice to admit foreigners to Japan to trade may
have been made entirely through fear, but is now accepted and justified by
reason and choice.
The true explanation, therefore, of the recent and rapid rise of Japan to
power and reputation, is to be found, not in the externals of her civilization,
not in the pressure of foreign governments, but rather in the inherited
mental and temperamental characteristics, reacting on the new and
stimulating environment, and working along the lines of true evolution.
Japan has not "jumped out of her skin," but a new vitality has given that
skin a new color.

II
HISTORICAL SKETCH

How many of the stories of the Kojiki (written in 712 A.D.) and Nihongi
(720 A.D.) are to be accepted is still a matter of dispute among scholars.
Certain it is, however, that Japanese early history is veiled in a mythology
which seems to center about three prominent points: Kyushu, in the south;
Yamato, in the east central, and Izumo in the west central region. This
mythological history narrates the circumstances of the victory of the
southern descendants of the gods over the two central regions. And it has
been conjectured that these three centers represent three waves of migration
that brought the ancestors of the present inhabitants of Japan to these
shores. The supposition is that they came quite independently and began
their conflicts only after long periods of residence and multiplication.
Though this early record is largely mythological, tradition shows us the
progenitors of the modern Japanese people as conquerors from the west and
south who drove the aborigines before them and gradually took possession
of the entire land. That these conquerors were not all of the same stock is
proved by the physical appearance of the Japanese to-day, and by their
language. Through these the student traces an early mixture of races—the
Malay, the Mongolian, and the Ural-Altaic. Whether the early crossing of
these races bears vital relation to the plasticity of the Japanese is a question
which tempts the scholar.
Primitive, inter-tribal conflicts of which we have no reliable records
resulted in increasing intercourse. Victory was followed by federation. And
through the development of a common language, of common customs and
common ideas, the tribes were unified socially and psychically.
Consciousness of this unity was emphasized by the age-long struggle
against the Ainu, who were not completely conquered until the eighteenth
century.

With the dawn of authentic history (500-600 A.D.) we find amalgamation
of the conquering tribes, with, however, constantly recurring inter-clan and
inter-family wars. Many of these continued for scores and even hundreds of
years—proving that, in the modern sense, of the word, the Japanese were
not yet a nation, though, through inter-marriage, through the adoption of
important elements of civilization brought from China and India via Korea,
through the nominal acceptance of the Emperor as the divinely appointed
ruler of the land, they were, in race and in civilization, a fairly
homogeneous people.
The national governmental system was materially affected by the need,
throughout many centuries, of systematic methods of defense against the
Ainu. The rise of the Shogunate dates back to 883 A.D., when the chief of
the forces opposing the Ainu was appointed by the Emperor and bore the
official title, "The Barbarian-expelling Generalissimo." This office
developed in power until, some centuries later, it usurped in fact, if not in
name, all the imperial prerogatives.
It is probable that the Chinese written language, literature, and ethical
teachings of Confucius came to Japan from Korea after the Christian era.
The oldest known Japanese writings (Japanese written with Chinese
characters) date from the eighth century. In this period also Buddhism first
came to Japan. For over a hundred years it made relatively little progress.
But when at last in the ninth and tenth centuries native Japanese Buddhists
popularized its doctrines and adopted into its theogony the deities of the
aboriginal religion, now known as Shinto, Buddhism became the religion of
the people, and filled the land with its great temples, praying priests, and
gorgeous rituals.
Even in those early centuries the contact of Japan with her Oriental
neighbors revealed certain traits of her character which have been
conspicuous in recent times —great capacity for acquisition, and readiness
to adopt freely from foreign nations. Her contact with China, at that time so
far in advance of herself in every element of civilization, was in some
respects disastrous to her original growth. Instead of working out the
problems of thought and life for herself, she took what China and Korea
had to give. The result was an arrest in the development of everything
distinctively native. The native religion was so absorbed by Buddhism that

for a thousand years it lost all self-consciousness. Indeed the modern clear
demarcation between the native and the imported religions is a matter of
only a few decades, due to the researches of native scholars during the latter
part of the last and the early part of this century. Even now, multitudes of
the common people know no difference between the various elements of the
composite religion of which they are the heirs.
Moreover, early contact with China and her enormous literature checked the
development of the native language and the growth of the native literature.
The language suffered arrest because of the rapid introduction of Chinese
terms for all the growing needs of thought and civilization. Modern
Japanese is a compound of the original tongue and Japonicized Chinese.
Native speculative thought likewise found little encouragement or stimulus
to independent activity in the presence of the elaborate and in many
respects profound philosophies brought from India and China.
From earliest times the government of Japan was essentially feudal.
Powerful families and clans disputed and fought for leadership, and the
political history of Japan revolves around the varying fortunes of these
families. While the Imperial line is never lost to sight, it seldom rises to real
power.
When, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Japan's conquering arm
reached across the waters, to ravage the coast of China, to extend her
influence as far south as Siam, and even to invade Korea with a large army
in 1592, it looked as if she were well started on her career as a world-power.
But that was not yet to be. The hegemony of her clans passed into the
powerful and shrewd Tokugawa family, the policy of which was peace and
national self-sufficiency.
The representatives of the Occidental nations (chiefly of Spain and
Portugal) were banished. The Christian religion (Roman Catholic), which
for over fifty years had enjoyed free access and had made great progress,
was forbidden and stamped out, not without much bloodshed. Foreign
travel and commerce were strictly interdicted. A particular school of
Confucian ethics was adopted and taught as the state religion. Feudalism
was systematically established and intentionally developed. Each and every
man had his assigned and recognized place in the social fabric, and change

was not easy. It is doubtful if any European country has ever given
feudalism so long and thorough a trial. Never has feudalism attained so
complete a development as it did in Japan under the Tokugawa régime of
over 250 years.
During this period no influences came from other lands to disturb the
natural development. With the exception of three ships a year from Holland,
an occasional stray ship from other lands, and from fifteen to twenty
Dutchmen isolated in a little island in the harbor of Nagasaki, Japan had no
communication with foreign lands or alien peoples.
Of this period, extending to the middle of the present century, the ordinary
visitor and even the resident have but a superficial knowledge. All the
changes that have taken place in Japan, since the coming of Perry in 1854,
are attributed by the easy-going tourist to the external pressure of foreign
nations. But such travelers know nothing of the internal preparations that
had been making for generations previous to the arrival of Perry. The tourist
is quite ignorant of the line of Japanese scholars that had been undermining
the authority of the military rulers, "the Tokugawa," in favor of the Imperial
line which they had practically supplanted.
The casual student of Japan has been equally ignorant of the real mental and
moral caliber of the Japanese. Dressed in clothing that appeared to us
fantastic, and armed with cumbersome armor and old-fashioned guns, it
was easy to jump to the conclusion that the people were essentially
uncivilized. We did not know the intellectual discipline demanded of one,
whether native or foreign, who would master the native language or the
native systems of thought. We forgot that we appeared as grotesque and as
barbarous to them as they to us, and that mental ability and moral worth are
qualities that do not show on the surface of a nation's civilization. While
they thought us to be "unclean," "dogs," "red-haired devils," we perhaps
thought them to be clever savages, or at best half-civilized heathen, without
moral perceptions or intellectual ability.
Of Old Japan little more needs to be said. Without external commerce, there
was little need for internal trade; ships were small; roads were footpaths;
education was limited to the samurai, or military class, retainers of the
daimyo, "feudal lords"; inter-clan travel was limited and discouraged;

Confucian ethics was the moral standard. From the beginning of the
seventeenth century Christianity was forbidden by edict, and was popularly
known as the "evil way"; Japan was thought to be especially sacred, and the
coming of foreigners was supposed to pollute the land and to be the cause
of physical evils. Education, as in China, was limited to the Chinese
classics. Mathematics, general history, and science, in the modern sense,
were of course wholly unknown. Guns and powder were brought from the
West in the sixteenth century by Spaniards and Portuguese, but were never
improved. Ship-building was the same in the middle of the nineteenth
century as in the middle of the sixteenth, perhaps even less advanced.
Architecture had received its great impulse from the introduction of
Buddhism in the ninth and tenth centuries and had made no material
improvement thereafter.
But while there was little progress in the external and mechanical elements
of civilization, there was progress in other respects. During the "great
peace," first arose great scholars. Culture became more general throughout
the nation. Education was esteemed. The corrupt lives of the priests were
condemned and an effort was made to reform life through the revival of a
certain school of Confucian teachers known as "Shin-Gaku"—"Heart-
Knowledge." Art also made progress, both pictorial and manual. It would
almost seem as if modern artificers and painters had lost the skill of their
forefathers of one or two hundred years ago.
Many reasons explain the continuance of the old political and social order:
the lack of a foreign foe to compel abandonment of the tribal organisation;
the mountainous nature of the country with its slow, primitive means of
intercommunication; the absence of all idea of a completely centralized
nation. Furthermore, the principle of complete subordination to superiors
and ancestors had become so strong that individual innovations were
practically impossible. Japan thus lacked the indispensable key to further
progress, the principle of individualism. The final step in the development
of her nationality has been taken, therefore, only in our own time.
Old Japan seemed absolutely committed to a thorough-going antagonism to
everything foreign. New Japan seems committed to the opposite policy.
What are the steps by which she has effected this apparent national reversal
of attitude?

We should first note that the absolutism of the Tokugawa Shogunate served
to arouse ever-growing opposition because of its stern repression of
individual opinion. It not only forbade the Christian religion, but also all
independent thought in religious philosophy and in politics. The particular
form of Confucian moral philosophy which it held was forced on all public
teachers of Confucianism. Dissent was not only heretical, but treasonable.
Although, by its military absolutism, the Tokugawa rule secured the great
blessing of peace, lasting over two hundred years, and although the curse of
Japan for well-nigh a thousand preceding years had been fierce inter-tribal
and inter-family wars and feuds, yet it secured that peace at the expense of
individual liberty of thought and act. It thus gradually aroused against itself
the opposition of many able minds. The enforced peace rendered it possible
for these men to devote themselves to problems of thought and of history.
Indeed, they had no other outlet for their energies. As they studied the
history of the past and compared their results with the facts of the present, it
gradually dawned on the minds of the scholars of the eighteenth century,
that the Tokugawa family were exercising functions of government which
had never been delegated to them; and that the Emperor was a poverty-
stricken puppet in the hands of a family that had seized the military power
and had gradually absorbed all the active functions of government, together
with its revenues.
It is possible for us to see now that these early Japanese scholars idealized
their ancient history, and assigned to the Emperor a place in ancient times
which in all probability he has seldom held. But, however that may be, they
thought their view correct, and held that the Emperor was being deprived of
his rightful rule by the Tokugawa family.
These ideas, first formulated in secret by scholars, gradually filtered down,
still in secrecy, and were accepted by a large number of the samurai, the
military literati of the land. Their opposition to the actual rulers of the land,
aroused by the individual-crushing absolutism of the Tokugawa rule,
naturally allied itself to the religious sentiment of loyalty to the Emperor.
Few Westerners can appreciate the full significance of this fact. Throughout
the centuries loyalty to the Emperor has been considered a cardinal virtue.
With one exception, according to the popular histories, no one ever
acknowledged himself opposed to the Emperor. Every rebellion against the
powers in actual possession made it the first aim to gain possession of the

Emperor, and proclaim itself as fighting for him. When, therefore, the
scholars announced that the existing government was in reality a usurpation
and that the Emperor was robbed of his rightful powers, the latent
antagonism to the Tokugawa rule began to find both intellectual and moral
justification. It could and did appeal to the religious patriotism of the
people. It is perhaps not too much to say that the overthrow of the
Tokugawa family and the restoration of the Imperial rule to the Imperial
family would have taken place even though there had been no interference
of foreign nations, no extraneous influences. But equally certain is it that
these antagonisms to the ruling family were crystallized, and the great
internal changes hastened by the coming in of the aggressive foreign
nations. How this external influence operated must and can be told in a few
words.
When Admiral Perry negotiated his treaty with the Japanese, he supposed
he was dealing with responsible representatives of the government. As was
later learned, however, the Tokugawa rulers had not secured the formal
assent of the Emperor to the treaty. The Tokugawa rulers and their
counselors, quite as much as the clan-rulers, wished to keep the foreigners
out of the country, but they realized their inability. The rulers of the clans,
however, felt that the Tokugawa rulers had betrayed the land; they were,
accordingly, in active opposition both to the foreigners and to the national
rulers. When the foreigners requested the Japanese government, "the
Tokugawa Shogunate," to carry out the treaties, it was unable to comply
with the request because of the antagonism of the clan-rulers. When the
clan-rulers demanded that the government annul the treaties and drive out
the hated and much-feared foreigners, it found itself utterly unable to do so,
because of the formidable naval power of the foreigners.
As a consequence of this state of affairs, a few serious collisions took place
between the foreigners and the two-sworded samurai, retainers of the clan-
rulers. The Tokugawa rulers apparently did their best to protect the
foreigners, and, when there was no possible method of evasion, to execute
the treaties they had made. But they could not control the clans already
rebellious. A few murders of foreigners, followed by severe reprisals, and
two bombardments of native towns by foreign gunboats, began to reveal to
the military class at large that no individual or local action against the
foreigners was at all to be thought of. The first step necessary was the

unification of the Empire under the Imperial rule. This, however, could be
done only by the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate; which was
effected in 1867-68 after a short struggle, marked by great clemency.
We thus realize that the overthrow of the Shogunate as also the final
abolishment of feudalism with its clans, lords, and hereditary rulers, and the
establishment of those principles of political and personal centralization
which lie at the foundation of real national unity, not only were hastened by,
but in a marked degree dependent on, the stimulus and contribution of
foreigners. They compelled a more complete Japanese unity than had
existed before, for they demanded direct relations with the national head.
And when treaty negotiations revealed the lack of such a head, they
undertook to show its necessity by themselves punishing those local rulers
who did not recognize the Tokugawa headship.
With the establishment of the Emperor on the throne, began the modern era
in Japanese history, known in Japan as "Meiji"—"Enlightened Rule."
But not even yet was the purpose of the nation attained, namely, the
expulsion of the polluters of the sacred soil of Japan. As soon as the new
government was established and had turned its attention to foreign affairs, it
found itself in as great a dilemma as had its predecessors, the Tokugawa
rulers. For the foreign governments insisted that the treaties negotiated with
the old government should be accepted in full by the new. It was soon as
evident to the new rulers as it had been to the old that direct and forcible
resistance to the foreigners was futile. Not by might were they to be
overcome. Westerners had, however, supplied the ideals whereby national,
political unity was to be secured. Mill's famous work on "Representative
Government" was early translated, and read by all the thinking men of the
day. These ideas were also keenly studied in their actual workings in the
West. The consequence was that feudalism was utterly rejected and the new
ideas, more or less modified, were speedily adopted, even down to the
production of a constitution and the establishment of local representative
assemblies and a national diet. In other words, the theories and practices of
the West in regard to the political organization of the state supplied Japan
with those new intellectual variations which were essential to the higher
development of her own national unity.

A further point of importance is the fact that at the very time that the West
applied this pressure and supplied Japan with these political ideals she also
put within her reach the material instruments which would enable her to
carry them into practice. I refer to steam locomotion by land and sea, the
postal and telegraphic systems of communication, the steam printing press,
the system of popular education, and the modern organization of the army
and the navy. These instruments Japan made haste to acquire. But for these,
the rapid transformation of Old Japan into New Japan would have been an
exceedingly long and difficult process. The adoption of these tools of
civilization by the central authority at once gave it an immense superiority
over any local force. For it could communicate speedily with every part of
the Empire, and enforce its decisions with a celerity and a decisiveness
before unknown. It became once more the actual head of the nation.
We have thus reached the explanation of one of the most astonishing
changes in national attitude that history has to record, and the new attitude
seems such a contradiction of the old as to be inexplicable, and almost
incredible. But a better knowledge of the facts and a deeper understanding
of their significance will serve to remove this first impression.
What, then, did the new government do? It simply said, "For us to drive out
these foreigners is impossible; but neither is it desirable. We need to know
the secrets of their power. We must study their language, their science, their
machinery, their steamboats, their battle-ships. We must learn all their
secrets, and then we shall be able to turn them out without difficulty. Let us
therefore restrict them carefully to the treaty ports, but let us make all the
use of them we can."
This has virtually been the national policy of Japan ever since. And this
policy gained the acceptance of the people as a whole with marvelous
readiness, for a reason which few foreigners can appreciate. Had this policy
been formulated and urged by the Tokugawa rulers, there is no probability
that it would have been accepted. But because it was, ostensibly at least, the
declared will of the Emperor, loyalty to him, which in Japan is both religion
and patriotism, led to a hearty and complete acceptance which could hardly
have been realized in any other land. During the first year of his
"enlightened" rule (1868), the Emperor gave his sanction to an Edict, the
last two clauses of which read as follows:

"The old, uncivilized way shall be replaced by the eternal principles of the
universe.
"The best knowledge shall be sought throughout the world, so as to promote
the Imperial welfare."
It is the wide acceptance of this policy, which, however, is in accord with
the real genius of the people, that has transformed Japan. It has sent
hundreds of its young men to foreign lands to learn and bring back to Japan
the secrets of Western power and wealth; it has established roads and
railways, postal and telegraphic facilities, a public common-school system,
colleges and a university in which Western science, history, and languages
have been taught by foreign and foreign-trained instructors; daily, weekly,
and monthly papers and magazines; factories, docks, drydocks; local and
foreign commerce; representative government—in a word, all the
characteristic features of New Japan. The whole of New Japan is only the
practical carrying out of the policy adopted at the beginning of the new era,
when it was found impossible to cast out the foreigners by force. Brute
force being found to be out of the question, resort was thus made to
intellectual force, and with real success.
The practice since then has not been so much to retain the foreigner as to
learn of him and then to eliminate him. Every branch of learning and
industry has proved this to be the consistent Japanese policy. No foreigner
may hope to obtain a permanent position in Japanese employ, either in
private firms or in the government. A foreigner is useful not for what he can
do, but for what he can teach. When any Japanese can do his work tolerably
well, the foreigner is sure to be dropped.
The purpose of this volume does not require of us a minute statistical
statement of the present attainments of New Japan. Such information may
be procured from Henry Norman's "Real Japan," Ransome's "Japan in
Transition," and Newton's "Japan: Country, Court, and People." It is enough
for us to realize that Japan has wholly abandoned or profoundly modified
all the external features of her old, her distinctively Oriental civilization and
has replaced them by Occidental features. In government, she is no longer
arbitrary, autocratic, and hereditary, but constitutional and representative.
Town, provincial, and national legislative assemblies are established, and in

fairly good working order, all over the land. The old feudal customs have
been replaced by well codified laws, which are on the whole faithfully
administered according to Occidental methods. Examination by torture has
been abolished. The perfect Occidentalization of the army, and the creation
of an efficient navy, are facts fully demonstrated to the world. The limited
education of the few—- and in exclusively Chinese classics—has given
place to popular education. Common schools number over 30,000, taught
by about 100,000 teachers (4278 being women), having over 4,500,000
pupils (over 1,500,000 being girls). The school accommodation is
insufficient; it is said that 30,000 additional teachers are needed at once.
Middle and high schools throughout the land are rejecting nearly one-half
of the student applicants for lack of accommodation.
Feudal isolation, repression, and seclusion have given way to free travel,
free speech, and a free press. Newspapers, magazines, and books pour forth
from the universal printing press in great profusion. Twenty dailies issue in
the course of a year over a million copies each, while two of them circulate
24,000,000 and 21,000,000 copies, respectively.
Personal, political, and religious liberty has been practically secure now for
over two decades, guaranteed by the constitution, and enforced by the
courts.
Chinese medical practice has largely been replaced by that from the West,
although many of the ignorant classes still prefer the old methods. The
government enforces Western hygienic principles in all public matters, with
the result that the national health has improved and the population is
growing at an alarming rate. While in 1872 the people numbered
33,000,000, in 1898 they numbered 45,000,000. The general scale of living
for the common people has also advanced conspicuously. Meat shops are
now common throughout the land—a thing unknown in pre-Meiji times—
and rice, which used to be the luxury of the wealthy few, has become the
staple necessity of the many.
Postal and telegraph facilities are quite complete. Macadamized roads and
well-built railroads have replaced the old footpaths, except in the most
mountainous districts. Factories of many kinds are appearing in every town
and city. Business corporations, banks, etc., which numbered only thirty-

four so late as 1864 are now numbered by the thousand, and trade flourishes
as in no previous period of Japanese history. Instead of being a country of
farmers and soldiers, Japan is to-day a land of farmers and merchants.
Wealth is growing apace. International commerce, too, has sprung up and
expanded phenomenally. Japanese merchant steamers may now be seen in
every part of the world.
All these changes have taken place within about three decades, and so
radical have they been,—so productive of new life in Japan,—that some
have urged the re-writing of Japanese history, making the first year of Meiji
(1868) the year one of Japan, instead of reckoning from the year in which
Jimmu Tenno is said to have ascended the throne, 2560 years ago (B.C.
660).
The way in which Japanese regard the transformations produced by the
"restoration" of the present Emperor, upon the overthrow of the "Bakufu,"
or "Curtain Government," may be judged from the following graphic
paragraph from The Far East:
"The Restoration of Meiji was indeed the greatest of
revolutions that this island empire ever underwent. Its
magic wand left nothing untouched and unchanged. It
was the Restoration that overthrew the Tokugawa
Shogunate, which reigned supreme for over two
centuries and a half. It was the Restoration that brought
us face to face with the Occidentals. It was the
Restoration that pulled the demigods of the Feudal lords
down to the level of the commoners. It was the
Restoration that deprived the samurai of their fiefs and
reduced them to penury. It was the Restoration that
taught the people to build their houses of bricks and
stones and to construct ships and bridges of iron instead
of wood. It was the Restoration that informed us that
eclipses and comets are not to be feared, and that
earthquakes are not caused by a huge cat-fish in the
bottom of the earth. It was the Restoration that taught
the people to use the "drum-backing" thunder as their
messenger, and to make use of the railroad instead of

the palanquin. It was the Restoration that set the earth in
motion, and proved that there is no rabbit in the moon.
It was the Restoration that bestowed on Socrates and
Aristotle the chairs left vacant by Confucius and
Mencius. It was the Restoration that let Shakspere and
Goethe take the place of Bakin and Chikamatsu. It was
the Restoration that deprived the people of the swords
and topnots. In short, after the Restoration a great
change took place in administration, in art, in science,
in literature, in language spoken and written, in taste, in
custom, in the mode of living, nay in everything" (p.
541).
A natural outcome of the Restoration is the exuberant patriotism that is so
characteristic a feature of New Japan. The very term "ai-koku-shin" is a
new creation, almost as new as the thing. This word is an incidental proof of
the general correctness of the contention of this chapter that true nationality
is a recent product in Japan. The term, literally translated, is "love-country
heart"; but the point for us to notice particularly is the term for country,
"koku"; this word has never before meant the country as a whole, but only
the territory of a clan. If I wish to ask a Japanese what part of Japan is his
native home, I must use this word. And if a Japanese wishes to ask me
which of the foreign lands I am a native of, he must use the same word. The
truth is that Old Japan did not have any common word corresponding to the
English term, "My country." In ancient times, this could only mean, "My
clan-territory." But with the passing away of the clans the old word has
taken on a new significance. The new word, "ai-koku-shin," refers not to
love of clan, but to love of the whole nation. The conception of national
unity has at last seized upon the national mind and heart, and is giving the
people an enthusiasm for the nation, regardless of the parts, which they
never before knew. Japanese patriotism has only in this generation come to
self-consciousness. This leads it to many a strange freak. It is vociferous
and imperious, and often very impractical and Chauvinistic. It frequently
takes the form of uncompromising disdain for the foreigner, and the most
absolute loyalty to the Emperor of Japan; it demands the utmost respect of
expression in regard to him and the form of government he has graciously

granted the nation. The slightest hint or indirect suggestion of defect or
ignorance, or even of limitation, is most vehemently resented.
A few illustrations of the above statements from recent experience will not
be out of place. In August, 1891, the Minister of Education, Mr. Y. Osaki,
criticising the tendency in Japan to pay undue respect to moneyed men,
said, in the course of a long speech, "You Japanese worship money even
more reverently than the Americans do. If you had a republic as they have, I
believe you would nominate an Iwazaki or a Mitsui to be president, whereas
they don't think of nominating a Vanderbilt or a Gould." It was not long
before a storm was raging around his head because of this reference to a
republican form of government as a possibility in Japan. The storm became
so fierce that he was finally compelled to resign his post and retire,
temporarily, from political life.
In October, 1898, the High Council of Education was required to consider
various questions regarding the conduct of the educational department after
the New Treaties should come into force. The most important question was
whether foreigners should be allowed to have a part in the education of
Japanese youth. The general argument, and that which prevailed, was that
this should not be allowed lest the patriotism of the children be weakened.
So far as appears but one voice was raised for a more liberal policy. Mr. Y.
Kamada maintained that "patriotism in Japan was the outcome of foreign
intercourse. Patriotism, that is to say, love of country—not merely of fief—
and readiness to sacrifice everything for its sake, was a product of the Meiji
era."
In 1891 a teacher in the Kumamoto Boys' School gave expression to the
thought in a public address that, as all mankind are brothers, the school
should stand for the principle of universal brotherhood and universal good-
will to men. This expression of universalism was so obnoxious to the
patriotic spirit of so large a number of the people of Kumamoto Ken, or
Province, that the governor required the school to dismiss that teacher.
There is to-day a strong party in Japan which makes "Japanism" their cry;
they denounce all expressions of universal good-will as proofs of deficiency
of patriotism. There are not wanting those who see through the shallowness
of such views and who vigorously oppose and condemn such narrow
patriotism. Yet the fact that it exists to-day with such force must be noted

and its natural explanation, too, must not be forgotten. It is an indication of
self-conscious nationality.
That this love of country, even this conception of country, is a modern thing
will appear from two further facts. Until modern times there was no such
thing as a national flag. The flaming Sun on a field of white came into
existence as a national flag only in 1859. The use of the Sun as the symbol
for the Emperor has been in vogue since 700 A.D., the custom having been
adopted from China. "When in 1859 a national flag corresponding to those
of Europe became necessary, the Sun Banner naturally stepped into the
vacant place."[A]
The second fact is the recent origin of the festival known as "Kigensetsu." It
occurs on February 11 and celebrates the alleged accession of Jimmu
Tenno, the first Emperor of Japan, to the throne 2560 years ago (660 B.C.).
The festival itself, however, was instituted by Imperial decree ten years ago
(1890).
The transformation which has come over Japan in a single generation
requires interpretation. Is the change real or superficial? Is the new social
order "a borrowed trumpery garment, which will soon be rent by violent
revolutions," according to the eminent student of racial psychology,
Professor Le Bon, or is it of "a solid nature" according to the firm belief of
Mr. Stanford Ransome, one of the latest writers on Japan?
This is the problem that will engage our attention more or less directly
throughout this work. We shall give our chief thought to the nature and
development of Japanese racial characteristics, believing that this alone
gives the light needed for the solution of the problem.[B]

III
THE PROBLEM OF PROGRESS

What constitutes progress? And what is the true criterion for its
measurement? In adopting Western methods of life and thought, is Japan
advancing or receding? The simplicity of the life of the common people,
their freedom from fashions that fetter the Occidental, their independence of
furniture in their homes, their few wants and fewer necessities—these,
when contrasted with the endless needs and demands of an Occidental, are
accepted by some as evidences of a higher stage of civilization than prevails
in the West.
The hedonistic criterion of progress is the one most commonly adopted in
considering the question as to whether Japan is the gainer or the loser by
her rapid abandonment of old ways and ideas and by her equally rapid
adoption of Western ones in their place. Yet this appeal to happiness seems
to me a misleading because vague, if not altogether false, standard of
progress. Those who use it insist that the people of Japan are losing their
former happiness under the stress of new conditions. Now there can be no
doubt that during the "Kyu-han jidai," the times before the coming in of
Western waves of life, the farmers were a simple, unsophisticated people;
living from month to month with little thought or anxiety. They may be said
to have been happy. The samurai who lived wholly on the bounty of the
daimyo led of course a tranquil life, at least so far as anxiety or toil for daily
rice and fish was concerned. As the fathers had lived and fought and died,
so did the sons. To a large extent the community had all things in common;
for although the lord lived in relative luxury, yet in such small communities
there never was the great difference between classes that we find in modern
Europe and America. As a rule the people were fed, if there was food. The
socialistic principle was practically universal. Especially was emphasis laid
on kinship. As a result, save among the outcast classes, the extremes of
poverty did not exist.

Were we to rest our inquiries at this point, we might say that in truth the
Japanese had attained the summit of progress; that nothing further could be
asked. But pushing our way further, we find that the peace and quiet of the
ordinary classes of society were accompanied by many undesirable
features.
Prominent among them was the domineering spirit of the military class.
They alone laid claim to personal rights, and popular stories are full of the
free and furious ways in which they used their swords. The slightest offense
by one of the swordless men would be paid for by a summary act of the
two-sworded swashbucklers, while beggars and farmers were cut down
without compunction, sometimes simply to test a sword. In describing those
times one man said to me, "They used to cut off the heads of the common
people as farmers cut off the head of the daikon" (a variety of giant radish).
I have frequently asked my Japanese friends and acquaintances, whether, in
view of the increasing difficulties of life under the new conditions, the
country would not like to return to ancient times and customs. But none
have been ready to give me an affirmative reply. On detailed questioning I
have always found that the surly, domineering methods, the absolutism of
the rulers, and the defenselessness of the people against unjust arbitrary
superiors would not be submitted to by a people that has once tasted the joy
arising from individual rights and freedom and the manhood that comes
from just laws for all.
A striking feature of those Japanese who are unchanged by foreign ways is
their obsequious manner toward superiors and officials. The lordly and
oftentimes ruthless manner of the rulers has naturally cowed the subject.
Whenever the higher nobility traveled, the common people were
commanded to fall on the ground in obeisance and homage. Failure to do so
was punishable with instant death at the hands of the retainers who
accompanied the lord. During my first stay in Kumamoto I was surprised
that farmers, coming in from the country on horseback, meeting me as I
walked, invariably got down from their horses, unfastened the
handkerchiefs from their heads, and even took off their spectacles if there
were nothing else removable. These were signs of respect given to all in
authority. Where my real status began to be generally known, these signs of
politeness gave place to rude staring. It is difficult for the foreigner to
appreciate the extremes of the high-handed and the obsequious spirit which

were developed by the ancient form of government. Yet it is comparatively
easy to distinguish between the evidently genuine humility of the non-
military classes and the studied deference of the dominant samurai.
Another feature of the old order of things was the emptiness of the lives of
the people. Education was rare. Limited to the samurai, who composed but
a fraction of the population, it was by no means universal even among
them. And such education as they had was confined to the Chinese classics.
Although there were schools in connection with some of the temples, the
people as a whole did not learn to read or write. These were
accomplishments for the nobility and men of leisure. The thoughts of the
people were circumscribed by the narrow world in which they lived, and
this allowed but an occasional glimpse of other clans through war or a
chance traveler. For, in those times, freedom of travel was not generally
allowed. Each man, as a rule, lived and labored and died where he was
born. The military classes had more freedom. But when we contrast the
breadth of thought and outlook enjoyed by the nation to-day, through
newspapers and magazines, with the outlook and knowledge of even the
most progressive and learned of those of ancient times, how contracted do
their lives appear!
A third feature of former times is the condition of women during those ages.
Eulogizers of Old Japan not only seem to forget that working classes
existed then, but also that women, constituting half the population, were
essential to the existence of the nation. Though allowing more freedom than
was given to women in other Oriental nations, Japan did not grant such
liberty as is essential to the full development of her powers. "Woman is a
man's plaything" expresses a view still held in Japan. "Woman's sole duty is
the bearing and rearing of children for her husband" is the dominant idea
that has determined her place in the family and in the state for hundreds of
years. That she has any independent interest or value as a human being has
not entered into national conception. "The way in which they are treated by
the men has hitherto been such as might cause a pang to any generous
European heart.... A woman's lot is summed up in what is termed 'the three
obediences,' obedience, while yet unmarried, to a father; obedience, when
married, to a husband; obedience, when widowed, to a son. At the present
moment the greatest duchess or marchioness in the land is still her
husband's drudge. She fetches and carries for him, bows down humbly in

the hall when my lord sallies forth on his good pleasure."[C] "The Greater
Learning for Women," by Ekken Kaibara (1630-1714), an eminent Japanese
moralist, is the name of a treatise on woman's duties which sums up the
ideas common in Japan upon this subject. For two hundred years or more it
has been used as a text-book in the training of girls. It enjoins such abject
submission of the wife to her husband, to her parents-in-law, and to her
other kindred by marriage, as no self-respecting woman of Western lands
could for a moment endure. Let me prove this through a few quotations.
"A woman should look on her husband as if he were Heaven itself and
never weary of thinking how she may yield to her husband, and thus escape
celestial castigation." "Woman must form no friendships and no intimacy,
except when ordered to do so by her parents or by the middleman. Even at
the peril of her life, must she harden her heart like a rock or metal, and
observe the rules of propriety." "A woman has no particular lord. She must
look to her husband as her lord and must serve him with all reverence and
worship, not despising or thinking lightly of him. The great life-long duty of
a woman is obedience.... When the husband issues his instructions, the wife
must never disobey them.... Should her husband be roused to anger at any
time, she must obey him, with fear and trembling." Not one word in all
these many and specific instructions hints at love and affection. That which
to Western ears is the sweetest word in the English language, the foundation
of happiness in the home, the only true bond between husband and wife,
parents and children—LOVE—does not once appear in this the ideal
instruction for Japanese women.
Even to this day divorce is the common occurrence in Japan. According to
Confucius there are seven grounds of divorce: disobedience, barrenness,
lewd conduct, jealousy, leprosy or any other foul or incurable disease, too
much talking, and thievishness. "In plain English, a man may send away his
wife whenever he gets tired of her."
Were the man's duties to the wife and to her parents as minutely described
and insisted on as are those of the wife to the husband and to his parents,
this "Greater Learning for Women" would not seem so deficient; but such is
not the case. The woman's rights are few, yet she bears her lot with
marvelous patience. Indeed, she has acquired a most attractive and patient
and modest behavior despite, or is it because of, centuries of well-nigh

tyrannical treatment from the male sex. In some important respects the
women of Japan are not to be excelled by those of any other land. But that
this lot has been a happy one I cannot conceive it possible for a European,
who knows the meaning of love or home, to contend. The single item of one
divorce for every three marriages tells a tale of sorrow and heartache that is
sad to contemplate. Nor does this include those separations where tentative
marriage takes place with a view to learning whether the parties can endure
living together. I have known several such cases. Neither does this take
account of the great number of concubines that may be found in the homes
of the higher classes. A concubine often makes formal divorce quite
superfluous.
I by no means contend that the women of Old Japan were all and always
miserable. There was doubtless much happiness and even family joy;
affection between husband and wife could assuredly have been found in
numberless cases. But the hardness of life as a whole, the low position held
by woman in her relations to man, her lack of legal rights,[D] and her menial
position, justify the assertion that there was much room for improvement.
These three conspicuous features of the older life in Japan help us to reach a
clear conception as to what constitutes progress. We may say that true
progress consists in that continuous, though slow, transformation of the
structure of society which, while securing its more thorough organization,
brings to each individual the opportunity of a larger, richer, and fuller life, a
life which increasingly calls forth his latent powers and capacities. In other
words, progress is a growing organization of society, accompanied by a
growing liberty of the individual resulting in richness and fullness of life. It
is not primarily a question of unreflecting happiness, but a question of the
wide development of manhood and womanhood. Both men and women
have as yet unmeasured latent capacities, which demand a certain liberty,
accompanied by responsibilities and cares, in order for their development.
Intellectual education and a wide horizon are likewise essential to the
production of such manhood and womanhood. In the long run this is seen to
bring a deeper and a more lasting happiness than was possible to the
undeveloped man or woman.
The question of progress is confused and put on a wrong footing when the
consciousness of happiness or unhappiness, is made the primary test. The

happiness of the child is quite apart from that of the adult. Regardless of
distressing circumstances, the child is able to laugh and play, and this
because he is a child; a child in his ignorance of actual life, and in his
inability to perceive the true conditions in which he lives. Not otherwise, I
take it, was the happiness of the vast majority in Old Japan. Theirs was the
happiness of ignorance and simple, undeveloped lives. Accustomed to
tyranny, they did not think of rebellion against it. Familiar with brutality
and suffering, they felt nothing of its shame and inhumanity. The sight of
decapitated bodies, the torture of criminals, the despotism of husbands, the
cringing obedience of the ruled, the haughtiness of the rulers, the life of
hard toil and narrow outlook, were all so usual that no thought of escape
from such an order of society ever suggested itself to those who endured it.
From time to time wise and just rulers did indeed strive to introduce
principles of righteousness into their methods of government; but these men
formed the exception, not the rule. They were individuals and not the
system under which the people lived. It was always a matter of chance
whether or not such men were at the head of affairs, for the people did not
dream of the possibility of having any voice in their selection. The structure
of society was and always had been absolute militarism. Even under the
most benevolent rulers the use of cruel torture, not only on convicted
criminals, but on all suspected of crime, was customary. Those in authority
might personally set a good example, but they did not modify the system.
They owned not only the soil but practically the laborers also, for these
could not leave their homes in search of others that were better. They were
serfs, if not slaves, and the system did not tend to raise the standard of life
or education, of manhood or womanhood among the people. The happiness
of the people in such times was due in part to their essential inhumanity of
heart and lack of sympathy with suffering and sorrow. Each individual bore
his own sorrow and pain alone. The community, as such, did not distress
itself over individuals who suffered. Sympathy, in its full meaning, was
unknown in Old Japan. The barbarous custom of casting out the leper from
the home, to wander a lonely exile, living on the charity of strangers, is not
unknown even to this day. We are told that in past times the "people were
governed by such strong aversion to the sight of sickness that travelers were
often left to die by the roadside from thirst, hunger, or disease; and
householders even went the length of thrusting out of doors and abandoning

to utter destitution servants who suffered from chronic maladies." So
universal was this heartlessness that the government at one time issued
proclamations against the practices it allowed. "Whenever an epidemic
occurred the number of deaths was enormous." Seven men of the outcast,
"the Eta," class were authoritatively declared equal in value to one common
man. Beggars were technically called "hi-nin," "not men."
Those who descant on the happiness of Old Japan commit the great error of
overlooking all these sad features of life, and of fixing their attention
exclusively on the one feature of the childlike, not to say childish, lightness
of heart of the common people. Such writers are thus led to pronounce the
past better than the present time. They also overlook the profound happiness
and widespread prosperity of the present era. Trade, commerce,
manufactures, travel, the freest of intercommunication, newspapers, and
international relations, have brought into life a richness and a fullness that
were then unknown. But in addition, the people now enjoy a security of
personal interests, a possession of personal rights and property, and a
personal liberty, that make life far more worthy and profoundly enjoyable,
even while they bring responsibilities and duties and not a few anxieties.
This explains the fact that no Japanese has expressed to me the slightest
desire to abandon the present and return to the life and conditions of Old
Japan.
Let me repeat, therefore, with all possible emphasis, that the problem of
progress is not primarily one of increasing light-heartedness, pure and
simple, nor yet a problem of racial unification or of political centralization;
it is rather a problem of so developing the structure of society that the
individual may have the fullest opportunity for development.
The measure of progress is not the degree of racial unification, of political
centralization, or of unreflective happiness, but rather the degree and the
extent of individual personality. Racial unification, political centralization,
and increasing happiness are in the attainment of progress, but they are not
to be viewed as sufficient ends. Personality, can alone be that end. The wide
development of personality, therefore, is at once the goal and the criterion
of progress.

IV
THE METHOD OF PROGRESS

Progress as an ideal is quite modern in its origin. For although the ancients
were progressing, they did it unconsciously, blindly, stumbling on it by
chance, forced to it, as we have seen, by the struggle for existence. True of
the ancient civilizations of Europe and Western Asia and Africa, this is
emphatically true of the Orient. Here, so far from seeking to progress, the
avowed aim has been not to progress; the set purpose has been to do as the
fathers did; to follow their example even in customs and rites whose
meaning has been lost in the obscurity of the past. This blind adherence was
the boast of those who called themselves religious. They strove to fulfill
their duties to their ancestors.
Under such conditions how was progress possible? And how has it come to
pass that, ruled by this ideal until less than fifty years ago, Japan is now
facing quite the other way? The passion of the nation to-day is to make the
greatest possible progress in every direction. Here is an anomaly, a paradox;
progress made in spite of its rejection; and, recently, a total volte-face. How
shall we explain this paradox?

In our chapter on the Principles of National Evolution,[E] we see that the
first step in progress was made through the development of enlarging
communities by means of extending boundaries and hardening customs. We
see that, on reaching this stage, the great problem was so to break the "cake
of custom" as to give liberty to individuals whereby to secure the needful
variations. We do not consider how this was to be accomplished. We merely
show that, if further progress was to be made, it could only be through the
development of the individualistic principle to which we give the more
exact name communo-individualism. This problem as to how the "cake of
custom" is successfully broken must now engage our attention.
Mr. Bagehot contends that this process consisted, as a matter of history, in
the establishment of government by discussion. Matters of principle came
to be talked over; the desirability of this or that measure was submitted to
the people for their approval or disapproval. This method served to
stimulate definite and practical thought on a wide scale; it substituted the
thinking of the many for the thinking of the few; it stimulated independent
thinking and consequently independent action. This is, however, but another

way of saying that it stimulated variation. A government whose action was
determined after wide discussion would be peculiarly fitted to take
advantage of all useful variations of ideas and practice. Experience shows,
he continues, that the difficulty of developing a "cake of custom" is far
more easily surmounted than that of developing government by discussion;
i.e., that it is far less difficult to develop communalism than communo-
individualism. The family of arrested civilizations, of which China and
India and Japan, until recent times, are examples, were caught in the net of
what had once been the source of their progress. The tyranny of their laws
and customs was such that all individual variations were nipped in the bud.
They failed to progress because they failed to develop variations. And they
failed in this because they did not have government by discussion.
No one will dispute the importance of Mr. Bagehot's, contribution to this
subject. But it may be doubted whether he has pointed out the full reason
for the difficulty of breaking the "cake of custom" or manifested the real
root of progress. To attain progress in the full sense, not merely of an
oligarchy or a caste, but of the whole people, there must not only be
government by discussion, but the responsibilities of the government must
be snared more or less fully by all the governed.
History, however, shows that this cannot take place until a conception of
intrinsic manhood and womanhood has arisen, a conception which
emphasizes their infinite and inherent worth. This conception is not
produced by government by discussion, while government by discussion is
the necessary consequence of the wide acceptance of this conception. It is
therefore the real root of progress.
As I look over the history of the Orient, I find no tendency to discover the
inherent worth of man or to introduce the principle of government by
discussion. Left to themselves, I see no probability that any of these nations
would ever have been able to break the thrall of their customs, and to reach
that stage of development in which common individuals could be trusted
with a large measure of individual liberty. Though I can conceive that Japan
might have secured a thorough-going political centralization under the old
régime, I cannot see that that centralization would have been accompanied
by growing liberty for the individual or by such constitutional rights for the
common man as he enjoys to-day. Whatever progress she might have made

in the direction of nationality it would still have been a despotism. The
common man would have remained a helpless and hopeless slave. Art
might have prospered; the people might have remained simple-minded and
relatively contented. But they could not have attained that freedom and
richness of life, that personality, which we saw in our last chapter to be the
criterion and goal of true progress.
If the reader judges the above contention correct and agrees with the writer
that the conception of the inherent value of a human being could not arise
spontaneously in Japan, he will conclude that the progress of Japan
depended on securing this important conception from without. Exactly this
has taken place. By her thorough-going abandonment of the feudal social
order and adoption of the constitutional and representative government of
Christendom, whether she recognizes it or not, she has accepted the
principles of the inherent worth of manhood and womanhood, as well as
government by discussion. Japan has thus, by imitation rather than by
origination, entered on the path of endless progress.
So important, however, is the step recently taken that further analysis of this
method of progress is desirable for its full comprehension. We have already
noted quite briefly[F] how Japan was supplied by the West with the ideal of
national unity and the material instruments essential to its attainment. In
connection with the high development of the nation as a whole, these two
elements of progress, the ideal and the material, need further consideration.
We note in the first place that both begin with imitation, but if progress is to
be real and lasting, both must grow to independence.
The first and by far the most important is the psychical, the introduction of
new ideas. So long as the old, familiar ideas hold sway over the mind of a
nation, there is little or no stimulus to comparison and discussion.
Stagnation is well-nigh complete. But let new ideas be so introduced as to
compel attention and comprehension, and the mind spontaneously awakes
to wonderful activity. The old stagnation is no longer possible. Discussion
is started; and in the end something must take place, even if the new ideas
are not accepted wholly or even in part. But they will not gain attention if
presented simply in the abstract, unconnected with real life. They must

bring evidence that, if accepted and lived, they will be of practical use, that
they will give added power to the nation.
Exactly this took place in 1854 when Admiral Perry demanded entrance to
Japan. The people suddenly awoke from their sleep of two and a half
centuries to find that new nations had arisen since they closed their eyes,
nations among which new sets of ideas had been at work, giving them a
power wholly unknown to the Orient and even mysterious to it. Those ideas
were concerned, not alone with the making of guns, the building of ships,
the invention of machinery, the taming and using of the forces of nature, but
also with methods of government and law, with strange notions, too, about
religion and duty, about the family and the individual, which the foreigners
said were of inestimable value and importance. It needed but a few years of
intercourse with Western peoples to convince the most conservative that
unless the Japanese themselves could gain the secret of their power, either
by adopting their weapons or their civilization, they themselves must fade
away before the stronger nations. The need of self-preservation was the first
great stimulus that drove new thoughts into unwilling brains.
There can be no doubt that the Japanese were right in this analysis of the
situation. Had they insisted on maintaining their old methods of national
life and social order and ancient customs, there can be no doubt as to the
result. Africa and India in recent decades and China and Korea in the most
recent years tell the story all too clearly. Those who know the course of
treaty conferences and armed collisions, as at Shimonoseki and Kagoshima
between Japan and the foreign nations, have no doubt that Japan, divided
into clans and persisting in her love of feudalism, would long since have
become the territory of some European Power. She was saved by the
possession of a remarkable combination of national characteristics,—the
powers of observation, of appreciation, and of imitation. In a word, her
sensitiveness to her environment and her readiness to respond to it proved
to be her salvation.
But the point on which I wish to lay special emphasis is that the prime
element of the form in which the deliverance came was through the
acquisition of numerous new ideas. These were presented by persons who
thoroughly believed in them and who admittedly had a power not possessed
by the Japanese themselves. Though unable to originate these ideas, the

Japanese yet proved themselves capable of understanding and appreciating
them—in a measure at least. They were at first attracted to that which
related chiefly to the externals of civilization, to that which would
contribute immediately to the complete political centralization of the nation.
With great rapidity they adopted Western ideas about warfare and weapons.
They sent their young men abroad to study the civilization of the foreign
nations. At great expense they also employed many foreigners to teach them
in their own land the things they wished to learn. Thus have the Japanese
mastered so rapidly the details of those ideas which, less than fifty years
ago, were not only strange but odious to them.
Under their influence, the conditions which history shows to be the most
conducive to the continuous growth of civilization have been definitely
accepted and adopted by the people, namely, popular rights, the liberty of
individuals to differ from the past so far as this does not interfere with
national unity, and the direct responsibility and relation of each individual
to the nation without any mediating group. These rights and liberties are
secured to the individual by a constitution and by laws enacted by
representative legislatures. Government by discussion has been fairly
inaugurated.
During these years of change the effort has been to leave the old social
order as undisturbed as possible. For example, it was hoped that the
reorganization of the military and naval forces of the Empire would be
sufficient without disturbing the feudal order and without abolishing the
feudal states. But this was soon found ineffectual. For a time it was likewise
thought that the adoption of Western methods of government might be made
without disturbing the old religious ideas and without removing the edicts
against Christianity. But experience soon showed that the old civilization
was a unit. No part could be vitally modified without affecting the whole
structure. Having knocked over one block in the long row that made up
their feudal social order, it was found that each successive block was
touched and fell, until nothing was left standing as before. It was found also
that the old ideas of education, of travel, of jurisprudence, of torture and
punishment, of social ranks, of the relation of the individual to the state, of
the state to the family, and of religion to the family, were more or less
defective and unsuited to the new civilization. Before this new movement
all obstructive ideas, however, sanctioned by antiquity, have had to give

way. The Japanese of to-day look, as it were, upon a new earth and a new
heaven. Those of forty years ago would be amazed, not only at the
enormous changes in the externals, life and government, but also at the
transformation which has overtaken every element of the older civilization.
Putting it rather strongly, it is now not the son who obeys the father, but the
father the son. The rulers no longer command the people, but the people
command the rulers. The people do not now toil to support the state; but the
state toils to protect the people.
Whether the incoming of these new ideas and practices be thought to
constitute progress or not will depend on one's view of the aim of life. If
this be as maintained in the previous chapter, then surely the transformation
of Japan must be counted progress. That, however, to which I call attention
is the fact that the essential requisite of progress is the attainment of new
ideas, whatever be their source. Japan has not only taken up a great host of
these, but in doing so she has adopted a social structure to stimulate the
continuous production of new ideas, through the development of
individuality. She is thus in the true line of continuously progressive
evolution. Imitating the stronger nations, she has introduced into her system
the life-giving blood of free discussion, popular education, and universal
individual rights and liberty. In a word, she has begun to be an
individualistic nation. She has introduced a social order fitted to a wide
development of personality.
The importance of the second line of progress, the physical, would seem to
be too obvious to call for any detailed consideration. But so much has been
said by both graceful and able writers on Japan as to the advantages she
enjoys from her simple non-mechanical civilization, and the mistake she is
making in adopting the mechanical civilization of the West, that it may not
be amiss to dwell for a few moments upon it. I wish to show that the second
element of progress consists in the increasing use of mechanisms.
The enthusiastic admirer of Japan hardly finds words wherewith sufficiently
to praise the simplicity of her pre-Meiji civilization. No furniture brings
confusion to the room; no machinery distresses the ear with its groanings or
the eye with its unsightliness. No factories blacken the sky with smoke. No
trains screeching through the towns and cities disturb sleepers and frighten
babies. The simple bed on the floor, the straw sandal on the foot, wooden

chopsticks in place of knives and forks, the small variety of foods and of
cooking utensils, the simple, homespun cotton clothing, the fascinating
homes, so small and neat and clean—in truth all that pertains to Old Japan
finds favor in the eyes of the enthusiastic admirer from the Occident. One
such writer, in an elaborate paper intended to set forth the superiority of the
original Japanese to the Occidental civilization, uses the following
language: "Ability to live without furniture, without impedimenta, with the
least possible amount of neat clothing, shows more than the advantage held
by the Japanese race in the struggle of life; it shows also the real character
of some of the weaknesses in our own civilization. It forces reflection upon
the useless multiplicity of our daily wants. We must have meat and bread
and butter; glass windows and fire; hats, white shirts, and woolen
underwear; boots and shoes; trunks, bags, and boxes; bedsteads, mattresses,
sheets, and blankets; all of which a Japanese can do without, and is really
better off without."[G] Surely one finds much of truth in this, and there is no
denying the charm of the simpler civilization, but the closing phrase of the
quotation is the assumption without discussion of the disputed point. Are
the Japanese really better off without these implements of Western
civilization? Evidently they themselves do not think so. For, in glancing
through the list as given by the writer quoted, one realizes the extent of
Japanese adoption of these Western devices. Hardly an article but is used in
Japan, and certainly with the supposition of the purchaser that it adds either
to his health or his comfort. In witness are the hundreds of thousands of
straw hats, the glass windows everywhere, and the meat-shops in each town
and city of the Empire. The charm of a foreign fashion is not sufficient
explanation for the rapidly spreading use of foreign inventions.
That there are no useless or even evil features in our Western civilization is
not for a moment contended. The stiff starched shirt may certainly be asked
to give an account of itself and justify its continued existence, if it can. But
I think the proposition is capable of defense that the vast majority of the
implements of our Occidental civilization have their definite place and
value, either in contributing directly to the comfort and happiness of their
possessor, or in increasing his health and strength and general mental and
physical power. What is it that makes the Occidental longer-lived than the
Japanese? Why is he healthier? Why is he more intelligent? Why is he a
more developed personality? Why are his children more energetic? Or,

reversing the questions, why has the population of Japan been increasing
with leaps and bounds since the introduction of Western civilization and
medical science? Why is the rising generation so free from pockmarks?
Why is the number of the blind steadily diminishing? Why are mechanisms
multiplying so rapidly—the jinrikisha, the railroads, the roads, the
waterworks and sewers, the chairs, the tables, the hats and umbrellas,
lamps, clocks, glass windows and shoes? A hundred similar questions might
be asked, to which no definite answers are needful.
Further discussion of details seems unnecessary. Yet the full significance of
this point can hardly be appreciated without a perception of the great
principle that underlies it. The only way in which man has become and
continues to be increasingly superior to animals is in his use of
mechanisms. The animal does by brute force what man accomplishes by
various devices. The inventiveness of different races differs vastly. But
everywhere, the most advanced are the most powerful. Take the individual
man of the more developed race and separate him from his tools and
machines, and it is doubtless true that he cannot in some selected points
compete with an individual of a less developed race. But let ten thousand
men of the higher development compete with ten thousand of the lower,
each using the mechanisms under his control, and can there be any doubt as
to which is the superior?
In other words, the method of human progress consists, in no small degree,
in the progressive mastery of nature, first through understanding her and
then through the use of her immense forces by means of suitable
mechanisms. All the machines and furniture, and tools and clothing, and
houses and canned foods, and shoes and boots, and railroads and telegraph
lines, and typewriters and watches, and the ten thousand other so-called
"impedimenta" of the Occidental civilization are but devices whereby
Western man has sought to increase his health, his wealth, his knowledge,
his comfort, his independence, his capacity of travel—in a word, his well-
being. Through these mechanisms he masters nature. He extracts a rich
living from nature; he annihilates time and space; he defies the storms; he
tunnels the mountains; he extracts precious ores and metals from the rock-
ribbed hills; with a magic touch he loosens the grip of the elements and
makes them surrender their gold, their silver, and, more precious still, their
iron; with these he builds his spacious cities and parks, his railroads and

ocean steamers; he travels the whole world around, fearing neither beast nor
alien man; all are subject to his command and will. He investigates and
knows the constitution of stellar worlds no less than that of the world in
which he lives. By his instruments he explores the infinite depths of heaven
and the no less infinite depths of the microscopic world. All these reviled
"impedimenta" thus bring to the race that has them a wealth of life both
physical and psychical, practical and ideal, that is otherwise unattainable.
By them he gains and gives external expression to the reality of his inner
nature, his freedom, his personality. True, instead of bringing health and
long life, knowledge and deep enjoyment, they may become the means of
bitterest curses. But the lesson to learn from this fact is how to use these
powers aright, not how to forbid their use altogether. They are not to be
branded as hindrances to progress.
The defect of Occidental civilization to-day is hot its multiplicity of
machinery, but the defective view that still blinds the eyes of the multitude
as to the true nature and the legitimate goal of progress. Individual, selfish
happiness is still the ideal of too many men and women to permit of the
ideal which carries the Golden Rule into the markets and factories, into the
politics of parties and nations, which is essential to the attainment of the
highest progress. But no one who casts his eyes over the centuries of
struggle and effort through which man has been slowly working his way
upward from the rank of a beast to that of a man, can doubt that progress
has been made. The worth of character has been increasingly seen and its
possession desired. The true end of effort and development was never more
clear than it is at the close of the nineteenth century. Never before were the
conditions of progress so bright, not only for the favored few in one or two
lands, but for the multitudes the world over. Isolation and separation have
passed from this world forever. Free social intercourse between the nations
permits wide dissemination of ideas and their application to practical life in
the form of social organization and mechanical invention. This makes it
possible for nations more or less backward in social and civilizational
development to gain in a relatively short time the advantages won by
advanced nations through ages of toil and under favoring circumstances.
Nation thus stimulates nation, each furnishing the other with important
variations in ideas, customs, institutions, and mechanisms resulting from
long-continued divergent evolution. The advantages slowly gained by

advanced peoples speedily accrues through social heredity to any backward
race really desiring to enter the social heritage.
Thus does the paradox of Japan's recent progress become thoroughly
intelligible.

V
JAPANESE SENSITIVENESS TO ENVIRONMENT

With this chapter we begin a more detailed study of Japanese social and
psychic evolution. We shall take up the various characteristics of the race
and seek to account for them, showing their origin in the peculiar nature of
the social order which so long prevailed in Japan. This is a study of
Japanese psychogenesis. The question to which we shall continually return
is whether or not the characteristic under consideration is inherent and
congenital and therefore inevitable. Not only our interpretation of Japanese
evolution, past, present, and future, but also our understanding of the
essential nature of social evolution in general, depends upon the answer to
this question.
We naturally begin with that characteristic of Japanese nature which would
seem to be more truly congenital than any other to be mentioned later. I
refer to their sensitiveness to environment. More quickly than most races do
the Japanese seem to perceive and adapt themselves to changed conditions.
The history of the past thirty years is a prolonged illustration of this
characteristic. The desire to imitate foreign nations was not a real reason for
the overthrow of feudalism, but there was, rather, a more or less conscious
feeling, rapidly pervading the whole people, that the feudal system would
be unable to maintain the national integrity. As intimated, the matter was
not so much reasoned out as felt. But such a vast illustration is more
difficult to appreciate than some individual instances, of which I have noted
several.
During a conversation with Drs. Forsythe and Dale, of Cambridge,
England, I asked particularly as to their experience with the Japanese
students who had been there to study. They both remarked on the fact that
all Japanese students were easily influenced by those with whom they
customarily associated; so much so that, within a short time, they acquired

not only the cut of coats and trousers, but also the manner and accent, of
those with whom they lived. It was amusing, they said, to see what
transformations were wrought in those who went to the Continent for their
long vacations. From France they returned with marked French manners
and tones and clothes, while from Germany they brought the distinctive
marks of German stiffness in manner and general bearing. It was noted as
still more curious that the same student would illustrate both variations,
provided he spent one summer in Germany and another in France.
Japanese sensitiveness is manifested in many unexpected ways. An
observant missionary lady once remarked that she had often wondered how
such unruly, self-willed children as grow up under Japanese training, or its
lack, finally become such respectable members of society. She concluded
that instead of being punished out of their misbehaviors they were laughed
out of them. The children are constantly told that if they do so and so they
will be laughed at—a terrible thing.
The fear of ridicule has thus an important sociological function in
maintaining ethical standards. Its power may be judged by the fact that in
ancient times when a samurai gave his note to return a borrowed sum, the
only guarantee affixed was the permission to be laughed at in public in case
of failure. The Japanese young man who is making a typewritten copy of
these pages for me says that, when still young, he heard an address to
children which he still remembers. The speaker asked what the most fearful
thing in the world was. Many replies were given by the children—"snakes,"
"wild beasts," "fathers," "gods," "ghosts," "demons," "Satan," "hell," etc.
These were admitted to be fearful, but the speaker told the children that one
other thing was to be more feared than all else, namely, "to be laughed at."
This speech, with its vivid illustrations, made a lasting impression on the
mind of the boy, and on reading what I had written he realized how
powerful a motive fear of ridicule had been in his own life; also how large a
part it plays in the moral education of the young in Japan.
Naturally enough this fear of being laughed at leads to careful and minute
observation of the clothing, manners, and speech of one's associates, and
prompt conformity to them, through imitation. The sensitiveness of
Japanese students to each new environment is thus easily understood. And
this sensitiveness to environment has its advantages as well as its

disadvantages. I have already referred to the help it gives to the
establishment of individual conformity to ethical standards. The
phenomenal success of many reforms in Japan may easily be traced to the
national sensitiveness to foreign criticism. Many instances of this will be
given in the course of this work, but two may well be mentioned at this
point. According to the older customs there was great, if not perfect,
freedom as to the use of clothing by the people. The apparent indifference
shown by them in the matter of nudity led foreigners to call the nation
uncivilized. This criticism has always been a galling one, and not without
reason. In many respects their civilization has been fully the equal of that of
any other nation; yet in this respect it is true that they resembled and still do
resemble semi-civilized peoples. In response to this foreign criticism,
however, a law was passed, early in the Meiji era, prohibiting nudity in
cities. The requirement that public bathing houses be divided into two
separate compartments, one for men and one for women, was likewise due
to foreign opinion. That this is the case may be fairly inferred from the fact
that the enforcement of these laws has largely taken places where foreigners
abound, whereas, in the interior towns and villages they receive much less
attention. It must be acknowledged, however, that now at last, twenty-five
years after their passage, they are almost everywhere beginning to be
enforced by the authorities.
My other illustration of sensitiveness to foreign opinion is the present state
of Japanese thought about the management of Formosa. The government
has been severely criticised by many leading papers for its blunders there.
But the curious feature is the constant reference to the contempt into which
such mismanagement will bring Japan in the sight of the world—as if the
opinion of other nations were the most important issue involved, and not the
righteousness and probity of the government itself. It is interesting to notice
how frequently the opinion of other nations with regard to Japan is a
leading thought in the mind of the people.
In this connection the following extract finds its natural place:
In a very large number of schools throughout the
country special instructions have been given to the
pupils as to their behavior towards foreigners. From
various sources we have culled the following orders

bearing on special points, which we state as briefly as
possible.
(1) Never call after foreigners passing along the streets
or roads.
(2) When foreigners make inquiries, answer them
politely. If unable to make them understand, inform the
police of the fact.
(3) Never accept a present from a foreigner when there
is no reason for his giving it, and never charge him
anything above what is proper.
(4) Do not crowd around a shop when a foreigner is
making purchases, thereby causing him much
annoyance. The continuance of this practice disgraces
us as a nation.
(5) Since all human beings are brothers and sisters,
there is no reason for fearing foreigners. Treat them as
equals and act uprightly in all your dealings with them.
Be neither servile nor arrogant.
(6) Beware of combining against the foreigner and
disliking him because he is a foreigner; men are to be
judged by their conduct and not by their nationality.
(7) As intercourse with foreigners becomes closer and
extends over a series of years, there is danger that many
Japanese may become enamored of their ways and
customs and forsake the good old customs of their
forefathers. Against this danger you must be on your
guard.
(8) Taking off your hat is the proper way to salute a
foreigner. The bending of the body low is not be
commended.

(9) When you see a foreigner be sure and cover up
naked parts of the body.
(10) Hold in high regard the worship of ancestors and
treat your relations with warm cordiality, but do not
regard a person as your enemy because he or she is a
Christian.
(11) In going through the world you will often find a
knowledge of a foreign tongue absolutely essential.
(12) Beware of selling your souls to foreigners and
becoming their slaves. Sell them no houses or lands.
(13) Aim at not being beaten in your competition with
foreigners. Remember that loyalty and filial piety are
our most precious national treasures and do nothing to
violate them.
Many of the above rules are excellent in tone. Number
7, however, which hails from Osaka, is somewhat
narrow and prejudiced. The injunction not to sell houses
to foreigners is, as the Jiji Shimpo points out, absurd
and mischievous.[H]
The sensitiveness of the people also works to the advantage of the nation in
the social unity which it helps to secure. Indeed I cannot escape the
conviction that the striking unity of the Japanese is largely due to this
characteristic. It tends to make their mental and emotional activities
synchronous. It retards reform for a season, to be sure, but later it
accelerates it. It makes it difficult for individuals to break away from their
surroundings and start out on new lines. It leads to a general progress while
it tends to hinder individual progress. It tends to draw back into the general
current of national life those individuals who, under exceptional conditions,
may have succeeded in breaking away from it for a season. This, I think, is
one of the factors of no little power at work among the Christian churches
in Japan. It is one, too, that the Japanese themselves little perceive; so far as
I have observed, foreigners likewise fail to realize its force.

Closely connected with this sensitiveness to environment are other qualities
which make it effective. They are: great flexibility, adjustability, agility
(both mental and physical), and the powers of keen attention to details and
of exact imitation.
As opposed to all this is the Chinese lack of flexibility. Contrast a
Chinaman and a Japanese after each has been in America a year. The one to
all appearances is an American; his hat, his clothing, his manner, seem so
like those of an American that were it not for his small size, Mongolian type
of face, and defective English, he could easily be mistaken for one. How
different is it with the Chinaman! He retains his curious cue with a tenacity
that is as intense as it is characteristic. His hat is the conventional one
adopted by all Chinese immigrants. His clothing likewise, though far from
Chinese, is nevertheless entirely un-American. He makes no effort to
conform to his surroundings. He seems to glory in his separateness.
The Japanese desire to conform to the customs and appearances of those
about him is due to what I have called sensitiveness; his success is due to
the flexibility of his mental constitution.
But this characteristic is seen in multitudes of little ways. The new fashion
of wearing the hair according to the Western styles; of wearing Western
hats, and Western clothing, now universal in the army, among policemen,
and common among officials and educated men; the use of chairs and
tables, lamps, windows, and other Western things is due in no small
measure to that flexibility of mind which readily adopts new ideas and new
ways; is ready to try new things and new words, and after trial, if it finds
them convenient or useful or even amusing, to retain them permanently, and
this flexibility is, in part, the reason why the Japanese are accounted a fickle
people. They accept new ways so easily that those who do not have this
faculty have no explanation for it but that of fickleness. A frequent surprise
to a missionary in Japan is that of meeting a fine-looking, accomplished
gentleman whom he knew a few years before as a crude, ungainly youth. I
am convinced that it is the possession of this set of characteristics that has
enabled Japan so quickly to assimilate many elements of an alien
civilization.

Yet this flexibility of mind and sensitiveness to changed conditions find
some apparently striking exceptions. Notable among these are the many
customs and appliances of foreign nations which, though adopted by the
people, have not been completely modified to suit their own needs. In
illustration is the Chinese ideograph, for the learning of which even in the
modern common-school reader, there is no arrangement of the characters in
the order of their complexity. The possibility of simplifying the colossal
task of memorizing these uncorrelated ideographs does not seem to have
occurred to the Japanese; though it is now being attempted by the foreigner.
Perhaps a partial explanation of this apparent exception to the usual
flexibility of the people in meeting conditions may be found in their relative
lack of originality. Still I am inclined to refer it to a greater sensitiveness of
the Japanese to the personal and human, than to the impersonal and physical
environment.
The customary explanation of the group of characteristics considered in this
chapter is that they are innate, due to brain and nerve structure, and
acquired by each generation through biological heredity. If closely
examined, however, this is seen to be no explanation at all. Accepting the
characteristics as empirical inexplicable facts, the real problem is evaded,
pushed into prehistoric times, that convenient dumping ground of
biological, anthropological, and sociological difficulties.
Japanese flexibility, imitativeness, and sensitiveness to environment are to
be accounted for by a careful consideration of the national environment and
social order. Modern psychology has called attention to the astonishing part
played by imitation, conscious and unconscious, in the evolution of the
human race, and in the unification of the social group. Prof. Le Tarde goes
so far as to make this the fundamental principle of human evolution. He has
shown that it is ever at work in the life of every human being, modifying all
his thoughts, acts, and feelings. In the evolution of civilization the rare man
thinks, the millions imitate.
A slight consideration of the way in which Occidental lands have developed
their civilization will convince anyone that imitation has taken the leading
part. Japan, therefore, is not unique in this respect. Her periods of wholesale
imitation have indeed called special notice to the trait. But the rapidity of
the movement has been due to the peculiarities of her environment. For

long periods she has been in complete isolation, and when brought into
contact with foreign nations, she has found them so far in advance of
herself in many important respects that rapid imitation was the only course
left her by the inexorable laws of nature. Had she not imitated China in
ancient times and the Occident in modern times, her independence, if not
her existence, could hardly have been maintained.
Imitation of admittedly superior civilizations has therefore been an integral,
conscious element of Japan's social order, and to a degree perhaps not
equaled by the social order of any other race.
The difference between Japanese imitation and that of other nations lies in
the fact that whereas the latter, as a rule, despise foreign races, and do not
admit the superiority of alien civilizations as a whole, imitating only a detail
here and there, often without acknowledgment and sometimes even without
knowledge, the Japanese, on the other hand, have repeatedly been placed in
such circumstances as to see the superiority of foreign civilizations as a
whole, and to desire their general adoption. This has produced a spirit of
imitation among all the individuals of the race. It has become a part of their
social inheritance. This explanation largely accounts for the striking
difference between Japanese and Chinese in the Occident. The Japanese go
to the West in order to acquire all the West can give. The Chinaman goes
steeled against its influences. The spirit of the Japanese renders him quickly
susceptible to every change in his surroundings. He is ever noting details
and adapting himself to his circumstances. The spirit of the Chinaman, on
the contrary, renders him quite oblivious to his environment. His mind is
closed. Under special circumstances, when a Chinaman has been liberated
from the prepossession of his social inheritance, he has shown himself as
capable of Occidentalization in clothing, speech, manner, and thought as a
Japanese. Such cases, however, are rare.
But a still more effective factor in the development of the characteristics
under consideration is the nature of Japanese feudalism. Its emphasis on the
complete subordination of the inferior to the superior was one of its
conspicuous features. This was a factor always and everywhere at work in
Japan. No individual was beyond its potent influence. Attention to details,
absolute obedience, constant, conscious imitation, secretiveness,
suspiciousness, were all highly developed by this social system. Each of

these traits is a special form of sensitiveness to environment. From the most
ancient times the initiative of superiors was essential to the wide adoption
by the people of any new idea or custom. Christianity found ready
acceptance in the sixteenth century and Buddhism in the eighth, because
they had been espoused by exalted persons. The superiority of the
civilization of China in early times, and of the West in modern times, was
first acknowledged and adopted by a few nobles and the Emperor. Having
gained this prestige they promptly became acceptable to the rank and file of
people who vied with each other in their adoption. A peculiarity of the
Japanese is the readiness with which the ideas and aims of the rulers are
accepted by the people. This is due to the nature of Japanese feudalism. It
has made the body of the nation conspicuously subject to the ruling brain
and has conferred on Japan her unique sensitiveness to environment.
Susceptibility to slight changes in the feelings of lords and masters and
corresponding flexibility were important social traits, necessary products of
the old social order. Those deficient in these regards would inevitably lose
in the struggle for social precedence, if not in the actual struggle for
existence. These characteristics would, accordingly, be highly developed.
Bearing in mind, therefore, the character of the factors that have ever been
acting on the Japanese psychic nature, we see clearly that the characteristics
under consideration are not to be attributed to her inherent race nature, but
may be sufficiently accounted for by reference to the social order and social
environment.

VI
WAVES OF FEELING—ABDICATION

It has long been recognized that the Japanese are emotional, but the full
significance of this element of their nature is far from realized. It underlies
their entire life; it determines the mental activities in a way and to a degree
that Occidentals can hardly appreciate. Waves of feeling have swept
through the country, carrying everything before them in a manner that has
oftentimes amazed us of foreign lands. An illustration from the recent
political life of the nation comes to mind in this connection. For months
previous to the outbreak of the recent war with China, there had been a
prolonged struggle between the Cabinet and the political parties who were
united in their opposition to the government, though in little else. The
parties insisted that the Cabinet should be responsible to the party in power
in the Lower House, as is the case in England, that thus they might stand
and fall together. The Cabinet, on the other hand, contended that, according
to the constitution, it was responsible to the Emperor alone, and that
consequently there was no need of a change in the Cabinet with every
change of party leadership. The nation waxed hot over the discussion.
Successive Diets were dissolved and new Diets elected, in none of which,
however, could the supporters of the Cabinet secure a majority; the Cabinet
was, therefore, incapable of carrying out any of its distinctive measures.
Several times the opposition went so far as to decline to pass the budget
proposed by the Cabinet, unless so reduced as to cripple the government,
the reason constantly urged being that the Cabinet was not competent to
administer the expenditure of such large sums of money. There were no
direct charges of fraud, but simply of incompetence. More than once the
Cabinet was compelled to carry on the government during the year under
the budget of the previous year, as provided by the constitution. So intense
was the feeling that the capital was full of "soshi,"—political ruffians,—and
fear was entertained as to the personal safety of the members of the
Cabinet. The whole country was intensely excited over the matter. The

newspapers were not loath to charge the government with extravagance,
and a great explosion seemed inevitable, when, suddenly, a breeze from a
new quarter arose and absolutely changed the face of the nation.
War with China was whispered, and then noised around. Events moved
rapidly. One or two successful encounters with the Chinese stirred the
warlike passion that lurked in every breast. At once the feud with the
Cabinet was forgotten. When, on short notice, an extra session of the Diet
was called to vote funds for a war, not a word was breathed about lack of
confidence in the Cabinet or its incompetence to manage the ordinary
expenditures of the government; on the contrary, within five minutes from
the introduction of the government bill asking a war appropriation of
150,000,000 yen, the bill was unanimously passed.
Such an absolute change could hardly have taken place in England or
America, or any land less subject to waves of emotion. So far as I could
learn, the nation was a unit in regard to the war. There was not the slightest
sign of a "peace party." Of all the Japanese with whom I talked only one
ever expressed the slightest opposition to the war, and he on religious
grounds, being a Quaker.
The strength of the emotional element tends to make the Japanese
extremists. If liberals, they are extremely liberal; if conservative, they are
extremely conservative. The craze for foreign goods and customs which
prevailed for several years in the early eighties was replaced by an almost
equally strong aversion to anything foreign.
This tendency to swing to extremes has cropped out not infrequently in the
theological thinking of Japanese Christians. Men who for years had done
effective work in upbuilding the Church, men who had lifted hundreds of
their fellow-countrymen out of moral and religious darkness into light and
life, have suddenly, as it has appeared, lost all appreciation of the truths
they had been teaching and have swung off to the limits of a radical
rationalism, losing with their evangelical faith their power of helping their
fellow-men, and in some few cases, going over into lives of open sin. The
intellectual reasons given by them to account for their changes have seemed
insufficient; it will be found that the real explanation of these changes is to
be sought not in their intellectual, but in their emotional natures.

Care must be taken, however, not to over-emphasize this extremist
tendency. In some respects, I am convinced that it is more apparent than
real. The appearance is due to the silent passivity even of those who are
really opposed to the new departure. It is natural that the advocates of some
new policy should be enthusiastic and noisy. To give the impression to an
outsider that the new enthusiasm is universal, those who do not share it
have simply to keep quiet. This takes place to some degree in every land,
but particularly so in Japan. The silence of their dissent is one of the
striking characteristics of the Japanese. It seems to be connected with an
abdication of personal responsibility. How often in the experience of the
missionary it has happened that his first knowledge of friction in a church,
wholly independent and self-supporting and having its own native pastor, is
the silent withdrawal of certain members from their customary places of
worship. On inquiry it is learned that certain things are being done or said
which do not suit them and, instead of seeking to have these matters
righted, they simply wash their hands of the whole affair by silent
withdrawal.
The Kumi-ai church, in Kumamoto, from being large and prosperous, fell to
an actual active membership of less than a dozen, solely because, as each
member became dissatisfied with the high-handed and radical pastor, he
simply withdrew. Had each one stood by the church, realizing that he had a
responsibility toward it which duty forbade him to shirk, the conservative
and substantial members of the church would soon have been united in their
opposition to the radical pastor and, being in the majority, could have set
matters right. In the case of perversion of trust funds by the trustees of the
Kumamoto School, many Japanese felt that injustice was being done to the
American Board and a stain was being inflicted on Japan's fair name, but
they did nothing either to express their opinions or to modify the results. So
silent were they that we were tempted to think them either ignorant of what
was taking place, or else indifferent to it. We now know, however, that
many felt deeply on the matter, but were simply silent according to the
Japanese custom.
But silent dissent does not necessarily last indefinitely, though it may
continue for years. As soon as some check has been put upon the rising tide
of feeling, and a reaction is evident, those who before had been silent begin
to voice their reactionary feeling, while those who shortly before had been

in the ascendant begin to take their turn of silent dissent. Thus the waves are
accentuated, both in their rise and in their relapse, by the abdicating
proclivity of the people.
Yet, in spite of the tendency of the nation to be swept from one extreme to
another by alternate waves of feeling, there are many well-balanced men
who are not carried with the tide. The steady progress made by the nation
during the past generation, in spite of emotional actions and reactions, must
be largely attributed to the presence in its midst of these more stable
natures. These are the men who have borne the responsibilities of
government. So far as we are able to see, they have not been led by their
feelings, but rather by their judgments. When the nation was wild with
indignation over Europe's interference with the treaty which brought the
China-Japanese war to a close, the men at the helm saw too clearly the
futility of an attempt to fight Russia to allow themselves to be carried away
by sentimental notions of patriotism. Theirs was a deeper and truer
patriotism than that of the great mass of the nation, who, flushed with recent
victories by land and by sea, were eager to give Russia the thrashing which
they felt quite able to administer.
Abdication is such an important element in Japanese life, serving to throw
responsibility on the young, and thus helping to emphasize the emotional
characteristics of the people, that we may well give it further attention at
this point. In describing it, I can do no better than quote from J.H. Gubbins'
valuable introduction to his translation of the New Civil Code of Japan.[I]
"Japanese scholars who have investigated the subject
agree in tracing the origin of the present custom to the
abdication of Japanese sovereigns, instances of which
occur at an early period of Japanese history. These
earlier abdications were independent of religious
influences, but with the advent of Buddhism abdication
entered upon a new phase. In imitation, it would seem,
of the retirement for the purpose of religious
contemplation of the Head Priests of Buddhist
monasteries, abdicating sovereigns shaved their heads
and entered the priesthood, and when subsequently the
custom came to be employed for political purposes, the

cloak of religion was retained. From the throne the
custom spread to Regents and high officers of state, and
so universal had its observance amongst officials of the
high ranks become in the twelfth century that, as
Professor Shigeno states, it was almost the rule for such
persons to retire from the world at the age of forty or
fifty, and nominally enter the priesthood, both the act
and the person performing it being termed 'niu do.' In
the course of time, the custom of abdication ceased to
be confined to officials, and extended to feudal nobility
and the military class generally, whence it spread
through the nation, and at this stage of its transition its
connection with the phase it finally assumed becomes
clear. But with its extension beyond the circle of official
dignitaries, and its consequent severance from tradition
and religious associations, whether real or nominal
abdication changed its name. It was no longer termed
'niu do,' but 'in kio,' the old word being retained only in
its strict religious meaning, and 'inkyo' is the term in
use to-day.
"In spite of the religious origin of abdication, its
connection with religion has long since vanished, and it
may be said without fear of contradiction that the
Japanese of to-day, when he or she abdicates, is in no
way actuated by the feeling which impelled European
monarchs in past times to end their days in the
seclusion of the cloister, and which finds expression to-
day in the Irish phrase, 'To make one's soul.' Apart from
the influence of traditional convention, which counts
for something and also explains the great hold on the
nation which the custom has acquired, the motive seems
to be somewhat akin to that which leads people in some
Western countries to retire from active life at an age
when bodily infirmity cannot be adduced as the reason.
But with this great difference, that in the one case, that
of Western countries, it is the business or profession,

the active work of life, which is relinquished, the
position of the individual vis-à-vis the family being
unaffected; in the other case, it is the position of head of
the family which is relinquished, with the result of the
complete effacement of the individual so far as the
family is concerned. Moreover, although abdication
usually implies the abandonment of the business, or
profession, of the person who abdicates, this does not
necessarily follow, abdication being in no way
incompatible with the continuation of the active
pursuits in which the person-in question is engaged.
And if an excuse be needed in either case, there would
seem to be more for the Japanese head of family, who,
in addition to the duties and responsibilities incumbent
upon his position, has to bear the brunt of the tedious
ceremonies and observances which characterize family
life in Japan, and are a severe tax upon time and
energies, while at the same time he is fettered by the
restrictions upon individual freedom of action imposed
by the family system. That in many cases the reason for
abdication lies in the wish to escape from the tyrannical
calls of family life, rather than in mere desire for
idleness and ease, is shown by the fact that just as in
past times the abdication of an Emperor, a Regent, or a
state dignitary, was often the signal for renewed activity
on his part, so in modern Japanese life the period of a
person's greatest activity not infrequently dates from the
time of his withdrawal from the headship of his family."
The abdicating proclivities of the nation in pre-Meiji times are well shown
by the official list of daimyos published by the Shogunate in 1862. To a list
of 268 ruling daimyos is added a list of 104 "inkyo."
In addition to what we may call political and family abdication, described
above, is personal abdication, referred to on a previous page.
Are the traits of Japanese character considered in this chapter inherent and
necessary? Already our description has conclusively shown them to be due

to the nature of the social order. This was manifestly the case in regard to
political and family abdication. The like origin of personal abdication is
manifest to him who learns how little there was in the ancient training
tending to give each man a "feeling of independent responsibility to his own
conscience in the sight of Heaven." He was taught devotion to a person
rather than to a principle. The duty of a retainer was not to think and decide,
but to do. He might in silence disapprove and as far as possible he should
then keep out of his lord's way; should he venture to think and to act
contrary to his lord's commands, he must expect and plan to commit
"harakiri" in the near future. Personal abdication and silent disapproval,
therefore, were direct results of the social order.

VII
HEROES AND HERO-WORSHIP

If a clew to the character of a nation is gained by a study of the nature of the
gods it worships, no less valuable an insight is gained by a study of its
heroes. Such a study confirms the impression that the emotional life is
fundamental in the Japanese temperament. Japan is a nation of hero-
worshipers. This is no exaggeration. Not only is the primitive religion,
Shintoism, systematic hero-worship, but every hero known to history is
deified, and has a shrine or temple. These heroes, too, are all men of
conspicuous valor or strength, famed for mighty deeds of daring. They are
men of passion. The most popular story in Japanese literature is that of "The
Forty-seven Ronin," who avenged the death of their liege-lord after years of
waiting and plotting. This revenge administered, they committed harakiri in
accordance with the etiquette of the ethical code of feudal Japan. Their
tombs are to this day among the most frequented shrines in the capital of
the land, and one of the most popular dramas presented in the theaters is
based on this same heroic tragedy.
The prominence of the emotional element may be seen in the popular
description of national heroes. The picture of an ideal Japanese hero is to
our eyes a caricature. His face is distorted by a fierce frenzy of passion, his
eyeballs glaring, his hair flying, and his hands hold with a mighty grip the
two-handed sword wherewith he is hewing to pieces an enemy. I am often
amazed at the difference between the pictures of Japanese heroes and the
living Japanese I see. This difference is manifestly due to the idealizing
process; for they love to see their heroes in their passionate moods and
tenses.
The craving for heroes, even on the part of those who are familiar with
Western thought and customs, is a feature of great interest. Well do I
remember the enthusiasm with which educated, Christian young men

awaited the coming to Japan of an eminent American scholar, from whose
lectures impossible things were expected. So long as he was in America and
only his books were known, he was a hero. But when he appeared in
person, carrying himself like any courteous gentleman, he lost his exalted
position.
Townsend Harris showed his insight into Oriental thought never more
clearly than by maintaining his dignity according to Japanese standards and
methods. On his first entry into Tokyo he states, in his journal, that although
he would have preferred to ride on horseback, in order that he might see the
city and the people, yet as the highest dignitaries never did so, but always
rode in entirely closed "norimono" (a species of sedan chair carried by
twenty or thirty bearers), he too would do the same; to have ridden into the
limits of the city on horseback would have been construed by the Japanese
as an admission that he held a far lower official rank than that of a
plenipotentiary of a great nation.
It is not difficult to understand how these ideals of heroes arose. They are
the same in every land where militarism, and especially feudalism, is the
foundation on which the social order rests.
Some of the difficulties met by foreign missionaries in trying to do their
work arise from the fact that they are not easily regarded as heroes by their
followers. The people are accustomed to commit their guidance to officials
or to teachers or advisers whom they can regard as heroes. Since
missionaries are not officials and do not have the manners of heroes, it is
not to be expected that the Japanese will accept their leadership.
A few foreigners have, however, become heroes in Japanese eyes. President
Clark and Rev. S.R. Brown had great influence on groups of young men in
the early years of Meiji, while giving them secular education combined
with Christian instruction. The conditions, however, were then
extraordinarily exceptional, and it is a noticeable fact that neither man
remained long in Japan at that time. Another foreigner who was exalted to
the skies by a devoted band of students was a man well suited to be a hero
—for he had the samurai spirit to the full. Indeed, in absolute fearlessness
and assumption of superiority, he out-samuraied the samurai. He was a man
of impressive and imperious personality. Yet it is a significant fact that

when he was brought back to Japan by his former pupils, after an absence
of about eighteen years, during which they had continued to extol his merits
and revere his memory, it was not long before they discovered that he was
not the man their imagination had created. Not many months were needed
to remove him from his pedestal. It would hardly be a fair statement of the
whole case to leave the matter here. So far as I know, President Clark and
Rev. S.R. Brown have always retained their hold on the imagination of the
Japanese. The foreigner who of all others has perhaps done the most for
Japan, and whose services have been most heartily acknowledged by the
nation and government, was Dr. Guido F. Verbeck, who began his
missionary work in 1859; he was the teacher of large numbers of the young
men who became leaders in the transformation of Japan; he alone of
foreigners was made a citizen and was given a free and general pass for
travel; and his funeral in 1898 was attended by the nobility of the land, and
the Emperor himself made a contribution toward the expenses. Dr. Verbeck
is destined to be one of Japan's few foreign heroes.
Among the signs of Japanese craving for heroes may be mentioned the
constant experience of missionaries when search is being made for a man to
fill a particular place. The descriptions of the kind of man desired are such
that no one can expect to meet him. The Christian boys' school in
Kumamoto, and the church with it, went for a whole year without principal
and pastor because they could not secure a man of national reputation. They
wanted a hero-principal, who would cut a great figure in local politics and
also be a hero-leader for the Christian work in the whole island of Kyushu,
causing the school to shine not only in Kumamoto, but to send forth its light
and its fame throughout the Empire and even to foreign lands. The
unpretentious, unprepossessing-looking man who was chosen temporarily,
though endowed with common sense and rather unusual ability to
harmonize the various elements in the school, was not deemed satisfactory.
He was too much like Socrates. At last they found a man after their own
heart. He had traveled and studied long abroad; was a dashing, brilliant
fellow; would surely make things hum; so at least said those who
recommended him (and he did). But he was still a poor student in Scotland;
his passage money must be raised by the school if he was to be secured.
And raised it was. Four hundred and seventy-five dollars those one hundred
and fifty poor boys and girls, who lived on two dollars a month, scantily

clothed and insufficiently warmed, secured from their parents and sent
across the seas to bring back him who was to be their hero-principal and
pastor. The rest of the story I need not tell in detail, but I may whisper that
he was more of a slashing hero than they planned for; in three months the
boys' school was split in twain and in less than three years both fragments
of the school had not only lost all their Christian character, but were dead
and gone forever. And the grounds on which the buildings stood were
turned into mulberry fields.
Talking not long since to a native friend, concerning the hero-worshiping
tendency of the Japanese, I had my attention called to the fact that, while
what has been said above is substantially correct as concerns a large
proportion of the people, especially the young men, there is nevertheless a
class whose ideal heroes are not military, but moral. Their power arises not
through self-assertion, but rather through humility; their influence is due
entirely to learning coupled with insight into the great moral issues of life.
Such has been the character of not a few of the "moral" teachers. I have
recently read a Japanese novel based upon the life of one such hero. Omi
Seijin, or the "Sage of Omi," is a name well known among the people of
Japan; and his fame rests rather on his character than on his learning. If
tradition is correct, his influence on the people of his region was powerful
enough to transform the character of the place, producing a paradise on
earth whence lust and crime were banished. Whatever the actual facts of his
life may have been, this is certainly the representation of his character now
held up for honor and imitation. There are also indications that the ideal
military hero is not, for all the people, the self-assertive type that I have
described above, though this is doubtless the prevalent one. Not long since I
heard the following couplet as to the nature of a true hero:
"Makoto no Ei-yu;
Sono yo, aizen to shite shumpu no gotoshi;
Sono shin, kizen to shite kinseki no gotoshi.

"The true Hero;
In appearance, charming like the spring breeze.
In heart, firm as a rock."

Another phrase that I have run across relating to the ideal man is, "I atte
takakarazu," which means in plain English, "having authority, but not
puffed up." In the presence of these facts, it will not do to think that the
ideal hero of all the Japanese is, or even in olden times was, only a military
hero full of swagger and bluster; in a military age such would, of necessity,
be a popular ideal; but just in proportion as men rose to higher forms of
learning, and character, so would their ideals be raised.
It is not to be lightly assumed that the spirit of hero-worship is wholly an
evil or a necessarily harmful thing. It has its advantages and rewards as well
as its dangers and evils. The existence of hero-worship in any land reveals a
nature in the people that is capable of heroic actions. Men appreciate and
admire that which in a measure at least they are, and more that which they
aspire to become. The recent war revealed how the capacity for heroism of
a warlike nature lies latent in every Japanese breast and not in the
descendants of the old military class alone. But it is more encouraging to
note that popular appreciation of moral heroes is growing.
Education and religion are bringing forth modern moral heroes. The late Dr.
Neesima, the founder of the Doshisha, is a hero to many even outside the
Church. Mr. Ishii, the father of Orphan Asylums in Japan, promises to be
another. A people that can rear and admire men of this character has in it the
material of a truly great nation.
The hero-worshiping characteristic of the Japanese depends on two other
traits of their nature. The first is the reality of strong personalities among
them capable of becoming heroes; the second is the possession of a strong
idealizing tendency. Prof. G.T. Ladd has called them a "sentimental" people,
in the sense that they are powerfully moved by sentiment. This is a
conspicuous trait of their character appearing in numberless ways in their
daily life. The passion for group-photographs is largely due to this.
Sentimentalism, in the sense given it by Prof. Ladd, is the emotional aspect
of idealism.
The new order of society is reacting on the older ideal of a hero and is
materially modifying it. The old-fashioned samurai, girded with two
swords, ready to kill a personal foe at sight, is now only the ideal of
romance. In actual life he would soon find himself deprived of his liberty

and under the condemnation not only of the law, but also of public opinion.
The new ideal with which I have come into most frequent contact is far
different. Many, possibly the majority, of the young men and boys with
whom I have talked as to their aim in life, have said that they desired to
secure first of all a thorough education, in order that finally they might
become great "statesmen" and might guide the nation into paths of
prosperity and international power. The modern hero is one who gratifies
the patriotic passion by bringing some marked success to the nation. He
must be a gentleman, educated in science, in history, and in foreign
languages; but above all, he must be versed in political economy and law.
This new ideal of a national hero has been brought in by the order of
society, and in proportion as this order continues, and emphasis continues to
be laid on mental and moral power, rather than on rank or official position,
on the intrinsic rather than on the accidental, will the old ideal fade away
and the new ideal take its place. Among an idealizing and emotional people,
such as the Japanese, various ideals will naturally find extreme expression.
As society grows complex also and its various elements become
increasingly differentiated, so will the ideals pass through the same
transformations. A study of ideals, therefore, serves several ends; it reveals
the present character of those whose ideals they are; it shows the degree of
development of the social organism in which they live; it makes known,
likewise, the degree of the differentiation that has taken place between the
various elements of the nation.

VIII
LOVE FOR CHILDREN

An aspect of Japanese life widely remarked and praised by foreign writers
is the love for children. Children's holidays, as the third day of the third
moon and the fifth day of the fifth moon, are general celebrations for boys
and girls respectively, and are observed with much gayety all over the land.
At these times the universal aim is to please the children; the girls have
dolls and the exhibition of ancestral dolls; while the boys have toy
paraphernalia of all the ancient and modern forms of warfare, and enormous
wind-inflated paper fish, symbols of prosperity and success, fly from tall
bamboos in the front yard. Contrary to the prevailing opinion among
foreigners, these festivals have nothing whatever to do with birthday
celebrations. In addition to special festivals, the children figure
conspicuously in all holidays and merry-makings. To the famous flower-
festival celebrations, families go in groups and make an all-day picnic of
the joyous occasion.
The Japanese fondness for children is seen not only at festival times.
Parents seem always ready to provide their children with toys. As a
consequence toy stores flourish. There is hardly a street without its store.
A still further reason for the impression that the Japanese are especially
fond of their children is the slight amount of punishment and reprimand
which they administer. The children seem to have nearly everything their
own way. Playing on the streets, they are always in evidence and are given
the right of way.
That Japanese show much affection for their children is clear. The question
of importance, however, is whether they have it in a marked degree, more,
for instance, than Americans? And if so, is this due to their nature, or may it
be attributed to their family life as molded by the social order? It is my
impression that, on the whole, the Japanese do not show more affection for

their children than Occidentals, although they may at first sight appear to do
so. Among the laboring classes of the %est, the father, as a rule, is away
from home all through the hours of the day, working in shop or factory. He
seldom sees his children except upon the Sabbath. Of course, the father has
then very little to do with their care or education, and little opportunity for
the manifestation of affection. In Japan, however, the industrial organization
of society is still such that the father is at home a large part of the time. The
factories are few as yet; the store is usually not separate from the home, but
a part of it, the front room of the house. Family life is, therefore, much less
broken in upon by the industrial necessities of civilization, and there are
accordingly more opportunities for the manifestation of the father's
affection for the children. Furthermore, the laboring-people in Japan live
much on the street, and it is a common thing to see the father caring for
children. While I have seldom seen a father with an infant tied to his back, I
have frequently seen them with their infant sons tucked into their bosoms,
an interesting sight. This custom gives a vivid impression of parental
affection. But, comparing the middle classes of Japan and the West, it is
safe to say that, as a whole, the Western father has more to do by far in the
care and education of the children than the Japanese father, and that there is
no less of fondling and playing with children. If we may judge the degree of
affection by the signs of its demonstrations, we must pronounce the
Occidental, with his habits of kissing and embracing, as far and away more
affectionate than his Oriental cousin. While the Occidental may not make so
much of an occasion of the advent of a son as does the Oriental, he
continues to remember the birthdays of all his children with joy and
celebrations, as the Oriental does not. Although the Japanese invariably say,
when asked about it, that they celebrate their children's birthdays, the
uniform experience of the foreigner is that birthday celebrations play a very
insignificant part in the joys and the social life of the home.
It is not difficult to understand why, apart from the question of affection, the
Japanese should manifest special joy on the advent of sons, and particularly
of a first son. The Oriental system of ancestral worship, with the consequent
need, both religious and political, of maintaining the family line, is quite
enough to account for all the congratulatory ceremonies customary on the
birth of sons. The fact that special joy is felt and manifested on the birth of
sons, and less on the birth of daughters, clearly shows that the dominant

conceptions of the social order have an important place in determining even
so fundamental a trait as affection for offspring.
Affection for children is, however, not limited to the day of their birth or the
period of their infancy. In judging of the relative possession by different
races of affection for children, we must ask how the children are treated
during all their succeeding years. It must be confessed that the advantage is
then entirely on the side of the Occidental. Not only does this appear in the
demonstrations of affection which are continued throughout childhood,
often even throughout life, but more especially in the active parental
solicitude for the children's welfare, striving to fit them for life's duties and
watching carefully over their mental and moral education. In these respects
the average Occidental is far in advance of the average Oriental.
I have been told that, since the coming in of the new civilization and the
rise of the new ideas about woman, marriage, and home, there is clearly
observable to the Japanese themselves a change in the way in which
children are being treated. But, even still, the elder son takes the more
prominent place in the affection of the family, and sons precede daughters.
A fair statement of the case, therefore, is somewhat as follows: The lower
and laboring classes of Japan seem to have more visible affection for their
children than the same classes in the Occident. Among the middle and
upper classes, however, the balance is in favor of the West. In the East,
while, without doubt, there always has been and is now a pure and natural
affection, it is also true that this natural affection has been more mixed with
utilitarian considerations than in the West. Christian Japanese, however,
differ little from Christian Americans in this respect. The differences
between the East and the West are largely due to the differing industrial and
family conditions induced by the social order.
The correctness of this general statement will perhaps be better appreciated
if we consider in detail some of the facts of Japanese family life. Let us
notice first the very loose ties, as they seem to us, holding the Japanese
family together. It is one of the constant wonders to us Westerners how
families can break up into fragments, as they constantly do. One third of the
marriages end in divorce; and in case of divorce, the children all stay with
the father's family. It would seem as if the love of the mother for her

children could not be very strong where divorce under such a condition is
so common. Or, perhaps, it would be truer to say that divorce would be far
more frequent than it is but for the mother's love for her children. For I am
assured that many a mother endures most distressing conditions rather than
leave her children. Furthermore, the way in which parents allow their
children to leave the home and then fail to write or communicate with them,
for months or even years at a time, is incomprehensible if the parental love
were really strong. And still further, the way in which concubines are
brought into the home, causing confusion and discord, is a very striking
evidence of the lack of a deep love on the part of the father for the mother
of his children and even for his own legitimate children. One would expect
a father who really loved his children to desire and plan for their legitimacy;
but the children by his concubines are not "ipso facto" recognized as legal.
One more evidence in this direction is the frequency of adoption and of
separation. Adoption in Japan is largely, though by no means exclusively,
the adoption of an adult; the cases where a child is adopted by a childless
couple from love of children are rare, as compared with similar cases in the
United States, so far, at least, as my observation goes. I recently heard of a
conversation on personal financial matters between a number of Christian
evangelists. After mutual comparisons they agreed that one of their number
was more fortunate than the rest in that he did not have to support his
mother. On inquiring into the matter, the missionary learned that this
evangelist, on becoming a Buddhist priest many years before, had secured
from the government, according to the laws of the land, exemption from
this duty. When he became a Christian it did not seem to occur to him that it
was his duty and his privilege to support his indigent mother. I may add that
this idea has since occurred to him and he is acting upon it.
Infanticide throws a rather lurid light on Japanese affection. First, in regard
to the facts: Mr. Ishii's attention was called to the need of an orphan asylum
by hearing how a child, both of whose parents had died of cholera, was on
the point of being buried alive with its dead mother by heartless neighbors
when it was rescued by a fisherman. Certain parts of Japan have been
notorious from of old for this practice. In Tosa the evil was so rampant that
a society for its prevention has been in existence for many years. It helps
support children of poor parents who might be tempted to dispose of them
criminally. In that province from January to March, 1898, I was told that

"only" four cases of conviction for this crime were reported. The registered
annual birth rate of certain villages has increased from 40-50 to 75-80, and
this without any immigration from outside. The reason assigned is the
diminution of infanticide.
In speaking of infanticide in Japan, let us not forget that every race and
nation has been guilty of the same crime, and has continued to be guilty of
it until delivered by Christianity.
Widespread infanticide proves a wide lack of natural affection. Poverty is,
of course, the common plea. Yet infanticide has been practiced not so much
by the desperately poor as by small land-holders. The amount of farming
land possessed by each family was strictly limited and could feed only a
given number of mouths. Should the family exceed that number, all would
be involved in poverty, for the members beyond that limit did not have the
liberty to travel in search of new occupation. Infanticide, therefore, bore
direct relation to the rigid economic nature of the old social order.
Whatever, therefore, be the point of view from which we study the question
of Japanese affection for children, we see that it was intimately connected
with the nature of the social order. Whether we judge such affection or its
lack to be a characteristic trait of Japanese nature, we must still maintain
that it is not an inherent trait of the race nature, but only a characteristic
depending for its greater or less development on the nature of the social
order.

IX
MARITAL LOVE

If the Japanese are a conspicuously emotional race, as is commonly
believed, we should naturally expect this characteristic to manifest itself in
a marked degree in the relation of the sexes. Curiously enough, however,
such does not seem to be the case. So slight a place does the emotion of
sexual love have in Japanese family life that some have gone to the extreme
of denying it altogether. In his brilliant but fallacious volume, entitled "The
Soul of the Far East," Mr. Percival Lowell states that the Japanese do not
"fall in love." The correctness of this statement we shall consider in
connection with the argument for Japanese impersonality. That "falling in
love" is not a recognized part of the family system, and that marriage is
arranged regardless not only of love, but even of mutual acquaintance, are
indisputable facts.
Let us confine our attention here to Japanese post-marital emotional
characteristics. Do Japanese husbands love their wives and wives their
husbands? We have already seen that in the text-book for Japanese women,
the "Onna Daigaku," not one word is said about love. It may be stated at
once that love between husband and wife is almost as conspicuously
lacking in practice as in precept. In no regard, perhaps, is the contrast
between the East and the West more striking than the respective ideas
concerning woman and marriage. The one counts woman the equal, if not
the superior of man; the other looks down upon her as man's inferior in
every respect; the one considers profound love as the only true condition of
marriage; the other thinks of love as essentially impure, beneath the dignity
of a true man, and not to be taken into consideration when marriage is
contemplated; in the one, the two persons most interested have most to say
in the matter; in the other, they have the least to say; in the one, a long and
intimate previous acquaintance is deemed important; in the other, the need
for such an acquaintance does not receive a second thought; in the one, the

wife at once takes her place as the queen of the home; in the other, she
enters as the domestic for her husband and his parents; in the one, the
children are hers as well as his; in the other, they are his rather than hers,
and remain with him in case of divorce; in the one, divorce is rare and
condemned; in the other, it is common in the extreme; in the one, it is as
often the woman as the man who seeks the divorce; in the other, until most
recent times, it is the man alone who divorces the wife; in the one, the
reasons for divorce are grave; in the other, they are often trivial; in the one,
the wife is the "helpmate"; in the other, she is the man's "plaything"; or, at
most, the means for continuing the family lineage; in the one, the man is the
"husband"; in the other, he is the "danna san" or "teishu" (the lord or
master); in the ideal home of the one, the wife is the object of the husband's
constant affection and solicitous care; in the ideal home of the other, she
ever waits upon her lord, serves his food for him, and faithfully sits up for
him at night, however late his return may be; in the one, the wife is justified
in resenting any unfaithfulness or immorality on the part of her husband; in
the other, she is commanded to accept with patience whatever he may do,
however many concubines he may have in his home or elsewhere; and
however immoral he may be, she must not be jealous. The following
characterization of the women of Japan is presumably by one who would do
them no injustice, having himself married a Japanese wife (the editor of the
Japan Mail).
"The woman of Japan is a charming personage in many
ways—gracious, refined, womanly before everything,
sweet-tempered, unselfish, virtuous, a splendid mother,
and an ideal wife from the point of view of the master.
But she is virtually excluded from the whole intellectual
life of the nation. Politics, art, literature, science, are
closed books to her. She cannot think logically about
any of these subjects, express herself clearly with
reference to them, or take an intellectual part in
conversations relating to them. She is, in fact, totally
disqualified to be her husband's intellectual companion,
and the inevitable result is that he despises her."[J]
In face of all these facts, it is evident that the emotional element of
character which plays so large a part in the relation of the sexes in the West

has little, if any, counterpart in the Far East. Where the emotional element
does come in, it is under social condemnation. There are doubtless many
happy marriages in Japan, if the wife is faithful in her place and fills it well;
and if the master is honorable according to the accepted standards, steady in
his business, not given to wine or women. But even then the affection must
be different from that which prevails in the West. No Japanese wife ever
dreams of receiving the loving care from her husband which is freely
accorded her Western sister by her husband.[K]
I wish, however, to add at once that this is a topic about which it is
dangerous to dogmatize, for the customs of Japan demand that all
expressions of affection between husband and wife shall be sedulously
concealed from the outer world. I can easily believe that there is no little
true affection existing between husband and wife. A Japanese friend with
whom I have talked on this subject expresses his belief that the statement
made above, to the effect that no Japanese wife dreams of receiving the
loving care which is expected by her Western sister, is doubtless true of Old
Japan, but that there has been a great change in this respect in recent
decades; and especially among the Christian community. That Christians
excel the others with whom I have come in contact, has been evident to me.
But that even they are still very different from Occidentals in this respect, is
also clear. Whatever be the affection lavished on the wife in the privacy of
the home, she does not receive in public the constant evidence of special
regard and high esteem which the Western wife expects as her right.
How much affection can be expressed by low formal bows? The fact is that
Japanese civilization has striven to crush out all signs of emotion; this
stoicism is exemplified to a large degree even in the home, and under
circumstances when we should think it impossible. Kissing was an
unknown art in Japan, and it is still unknown, except by name, to the great
majority of the people. Even mothers seldom kiss their infant children, and
when they do, it is only while the children are very young.
The question, however, which particularly interests us, is as to the
explanation for these facts. Is the lack of demonstrative affection between
husband and wife due to the inherent nature of the Japanese, or is it not due
rather to the prevailing social order? If a Japanese goes to America or.
England, for a few years, does he maintain his cold attitude toward all

women, and never show the slightest tendency to fall in love, or exhibit
demonstrative affection? These questions almost answer themselves, and
with them the main question for whose solution we are seeking.
A few concrete instances may help to illustrate the generalization that these
are not fixed because racial characteristics, but variable ones dependent on
the social order. Many years ago when the late Dr. Neesima, the founder,
with Dr. Davis, of the Doshisha, was on the point of departure for the
United States on account of his health, he made an address to the students.
In the course of his remarks he stated that there were three principal
considerations that made him regret the necessity for his departure at that
time; the first was that the Doshisha was in a most critical position; it was
but starting on its larger work, and he felt that all its friends should be on
hand to help on the great undertaking. The second was that he was
compelled to leave his aged parents, whom he might not find living on his
return to Japan. The third was his sorrow at leaving his beloved wife. This
public reference to his wife, and especially to his love for her, was so
extraordinary that it created no little comment, not to say scandal;
especially obnoxious was it to many, because he mentioned her after having
mentioned his parents. In the reports of this speech given by his friends to
the public press no reference was made to this expression of love for his
wife. And a few months after his death, when Dr. Davis prepared a short
biography of Dr. Neesima, he was severely criticised by some of the
Japanese for reproducing the speech as Dr. Neesima gave it.
Shortly after my first arrival in Japan, I was walking home from church one
day with an English-speaking Japanese, who had had a good deal to do with
foreigners. Suddenly, without any introduction, he remarked that he did not
comprehend how the men of the West could endure such tyranny as was
exercised over them by their wives. I, of course, asked what he meant. He
then said that he had seen me buttoning my wife's shoes. I should explain
that on calling on the Japanese, in their homes, it is necessary that we leave
our shoes at the door, as the Japanese invariably do; this is, of course,
awkward for foreigners who wear shoes; especially so is the necessity of
putting them on again. The difficulty is materially increased by the
invariably high step at the front door. It is hard enough for a man to kneel
down on the step and reach for his shoes and then put them on; much more
so is it for a woman. And after the shoes are on, there is no suitable place on

which to rest the foot for buttoning and tying. I used, therefore, very gladly
to help my wife with hers. Yet, so contrary to Japanese precedent was this
act of mine that this well-educated gentleman and Christian, who had had
much intercourse with foreigners, could not see in it anything except the
imperious command of the wife and the slavish obedience of the husband.
His conception of the relation between the Occidental husband and wife is
best described as tyranny on the part of the wife.
One of the early shocks I received on this general subject was due to the
discovery that whenever my wife took my arm as we walked the street to
and from church, or elsewhere, the people looked at us in surprised
displeasure. Such public manifestation of intimacy was to be expected from
libertines alone, and from these only when they were more or less under the
influence of drink. Whenever a Japanese man walks out with his wife,
which, by the way, is seldom, he invariably steps on ahead, leaving her to
follow, carrying the parcels, if there are any. A child, especially a son, may
walk at his side, but not his wife.
Let me give a few more illustrations to show how the present family life of
the Japanese checks the full and free development of the affections. In one
of our out-stations I but recently found a young woman in a distressing
condition. Her parents had no sons, and consequently, according to the
custom of the land, they had adopted a son, who became the husband of
their eldest daughter; the man proved a rascal, and the family was glad
when he decided that he did not care to be their son any longer. Shortly
after his departure a child was born to the daughter; but, according to the
law, she had no husband, and consequently the child must either be
registered as illegitimate, or be fraudulently registered as the child of the
mother's father. There is much fraudulent registration, the children of
concubines are not recognized as legitimate; yet it is common to register
such children as those of the regular wife, especially if she has few or none
of her own.
An evangelist who worked long in Kyushu was always in great financial
trouble because of the fact that he had to support two mothers, besides
giving aid to his father, who had married a third wife. The first was his own
mother, who had been divorced, but, as she had no home, the son took her
to his. When the father divorced his second wife, the son was induced to

take care of her also. Another evangelist, with whom I had much to do, was
the adopted son of a scheming old man; it seems that in the earlier part of
the present era the eldest son of a family was exempt from military draft. It
often happened, therefore, that families who had no sons could obtain large
sums of money from those who had younger sons whom they wished to
have adopted for the purpose of escaping the draft. This evangelist, while
still a boy, was adopted into such a family, and a certain sum was fixed
upon to be paid at some time in the future. But the adopted son proved so
pleasing to the adopting father that he did not ask for the money; by some
piece of legerdemain, however, he succeeded in adopting a second son, who
paid him the desired money. After some years the first adopted son became
a Christian, and then an evangelist, both steps being taken against the
wishes of the adopting father. The father finally said that he would forego
all relations to the son, and give him back his original name, provided the
son would pay the original sum that had been agreed on, plus the interest,
which altogether would, at that time, amount to several hundred yen. This
was, of course, impossible. The negotiations dragged on for three or four
years. Meanwhile, the young man fell in love with a young girl, whom he
finally married; as he was still the son of his adopting father, he could not
have his wife registered as his wife, for the old man had another girl in view
for him and would not consent to this arrangement. And so the matter
dragged for several months more. Unless the matter could be arranged, any
children born to them must be registered as illegitimate. At this point I was
consulted and, for the first time, learned the details of the case. Further
consultations resulted in an agreement as to the sum to be paid; the adopted
son was released, and re-registered under his newly acquired name and for
the first time his marriage became legal. The confusion and suffering
brought into the family by this practice of adoption and of separation are
almost endless.
The number of cases in which beautiful and accomplished young women
have been divorced by brutal and licentious husbands is appalling. I know
several such. What wonder that Christians and others are constantly laying
emphasis, in public lectures and sermons and private talks, on the crying
need of reform in marriage and in the home?
Throughout the land the newspapers are discussing the pros and cons of
monogamy and polygamy. In January of 1898 the Jiji Shimpo, one of the

leading daily papers of Tokyo, had a series of articles on the subject from
the pen of one of the most illustrious educators of New Japan, Mr.
Fukuzawa. His school, the "Keio Gijiku," has educated more thousands of
young men than any other, notwithstanding the fact that it is a private
institution. Though not a Christian himself, nor making any professions of
advocating Christianity, yet Mr. Fukuzawa has come out strongly in favor
of monogamy. His description of the existing social and family life is
striking, not to say sickening. If I mistake not, it is he who tells of a certain
noble lady who shed tears at the news of the promotion of her husband in
official rank; and when questioned on the matter she confessed that, with
added salary, he would add to the number of his concubines and to the
frequency of his intercourse with famous dancing and singing girls.
The distressing state of family life may also be gathered from the large
numbers of public and secret prostitutes that are to be found in all the large
cities, and the singing girls of nearly every town. According to popular
opinion, their number is rapidly increasing. Though this general subject
trenches on morality rather than on the topic immediately before us, yet it
throws a lurid light on this question also. It lets us see, perhaps, more
clearly than we could in any other way, how deficient is the average home
life of the people. A professing Christian, a man of wide experience and
social standing, not long since seriously argued at a meeting of a Young
Men's Christian Association that dancing and singing girls are a necessary
part of Japanese civilization to-day. He argued that they supply the men
with that female element in social life which the ordinary woman cannot
provide; were the average wives and daughters sufficiently accomplished to
share in the social life of the men as they are in the West, dancing and
singing girls, being needless, would soon cease to be.
One further question in this connection merits our attention. How are we to
account for an order of society that allows so little scope for the natural
affections of the heart, unless by saying that that order is the true expression
of their nature? Must we not say that the element of affection in the present
social order is deficient because the Japanese themselves are naturally
deficient? The question seems more difficult than it really is.
In the first place, the affectionate relation existing between husbands and
wives and between parents and children, in Western lands, is a product of

relatively recent times. In his exhaustive work on "The History of Human
Marriage," Westermarck makes this very plain. Wherever the woman is
counted a slave, is bought and sold, is considered as merely a means of
bearing children to the family, or in any essential way is looked down upon,
there high forms of affection are by the nature of the case impossible,
though some affection doubtless exists; it necessarily attains only a
rudimentary development. Now it is conspicuous that the conception of the
nature and purpose of woman, as held in the Orient, has always been
debasing to her. Though individual women might rise above their assigned
position the whole social order, as established by the leaders of thought,
was against her. The statement that there was a primitive condition of
society in Japan in which the affectionate relations between husband and
wife now known in the West prevailed, is, I think, a mistake.
We must remember, in the second place, what careful students of human
evolution have pointed out, that those tribes and races in which the family
was most completely consolidated, that is to say, those in which the power
of the father was absolute, were the ones to gain the victory over their
competitors. The reason for this is too obvious to require even a statement.
Every conquering race has accordingly developed the "patria potestas" to a
greater or less degree. Now one general peculiarity of the Orient is that that
stage of development has remained to this day; it has not experienced those
modifications and restrictions which have arisen in the West. The national
government dealt with families and clans, not with individuals, as the final
social unit. In the West, however, the individual has become the civil unit;
the "patria potestas" has thus been all but lost. This, added to religious and
ethical considerations, has given women and children an ever higher place
both in society and in the home. Had this loss of authority by the father
been accompanied with a weakening of the nation, it would have been an
injury; but, in the West, his authority has been transferred to the nation.
These considerations serve to render more intelligible and convincing the
main proposition of these chapters, that the distinctive emotional
characteristics of the Japanese are not inherent; they are the results of the
social and industrial order; as this order changes, they too will surely
change. The entire civilization of a land takes its leading, if not its
dominant, color from the estimate set by the people as a whole on the value
of human life. The relatively late development of the tender affections, even

in the West, is due doubtless to the extreme slowness with which the idea of
the inherent value of a human being, as such, has taken root, even though it
was clearly taught by Christ. But the leaven of His teaching has been at
work for these hundreds of years, and now at last we are beginning to see
its real meaning and its vital relation to the entire progress of man. It may
be questioned whether Christ gave any more important impetus to the
development of civilization than by His teaching in regard to the
inestimable worth of man, grounding it, as He did, on man's divine sonship.
Those nations which insist on valuing human life only by the utilitarian
standard, and which consequently keep woman in a degraded place,
insisting on concubinage and all that it implies, are sure to wane before
those nations which loyally adopt and practice the higher ideals of human
worth. The weakness of heathen lands arises in no slight degree from their
cheap estimate of human life.
In Japan, until the Meiji era, human life was cheap. For criminals of the
military classes, suicide was the honorable method of leaving this world;
the lower orders of society suffered loss of life at the hands of the military
class without redress. The whole nation accepted the low standards of
human value; woman was valued chiefly, if not entirely, on a utilitarian
basis, that, namely, of bearing children, doing house and farm work, and
giving men pleasure. So far as I know, not among all the teachings of
Confucius or Buddha was the supreme value of human life, as such, once
suggested, much less any adequate conception of the worth and nature of
woman. The entire social order was constructed without these two
important truths.
By a great effort, however, Japan has introduced a new social order, with
unprecedented rapidity. By one revolution it has established a set of laws in
which the equality of all men before the law is recognized at least; for the
first time in Oriental history, woman is given the right to seek divorce. The
experiment is now being made on a great scale as to whether the new social
order adopted by the rulers can induce those ideas among the people at
large which will insure its performance. Can the mere legal enactments
which embody the principles of human equality and the value of human
life, regardless of sex, beget those fundamental conceptions on which alone
a steady and lasting government can rest? Can Japan really step into the
circle of Western nations, without abandoning her pagan religions and

pushing onward into Christian monotheism with all its corollaries as to the
relations and mutual duties of man? All earnest men are crying out for a
strengthening of the moral life of the nation through the reform of the
family and are proclaiming the necessity of monogamy; but, aside from the
Christians, none appear to see how this is to be done. Even Mr. Fukuzawa
says that the first step in the reform of the family and the establishment of
monogamy is to develop public sentiment against prostitution and plural or
illegal marriage; and the way to do this is first to make evil practices secret.
This, he says, is more important than to give women a higher education. He
does not see that Christianity with its conceptions of immediate
responsibility of the individual to God, the loving Heavenly Father, and of
the infinite value of each human soul, thus doing away with the utilitarian
scale for measuring both men and women, together with its conceptions of
the relations of the sexes and of man to man, can alone supply that
foundation for all the elements of the new social order, intellectual and
emotional, which will make it workable and permanent, and of which
monogamy is but one element.[L] He does not see that representative
government and popular rights cannot stand for any length of time on any
other foundation.

X
CHEERFULNESS—INDUSTRY—TRUTHFULNESS—
SUSPICIOUSNESS

Many writers have dwelt with delight on the cheerful disposition that seems
so common in Japan. Lightness of heart, freedom from all anxiety for the
future, living chiefly in the present, these and kindred features are pictured
in glowing terms. And, on the whole, these pictures are true to life. The
many flower festivals are made occasions for family picnics when all care
seems thrown to the wind. There is a simplicity and a freshness and a
freedom from worry that is delightful to see. But it is also remarked that a
change in this regard is beginning to be observed. The coming in of Western
machinery, methods of government, of trade and of education, is
introducing customs and cares, ambitions and activities, that militate against
the older ways. Doubtless, this too is true. If so, it but serves to establish the
general proposition of these pages that the more outstanding national
characteristics are largely the result of special social conditions, rather than
of inherent national character.
The cheerful disposition, so often seen and admired by the Westerner, is the
cheerfulness of children. In many respects the Japanese are relatively
undeveloped. This is due to the nature of their social order during the past.
The government has been largely paternal in form and fully so in theory.
Little has been left to individual initiative or responsibility. Wherever such a
system has been dominant and the perfectly accepted order, the inevitable
result is just such a state of simple, childish cheerfulness as we find in
Japan. It constitutes that golden age sung by the poets of every land. But
being the cheerfulness of children, the happiness of immaturity, it is bound
to change with growth, to be lost with coming maturity.
Yet the Japanese are by no means given up to a cheerful view of life. Many
an individual is morose and dejected in the extreme. This disposition is ever

stimulated by the religious teachings of Buddhism. Its great message has
been the evanescent character of the present life. Life is not worth living, it
urges; though life may have some pleasures, the total result is
disappointment and sorrow. Buddhism has found a warm welcome in the
hearts of many Japanese. For more than a thousand years it has been
exercising a potent influence on their thoughts and lives. Yet how is this
consistent with the cheerful disposition which seems so characteristic of
Japan? The answer is not far to seek. Pessimism is by its very nature
separative, isolating, silent. Those oppressed by it do not enter into public
joys. They hide themselves in monasteries, or in the home. The result is that
by its very nature the actual pessimism of Japan is not a conspicuous feature
of national character. The judgment that all Japanese are cheerful rests on
shallow grounds. Because, forsooth, millions on holidays bear that
appearance, and because on ordinary occasions the average man and
woman seem cheerful and happy, the conclusion is reached that all are so.
No effort is made to learn of those whose lives are spent in sadness and
isolation. I am convinced that the Japan of old, for all its apparent cheer,
had likewise its side of deep tragedy. Conditions of life that struck down
countless individuals, and mental conditions which made Buddhism so
popular, both point to this conclusion.
Again I wish to call attention to the fact that the prominence of children and
young people is in part the cause of the appearance of general happiness.
The Japanese live on the street as no Western people do. The stores and
workshops are the homes; when these are open, the homes are open. When
the children go out of the house to play they use the streets, for they seldom
have yards. Here they gather in great numbers and play most
enthusiastically, utterly regardless of the passers-by, for these latter are all
on foot or in jinrikishas, and, consequently, never cause the children any
alarm.
The Japanese give the double impression of being industrious and diligent
on the one hand, and, on the other, of being lazy and utterly indifferent to
the lapse of time. The long hours during which they keep at work is a
constant wonder to the Occidental. I have often been amazed in Fukuoka to
find stores and workshops open, apparently in operation, after ten and
sometimes even until eleven o'clock at night, while blacksmiths and
carpenters and wheelwrights would be working away as if it were morning.

Many of the factories recently started keep very long hours. Indeed most of
the cotton mills run day and night, having two sets of workers, who shift
their times of labor every week. Those who work during the night hours one
week take the day hours the following week. In at least one such factory,
with which I am acquainted, the fifteen hundred girls who work from six
o'clock Saturday evening until six o'clock Sunday morning, are then
supposed to have twenty-four hours of rest before they begin their day's
work Monday morning; but, as a matter of fact, they must spend three or
four and sometimes five hours on Sunday morning cleaning up the factory.
In a small silk-weaving factory that I know the customary hours for work
were from five in the morning until nine at night, seven days in the week.
The wife, however, of the owner became a Christian. Through her
intervention time for rest was secured on Sunday long enough for a Bible
class, which the evangelist of the place was invited to teach. After several
months of instruction a number of the hands became Christian, and all were
sufficiently interested to ask that the whole of the Sabbath be granted to
them for rest; but in order that the master might not lose thereby, they
agreed to begin work at four each morning and to work on until ten at night.
With such hours one would have expected them to fall at once into their
beds when the work of the day was over. But for many months, at ten
o'clock in the evening, my wife and I heard them singing a hymn or two in
their family worship before retiring for the night.
In certain weaving factories I have been told that the girls are required to
work sixteen hours a day; and that on Sundays they are allowed to have
some rest, being then required to work but ten hours! The diligence of mail
deliverers, who always run when on duty, the hours of consecutive running
frequently performed by jin-irikisha men (several have told me that they
have made over sixty miles in a single day), the long hours of persistent
study by students in the higher schools, and many kindred facts, certainly
indicate a surprising capacity for work.
But there are equally striking illustrations of an opposite nature. The
farmers and mechanics and carpenters, among regular laborers, and the
entire life of the common people in their homes, give an impression of
indifference to the flight of time, if not of absolute laziness. The workers
seem ready to sit down for a smoke and a chat at any hour of the day. In the

home and in ordinary social life, the loss of time seems to be a matter of no
consequence whatever. Polite palaver takes unstinted hours, and the
sauntering of the people through the street emphasizes the impression that
no business calls oppress them.
In my opinion these characteristics, also, are due to the conditions of
society, past and present, rather than to the inherent nature of the people.
The old civilization was easy-going; it had no clocks; it hardly knew the
time of day; it never hastened. The hour was estimated and was twice as
long as the modern hour. The structure of society demanded the constant
observance of the forms of etiquette; this, with its numberless genuflections
and strikings of the head on the floor, always demanded time. Furthermore,
the very character of the footgear compelled and still compels a shuffling,
ambling gait when walking the streets. The clog is a well-named hindrance
to civilization in the waste of time it compels. The slow-going, time-
ignoring characteristics of New Japan are social inheritances from feudal
times, characteristics which are still hampering its development. The
industrious spirit that is to be found in so many quarters to-day is largely the
gift of the new civilization. Shoes are taking the place of clogs. The army
and all the police, on ordinary duty, wear shoes. Even the industry of the
students is largely due to the new conditions of student life. The way in
which the Japanese are working to-day, and the feverish haste that some of
them evince in their work, shows that they are as capable as Occidentals of
acquiring the rush of civilization.
The home life of the people gives an impression of listlessness that is in
marked contrast to that of the West. This is partly due to the fact that the
house work is relatively light, there being no furniture to speak of, the
rooms small, and the cooking arrangements quite simple. Housewives go
about their work with restful deliberation, which is trying, however, to one
in haste. It is the experience of the housekeepers from the West that one
Japanese domestic is able to accomplish from a third to a half of what is
done by a girl in America. This is not wholly due to slowness of movement,
however, but also to smallness of stature and corresponding lack of
strength. On the other hand, the long hours of work required of women in
the majority of Japanese homes is something appalling. The wife is
expected to be up before the husband, to prepare his meals, and to wait
patiently till his return at night, however late that may be. In all except the

higher ranks of society she takes entire care of the children, except for the
help which her older children may give her. During much of the time she
goes about her work with an infant tied to her back. Though she does not
work hard at any one time (and is it to be wondered at?) yet she works long.
Especially hard is the life of the waiting girls in the hotels. I have learned
that, as a rule, they are required to be up before daylight and to remain on
duty until after midnight. In some hotels they are allowed but four or five
hours out of the twenty-four. The result is, they are often overcome and fall
asleep while at service. Sitting on the floor and waiting to serve the rice,
with nothing to distract their thoughts or hold their attention, they easily
lose themselves for a few moments.
Two other strongly contrasted traits are found in the Japanese character,
absolute confidence and trustfulness on the one hand, and suspicion on the
other. It is the universal testimony that the former characteristic is rapidly
passing away; in the cities it is well-nigh gone. But in the country places it
is still common. The idea of making a bargain when two persons entered
upon some particular piece of work, the one as employer, the other as
employed, was entirely repugnant to the older generation, since it was
assumed that their relations as inferior and superior should determine their
financial relations; the superior would do what was right, and the inferior
should accept what the superior might give without a question or a murmur.
Among the samurai, where the arrangement is between equals, bargaining
or making fixed and fast terms which will hold to the end, and which may
be carried to the courts in case of differences, was a thing practically
unknown in the older civilization. Everything of a business nature was left
to honor, and was carried on in mutual confidence.
A few illustrations of this spirit of confidence from my own experience may
not be without interest. On first coming to Japan, I found it usual for a
Japanese who wished to take a jinrikisha to call the runner and take the ride
without making any bargain, giving him at the end what seemed right. And
the men generally accepted the payment without question. I have found that
recently, unless there is some definite understanding arrived at before the
ride, there is apt to be some disagreement, the runner presuming on the hold
he has, by virtue of work done, to get more than is customary. This is
especially true in case the rider is a foreigner. Another set of examples in
which astonishing simplicity and confidence were manifested was in the

employment of evangelists. I have known several instances in which a full
correspondence with an evangelist with regard to his employment was
carried on, and the settlement finally concluded, and the man set to work
without a word said about money matters. It need hardly be said that no
foreigner took part in that correspondence.
The simple, childlike trustfulness of the country people is seen in multiplied
ways; yet on the whole I cannot escape the conviction that it is a
trustfulness which is shown toward each other as equals. Certain farmers
whom I have employed to care for a cow and to cultivate the garden, while
showing a trustful disposition towards me, have not had the same feelings
toward their fellows apparently.
This confidence and trustfulness were the product of a civilization resting
on communalistic feudalism; the people were kept as children in
dependence on their feudal lord; they had to accept what he said and did;
they were accustomed to that order of things from the beginning and had no
other thought; on the whole too, without doubt, they received regular and
kindly treatment. Furthermore, there was no redress for the peasant in case
of harshness; it was always the wise policy, therefore, for him to accept
whatever was given without even the appearance of dissatisfaction. This
spirit was connected with the dominance of the military class. Simple
trustfulness was, therefore, chiefly that of the non-military classes. The
trustfulness of the samurai sprang from their distinctive training. As already
mentioned, when drawing up a bond in feudal times, in place of any
tangible security, the document would read, "If I fail to do so and so, you
may laugh at me in public."
Since the overthrow of communal feudalism and the establishment of an
individualistic social order, necessitating personal ownership of property,
and the universal use of money, trustful confidence is rapidly passing away.
Everything is being more and more accurately reduced to a money basis.
The old samurai scorn for money seems to be wholly gone, an astonishing
transformation of character. Since the disestablishment of the samurai class
many of them have gone into business. Not a few have made tremendous
failures for lack of business instinct, being easily fleeced by more cunning
and less honorable fellows who have played the "confidence" game most
successfully; others have made equally great successes because of their

superior mental ability and education. The government of Japan is to-day
chiefly in the hands of the descendants of the samurai class. They have their
fixed salaries and everything is done on a financial basis, payment being
made for work only. The lazy and the incapable are being pushed to the
wall. Many of the poorest and most pitiable people of the land to-day are
the proud sons of the former aristocracy, who glory in the history of their
ancestors, but are not able or willing to change their old habits of thought
and manner of life.
The American Board has had a very curious, not to say disastrous,
experience with the spirit of trustful confidence that was the prevailing
business characteristic of the older civilization. According to the treaties
which Japan had made with foreign nations, no foreigner was allowed to
buy land outside the treaty ports. As, however, mission work was freely
allowed by the government and welcomed by many of the people in all
parts of the land, and as it became desirable to have continuous missionary
work in several of the interior towns, it seemed wise to locate missionaries
in those places and to provide suitable houses for them. In order to do this,
land was bought and the needed houses erected, and the title was
necessarily held in the names of apparently trustworthy native Christians.
The government was, of course, fully aware of what was being done and
offered no objection. It was well understood that the property was not for
the private ownership of the individual missionary, but was to be held by
the Christians for the use of the mission to which the missionary belonged.
For many years no questions were raised and all moved along smoothly.
The arrangement between the missionaries and the Christian or Christians
in whose names the property might be held was entirely verbal, no
document being of any legal value, to say nothing of the fact that in those
early days the mention of documentary relationships would have greatly
hurt the tender feelings of honor which were so prominent a part of samurai
character. The financial relations were purely those of honor and trust.
Under this general method, large sums of money were expended by the
American Board for homes for its missionaries in various parts of Japan,
and especially in Kyoto. Here was the Doshisha, which grew from a small
English school and Evangelists' training class to a prosperous university
with fine buildings. Tens of thousands of dollars were put into this
institution, besides the funds needful for the land and the houses for nine

foreign families. An endowment was also raised, partly in Japan, but chiefly
in America. In a single bequest, Mr. Harris of New London gave over one
hundred thousand dollars for a School of Science. It has been estimated
that, altogether, the American Board and its constituency have put into the
Doshisha, including the salaries of the missionary teachers, toward a
million dollars.
In the early nineties the political skies were suddenly darkened. The
question of treaty revision loomed up black in the heavens. The politicians
of the land clamored for the absolute refusal of all right of property
ownership by foreigners. In their political furore they soon began to attack
the Japanese Christians who were holding the property used by the various
missions. They accused them of being traitors to the country. A proposed
law was drafted and presented in the National Diet, confiscating all such
property. The Japanese holders naturally became nervous and desirous of
severing the relationships with the foreigners as soon as possible. In the
case of corporate ownership the trustees began to make assumptions of
absolute ownership, regardless of the moral claims of the donors of the
funds. In the earlier days of the trouble frequent conferences on the question
were held by the missionaries of the American Board with the leading
Christians of the Empire, and their constant statement was, "Do not worry;
trust us; we are samurai and will do nothing that is not perfectly honorable."
So often were these sentiments reiterated, and yet so steadily did the whole
management of the Doshisha move further and further away from the
honorable course, that finally the "financial honor of the samurai" came to
have an odor far from pleasant. A deputation of four gentlemen, as
representatives of the American Board, came from America especially to
confer with the trustees as to the Christian principles of the institution, and
the moral claims of the Board, but wholly in vain. The administration of the
Doshisha became so distinctly non-Christian, to use no stronger term, that
the mission felt it impossible to co-operate longer with the Doshisha
trustees; the missionary members of the faculty accordingly resigned. In
order to secure exemption from the draft for its students the trustees of the
Doshisha abrogated certain clauses of the constitution relating to the
Christian character of the institution, in spite of the fact that these clauses
belonged to the "unchangeable" part of the constitution which the trustees,
on taking office, had individually sworn to maintain. Again the Board sent

out a man, now a lawyer vested with full power to press matters to a final
issue. After months of negotiations with the trustees in regard to the
restoration of the substance of the abrogated clauses, without result, he was
on the point of carrying the case into the courts, when the trustees decided
to resign in a body. A new board of trustees has been formed, who bid fair
to carry on the institution in accord with the wishes of its founders and
benefactors, as expressed in the original constitution. At one stage of the
proceedings the trustees voted magnanimously, as they appeared to think, to
allow the missionaries of the Board to live for fifteen years, rent free, in the
foreign houses connected with the Doshisha; this, because of the many
favors it had received from the Board! By this vote they maintained that
they had more than fulfilled every requirement of honor. That they were
consciously betraying the trust that had been reposed in them is not for a
moment to be supposed.
It would not be fair not to add that this experience in Kyoto does not
exemplify the universal Japanese character. There are many Japanese who
deeply deplore and condemn the whole proceeding. Some of the Doshisha
alumni have exerted themselves strenuously to have righteousness done.
Passing now from the character of trustful confidence, we take up its
opposite, suspiciousness. The development of this quality is a natural result
of a military feudalism such as ruled Japan for hundreds of years. Intrigue
was in constant use when actual war was not being waged. In an age when
conflicts were always hand to hand, and the man who could best deceive his
enemy as to his next blow was the one to carry off his head, the
development of suspicion, strategy, and deceit was inevitable. The most
suspicious men, other things being equal, would be the victors; they, with
their families, would survive and thus determine the nature of the social
order. The more than two hundred and fifty clans and "kuni," "clan
territory," into which the land was divided, kept up perpetual training in the
arts of intrigue and subtlety which are inevitably accompanied by suspicion.
Modern manifestations of this characteristic are frequent. Not a cabinet is
formed, but the question of its make-up is discussed from the clannish
standpoint. Even though it is now thirty years since the centralizing policy
was entered upon and clan distinctions were effectually broken down, yet
clan suspicion and jealousy is not dead.

The foreigner is impressed by the constant need of care in conversation, lest
he be thought to mean something more or other than he says. When we
have occasion to criticise anything in the Japanese, we have found by
experience that much more is inferred than is said. Shortly after my arrival
in Japan I was advised by one who had been in the land many years to be
careful in correcting a domestic or any other person sustaining any relation
to myself, to say not more than one-tenth of what I meant, for the other
nine-tenths would be inferred. Direct and perfectly frank criticism and
suggestion, such as prevail among Anglo-Americans at least, seem to be
rare among the Japanese.
In closing, it is in order to note once again that the emotional characteristics
considered in this chapter, although customarily thought to be deep-seated
traits of race nature, are, nevertheless, shown to be dependent on the
character of the social order. Change the order, and in due season
corresponding changes occur in the national character, a fact which would
be impossible were that character inherent and essential, passed on from
generation to generation by the single fact of biological heredity.

XI
JEALOUSY—REVENGE—HUMANE FEELINGS

According to the teachings of Confucius, jealousy is one of the seven just
grounds on which a woman may be divorced. In the "Greater Learning for
Women,"[M] occur the following words: "Let her never even dream of
jealousy. If her husband be dissolute, she must expostulate with him, but
never either render her countenance frightful or her accents repulsive,
which can only result in completely alienating her husband from her, and
making her intolerable in his eyes." "The five worst maladies that afflict the
female mind are indocility, discontent, slander, jealousy, and silliness.
Without any doubt, these five maladies infest seven or eight out of every ten
women, and it is from these that arises the inferiority of women to men ...
Neither when she blames and accuses and curses innocent persons, nor
when in her jealousy of others she thinks to set herself up alone, does she
see that she is her own enemy, estranging others and incurring their hatred."
The humiliating conditions to which women have been subjected in the past
and present social order, and to which full reference has been made in
previous chapters, give sufficient explanation of the jealousy which is
recognized as a marked, and, as might appear, inevitable characteristic of
Japanese women. Especially does this seem inevitable when it is
remembered how slight is their hold on their husbands, on whose
faithfulness their happiness so largely depends. Only as this order changes
and the wife secures a more certain place in the home, free from the
competition of concubines and harlots and dancing girls, can we expect the
characteristic to disappear. That it will do so under such conditions, there is
no reason to question. Already there are evidences that in homes where the
husband and the wife are both earnest Christians, and where each is
confident of the loyalty of the other, jealousy is as rare as it is in Christian
lands.
But is jealousy a characteristic limited to women? or is it not also a
characteristic of men? I am assured from many quarters that men also suffer
from it. The jealousy of a woman is aroused by the fear that some other
woman may supplant her in the eyes of her husband; that of a man by the
fear that some man may supplant him in rank or influence. Marital jealousy
of men seems to be rare. Yet I heard not long since of a man who was so
afraid lest some man might steal his wife's affections that he could not

attend to his business, and finally, after three months of married
wretchedness, he divorced her. A year later he married her again, but the old
trouble reappeared, and so he divorced her a second time. If marital
jealousy is less common among men than among women, the explanation is
at hand in the lax moral standard for man. The feudal order of society,
furthermore, was exactly the soil in which to develop masculine jealousy. In
such a society ambition and jealousy go hand in hand. Wherever a man's
rise in popularity and influence depends on the overthrow of someone
already in possession, jealousy is natural. Connected with the spirit of
jealousy is that of revenge. Had we known Japan only during her feudal
days, we should have pronounced the Japanese exceedingly revengeful.
Revenge was not only the custom, it was also the law of the land and the
teaching of moralists. One of the proverbs handed down from the hoary past
is: "Kumpu no ada to tomo ni ten we itadakazu." "With the enemy of
country, or father, one cannot live under the same heaven." The tales of
heroic Japan abound in stories of revenge. Once when Confucius was asked
about the doctrine of Lao-Tse that one should return good for evil, he
replied, "With what then should one reward good? The true doctrine is to
return good for good, and evil with justice." This saying of Confucius has
nullified for twenty-four hundred years that pearl of truth enunciated by
Lao-Tse, and has caused it to remain an undiscovered diamond amid the
rubbish of Taoism. By this judgment Confucius sanctified the rough
methods of justice adopted in a primitive order of society. His dictum
peculiarly harmonized with the militarism of Japan. Being, then, a
recognized duty for many hundred years, it would be strange indeed were
not revengefulness to appear among the modern traits of the Japanese.
But the whole order of society has been transformed. Revenge is now under
the ban of the state, which has made itself responsible for the infliction of
corporal punishment on individual transgressors. As a result conspicuous
manifestations of the revengeful spirit have disappeared, and, may we not
rightly say, even the spirit itself? The new order of society leaves no room
for its ordinary activity; it furnishes legal methods of redress. The rapid
change in regard to this characteristic gives reason for thinking that if the
industrial and social order could be suitably adjusted, and the conditions of
individual thought and life regulated, this, and many other evil traits of
human character, might become radically changed in a short time.

Intelligent Christian Socialism is based on this theory and seems to have no
little support for its position.
Are Japanese cruel or humane? The general impression of the casual tourist
doubtless is that they are humane. They are kind to children on the streets,
to a marked degree; the jinrikisha runners turn out not only for men,
women, and children, but even for dogs. The patience, too, of the ordinary
Japanese under trying circumstances is marked; they show amazing
tolerance for one another's failings and defects, and their mutual helpfulness
in seasons of distress is often striking. To one traveling through New Japan
there is usually little that will strike the eye as cruel.
But the longer one lives in the country, the more is he impressed with
certain aspects of life which seem to evince an essentially unsympathetic
and inhumane disposition. I well remember the shock I received when I
discovered, not far from my home in Kumamoto, an insane man kept in a
cage. He was given only a slight amount of clothing, even though heavy
frost fell each night. Food was given him once or twice a day. He was
treated like a wild animal, not even being provided with bedding. This is
not an exceptional instance, as might, perhaps, at first be supposed. The
editor of the Japan Mail, who has lived in Japan many years, and knows the
people well, says: "Every foreigner traveling or residing in Japan must have
been shocked from time to time by the method of treating lunatics. Only a
few months ago an imbecile might have been seen at Hakone confined in
what was virtually a cage, where, from year's end to year's end, he received
neither medical assistance nor loving tendance, but was simply fed like a
wild beast in a menagerie. We have witnessed many such sights with horror
and pity. Yet humane Japanese do not seem to think of establishing asylums
where these unhappy sufferers can find refuge. There is only one lunatic
asylum in Tokyo. It is controlled by the municipality, its accommodation is
limited, and its terms place it beyond the reach of the poor." And the
amazing part is that such sights do not seem to arouse the sentiment of pity
in the Japanese.
The treatment accorded to lepers is another significant indication of the lack
of sympathetic and humane sentiments among the people at large. For ages
they have been turned from home and house and compelled to wander
outcasts, living in the outskirt of the villages in rude booths of their own

construction, and dependent on their daily begging, until a wretched death
gives them relief from a more wretched life. So far as I have been able to
learn, the opening of hospitals for lepers did not take place until begun by
Christians in recent times. This casting out of leper kindred was not done by
the poor alone, but by the wealthy also, although I do hot affirm or suppose
that the practice was universal. I am personally acquainted with the
management of the Christian Leper Hospital in Kumamoto, and the sad
accounts I have heard of the way in which lepers are treated by their
kindred would seem incredible, were they not supported by the character of
my informants, and by many other facts of a kindred nature.
A history of Japan was prepared by Japanese scholars under appointment
from the government and sent to the Columbian Exposition in 1893; it
makes the following statement, already referred to on a previous page:
"Despite the issue of several proclamations ... people were governed by
such strong aversion to the sight of sickness that travelers were often left to
die by the roadside from thirst, hunger, or disease, and householders even
went to the length of thrusting out of doors and abandoning to utter
destitution servants who suffered from chronic maladies.... Whenever an
epidemic occurred, the number of deaths that resulted was enormous."[N]
This was the condition of things after Buddhism, with its civilizing and
humanizing influences, had been at work in the land for about four hundred
years, and Old Japan was at the height of her glory, whether considered
from the standpoint of her government, her literature, her religious
development, or her art.
Of a period some two hundred years earlier, it is stated that, by the
assistance of the Sovereign, Buddhism established a charity hospital in
Nara, "where the poor received medical treatment and drugs gratis, and an
asylum was founded for the support of the destitute. Measures were also
taken to rescue foundlings, and, in general, to relieve poverty and distress"
(p. 92). The good beginning made at that time does not seem to have been
followed up. As nearly as I can make out, relying on the investigations of
Rev. J.H. Pettee and Mr. Ishii, there are to-day in Japan fifty orphan
asylums, of which eleven are of non-Christian, and thirty-nine of Christian
origin, support, and control. Of the non-Christian, five are in Osaka, two in
Tokyo, four in Kyoto, and one each in Nagoya, Kumamoto, and Matsuye.
Presumably the majority of these are in the hands of Buddhists. Of the

Christian asylums twenty are Roman Catholic and nineteen are Protestant.
It is a noteworthy fact that in this form of philanthropy and religious
activity, as in so many others, Christians are the pioneers and Buddhists are
the imitators. In a land where Buddhism has been so effective as to modify
the diet of the nation, leading them in obedience to the doctrines of Buddha,
as has been stated, to give up eating animal food, it is exceedingly strange
that the people apparently have no regard for the pain of living animals.
Says the editor of the Mail in the article already quoted: "They will not
interfere to save a horse from the brutality of its driver, and they will sit
calmly in a jinrikisha while its drawer, with throbbing heart and straining
muscles, toils up a steep hill." How often have I seen this sight! How the
rider can endure it, I cannot understand, except it be that revolt at cruelty
and sympathy with suffering do not stir within his heart. Of course,
heartless individuals are not rare in the West also. I am speaking here,
however, not of single individuals, but of general characteristics.
But a still more conspicuous evidence of Japanese deficiency of sympathy
is the use, until recently, of public torture. It was the theory of Japanese
jurisprudence that no man should be punished, even though proved guilty
by sufficient evidence, until he himself confessed his guilt; consequently, on
the flimsiest evidence, and even on bare suspicion, he was tortured until the
desired confession was extracted. The cruelty of the methods employed, we
of the nineteenth century cannot appreciate. Some foreigner tells how the
sight of torture which he witnessed caused him to weep, while the Japanese
spectators stood by unmoved. The methods of execution were also refined
devices of torture. Townsend Harris says that crucifixion was performed as
follows: "The criminal is tied to a cross with his arms and legs stretched
apart as wide as possible; then a spear is thrust through the body, entering
just under the bottom of the shoulder blade on the left side, and coming out
on the right side, just by the armpit. Another is then thrust through in a
similar manner from the right to the left side. The executioner endeavors to
avoid the heart in this operation. The spears are thrust through in this
manner until the criminal expires, but his sufferings are prolonged as much
as possible. Shinano told me that a few years ago a very strong man lived
until the eleventh spear had been thrust through him."
From these considerations, which might be supported by a multitude of
illustrations, we conclude that in the past there has certainly been a great

amount of cruelty exhibited in Japan, and that even to this day there is in
this country far less sympathy for suffering, whether animal or human, than
is felt in the West.
But we must not be too quick to jump to the conclusion that in this regard
we have discovered an essential characteristic of the Japanese nature. With
reference to the reported savagery displayed by Japanese troops at Port
Arthur, it has been said and repeated that you have only to scratch the
Japanese skin to find the Tartar, as if the recent development of human
feelings were superficial, and his real character were exhibited in his most
cruel moments. To get a true view of the case let us look for a few moments
at some other parts of the world, and ask ourselves a few questions.
How long is it since the Inquisition was enforced in Europe? Who can read
of the tortures there inflicted without shuddering with horror? It is not
necessary to go back to the times of the Romans with their amphitheaters
and gladiators, and with their throwing of Christians to wild animals, or to
Nero using Christians as torches in his garden. How long is it since witches
were burned, not only in Europe by the thousand, but in enlightened and
Christian New England? although it is true that the numbers there burned
were relatively few and the reign of terror brief. How long is it since slaves
were feeling the lash throughout the Southern States of our "land of
freedom"? How long is it since fiendish mobs have burned or lynched the
objects of their rage? How long is it since societies for preventing cruelty to
animals and to children were established in England and America? Is it not
a suggestive fact that it was needful to establish them and that it is still
needful to maintain them? The fact is that the highly developed humane
sense which is now felt so strongly by the great majority of people in the
West is a late development, and is not yet universal. It is not for us to boast,
or even to feel superior to the Japanese, whose opportunities for developing
this sentiment have been limited.
Furthermore, in regard to Japan, we must not overlook certain facts which
show that Japan has made gradual progress in the development of the
humane feelings and in the legal suppression of cruelty. The Nihon Shoki
records that, on the death of Yamato Hiko no Mikoto, his immediate
retainers were buried alive in a standing position around the grave,
presumably with the heads alone projecting above the surface of the

ground. The Emperor Suijin Tenno, on hearing the continuous wailing day
after day of the slowly dying retainers, was touched with pity and said that
it was a dreadful custom to bury with the master those who had been most
faithful to him when alive. And he added that an evil custom, even though
ancient, should not be followed, and ordered it to be abandoned. A later
record informs us that from this time arose the custom of burying images in
the place of servants. According to the ordinary Japanese chronology, this
took place in the year corresponding to 1 B.C. The laws of Ieyasu (1610
A.D.) likewise condemn this custom as unreasonable, together with the
custom in accordance with which the retainers committed suicide upon the
master's death. These same laws also refer to the proverb on revenge, given
in the third paragraph of this chapter, and add that whoever undertakes thus
to avenge himself or his father or mother or lord or elder brother must first
give notice to the proper office of the fact and of the time within which he
will carry out his intention; without such a notice, the avenger will be
considered a common murderer. This provision was clearly a limitation of
the law of revenge. These laws of Ieyasu also describe the old methods of
punishing criminals, and then add: "Criminals are to be punished by
branding, or beating, or tying up, and, in capital cases, by spearing or
decapitation; but the old punishments of tearing to pieces and boiling to
death are not to be used." Torture was finally legally abolished in Japan
only as late as 1877.
It has already become quite clear that the prevalence of cruelty or of
humanity depends largely upon the social order that prevails. It is not at all
strange that cruelty, or, at least, lack of sympathy for suffering in man or
beast, should be characteristic of an order based on constant hand-to-hand
conflict. Still more may we expect to find a great indifference to human
suffering wherever the value of man as man is slighted. Not until the idea of
the brotherhood of man has taken full possession of one's heart and thought
does true sympathy spring up; then, for the first time, comes the power of
putting one's self in a brother's place. The apparently cruel customs of
primitive times, in their treatment of the sick, and particularly of those
suffering from contagious diseases, is the natural, not to say necessary,
result of superstitious ignorance. Furthermore, it was often the only ready
means to prevent the spread of contagious or epidemic diseases.

In the treatment of the sick, the first prerequisite for the development of
tenderness is the introduction of correct ideas as to the nature of disease and
its proper treatment. As soon as this has been effectually done, a great
proportion of the apparent indifference to human suffering passes away. The
cruelty which is to-day so universal in Africa needs but a changed social
and industrial order to disappear. The needed change has come to Japan.
Physicians trained in modern methods of medical practice are found all over
the land. In 1894 there were 597 hospitals, 42,551 physicians, 33,921
nurses and midwives, 2869 pharmacists, and 16,106 druggists, besides
excellent schools of pharmacy and medicine.[O]
It is safe to say that nearly all forms of active cruelty have disappeared from
Japan; some amount of active sympathy has been developed, though, as
compared to that of other civilized lands, it is still small. But there can be
no doubt that the rapid change which has come over the people during the
past thirty years is not a change in essential innate character, but only in the
social order. As soon as the idea takes root that every man has a mission of
mercy, and that the more cruel are not at liberty to vent their barbarous
feelings on helpless creatures, whether man or beast, a strong uprising of
humane activity will take place which will demand the formation of
societies for the prevention of cruelty and for carrying active relief to the
distressed and wretched. Lepers will no longer need to eke out a precarious
living by exhibiting their revolting misery in public; lunatics will no longer
be kept in filthy cages and left with insufficient care or clothing. The stream
of philanthropy will rise high, to be at once a blessing and a glory to a race
that already has shown itself in many ways capable of the highest ideals of
the West.

XII
AMBITION—CONCEIT

Ambition is a conspicuous characteristic of New Japan. I have already
spoken of the common desire of her young men to become statesmen. The
stories of Neesima and other young Japanese who, in spite of opposition
and without money, worked their way to eminence and usefulness, have
fired the imagination of thousands of youths. They think that all they need
is to get to America, when their difficulties will be at an end. They fancy
that they have but to look around to find some man who will support them
while they study.
Not only individuals, but the people as a whole, have great ambitions. Three
hundred years ago the Taiko, Hideyoshi, the Napoleon of Japan, and the
virtual ruler of the Empire, planned, after subjugating Korea, to conquer
China and make himself the Emperor of the East. He thought he could
accomplish this in two years. During the recent war, it was the desire of
many to march on to Pekin. Frequent expression was given to the idea that
it is the duty of Japan to rouse China from her long sleep, as America
roused Japan in 1854. It is frequently argued, in editorial articles and public
speeches, that the Japanese are peculiarly fitted to lead China along the path
of progress, not only indirectly by example, as they have been doing, but
directly by teaching, as foreigners have led Japan. "The Mission of Japan to
the Orient" is a frequent theme of public discourse. But national ambitions
do not rest here. It is not seldom asserted that in Japan a mingling of the
Occidental and Oriental civilizations is taking place under such favorable
conditions that, for the first time in history, the better elements of both are
being selected; and that before long the world will sit to learn at her feet.
The lofty ambition of a group of radical Christians is to discover or create a
new religion which shall unite the best features of Oriental and Occidental
religious thought and experience. The religion of the future will be, not
Christianity, nor Buddhism, but something better than either, more

consistent, more profound, more universal; and this religion, first developed
in Japan, will spread to other lands and become the final religion of the
world.
A single curious illustration of the high-flying thoughts of the people may
well find mention here. When the Kumamoto Boys' School divided over the
arbitrary, tyrannical methods of their newly secured, brilliant principal,
already referred to in a previous chapter, the majority of the trustees
withdrew and at once established a new school for boys. For some time
they struggled for a name which should set forth the principles for which
the school stood, and finally they fixed on that of "To-A Gakko." Translated
into unpretentious English, this means "Eastern Asia School"; the idea was
that the school stood for no narrow methods of education, and that its
influence was to extend beyond the confines of Japan. This interpretation is
not an inference, but was publicly stated oil various occasions. The school
began with twenty-five boys, if my memory is correct, and never reached as
many as fifty. In less than three years it died an untimely death through lack
of patronage.
The young men of the island of Kyushu, especially of Kumamoto and
Kagoshima provinces, are noted for their ambitious projects. The once
famous "Kumamoto Band" consisted entirely of Kyushu boys. Under the
masterful influence of Captain Jaynes those high-spirited sons of samurai,
who had come to learn foreign languages and science, in a school founded
to combat Christianity and to upbuild Buddhism, became impressed with
the immense superiority of foreign lands, which superiority they were led to
attribute to Christianity. They accordingly espoused the Christian cause
with great ardor, and, in their compact with one another, agreed to work for
the reform of Japan. I have listened to many addresses by the Kumamoto
schoolboys, and I have been uniformly impressed with the political and
national tendencies of their thought.
Accompanying ambition is a group of less admirable qualities, such as self-
sufficiency and self-conceit. They are seldom manifested with that
coarseness which in the West we associate with them, for the Japanese is
usually too polished to be offensively obtrusive. He seldom indulges in
bluster or direct assertion, but is contented rather with the silent assumption
of superiority.

I heard recently of a slight, though capital, illustration of my point. Two
foreign gentlemen were walking through the town of Tadotsu some years
since and observed a sign in English which read "Stemboots." Wondering
what the sign could mean they inquired the business of the place, and
learning that it was a steamboat office, they gave the clerk the reason for
their inquiry, and at his request made the necessary correction. A few days
later, however, on their return, they noticed that the sign had been re-
corrected to "Stem-boats," an assumption of superior knowledge on the part
of some tyro in English. The multitude of signboards in astonishing
English, in places frequented by English-speaking people, is one of the
amusing features of Japan. It would seem as if the shopkeepers would at
least take the pains to have the signs correctly worded and spelled, by
asking the help of some foreigner or competent Japanese. Yet they assume
that they know all that is needful.
Indications of perfect self-confidence crop out in multitudes of ways far too
numerous to mention. The aspiring ambition spoken of in the immediately
preceding pages is one indication of this characteristic. Another is the
readiness of fledglings to undertake responsibilities far beyond them. Young
men having a smattering of English, yet wholly unable to converse, set up
as teachers. Youths in school not infrequently undertake to instruct their
teachers as to what courses of study and what treatment they should receive.
Still more conspicuous is the cool assumption of superiority evinced by so
many Japanese in discussing intellectual and philosophical problems. The
manner assumed is that of one who is complete master of the subject. The
silent contempt often poured on foreigners who attempt to discuss these
problems is at once amusing and illustrative of the characteristic of which I
am speaking.[P]
We turn next to inquire for the explanation of these characteristics. Are they
inherent traits of the race? Or are they the product of the times? Doubtless
the latter is the true explanation. It will be found that those individuals in
whom these characteristics appear are descendants of the samurai. A small
class of men freed from heavy physical toil, given to literature and culture,
ever depending on the assumption of superiority for the maintenance of
their place in society and defending their assumption by the sword—such a
class, in such a social order, would develop the characteristics in question to

a high degree. Should we expect an immediate change of character when
the social order has been suddenly changed?
In marked contrast to the lofty assumptions of superiority which
characterized the samurai of Old Japan, was the equally marked assumption
of inferiority which characterized the rest of the people, or nineteen-
twentieths of the nation. I have already sufficiently dwelt on this aspect of
national character. I here recur to it merely to enforce the truth that self-
arrogation and self-abnegation, haughtiness and humility, proud, high-
handed, magisterial manners, and cringing, obsequious obedience, are all
elements of character that depend on the nature of the social order. They are
passed on from generation to generation more by social than by biological
heredity. Both of these sets of contrasted characteristics are induced by a
full-fledged feudal system, and must remain for a time as a social
inheritance after that system has been overthrown, particularly if its
overthrow is sudden. In proportion as the principles of personal rights and
individual worth on the basis of manhood become realized by the people
and incorporated into the government and customs of the land, will
abnegating obsequiousness, as well as haughty lordliness, be replaced by a
straightforward manliness, in which men of whatever grade of society will
frankly face each other, eye to eye.
But what shall we say in regard to the assumption made by young Japan in
its attitude to foreigners? Are the assumptions wholly groundless? Is the
self-confidence unjustified? Far from it. When we study later the
intellectual elements of Japanese character, we shall see some reasons for
their feeling of self-reliance. The progress which the nation has made in
many lines within thirty years shows that it has certain kinds of power and,
consequently, some ground for self-reliance. Furthermore, self-reliance, if
fairly supported by ability and zeal, is essential in the attainment of any end
whatever. Faint heart never won fair lady. Confidence in self is one form of
faith. No less of peoples than individuals is it true, that without faith in
themselves they cannot attain their goal. The impression of undue self-
confidence made by the Japanese may be owing partly to their shortness of
stature. It is a new experience for the West to see a race of little people with
large brains and large plans. Especially does it seem strange and conceited
for a people whose own civilization is so belated to assume a rôle of such
importance in the affairs of the world. Yet we must learn to dissociate

physical size from mental or spiritual capacity. The future alone will
disclose what Japanese self-reliance and energy can produce.
The present prominence of this characteristic in Japan is still further to be
accounted for by her actual recent history. The overthrow of the Shogunate
was primarily the work of young men; the introduction of almost all the
sweeping reforms which have transformed Japan has been the work of
young men who, though but partly equipped for their work, approached it
with energy and perfect confidence, not knowing enough perhaps to realize
the difficulties they were undertaking. They had to set aside the customs of
centuries; to do this required startling assumptions of superiority to their
ancestors and their immediate parents. The young men undertook to dispute
and doubt everything that stood in the way of national re-organization. In
what nation has there ever been such a setting aside of parental teaching and
ancestral authority? These heroic measures secured results in which the
nation glories. Is it strange, then, that the same spirit should show itself in
every branch of life, even in the attitude of the people to the Westerners
who have brought them the new ways and ideas?
The Japanese, however, is not the only conceited nation. Indeed, it would be
near the truth to say that there is no people without this quality. Certainly
the American and English, French and German nations cannot presume to
criticise others. The reason why we think Japan unique in this respect is that
in the case of these Western nations we know more of the grounds for
national self-satisfaction than in the case of Japan. Yet Western lands are, in
many respects, truly provincial to this very day, in spite of their advantages
and progress; the difficulty with most of them is that they do not perceive it.
The lack of culture that prevails among our working classes is in some
respects great. The narrow horizon still bounding the vision of the average
American or Briton is very conspicuous to one who has had opportunities to
live and travel in many lands. Each country, and even each section of a
country, is much inclined to think that it has more nearly reached perfection
than any other.
This phase of national and local feeling is interesting, especially after one
has lived in Japan a number of years and has had opportunities to mingle
freely with her people. For they, although self-reliant and self-conceited, are
at the same time surprisingly ready to acknowledge that they are far behind

the times. Their open-mindedness is truly amazing. In describing the
methods of land tenure, of house-building, of farming, of local government,
of education, of moral instruction, of family life, indeed, of almost anything
in the West that has some advantageous feature, the remark will be dropped
incidentally that these facts show how uncivilized Japan still is. In their own
public addresses, if any custom is attacked, the severest indictment that can
be brought against it is that it is uncivilized. In spite, therefore, of her self-
conceit, Japan is in a fairer way of making progress than many a Western
nation, because she is also so conscious of defects. A large section of the
nation has a passion for progress. It wishes to learn of the good that foreign
lands have attained, and to apply the knowledge in such wise as shall fit
most advantageously into the national life. Although Japan is conceited, her
conceit is not without reason, nor is it to be attributed to her inherent race
nature. It is manifestly due to her history and social order past and present.

XIII
PATRIOTISM—APOTHEOSIS—COURAGE

No word is so dear to the patriotic Japanese as the one that leaps to his lips
when his country is assailed or maligned, "Yamato-Damashii." In prosaic
English this means "Japan Soul." But the native word has a flavor and a
host of associations that render it the most pleasing his tongue can utter.
"Yamato" is the classic name for that part of Japan where the divinely
honored Emperor, Jimmu Tenno, the founder of the dynasty and the Empire,
first established his court and throne. "Damashii" refers to the soul, and
especially to the noble qualities of the soul, which, in Japan of yore, were
synonymous with bravery, the characteristic of the samurai. If, therefore,
you wish to stir in the native breast the deepest feelings of patriotism and
courage, you need but to call upon his "Yamato-Damashii."
There has been a revival in the use of this word during the last decade. The
old Japan-Spirit has been appealed to, and the watchword of the anti-
foreign reaction has been "Japan for the Japanese." Among English-
speaking and English-reading Japanese there has been a tendency to give
this term a meaning deeper and broader than the historic usage, or even than
the current usage, will bear. One Japanese writer, for instance, defines the
term as meaning, "a spirit of loyalty to country, conscience, and ideal." An
American writer comes more nearly to the current usage in the definition of
it as "the aggressive and invincible spirit of Japan." That there is such a
spirit no one can doubt who has the slightest acquaintance with her past or
present history.
Concerning the recent rise of patriotism I have spoken elsewhere, perhaps
at sufficient length. Nor is it needful to present extensive evidence for the
statement that the Japanese have this feeling of patriotism in a marked
degree. One or two rather interesting items may, however, find their place
here.

The recent war with China was the occasion of focusing patriotism and
fanning it into flame. Almost every town street, and house, throughout the
Empire, was brilliantly decked with lanterns and flags, not on a single
occasion only, but continuously. Each reported victory, however small, sent
a thrill of delight throughout the nation. Month after month this was kept
up. In traveling through the land one would not have fancied that war was
in progress, but rather, that a long-continued festival was being observed.
An incident connected with sending troops to Korea made a deep
impression on the nation. The Okayama Orphan Asylum under the efficient
management of its founder, Mr. Ishii, had organized the older boys into a
band, securing for them various kinds of musical instruments. These they
learned to use with much success. When the troops were on the point of
leaving, Mr. Ishii went with his band to the port of Hiroshima, erected a
booth, prepared places for heating water, and as often as the regiments
passed by, his little orphans sallied forth with their teapots of hot tea for the
refreshment of the soldiers. Each regiment was also properly saluted, and if
opportunity offered, the little fellows played the national anthem, "Kimi-ga
yo," which has been thus translated: "May Our Gracious Sovereign reign a
thousand years, reign till the little stone grow into a mighty rock, thick
velveted with ancient moss." And finally the orphans would raise their shrill
voices with the rhythmical national shout, "Tei-koku Ban-zai, Tei-koku
Ban-zai"; "Imperial-land, a myriad years, Imperial-land, a myriad years."
This thoughtful farewell was maintained for the four or five days during
which the troops were embarking for the seat of war, well knowing that
some would never return, and that their children would be left fatherless
even as were these who saluted them. So deep was the impression made
upon the soldiers that many of them wept and many a bronzed face bowed
in loving recognition of the patriotism of these Christian boys. It is said that
the commander-in-chief of the forces himself gave the little fellows the
highest military salute in returning theirs.
Throughout the history of Japan, the aim of every rebellious clan or general
was first to get possession of the Emperor. Having done this, the possession
of the Imperial authority was unquestioned. Whoever was opposed to the
Emperor was technically called "Cho-teki," the enemy of the throne, a
crime as heinous as treason in the West. The existence of this sentiment
throughout the Empire is an interesting fact. For, at the very same time,

there was the most intense loyalty to the local lord or "daimyo." This is a
fine instance of a certain characteristic of the Japanese of which I must
speak more fully in another connection, but which, for convenience, I term
"nominality." It accepts and, apparently at least, is satisfied with a nominal
state of affairs, which may be quite different from the real. The theoretical
aspect of a question is accepted without reference to the actual facts. The
real power may be in the hands of the general or of the daimyo, but if
authority nominally proceeds from the throne, the theoretical demands are
satisfied. The Japanese themselves describe this state as "yumei-mujitsu."
In a sense, throughout the centuries there has been a genuine loyalty to the
throne, but it has been of the "yumei-mujitsu" type, apparently satisfied
with the name only. In recent times, however, there has been growing
dissatisfaction with this state of affairs. Some decades before Admiral Perry
appeared there were patriots secretly working against the Tokugawa
Shogunate. Called in Japanese "Kinnoka," they may be properly termed in
English "Imperialists." Their aim was to overthrow the Shogunate and
restore full and direct authority to the Emperor. Not a few lost their lives
because of their views, but these are now honored by the nation as patriots.
There is a tendency among scholars to-day to magnify the patriotism and
loyalty of preceding ages, also to emphasize the dignity and Imperial
authority of the Emperor. The patriotic spirit is now so strong that it blinds
their eyes to many of the salient facts of their history. Their patriotism is
more truly a passion than an idea. It is an emotion rather than a conception.
It demands certain methods of treatment for their ancient history that
Western scholarship cannot accept. It forbids any really critical research
into the history of the past, since it might cast doubt on the divine descent
of the Imperial line. It sums itself up in passionate admiration, not to say
adoration, of the Emperor. In him all virtues and wisdom abound. No fault
or lack in character can be attributed to him. I question if any rulers have
ever been more truly apotheosized by any nation than the Emperors of
Japan. The essence of patriotism to-day is devotion to the person of the
Emperor. It seems impossible for the people to distinguish between the
country and its ruler. He is the fountain of authority. Lower ranks gain their
right and their power from him alone. Power belongs to the people only
because, and in proportion as, he has conferred it upon them. Even the
Constitution has its authority only because he has so determined. Should he

at any time see fit to change or withdraw it, it is exceedingly doubtful
whether one word of criticism or complaint would be publicly uttered, and
as for forcible opposition, of such a thing no one would dream.
Japanese patriotism has had some unique and interesting features. In some
marked respects it is different from that of lands in which democratic
thought has held sway. For 1500 years, under the military social order,
loyalty has consisted of personal attachment to the lord. It has ever striven
to idealize that lord. The "yumei-mujitsu" characteristic has helped much in
this idealizing process, by bridging the chasm between the prosaic fact and
the ideal. Now that the old form of feudalism has been abruptly abolished,
with its local lords and loyalty, the old sentiment of loyalty naturally fixes
itself on the Emperor. Patriotism has perhaps gained intensity in proportion
as it has become focalized. The Emperor is reported to be a man of
commanding ability and good sense. It is at least true that he has shown
wisdom in selecting his councilors. There is general agreement that he is
not a mere puppet in the hands of his advisers, but that he exercises a real
and direct influence on the government of the day. During the late war with
China it was currently reported that from early morning until late at night,
week after week and month after month, he worked upon the various
matters of business that demanded his attention. No important move or
decision was made without his careful consideration and final approval.
These and other noble qualities of the present Emperor have, without doubt,
done much toward transferring the loyalty of the people from the local
daimyo to the national throne.
An event in the political world has recently occurred which illustrates
pointedly the statements just made in regard to the enthusiastic loyalty of
the people toward the Emperor. In spite of the fact that the national finances
are in a distressing state of confusion, and notwithstanding the struggle
which has been going on between successive cabinets and political parties,
the former insisting on, and the latter refusing, any increase in the land tax,
no sooner was it suggested by a small political party, to make a thank-
offering to the Emperor of 20,000,000 yen out of the final payment of the
war indemnity lately received, than the proposal was taken up with zeal by
both of the great and utterly hostile political parties, and immediately by
both houses of the Diet. The two reasons assigned were, "First, that the
victory over China would never have been won, nor the indemnity obtained,

had not the Emperor been the victorious, sagacious Sovereign that he is,
and that, therefore, it is only right that a portion of the indemnity should be
offered to him; secondly, that His Majesty is in need of money, the
allowance granted by the state for the maintenance of the Imperial
Household being insufficient, in view of the greatly enhanced prices of
commodities and the large donations constantly made by His Majesty for
charitable purposes."[Q] This act of the Diet appeals to the sentiment of the
people as the prosaic, business-like method of the Occident would not do.
The significance of the appropriation made by the Diet will be better
realized if it is borne in mind that the post-bellum programme for naval and
military expansion which was adopted in view of the large indemnity
(being, by the way, 50,000,000 yen), already calls for an expenditure in
excess of the indemnity. Either the grand programme must be reduced, or
new funds be raised, yet the leading political parties have been absolutely
opposed to any substantial increase of the land tax, which seems to be the
only available source of increase even to meet the current expenses of the
government, to say nothing of the post-bellum programme. So has a burst
of sentiment buried all prudential considerations. This is a species of loyalty
that Westerners find hard to appreciate. To them it would seem that the first
manifestation of loyalty would be to provide the Emperor's Cabinet and
executive officers with the necessary funds for current expenses; that the
second would be to give the Emperor an allowance sufficient to meet his
actual needs, and the third,—if the funds held out,—to make him a
magnificent gift. This sentimental method of loyalty to the Emperor,
however, is matched by many details of common life. A sentimental parting
gift or speech will often be counted as more friendly than thoroughly
business-like relations. The prosaic Occidental discounts all sentiment that
has not first satisfied the demands of business and justice. Such a standard,
however, seems to be repugnant to the average Japanese mind.
The theory that all authority resides in the Emperor is also enforced by
recent history. For the constitution was not wrung from an unwilling ruler
by an ambitious people, but was conferred by the Emperor of his own free
will, under the advice of his enlightened and progressive councilors.
As an illustration of some of the preceding statements let me quote from a
recent article by Mr. Yamaguchi, Professor of History in the Peeresses'
School and Lecturer in the Imperial Military College. After speaking of the

abolition of feudalism and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy,
he goes on to say: "But we must not suppose that the sovereign power of
the state has been transferred to the Imperial Diet. On the contrary, it is still
in the hands of the Emperor as before.... The functions of the government
are retained in the Emperor's own hands, who merely delegates them to the
Diet, the Government (Cabinet), and the Judiciary, to exercise the same in
his name. The present form of government is the result of the history of a
country which has enjoyed an existence of many centuries. Each country
has its own peculiar characteristics which differentiate it from others. Japan,
too, has her history, different from that of other countries. Therefore we
ought not to draw comparisons between Japan and other countries, as if the
same principles applied to all indiscriminately. The Empire of Japan has a
history of 3000 [!] years, which fact distinctly marks out our nationality as
unique. The monarch, in the eyes of the people, is not merely on a par with
an aristocratic oligarchy which rules over the inferior masses, or a few
nobles who equally divide the sovereignty among themselves. According to
our ideas, the monarch reigns over and governs the country in his own right,
and not by virtue of rights conferred by the constitution.... Our Emperor
possesses real sovereignty and also exercises it. He is quite different from
other rulers who possess but a partial sovereignty.... He has inherited the
rights of sovereignty from his ancestors. Thus it is quite legitimate to think
that the rights of sovereignty exist in the Emperor himself.... The Empire of
Japan shall be reigned over and governed by a line of Emperors unbroken
for ages eternal. (Constitution, Art. LXXIII.) ... The sovereign power of the
state cannot be dissociated from the Imperial Throne. It lasts forever, along
with the Imperial line of succession, unbroken for ages eternal. If the
Imperial house cease to exist, the Empire falls."
In a land where adopted sons are practically equivalent to lineal
descendants (another instance of the "yumei-mujitsu" type of thought), and
where marriage is essentially polygamous, and where the "yumei-mujitsu"
spirit has allowed the sovereignty to be usurped in fact, though it may not
be in name, it is not at all wonderful that the nation can boast of a longer
line of Emperors than any other land. But when monogamy becomes the
rule in Japan, as it doubtless will some day, and if lineal descent should be
considered essential to inheritance, as in the Occident, it is not at all likely
that the Imperial line will maintain itself unbroken from father to son

indefinitely. Although the present Emperor has at least five concubines
besides his wife, the Empress, and has had, prior to 1896, no less than
thirteen children by them, only two of these are still living, both of them the
offspring of his concubines; one of these is a son born in 1879, proclaimed
the heir in 1887, elected Crown Prince in 1889, and married in 1900; he is
said to be in delicate health; the second child is a daughter born in 1890.
Since 1896 several children have been born to the Emperor and two or three
have died, so that at present writing there are but four living children. These
are all offspring of concubines.[R]
In speaking, however, of the Japanese apotheosis of their Emperor, we must
not forget how the "divine right of kings" has been a popular doctrine, even
in enlightened England, until the eighteenth century, and is not wholly
unknown in other lands at the present day. Only in recent times has the real
source of sovereignty been discovered by historical and political students.
That the Japanese are not able to pass at one leap from the old to the new
conception in regard to this fundamental element of national authority is not
at all strange. Past history, together with that which is recent, furnishes a
satisfactory explanation for the peculiar nature of Japanese patriotism. This
is clearly due to the nature of the social order.
A further fact in this connection is that, in a very real sense, the existence of
Japan as a unified nation has depended on apotheosis. It is the method that
all ancient nations have adopted at one stage of their social development for
expressing their sense of national unity and the authority of national law. In
that stage of social development when the common individual counts for
nothing, the only possible conception of the authority of law is that it
proceeds from a superior being—the highest ruler. And in order to secure
the full advantage of authority, the supreme ruler must be raised to the
highest possible pinnacle, must be apotheosized. That national laws should
be the product of the unvalued units which compose the nation was
unthinkable in an age when the worth of the individual was utterly
unrecognized. The apotheosis of the Emperor was neither an unintelligible
nor an unreasonable practice. But now that an individualistic, democratic
organization of society has been introduced resting on a principle
diametrically opposed to that of apotheosis, a struggle of most profound
importance has been inaugurated. Does moral or even national authority
really reside in the Emperor? The school-teachers are finding great

difficulty in teaching morality as based exclusively on the Imperial Edict.
The politicians of Japan are not content with leaving all political and state
authority to the Emperor. Not long ago (June, 1898), for the first time in
Japan, a Cabinet acknowledging responsibility to a political party took the
place of one acknowledging responsibility only, to the Emperor. For this
end the politicians have been working since the first meeting of the national
Diet. Which principle is to succeed, apotheosis and absolute Imperial
sovereignty, or individualism with democratic sovereignty? The two cannot
permanently live together. The struggle is sure to be intense, for the
question of authority, both political and moral, is inevitably involved.
The parallel between Japanese and Roman apotheosis is interesting. I can
present it no better than by quoting from that valuable contribution to social
and moral problems, "The Genesis of the Social Conscience," by Prof. H.S.
Nash: "Yet Rome with all her greatness could not outgrow the tribal
principle.... We find something that reveals a fundamental fault in the whole
system. It is the apotheosis of the Emperors. The process of apotheosis was
something far deeper than servility in the subject conspiring with vanity in
the ruler. It was a necessity of the state. There was no means of insuring the
existence of the state except religion. In the worship of the Cæsars the
Empire reverenced its own law. There was no other way in which pagan
Rome could guarantee the gains she had made for civilization. Yet the very
thing that was necessary to her was in logic her undoing.... The worship of
the Emperor undid the definition of equality the logic of the Empire
demanded. Again apotheosis violated the divine unity of humanity upon
which alone the Empire could securely build."[S]
That the final issue of Japan's experience will be like that of Rome I do not
believe. For her environment is totally different. But the same struggle of
the two conflicting principles is already on. Few, even among the educated
classes, realize its nature or profundity. The thinkers who adhere to the
principle of apotheosis do so admittedly because they see no other way in
which to secure authority for law, whether political or moral. Here we see
the importance of those conceptions of God, of law, of man, which
Christianity alone can give.
From patriotism we naturally pass to the consideration of courage. Nothing
was more prized and praised in Old Japan. In those days it was the

deliberate effort of parents and educators to develop courage in children.
Many were their devices for training the young in bravery. Not content with
mere precept, they were sent alone on dark stormy nights to cemeteries, to
houses reputed to be haunted, to dangerous mountain peaks, and to
execution grounds. Many deeds were required of the young whose sole aim
was the development of courage and daring. The worst name you could
give to a samurai was "koshinuke" (coward). Many a feud leading to a fatal
end has resulted from the mere use of this most hated of all opprobrious
epithets. The history of Japan is full of heroic deeds. I well remember a
conversation with a son of the old samurai type, who told me, with the
blood tingling in his veins, of bloody deeds of old and the courage they
demanded. He remarked incidentally that, until one had slain his first foe,
he was ever inclined to tremble. But once the deed had been done, and his
sword had tasted the life blood of a man, fear was no more. He also told me
how for the sake of becoming inured to ghastly sights under nerve-testing
circumstances, the sons of samurai were sent at night to the execution
grounds, there, by faint moonlight to see, stuck on poles, the heads of men
who had been recently beheaded.
The Japanese emotion of courage is in some respects peculiar. At least it
appears to differ from that of the Anglo-Saxon. A Japanese seems to lose all
self-control when the supreme moment comes; he throws himself into the
fray with a frenzied passion and a fearless madness allied to insanity. Such
is the impression I have gathered from the descriptions I have heard and the
pictures I have seen. Even the pictures of the late war with China give
evidence of this.
But their courage is not limited to fearlessness in the face of death; it
extends to complete indifference to pain. The honorable method by which a
samurai who had transgressed some law or failed in some point of etiquette,
might leave this world is well known to all, the "seppuku," the elegant name
for the vulgar term "hara-kiri" or "belly-cutting." To one who is sensitive to
tales of blood, unexpurgated Japanese history must be a dreadful thing. The
vastness of the multitudes who died by their own hands would be
incredible, were there not ample evidence of the most convincing nature. It
may be said with truth that suicide became apotheosized, a condition that I
suppose cannot be said to have prevailed in any other land.

In thus describing the Japanese sentiment in regard to "seppuku," there is,
however, some danger of misrepresenting it. "Seppuku" itself was not
honored, for in the vast majority of cases those who performed it were
guilty of some crime or breach of etiquette. And not infrequently those who
were condemned to commit "seppuku" were deficient in physical courage;
in such cases, some friend took hold of the victim's hand and forced him to
cut himself. Such cowards were always despised. To be condemned to
commit "seppuku" was a disgrace, but it was much less of a disgrace than to
be beheaded as a common man, for it permitted the samurai to show of
what stuff he was made. It should be stated further that in the case of
"seppuku," as soon as the act of cutting the abdomen had been completed,
always by a single rapid stroke, someone from behind would, with a single
blow, behead the victim. The physical agony of "seppuku" was, therefore,
very brief, lasting but a few seconds.
I can do no better than quote in this connection a paragraph from the
"Religions of Japan" by W.E. Griffis:
"From the prehistoric days when the custom of 'Junshi,'
or dying with the master, required the interment of
living retainers with their dead lord, down through all
the ages to the Revolution of 1868, when at Sendai and
Aidzu scores of men and boys opened their bowels, and
mothers slew their infant sons and cut their own throats,
there has been flowing a river of suicides' blood having
its springs in devotion of retainers to masters, and of
soldiers to a lost cause.... Not only a thousand, but
thousands of thousands of soldiers hated their parents,
wife, child, friend, in order to be disciples to the
supreme loyalty. They sealed their creed by emptying
their own veins.... The common Japanese novels read
like records of slaughter-houses. No Molech or Shivas
won more victims to his shrine than has this idea of
Japanese loyalty, which is so beautiful in theory but so
hideous in practice ... Could the statistics of the suicides
during this long period be collected, their publication
would excite in Christendom the utmost incredulity."[T]

I well remember the pride, which almost amounted to glee, with which a
young blood gave me the account of a mere boy, perhaps ten or twelve
years old, who cut his bowels in such a way that the deed was not quite
complete, and then tying his "obi" or girdle over it, walked into the
presence of his mother, explained the circumstances which made it a point
of honor that he should commit "seppuku," and forthwith untied his "obi"
and died in her presence.
These are the ideals of courage and loyalty that have been held up before
Japanese youth for centuries. Little comment is needful. From the
evolutionary standpoint, it is relatively easy to understand the rise of these
ideas and practices. It is clear that they depend entirely on the social order.
With the coming in of the Western social order, feudal lords and local
loyalty and the carrying of swords were abolished. Are the Japanese any
less courageous now than they were thirty years ago? The social order has
changed and the ways of showing courage have likewise changed. That is
all that need be said.
Are we to say that the Japanese are more courageous than other peoples?
Although no other people have manifested such phenomena as the Japanese
in regard to suicide for loyalty, yet any true appreciation of Western peoples
will at once dispel the idea that they lack courage. Manifestations of
courage differ according to the nature of the social order, but no nation
could long maintain itself, to say nothing of coming into existence, without
a high degree of this endowment.
But Japanese courage is not entirely of the physical order, although that is
the form in which it has chiefly shown itself thus far. The courage of having
and holding one's own convictions is known in Japan as elsewhere. There
has been a long line of martyrs. During the decades after the introduction of
Buddhism, there was such opposition that it required much courage for
converts to hold to their beliefs. So, too, at the time of the rise of the new
Buddhist sects, there was considerable persecution, especially with the rise
of the Nichiren Shu. And when the testing time of Christianity came, under
the edict of the Tokugawas by which it was suppressed, tens of thousands
were found who preferred death to the surrender of their faith. In recent
times, too, much courage has been shown by the native Christians.

As an illustration is the following: When an eminent American teacher of
Japanese youth returned to Japan after a long absence, his former pupils
gathered around him with warm admiration. They had in the interval of his
absence become leaders among the trustees and faculty of the most
prosperous Christian college in Japan. He was accordingly invited to deliver
a course of lectures in the Chapel. It was generally known that he was no
longer the earnest Christian that he had once been, when, as teacher in an
interior town, he had inspired a band of young men who became Christians
under his teaching and a power for good throughout the land. But no one
was prepared to hear such extreme denunciations of Christianity and
Christian missions and missionaries as constituted the substance of his
lectures. At first the matter was passed over in silence. But, by the end of
the second lecture, the missionaries entered a protest, urging that the
Christian Chapel should not again be used for such lectures. The faculty,
however, were not ready to criticise their beloved teacher. The third lecture
proved as abusive as the others; the speaker seemed to have no sense of
propriety. A glimpse of his thought, and method of expression may be
gained from a single sentence: "I have been commissioned, gentlemen, by
Jesus Christ, to tell you that there is no such thing as a soul or a future life."
Although the missionary members of the faculty urged it, the Japanese
members, most of whom were his former pupils, were unwilling to take any
steps whatever to prevent the continuation of the blasphemous lectures. The
students of the institution accordingly held a mass-meeting, in which the
matter was discussed, and it was decided to inform the speaker that the
students did not care to hear any more such lectures. The question then
arose as to who would deliver the resolution. There was general hesitancy,
and anyone who has seen or known the lecturer, and has heard him speak,
can easily understand this feeling; for he is a large man with a most
impressive and imperious manner. The young man, however, who had
perhaps been most active in agitating the matter, and who had presented the
resolution to the meeting, volunteered to go. He is slight and rather small,
even for a Japanese. Going to the home of the lecturer, he delivered calmly
the resolution of the students. To the demand as to who had drawn up and
presented the resolution to the meeting, the reply was: "I, sir." That ended
the conversation, but not the matter. From that day the idolized teacher was
gradually lowered from his pedestal. But the moral courage of the young
man who could say in his enraged presence, "I, sir," has not been forgotten.

Neither has that of the young man who had acted as interpreter for the first
lecture; not only did he decline to act in that capacity any longer, but, taking
the first public opportunity, at the chapel service the following day, which
proved to be Sunday, he went to the platform and asked forgiveness of God
and of men that he had uttered such language as he had been compelled to
use in his translating. Here, too, was moral courage of no mean order.

XIV
FICKLENESS—STOLIDITY—STOICISM

A frequent criticism of the Japanese is that they are fickle; that they run
from one fad to another, from one idea to another, quickly tiring of each in
turn. They are said to lack persistence in their amusements no less than in
the most serious matters of life.
None will deny the element of truth in this charge. In fact, the Japanese
themselves recognize that of late their progress has been by "waves," and
not a few lament it. A careful study of school attendance will show that it
has been subject to alternate waves of popularity and disfavor. Private
schools glorying in their hundreds of pupils have in a short time lost all but
a few score. In 1873 there was a passion for rabbits, certain varieties of
which were then for the first time introduced into Japan. For a few months
these brought fabulous prices, and became a subject of the wildest
speculation. In 1874-75 cock-fighting was all the rage. Foreign waltzing
and gigantic funerals were the fashion one year, while wrestling was the fad
at another time, even the then prime minister, Count Kuroda, taking the
lead. But the point of our special interest is as to whether fickleness is an
essential element of Japanese character, and so dominant that wherever the
people may be and whatever their surroundings, they will always be fickle;
or whether this trait is due to the conditions of their recent history. Let us
see.
Prof. Basil H. Chamberlain says, "Japan stood still so long that she has to
move quickly and often now to make up for lost time." This states the case
pretty well. Had we known Japan only through her Tokugawa period, the
idea of fickleness would not have occurred to us; on the contrary, the
dominant impression would have been that of the permanence and fixity of
her life and customs. This quality or appearance of fickleness is, then, a
modern trait, due to the extraordinary circumstances in which Japan finds

herself. The occurrence of wave after wave of fresh fashions and fads is
neither strange nor indicative of an essentially fickle disposition. Glancing
below the surface for a moment, we shall see that there is an earnestness of
purpose which is the reverse of fickle.
What nation, for example, ever voluntarily set itself to learn the ways and
thoughts and languages of foreign nations as persistently as Japan? That
there has been fluctuation of intensity is not so surprising as that, through a
period of thirty years, she has kept steadily at it. Tens of thousands of her
young men are now, able to read the English language with some facility;
thousands are also able to read German and French. Foreign languages are
compulsory in all the advanced schools. A regulation going into force in
September, 1900, requires the study of two foreign languages. This has
been done at a cost of many hundred thousands of dollars. There has been a
fairly permanent desire and effort to learn all that the West has to teach. The
element of fickleness is to be found chiefly in connection with the methods
rather than in connection with the ends to be secured. From the moment
when Japan discovered that the West had sources of power unknown to
herself, and indispensable if she expected to hold her own with the nations
of the world, the aim and end of all her efforts has been to master the
secrets of that power. She has seen that education is one important means.
That she should stumble in the adoption of educational methods is not
strange. The necessary experience is being secured. But for a lesson of this
sort, more than one generation of experience is required of a nation. For
some time to come Japan is sure to give signs of unsteadiness, of lack of
perfect balance.
A pitiful sight in Japan is that of boys not more than five or six years of age
pushing or pulling with all their might at heavily loaded hand-carts drawn
by their parents. Yet this is typical of one aspect of Japanese civilization.
The work is largely done by young people under thirty, and vast multitudes
of the workers are under twenty years of age. This is true not only of menial
labor, but also in regard to labor involving more or less responsibility. In the
post offices, for instance, the great majority of the clerks are mere boys. In
the stores one rarely sees a man past middle age conducting the business or
acting as clerk. Why are the young so prominent? Partly because of the
custom of "abdication." As "family abdication" is frequent, it has a
perceptible effect on the general character of the nation, and accounts in

part for rash business ventures and other signs of impetuosity and
unbalanced judgment. Furthermore, under the new civilization, the older
men have become unfitted to do the required work. The younger and more
flexible members of the rising generation can quickly adjust themselves to
the new conditions, as in the schools, where the older men, who had
received only the regular training in Chinese classics, were utterly
incompetent as teachers of science. Naturally, therefore, except for
instruction in these classics, the common-school teachers, during the earlier
decades, were almost wholly young boys. The extreme youthfulness of
school-teachers has constantly surprised me. In the various branches of
government this same phenomenon is equally common. Young men have
been pushed forward into positions with a rapidity and in numbers unknown
in the West, and perhaps unknown in any previous age in Japan.
The rise and decline of the Christian Church in Japan has been instanced as
a sign of the fickleness of the people. It is a mistaken instance, for there are
many other causes quite sufficient to account for the phenomenon in
question. Let me illustrate by the experience of an elderly Christian. He had
been brought to Christ through the teachings of a young man of great
brilliancy, whose zeal was not tempered with full knowledge—which,
however, was not strange, in view of his limited opportunities for learning.
His instruction was therefore narrow, not to say bigoted. Still the elderly
gentleman found the teachings of the young man sufficiently strong and
clear thoroughly to upset all his old ideas of religion, his polytheism, his
belief in charms, his worship of ancestors, and all kindred ideas. He
accepted the New Testament in simple unquestioning faith. But, after six or
eight years, the young instructor began to lose his own primitive and simple
faith. He at once proceeded to attack that which before he had been
defending and expounding. Soon his whole theological position was
changed. Higher criticism and religious philosophy were now the center of
his preaching and writing. The result was that this old gentleman was again
in danger of being upset in his religious thinking. He felt that his new faith
had been received in bulk, so to speak, and if a part of it were false, as his
young teacher now asserted, how could he know that any of it was true? Yet
his heart's experience told him that he had secured something in this faith
that was real; he was loath to lose it; consequently, for some years now, he
has systematically stayed away from church services, and refrained from

reading magazines in which these new and destructive views have been
discussed; he has preferred to read the Bible quietly at home, and to have
direct communion with God, even though, in many matters of Biblical or
theoretical science, he might hold his mistaken opinions. A surface view of
this man's conduct might lead one to think of him as fickle; but a deeper
consideration will lead to the opposite conclusion.
The fluctuating condition of the Christian churches is not cause for
astonishment, nor is it to be wholly, if at all, attributed to the fickleness of
the national character, but rather, in a large degree, to the peculiar
conditions of Japanese life. The early Christians had much to learn. They
knew, experimentally, but little of Christian truth. The whole course of
Christian thought, the historical development of theology, with the various
heresies, the recent discussions resting on the so-called "higher criticism" of
the Bible, together with the still more recent investigations into the history
and philosophy of religion in general, were of course wholly unknown to
them. This was inevitable, and they were blameless. All could not be
learned at once.
Nor is there any blame attached to the missionaries. It was as impossible for
them to impart to young and inexperienced Christians a full knowledge of
these matters as it was for the latter to receive such information. The
primary interest of the missionaries was in the practical and everyday duties
of the Christian life, in the great problem of getting men and women to put
away the superstitions and narrowness and sins springing from polytheism
or practical atheism, and getting them started in ways of godliness. The
training schools for evangelists were designed to raise up practical workers
rather than speculative theologians. Missionaries considered it their duty
(and they were beyond question right) to teach religion rather than the
science and philosophy of religion. When, therefore, the evangelists
discovered that they had not been taught these advanced branches of
knowledge, it is not strange that some should rush after them, and, in their
zeal for that which they supposed to be important, hasten to criticise their
former teachers. As a result, they undermined both their own faith and that
of many who had become Christians through their teaching.
The dullness of the church life, so conspicuous at present in many of the
churches, is only partly due to the fact that the Christians are tired of the

services. It is true that these services no longer afford them that mental and
spiritual stimulus which they found at the first, and that, lacking this, they
find little inducement to attend. But this is only a partial explanation.
Looking over the experience of the past twenty-five years, we now see that
the intense zeal of the first few years was a natural result of a certain
narrowness of view. It is an interesting fact that, during one of the early
revivals in the Doshisha, the young men were so intense and excited that
the missionaries were compelled to restrain them. These young Christians
felt and said that the missionaries were not filled with the Holy Spirit; they
accordingly considered it their duty to exhort their foreign leaders, even to
chide them for their lack of faith. The extraordinary expectations
entertained by the young Japanese workers of those days and shared by the
missionaries, that Japan was to become a Christian nation before the end of
the century, was due in large measure to an ignorance alike of Christianity,
of human nature, and of heathenism, but, under the peculiar conditions of
life, this was well-nigh inevitable. And that great and sudden changes in
feeling and thought have come over the infant churches, in consequence of
the rapid acquisition of new light and new experience, is equally inevitable.
These changes are not primarily attributable to fickleness of nature, but to
the extraordinary additions to their knowledge.
There is good reason to think, however, that the period of these rapid
fluctuations is passing away. All the various fads, fancies, and follies,
together with the sciences, philosophies, ologies, and isms of the Western
world, have already come to Japan, and are fairly well known. No
essentially new and sudden experiences lie before the people.
Furthermore, the young men are year by year growing older. Experience
and age together are giving a soberness and a steadiness otherwise
unattainable. In the schools, in the government, in politics, and in the
judiciary, and in the churches, men of years and of training in the new order
are becoming relatively numerous, and erelong they will be in the majority.
We may expect to see Japan gradually settling down to a steadiness and a
regularity that have been lacking during the past few decades. The
newcomer to Japan is much impressed with the expressionless character of
so many Japanese faces. They appear like the images of Buddha, who is
supposed to be so absorbed in profound meditation that the events of the
passing world make no impression upon him. I have sometimes heard the

expression "putty face" used to describe the appearance of the common
Japanese face. This immobility of the Oriental is more conspicuous to a
newcomer than to one who has seen much of the people and who has
learned its significance. But though the "putty" effect wears off, there
remains an impression of stoicism that never fades away. These two
features, stolidity and stoicism, are so closely allied in appearance that they
are easily mistaken, yet they are really distinct. The one arises from
stupidity, from dullness of mind. The other is the product of elaborate
education and patient drill. Yet it is often difficult to determine where the
one ends and the other begins.
The stolidity of stupidity is, of course, commonest among the peasant class.
For centuries they have been in closest contact with the soil; nothing has
served to awaken their intellectual faculties. Reading and writing have
remained to them profound mysteries. Their lives have been narrow in the
extreme. But the Japanese peasant is not peculiar in this respect. Similar
conditions in other lands produce similar results, as in France, according to
Millet's famous painting, "The Man with the Hoe."
It is an interesting fact, however, that this stolidity of stupidity can be easily
removed. I have often heard comments on the marked change in the facial
expression of those adults who learn to read the Bible. Their minds are
awakened; a new light is seen in their eyes as new ideas are started in their
minds.
The impression of stolidity made on the foreigner is, due less, however, to
stupidity than to a stoical education. For centuries the people have been
taught to repress all expression of their emotions. It has been required of the
inferior to listen quietly to his superior and to obey implicitly. The relations
of superior and inferior have been drilled into the people for ages. The code
of a military camp has been taught and enforced in all the homes. Talking in
the presence of a superior, or laughter, or curious questions, or expressions
of surprise, anything revealing the slightest emotion on the part of the
inferior was considered a discourtesy.
Education in these matters was not confined to oral instruction;
infringements were punished with great rigor. Whenever a daimyo traveled
to Yedo, the capital, he was treated almost as a god by the people. They

were required to fall on their knees and bow their faces to the ground, and
the death penalty was freely awarded to those who failed to make such
expressions of respect.
One source, then, of the systematic repression of emotional expression is
the character of the feudal order of society that so long prevailed. The
warrior who had best control of his facial expression, who could least
expose to his foe or even to his ordinary friends the real state of his
feelings, other things being equal, would come off the victor. In further
explanation of this repression is the religion of Buddha. For 1200 years it
has helped to mold the middle and the lower classes of the people.
According to its doctrine, desire is the great evil; from it all other evils
spring. For this reason, the aim of the religious life is to suppress all desire,
and the most natural way to accomplish this is to suppress the manifestation
of desire; to maintain passive features under all circumstances. The images
of Buddha and of Buddhist saints are utterly devoid of expression. They
indicate as nearly as possible the attainment of their desire, namely,
freedom from all desire. This is the ambition of every earnest Buddhist.
Being the ideal and the actual effort of life, it does affect the faces of the
people. Lack of expression, however, does not prove absence of desire.
Every foreigner has had amusing proof of this. A common experience is the
passing of a group of Japanese who, apparently, give no heed to the
stranger. Neither by the turn of the head nor by the movement of a single
facial muscle do they betray any curiosity, yet their eyes take in each detail,
and involuntarily follow the receding form of the traveler. In the interior,
where foreigners are still objects of curiosity, young men have often run up
from behind, gone to a distance ahead of me, then turned abruptly, as
though remembering something, and walked slowly back again, giving me,
apparently, not the slightest attention. The motive was the desire to get a
better look at the foreigner. They hoped to conceal it by a ruse, for there
must be no manifestation of curiosity.
Phenomena which a foreigner may attribute to a lack of emotion of, at least,
to its repression, may be due to some very different cause. Few things, for
instance, are more astonishing to the Occidental than the silence on the part
of the multitude when the Emperor, whom they all admire and love, appears
on the street. Under circumstances which would call forth the most

enthusiastic cheers from Western crowds, a Japanese crowd will maintain
absolute silence. Is this from lack of emotion? By no means. Reverence
dominates every breast. They would no more think of making noisy
demonstrations of joy in the presence of the Emperor than a congregation of
devout Christians would think of doing the same during a religious service.
This idea of reverence for superiors has pervaded the social order —the
intensity of the reverence varying with the rank of the superior. But a
change has already begun. Silence is no longer enforced; no profound
bowings to the ground are now demanded before the nobility; on at least
one occasion during the recent China-Japan war the enthusiasm of the
populace found audible expression when the Emperor made a public
appearance. Even the stoical appearance of the people is passing away
under the influence of the new order of society, with its new, dominant
ideas. Education is bringing the nation into a large and throbbing life.
Naturalness is taking the place of forced repression. A sense of the essential
equality of man is springing up, especially among the young men, and is
helping to create a new atmosphere in this land, where, for centuries, one
chief effort has been to repress all natural expression of emotion.
While touring in Kyushu several years ago, I had an experience which
showed me that the stolidity, or vivacity, of a people is largely dependent on
the prevailing social order rather than on inherent nature. Those who have
much to do with the Japanese have noted the extreme quiet and reserve of
the women. It is a trait that has been lauded by both native and foreign
writers. Because of this characteristic it is difficult for a stranger, to carry on
conversation with them. They usually reply in monosyllables and in low
tones. The very expression of their faces indicates a reticence, a calm
stolidity, and a lack of response to the stimulus of social intercourse that is
striking and oppressive to an Occidental. I have always found it a matter of
no little difficulty to become acquainted with the women, and especially
with the young women, in the church with which I have been connected.
With the older women this reticence is not so marked. Now for my story:
One day I called on a family, expecting to meet the mother, with whom I
was well acquainted. She proved to be out; but a daughter of whom I had
not before heard was at home, and I began to talk with her. Contrary to all
my previous experience, this young girl of less than twenty years looked me
straight in the face with perfect composure, replied to my questions with

clear voice and complete sentences, and asked questions in her turn without
the slightest embarrassment. I was amazed. Here was a Japanese girl acting
and talking with the freedom of an American. How was this to be
explained? Difficult though it appeared, the problem was easily solved. The
young lady had been in America, having spent several years in Radcliffe
College. There it was that her Japanese demureness was dropped and the
American frankness and vivacity of manner acquired. It was a matter
simply of the prevailing social customs, and not of her inherent nature as a
Japanese.
And this conclusion is enforced by the further fact that there is a marked
increase in vivacity in those who become Christian. The repressive social
restraints of the old social order are somewhat removed. A freedom is
allowed to individuals of the Christian community, in social life, in
conversation between men and women, in the holding of private opinions,
which the non-Christian order of society did not permit. Sociability between
the sexes was not allowed. The new freedom naturally results in greater
vivacity and a far freer play of facial expression than the older order could
produce. The vivacity and sociability of the geisha (dancing and singing
girls), whose business it is to have social relations with the men, freely
conversing with them, still further substantiates the view that the stolid,
irrepressive features of the usual Japanese woman are social, not essential,
characteristics. The very same girls exhibit alternately stolidity and vivacity
according as they are acting as geisha or as respectable members of society.
This completes our direct study of the various elements characterizing the
emotional nature of the Japanese. It is universally admitted that the people
are conspicuously emotional. We have shown, however, that their feelings
are subject to certain remarkable suppressions.
It remains to be asked why the Japanese are more emotional than other
races? One reason doubtless is that the social conditions were such as to
stimulate their emotional rather than their intellectual powers. The military
system upon which the social structure rested kept the nation in its mental
infancy. Twenty-eight millions of farmers and a million and a half of
soldiers was the proportion during the middle of the nineteenth century.
Education was limited to the soldiers. But although they cultivated their
minds somewhat, their very occupation as soldiers required them to obey

rather than to think; their hand-to-hand conflicts served mightily to
stimulate the emotions. The entire feudal order likewise was calculated to
have the same effect. The intellectual life being low, its inhibitions were
correspondingly weak. When, in the future, the entire population shall have
become fairly educated, and taught to think independently; and when
government by the people shall have become much more universal,
throwing responsibility on the people as never before, and stimulating
discussion of the general principles of life, of government, and of law, then
must the emotional features of the nation become less conspicuous.
It is a question of relative development. As children run to extremes of
thought and action on the slightest occasion, simply because their intellects
have not come into full activity, weeping at one moment and laughing at the
next, so it is with national life. Where the general intellectual development
of a people is retarded, the emotional manifestations are of necessity
correspondingly conspicuous.
Even so fundamental a racial trait, then, as the emotional, is seen to be
profoundly influenced by the prevailing social order. The emotional
characteristics which distinguish the Japanese from other races are due, in
the last analysis, to the nature of their social order rather than to their
inherent nature or brain structure.

XV
ÆSTHETIC CHARACTERISTICS

In certain directions, the Japanese reveal a development of æsthetic taste
which no other nation has reached. The general appreciation of landscape-
views well illustrates this point. The home and garden of the average
workman are far superior artistically to those of the same class in the West.
There is hardly a home without at least a diminutive garden laid out in
artistic style with miniature lake and hills and winding walks. And this
garden exists solely for the delight of the eye.
The general taste displayed in many little ways is a constant delight to the
Western "barbarian" when he first comes to Japan. Nor does this delight
vanish with time and familiarity, though it is tempered by a later perception
of certain other features. Indeed, the more one knows of the details of their
artistic taste, the more does he appreciate it. The "toko-no-ma," for
example, is a variety of alcove usually occupying half of one side of a
room. It indicates the place of honor, and guests are always urged to sit in
front of it. The floor of the "toko-no-ma" is raised four or five inches above
the level of the room and should never be stepped upon. In this "toko-no-
ma" is usually placed some work of art, or a vase with flowers, and on the
wall is hung a picture or a few Chinese characters, written by some famous
calligraphist, which are changed with the seasons. The woodwork and the
coloring of this part of the room is of the choicest. The "toko-no-ma" of the
main room of the house is always restful to the eye; this "honorable spot" is
found in at least one room in every house; and if the owner has moderate
means, there are two or three such rooms. Only the homes of the poorest of
the poor are without this ornament.
The Japanese show a refined taste in the coloring and decoration of rooms;
natural woods, painted and polished, are common; every post and board
standing erect must stand in the position in which it grew. A Japanese

knows at once whether a board or post is upside down, though it would
often puzzle a Westerner to decide the matter. The natural wood ceilings
and the soft yellows and blues of the walls are all that the best trained
Occidental eye could ask. Dainty decorations called the "ramma," over the
neat "fusuma," consist of delicate shapes and quaint designs cut in thin
boards, and serve at once as picture and ventilator. The drawings, too, on
the "fusuma" (solid thick paper sliding doors separating adjacent rooms or
shutting off the closet) are simple and neat, as is all Japanese pictorial art.
Japanese love for flowers reveals a high æsthetic development. Not only are
there various flower festivals at which times the people flock to suburban
gardens and parks, but sprays, budding branches, and even large boughs are
invariably arranged in the homes and public halls. Every church has an
immense vase for the purpose. The proper arrangement of flowers and of
flowering sprays and boughs is a highly developed art. It is often one of the
required studies in girls' schools. I have known two or three men who made
their entire living by teaching this art. Miniature flowering trees are reared
with consummate skill. An acquaintance of mine glories in 230 varieties of
the plum tree, all in pots, some of them between two and three hundred
years old. Shinto and Buddhist temples also reveal artistic qualities most
pleasing to the eye.
But the main point of our interest lies in the explanation of this
characteristic. Is the æsthetic sense more highly developed in Japan than in
the West? Is it more general? Is it a matter of inherent nature, or of
civilization?
In trying to meet these problems, I note, first of all, that the development of
the Japanese æsthetic taste is one-sided; though advanced in certain respects
it is belated in others. In illustration is the sense of smell. It will not do to
say that "the Japanese have no use for the nose," and that the love of sweet
smells is unknown. Sir Rutherford Alcock's off-quoted sentence that "in one
of the most beautiful and fertile countries in the whole world the flowers
have no scent, the birds no song, and the fruit and vegetables no flavor," is
quite misleading, for it has only enough truth to make it the more deceptive.
It is true that the cherry blossom has little or no odor, and that its beauty lies
in its exquisite coloring and abounding luxuriance, but most of the native
flowers are praised and prized by the Japanese for their odors, as well as for

their colors, as the plum, the chrysanthemum, the lotus, and the rose. The
fragrance of flowers is a frequent theme in Japanese poetry. Japanese ladies,
like those of every land, are fond of delicate scents. Cologne and kindred
wares find wide sale in Japan, and I am told that expensive musk is not
infrequently packed away with the clothing of the wealthy.
But in contrast to this appreciation is a remarkable indifference to certain
foul odors. It is amazing what horrid smells the cultivated Japanese will
endure in his home. What we conceal in the rear and out of the way, he very
commonly places in the front yard; though this is, of course, more true of
the country than of large towns or cities. It would seem as if a high æsthetic
development should long ago have banished such sights and smells. As a
matter of fact, however, the æsthetics of the subject does not seem to have
entered the national mind, any more than have the hygienics of the same
subject.
In explanation of these facts, may it not be that the Japanese method of
agriculture has been a potent hindrance to the æsthetic development of the
sense of smell? In primitive times, when wealth was small, the only easy
method which the people had of preserving the fertilizing properties of that
which is removed from our cities by the sewer-system was such as we still
find in use in Japan to-day. Perhaps the necessities of the case have
toughened the mental, if not the physical, sense of the people. Perhaps the
unæsthetic character of the sights and smells has been submerged in the
great value of fertilizing materials. Then, too, with the Occidental, the
thought is common that such odors are indications of seriously unhealthful
conditions. We are accordingly offended not simply by the odor itself, but
also by the associations of sickness and death which it suggests. Not so the
unsophisticated Oriental. Such a correlation of ideas is only now arising in
Japan, and changes are beginning to be made, as a consequence.
I cannot leave this point without drawing attention to the fact that the
development of the sense of smell in these directions is relatively recent,
even in the West. Of all the non-European nations and races, I have no
doubt Japan is most free from horrid smells and putrid odors. And in view
of our own recent emancipation it is not for us to marvel that others have
made little progress. Rather is it marvelous that we should so easily forget
the hole from which we have been so recently digged.

In turning to study certain features of Japanese pictorial art, we notice that a
leading characteristic is that of simplicity. The greatest results are secured
with the fewest possible strokes. This general feature is in part due to the
character of the instrument used, the "fude," "brush." This same brush
answers for writing. It admits of strong, bold outlines; and a large brush
allows the exhibition of no slight degree of skill. As a result, "writing" is a
fine art in Japan. Hardly a family that makes any pretense at culture but
owns one or more framed specimens of writing. In Japan these rank as
pictures do or mottoes in the West, and are prized not merely for the
sentiment expressed, but also for the skill displayed in the use of the brush.
Skillful writers become famous, often receiving large sums for small
"pictures" which consist of but two or three Chinese characters.
No doubt the higher development of appreciation for natural scenery among
the people in general is largely due to the character of the scenery itself.
Steep hills and narrow valleys adjoin nearly every city in the land. Seas,
bays, lakes, and rivers are numerous; reflected mountain scenes are
common; the colors are varied and marked. Flowering trees of striking
beauty are abundant. Any people living under these physical conditions, and
sufficiently advanced in civilization to have leisure and culture, can hardly
fail to be impressed with such wealth of beauty in the scenery itself.
In the artistic reproduction of this scenery, however, Japanese artists are
generally supposed to be inferior to those of the West.
As often remarked, Japanese art has directed its chief endeavor to animals
and to nature, thus failing to give to man his share of attention. This curious
one-sidedness shows itself particularly in painting and in sculpture. In the
former, when human beings are the subject, the aim has apparently been to
extol certain characteristics; in warriors, the military or heroic spirit; in wise
men, their wisdom; in monks and priests, their mastery over the passions
and complete attainment of peace; in a god, the moral character which he is
supposed to represent. Art has consequently been directed to bringing into
prominence certain ideal features which must be over-accentuated in order
to secure recognition; caricatures, rather than lifelike forms, are the frequent
results. The images of multitudes of gods are frightful to behold; the aim
being to show the character of the emotion of the god in the presence of
evil. These idols are easily misunderstood, for we argue that the more

frightful he is, the more vicious must be the god in his real character; not so
the Oriental. To him the more frightful the image, the more noble the
character. Really evil gods, such as demons, are always represented, I think,
as deformed creatures, partly human and partly beast. It is to be
remembered, in this connection, that idols are an imported feature of
Japanese religion; Shinto to this day has no "graven image." All idols are
Buddhistic. Moreover, they are but copies of the hideous idols of India; the
Japanese artistic genius has added nothing to their grotesque appearance.
But the point of interest for us is that the æsthetic taste which can revel in
flowers and natural scenery has never delivered Japanese art from truly
unæsthetic representations of human beings and of gods.
Standing recently before a toy store and looking at the numberless dolls
offered for sale, I was impressed afresh with the lack of taste displayed,
both in coloring and in form; their conventionality was exceedingly
tiresome; their one attractive feature was their absurdity. But the moment I
turned away from the imitations of human beings to look at the imitations
of nature, the whole impression was changed. I was pleased with the artistic
taste displayed in the perfectly imitated, delicately colored flowers. They
were beautiful indeed.
Why has Japanese art made so little of man as man? Is it due to the
"impersonality" of the Orient, as urged by some? This suggests, but does
not give, the correct interpretation of the phenomenon in question. The
reason lies in the nature of the ruling ideas of Oriental civilization. Man, as
man, has not been honored or highly esteemed. As a warrior he has been
honored; consequently, when pictured or sculptured as a warrior, he has
worn his armor; his face, if visible, is not the natural face of a man, but
rather that of a passionate victor, slaying his foe or planning for the same.
And so with the priests and the teachers, the emperors and the generals; all
have been depicted, not for what they are in themselves, but for the rank
which they have attained; they are accordingly represented with their
accouterments and robes and the characteristic attitudes of their rank. The
effort to preserve their actual appearance is relatively rare. Manhood and
womanhood, apart from social rank, have hardly been recognized, much
less extolled by art. This feature, then, corresponds to the nature of the
Japanese social order. The art of a land necessarily reveals the ruling ideals
of its civilization. As Japan failed to discover the inherent nature and value

of manhood and womanhood, estimating them only on a utilitarian basis, so
has her art reflected this failure.
Apparently it has never attempted to depict the nude human form. This is
partly explained, perhaps, by the fact that the development of a perfect
physical form through exercise and training has not been a part of Oriental
thought. Labor of every sort has been regarded as degrading. Training for
military skill and prowess has indeed been common among the military
classes; but the skill and strength themselves have been the objects of
thought, rather than the beauty of the muscular development which they
produce. When we recall the prominent place which the games of Greece
took in her civilization previous to her development of art, and the stress
then laid on perfect bodily form, we shall better understand why there
should be such difference in the development of the art of these two lands. I
have never seen a Japanese man or youth bare his arm to show with pride
the development of his biceps; and so far as I have observed, the pride
which students in the United States feel over well-developed calves has no
counterpart in Japan—this, despite the fact that the average Japanese has
calves which would turn the American youth green with envy.
From the absence of the nude in Japanese art it has been urged that Japan
herself is far more morally pure than the West. Did the moral life of the
people correspond to their art in this respect, the argument would have
force. Unfortunately, such does not seem to be the case. It is further
suggested as a reason that the bodily form of Oriental peoples is essentially
unæsthetic; that the men are either too fat or too lean, and the women too
plump when in the bloom of youth and too wrinkled and flabby when the
first bloom is over. The absurdity of this suggestion raises a smile, and a
query as to the experience which its author must have had. For any person
who has lived in Japan must have seen individuals of both sexes, whom the
most fastidious painter or sculptor would rejoice to secure as models.
It might be thought that a truly artistic people, who are also somewhat
immoral, would have developed much skill in the portrayal of the nude
female form. But such an attempt does not seem to have been made until
recent times, and in imitation of Western art. At least such attempts have not
been recognized as art nor have they been preserved as such. I have never
seen either statue or picture of a nude Japanese woman. Even the pictures of

famous prostitutes are always faultlessly attired. The number and size of the
conventional hairpins, and the gaudy coloring of the clothing, alone indicate
the immoral character of the woman represented.
It is not to be inferred, however, that immoral pictures have been unknown
in Japan, for the reverse is true. Until forcibly suppressed by the
government under the incentive of Western criticism, there was perfect
freedom to produce and sell licentious and lascivious pictures. The older
foreign residents in Japan testify to the frequency with which immoral
scenes were depicted and exposed for sale. Here I merely say that these
were not considered works of art; they were reproduced not in the interests
of the æsthetic sense, but wholly to stimulate the taste for immoral things.
The absence of the nude from Japanese art is due to the same causes that led
to the relative absence of all distinctively human nature from art. Manhood
and womanhood, as such, were not the themes they strove to depict.
A curious feature of the artistic taste of the people is the marked fondness
for caricature. It revels in absurd accentuations of special features. Children
with protruding foreheads; enormously fat little men; grotesque dwarf
figures in laughable positions; these are a few common examples. Nearly
all of the small drawings and sculpturings of human figures are
intentionally grotesque. But the Japanese love of the grotesque is not
confined to its manifestation in art. It also reveals itself in other surprising
ways. It is difficult to realize that a people who revel in the beauties of
nature can also delight in deformed nature; yet such is the case. Stunted and
dwarfed trees, trees whose branches have been distorted into shapes and
proportions that nature would scorn—these are sights that the Japanese
seem to enjoy, as well as "natural" nature. Throughout the land, in the
gardens of the middle and higher classes, may be found specimens of
dwarfed and stunted trees which have required decades to raise. The
branches, too, of most garden shrubs and trees are trimmed in fantastic
shapes. What is the charm in these distortions? First, perhaps, the universal
human interest in anything requiring skill. Think of the patience and
persistence and experimentation necessary to rear a dwarf pear tree twelve
or fifteen inches high, growing its full number of years and bearing full-size
fruit in its season! And second is the no less universal human interest in the
strange and abnormal. All primitive people have this interest. It shows itself

in their religions. Abnormal stones are often objects of religious devotion.
Although I cannot affirm that such objects are worshiped in Japan to-day,
yet I can say that they are frequently set up in temple grounds and dedicated
with suitable inscriptions. Where nature can be made to produce the
abnormal, there the interest is still greater. It is a living miracle. Witness the
cocks of Tosa, distinguished by their two or three tail feathers reaching the
extraordinary length of ten or even fifteen feet, the product of ages of
special breeding.
According to the ordinary use of the term, æsthetics has to do with art
alone. Yet it also has intimate relations with both speech and conduct.
Poetry depends for its very existence on æsthetic considerations. Although
little conscious regard is paid to æsthetic claims in ordinary conversation,
yet people of culture do, as a matter of fact, pay it much unconscious
attention. In conduct too, æsthetic ideas are often more dominant than we
suppose. The objection of the cultured to the ways of the boorish rests on
æsthetic grounds. This is true in every land. In the matter of conduct it is
sometimes hard to draw the line between æsthetics and ethics, for they
shade imperceptibly into one another; so much so that they are seen to be
complementary rather than contradictory. Though it is doubtless true that
conduct æsthetically defective may not be defective ethically, still is it not
quite as true that conduct bad from the ethical is bad also from the
æsthetical standpoint?
In no land have æsthetic considerations had more force in molding both
speech and conduct than in Japan. Not a sentence is uttered by a Japanese
but has the characteristic marks of æstheticism woven into its very
structure. By means of "honorifics" it is seldom necessary for a speaker to
be so pointedly vulgar as even to mention self. There are few points in the
language so difficult for a foreigner to master, whether in speaking himself,
or in listening to others, as the use of these honorific words. The most
delicate shades of courtesy and discourtesy may be expressed by them.
Some writers have attributed the relative absence of the personal pronouns
from the language to the dominating force of impersonal pantheism. I am
unable to take this view for reasons stated in the later chapters on
personality.

Though the honorific characteristics of the language seem to indicate a high
degree of æsthetic development, a certain lack of delicacy in referring to
subjects that are ruled out of conversation by cultivated people in the West
make the contrary impression upon the uninitiated. Such language in Japan
cannot be counted impure, for no such idea accompanies the words. They
must be described simply as æsthetically defective. Far be it from me to
imply that there is no impure conversation in Japan. I only say that the
particular usages to which I refer are not necessarily a proof of moral
tendency. A realistic baldness prevails that makes no effort to conceal even
that which is in its nature unpleasant and unæsthetic. A spade is called a
spade without the slightest hesitation. Of course specific illustrations of
such a point as this are out of place. Æsthetic considerations forbid.
And how explain these unæsthetic phenomena? By the fact that Japan has
long remained in a state of primitive development. Speech is but the verbal
expression of life. Every primitive society is characterized by a bald
literalism shocking to the æsthetic sense of societies which represent a
higher stage of culture. In Japan, until recently, little effort has been made to
keep out of sight objects and acts which we of the West have considered
disagreeable and repulsive. Language alters more slowly than acts. Laws
are making changes in the latter, and they in time will take effect in the
former. But many decades will doubtless pass before the cultivated classes
of Japan will reach, in this respect, the standard of the corresponding
classes of the West.
As for the æsthetics of conduct in Japan, enough is indicated by what has
been said already concerning the æsthetics of speech. Speech and conduct
are but diverse expressions of the same inner life. Japanese etiquette has
been fashioned on the feudalistic theory of society, with its numberless
gradations of inferior and superior. Assertive individualism, while allowed a
certain range among the samurai, always had its well-marked limits. The
mass of the people were compelled to walk a narrow line of respectful
obedience and deference both in form and speech. The constant aim of the
inferior was to please the superior. That individuals of an inferior rank had
any inherent rights, as opposed to those of a superior rank, seldom occurred
to them. Furthermore, this whole feudal system, with its characteristic
etiquette of conduct and speech, was authoritatively taught by moralists and
religious leaders, and devoutly believed by the noblest of the land. Ethical

considerations, therefore, combined powerfully with those that were social
and æsthetic to produce "the most polite race on the face of the globe."
Recent developments of rudeness and discourtesy among themselves and
toward foreigners have emphasized my general contention that these
characteristics are not due to inherent race nature, but rather to the social
order.
How are we to account for the wide æsthetic development of all classes of
the Japanese? As already suggested, the beautiful scenery explains much.
But I pass at once to the significant fact that although the classes of
Japanese society were widely differentiated in social rank, yet they lived in
close proximity to each other. There was no spatial gulf of separation
preventing the lower from knowing fully and freely the thoughts, ideals,
and customs of the upper classes. The transmission of culture was thus an
easy matter, in spite of social gradations.
Moreover, the character of the building materials, and the methods of
construction used by the more prosperous among the people, were easily
imitated in kind, if not in costliness, by the less prosperous. Take, for
example, the structure of the room; it is always of certain fixed proportions,
that the uniform mats may be easily fitted to it. The mats themselves are
always made of a straw "toko," "bed," and an "omote," "surface," of woven
straw; they vary greatly in value, but, of whatever grade, may always be
kept neat and fresh at comparatively small cost. The walls of the average
houses are made of mud wattles. The outer layers of plaster consist of
selected earth and tinted lime. Whether put up at large or small expense,
these walls may be neat and attractive. So, too, with other parts of the
house.
The utter lack of independent thinking throughout the middle and lower
classes, and the constant desire of the inferior to imitate the superior, have
also helped to make the culture of the classes the possession of the masses.
This subserviency and spirit of imitation has been further stimulated by the
enforced courtesy and deference and obedience of the common people.
In this connection it should be noted, however, that the universality of
culture in Japan is more apparent than real. The appearance is due in part to
the lack of furniture in the homes. Without chairs or tables, bedsteads or

washstands, and the multitude of other things invariably found in the home
of the Occidental, it is easy for the Japanese housewife to keep her home in
perfect order. No special culture is needful for this.
How it came about that the Japanese people adopted their own method of
sitting on the feet, I cannot say; neither have I heard any plausible
explanation of the practice. Yet this habit has relieved them of all necessity
for heavy furniture. Given the custom of sitting on the feet, and a large part
of the furniture of the house will be useless. Already is the introduction of
furniture after Western patterns producing changes in the homes of the
people; and it will be interesting to see whether the æsthetic sense of the
Japanese will be able to assimilate and harmonize with itself these useful,
but bulky and unæsthetic, elements of Occidental civilization.
That no part of the fine taste of the Japanese is due to the general
civilization, rather than to the individual possession of the æsthetic faculty,
may be inferred from many little signs. In spite of the fact that, following
the long-established social fashions, the women usually display good taste
in the choice of colors for their clothing, it sometimes happens that they
also manifest not the slightest sense of the harmony of colors. Daughters of
wealthy families will array themselves in brilliant discordant hues, yet
apparently without causing the wearers or their friends the slightest æsthetic
discomfort. Little children are arrayed in clothing that would doubtless put
Joseph's coat of many colors quite out of countenance. Combinations and
brilliancy that to the Western eye of culture seem crude and gaudy, typical
of barbaric splendor, are in constant use, and are apparently thought to be
fine. The Japanese display both taste and its lack in the choice of colors for
clothing; this contradiction is the more striking in view of the taste manifest
in the decorations of the homes of all classes of the people. Few sights are
more ludicrously unæsthetic than the red, yellow, and blue worsted
crocheted caps and shawls for infants, which shock all our ideas of æsthetic
harmony.
In connection with Western ways or articles of clothing, the native æsthetic
faculty often seems to take its flight. In a foreign house many a Japanese
seems to lose his sense of fitness. I have had schoolboys, and even
gentlemen, enter my home with hobnailed muddied boots, without wiping
their feet on the conspicuous door mat, which is the more remarkable since,

in their own homes, they invariably take off their shoes on entering. I have
frequently noticed that in railway cars the first comers monopolize the
seats, and the later ones receive not the slightest notice, being often
compelled to stand for an hour at a time, although, with a little moving,
there would be abundant room for all. I have noticed this so often that I
cannot think it an exceptional occurrence. I do not believe it to be
intentional rudeness, but to be due simply to a lack of real heart politeness.
Yet a true and deep æsthetic development, so far at least as relates to
conduct, to say nothing of the spirit of altruism, would not permit such
indifference to another's discomfort.
My explanation for this, and for all similar defects in etiquette, is somewhat
as follows. Etiquette is popularly conceived as consisting of rules of
conduct, rather than as the outward expression of the state of the heart.
From time immemorial rules for the ordinary affairs of life have been
formulated by superiors and have been taught the people. In all usual and
conventional relations, therefore, the average farmer and peasant know how
to express perfect courtesy. But in certain situations, as in foreign houses
and the railroad car, where there are no precedents to follow, or rules to
obey, all evidence of politeness takes its flight. The old rules do not fit the
new conditions. Not being grounded on the inner principles of etiquette, the
people are not able to formulate new rules for new conditions. To the
Westerner, on the other hand, these seem to follow from the simplest
principles of common sense and kindliness. The general collapse of
etiquette in Japan, which native writers note and deplore, is due, therefore,
not only to the withdrawal of feudal pressure, but also to introduction of
strange circumstances for which the people have no rules, and to the fact
that the people have not been taught those underlying principles of high
courtesy which are applicable on all occasions.
An impression seems to have gained currency in the United States that the
unæsthetic features seen in Japan to-day are due to the debasing influences
of Western art and Occidental intercourse. There can be no doubt that a
certain type of tourist, ignorant of Japanese art, by greedily buying strange,
gaudy things at high prices, has stimulated a morbid production of truly
unæsthetic pseudo-Japanese art. But this accounts for only a small part of
the grossly inartistic features of Japan. The instances given of hideous
worsted bibs for babes and collars for dogs, combining in the closest

proximity the most uncomplementary and mutually repellent colors, has
nothing whatever to do with foreign art or foreign intercourse. What
foreigner ever decorated a little lapdog with a red-green-yellow-blue-and
purple crocheted collar, four or five inches wide?
Westerners have been charmed with the exquisite colored photographs
produced in Japan. It is strange, yet true, that the same artistic hand that
produces these beautiful effects will also, by a slight change of tints,
produce the most unnatural and spectral views. Yet the strangest thing is,
not that he produces them, but that he does not seem conscious of the
defect, for he will put them on sale in his own shop or send them to
purchasers in America, without the slightest apparent hesitation. The
constant care of the purchaser in selection and his insistence on having only
truly artistic work are what keep the Japanese artist up to the standard.
If other evidence is needed of æsthetic defect in the still unoccidentalized
Japanese taste let the doubter go to any popular second-grade Shinto shrine
or Buddhist temple. Here unæsthetic objects and sights abound. Hideous
idols, painted and unpainted, big and little, often decorated with soiled bibs;
decaying to-rii; ruined sub-shrines; conglomerate piles of cast-off
paraphernalia, consisting of broken idols, old lanterns, stones, etc., filthy
towels at the holy-water basins, piously offered to the gods and piously
used by hundreds of dusty pilgrims; equally filthy bell-ropes hung in front
of the main shrines, pulled by ten thousand hands to call the attention of the
deity; travel-stained hands, each of which has left its mark on the once
beautiful enormous tasselated cord; ex-voto tufts of human hair; scores of
pictures, where the few may be counted works of art while the rest are
hideous beyond belief; frightful faces of tengu, with their long noses and
menacing teeth, decorated with scores of spit-balls or even with mud-balls;
these are some of the more conspicuous unæsthetic features of multitudes of
popular shrines and temples. And none of these can be attributed to the
debasing influence of Western art. And these inartistic features will be
found accompanying scrupulous neatness in well-swept walks, new sub-
shrines, floral decorations, and much that pleases the eye—a strange
compound of the beautiful and the ugly. Truly the æsthetic development of
the Japanese is curiously one-sided.

A survey of Japanese musical history leads to the conclusion that while the
people are fairly developed in certain aspects of the æsthetics of music,
such as rhythm, they are certainly undeveloped in other directions—in
melody, for example, and in harmony. Their instrumental music is primitive
and meager. They have no system of musical notation. The love of music,
such as it is, is well-nigh universal. Their solo-vocal music, a semi-chanting
in minors, has impressive elements; but these are due to the passionate
outbursts and plaintive wails, rather than to the musically æsthetic character
of the melodies. The universal twanging samisen, a species of guitar,
accompanied by the shrill, hard voices of the geisha (singing girls), marks
at once the universality of the love of music and the undeveloped quality of
the musical taste, both vocal and instrumental. But in comparing the
musical development of Japan with that of the West, we must not forget
how recent is that of the former.
The conditions which have served to develop musical taste in the West have
but recently come to Japan. Sufficient time has not yet elapsed for the
nation to make much visible progress in the lines of Occidental music. But
it has already done something. The popularity of brass bands, the wide
introduction of organs, their manufacture in this land, their use in all public
schools, the exclusive use of Occidental music in Christian churches, the
ability of trained individuals in foreign vocal and instrumental music—all
these facts go to show that in time we may expect great musical evolution
in Japan. Those who doubt this on the ground of inherent race nature may
be reminded of the evolution which has taken place among the Hawaiians
during the past two generations. From being a race manifesting marked
deficiency in music they have developed astonishing musical taste and
ability. During a recent visit to these islands after an absence of twenty-
seven years, I attended a Sunday-school exhibition, which was largely a
musical contest; the voices were sweet and rich; and the difficulty of the
part songs, easily carried through by children and adults, revealed a musical
sense that surpasses any ordinary Sunday school of the United States or
England with which I am acquainted.
The development of Japanese literature likewise conspicuously reflects the
ruling ideas of the social order, and reveals the dependence of literary taste
on the order. As in other aspects in Japanese æsthetic development, so in
this do we see marked lack of balance. "It is wonderful what felicity of

phrase, melody of versification, and true sentiment can be compressed
within the narrow limits (of the Tanka). In their way nothing can be more
perfect than some of these little poems."[U] The deficiencies of Japanese
poetry have been remarked by the foreigners most competent to judge. The
following general characterization from the volume just quoted merits
attention.
"Narrow in its scope and resources, it is chiefly
remarkable for its limitations—for what it has not,
rather than what it has. In the first place there are no
long poems. There is nothing which even remotely
resembles an epic—no Iliad or Divina Commedia—not
even a Nibelungen Lied or Chevy Chase. Indeed,
narrative poems of any kind are short and very few, the
only ones which I have met with being two or three
ballads of a sentimental cast. Didactic, philosophical,
political, and satirical poems are also conspicuously
absent. The Japanese muse does not meddle with such
subjects, and it is doubtful whether, if it did, the native
Pegasus possesses sufficient staying power for them to
be dealt with adequately. For dramatic poetry we have
to wait until the fourteenth century. Even then there are
no complete dramatic poems, but only dramas
containing a certain poetical element.
"Japanese poetry is, in short, confined to lyrics, and
what, for want of a better word, may be called
epigrams. It is primarily an expression of emotion. We
have amatory verse poems of longing for home and
absent dear ones, praise of love and wine, elegies on the
dead, laments over the uncertainty of life. A chief place
is given to the seasons, the sound of purling streams,
the snow of Mount Fuji, waves breaking on the beach,
seaweed drifting to the shore, the song of birds, the hum
of insects, even the croaking of frogs, the leaping of
trout in a mountain stream, the young shoots of fern in
spring, the belling of deer in autumn, the red tints of the
maple, the moon, flowers, rain, wind, mist; these are

among the favorite subjects which the Japanese poets
delight to dwell upon. If we add some courtly and
patriotic effusions, a vast number of conceits more or
less pretty, and a very few poems of a religious cast, the
enumeration is tolerably complete. But, as Mr.
Chamberlain has observed, there are curious omissions.
War songs—strange to say—are almost wholly absent.
Fighting and bloodshed are apparently not considered
fit themes for poetry."[V]
The drama and the novel have both achieved considerable development, yet
judged from Occidental standards, they are comparatively weak and insipid.
They, of course, conspicuously reflect the characteristics of the social order
to which they belong. Critics call repeated attention to the lack of sublimity
in Japanese literature, and ascribe it to their inherent race nature. While the
lack of sublimity in Japanese scenery may in fact account for the
characteristic in question, still a more conclusive explanation would seem to
be that in the older social order man, as such, was not known. The hidden
glories of the soul, its temptations and struggles, its defects and victories,
could not be the themes of a literature arising in a completely communal
social order, even though it possessed individualism of the Buddhistic type.
[W]
These are the themes that give Western literature—poetic, dramatic, and
narrative—its opportunity for sustained power and sublimity. They portray
the inner life of the spirit.
The poverty of poetic form is another point of Western criticism. Mr. Aston
has shown how this poverty is directly due to the phonetic characteristics of
the language. Diversities of both rhyme and rhythm are practically excluded
from Japanese poetry by the nature of the language. And this in turn has led
to the "preference of the national genius for short poems." But language is
manifestly the combined product of linguistic heredity and the social order,
and can in no sense be ascribed to inherent race nature. Thus directly are
social heredity and social order determinative of the literary characteristics
and æsthetic tastes of a nation.
Even more manifestly may Japanese architectural development be traced to
the social heredity derived from China and India. The needs of the
developing internal civilization have determined its external manifestation.

So far as Japanese differs from Chinese architecture, it may be attributed to
Japan's isolation, to the different demands of her social order, to the
difference of accessible building materials, and to the different social
heredity handed down from prehistoric times. That the distinguishing
characteristics of Japanese architecture are due to the inherent race nature
cannot for a moment be admitted.
We conclude that the Japanese are not possessed of a unique and inherent
æsthetic taste. In some respects they are as certainly ahead of the Occidental
as they are behind him in other respects. But this, too, is a matter of social
development and social heredity, rather than of inherent race character, of
brain structure. If æsthetic nature were a matter of inherited brain structure,
it would be impossible to account for rapid fluctuations in æsthetic
judgment, for the great inequality of æsthetic development in the different
departments of life, or for the ease of acquiring the æsthetic development of
alien races.[X]

XVI.
MEMORY—IMITATION

The differences which separate the Oriental from the Occidental mind are
infinitesimal as compared with the likenesses which unite them. This is a
fact that needs to be emphasized, for many writers on Japan seem to ignore
it. They marvel at the differences. The real marvel is that the differences are
so few and so superficial. The Japanese are a race whose ancestors were
separated from their early home nearly three thousand years ago; during this
period they have been absolutely prevented from intermarriage with the
parent stock. Furthermore, that original stock was not the Indo-European
race. And no one has ventured to suggest how long before the migration of
the ancestors of the Japanese to Japan their ancestors parted from those who
finally became the progenitors of modern Occidental peoples. For
thousands of years, certainly, the Japanese and Anglo-Saxon races have had
no ancestry in common. Yet so similar is the entire structure and working of
their minds that the psychological textbooks of the Anglo-Saxon are
adopted and perfectly understood by competent psychological students
among the Japanese. I once asked a professor of psychology in the
Matsuyama Normal School if he had no difficulty in teaching his classes the
psychological system of Anglo-Saxon thinkers, if there were not
peculiarities of the Anglo-Saxon mind which a Japanese could not
understand, and if there were not psychological phenomena of the Japanese
mind which were ignored in Anglo-Saxon psychological text-books. The
very questions surprised him; to each he gave a negative reply. The mental
differences that characterize races so dissimilar as the Japanese and the
Anglo-Saxon, I venture to repeat, are insignificant as compared with their
resemblances.
Our discussions shall have reference, not to those general psychological
characteristics which all races have in common, but only to those which
may seem to stamp the Japanese people as peculiar. We wish to understand

the distinguishing features of the Japanese mind. We wish to know whether
they are due to brain structure, to inherent race nature, or whether they are
simply the result of education, of social heredity. This is our ever-recurring
question.
First, in regard to Japanese brain development. Travelers have often been
impressed with the unusual size of the Japanese head. It has sometimes
been thought, however, that the size is more apparent than real, and the
appearance has been attributed to the relatively short limbs of the people
and to the unusual proportion of round heads which one sees everywhere. It
may also be due to the shape of the head. But, after all has been said, it
remains true that the Japanese head, as related to his body, is unexpectedly
large.
Prof. Marsh of Yale University is reported to have said that, on the basis of
brain size, the Japanese is the race best fitted to survive in the struggle for
existence, or at least in the struggle for pre-eminence.
Statements have been widely circulated to the effect that not only relatively
to the body, but even absolutely, the Japanese possess larger brains than the
European, but craniological statistics do not verify the assertion. The matter
has been somewhat discussed in Japanese magazines of late, to which,
through the assistance of a Japanese friend, I am indebted for the following
figures. They are given in Japanese measurements, but are, on this account,
however, none the less satisfactory for comparative purposes.
According to Dr. Davis, the average European male brain weighs 36,498
momme, and the Australian, 22,413, while the Japanese, according to Dr.
Taguchi weighs 36,205. Taking the extremes, the largest English male brain
weighs 38,100 momme and the smallest 35,377, whereas the corresponding
figures for Japan are 43,919 and 30,304, respectively, showing an
astonishing range between extremes. According to Dr. E. Baelz of the
Imperial University of Tokyo, the lower classes of Japan have a larger skull
circumference than either the middle or upper classes (1.8414, 1.7905, and
1.8051 feet, respectively), and the Ainu (1.8579) exceed the Japanese. From
these facts it might almost appear that brain size and civilizational
development are in inverse ratio. Were the Japanese brain larger, then, than
that of the European, it might plausibly be argued that they are therefore

inferior in brain power. This would be in accord with certain of De
Quatrefages's investigations. He has shown that negroes born in America
have smaller brains, but are intellectually superior to their African brothers.
"With them, therefore, intelligence increases, while the cranial capacity
diminishes."[Y]
Those who trace racial and civilizational nature to brain development
cannot gain much consolation from a comparative statistical study of race
brains. De Quatrefages's conclusion is repeatedly forced home: "We must
confess that there can be no real relation between the dimension of the
cranial capacity and social development."[Z] "The development of the
intellectual faculties of man is, to a great extent, independent of the capacity
of the cranium and the volume of the brain."[AA]
We may conclude at once, then, that Japanese intellectual peculiarities are
in no way due to the size of their brains, but depend rather on their social
evolution. Yet it will not be amiss to study in detail the various mental
peculiarities of the race, real and supposed, and to note their relation to the
social order.
In becoming acquainted with the Japanese and Chinese peoples, an
Occidental is much impressed with their powers of memory, and this
especially in connection with the written language, the far-famed "Chinese
Character," or ideograph. My Chinese dictionary contains over 50,000
different characters. The task of learning them is appalling. How the
Japanese or Chinese do it is to us a constant wonder. We assume at once
their possession of astonishing memories. We argue that, for hundreds of
years, each generation has been developing powers of memory through
efforts to conquer this cumbersome contrivance for writing, and that, as a
consequence for the nations using this system, there is now prodigious
ability to remember.
It is my impression, however, that we greatly overrate these powers. In the
first place, few Japanese claim any acquaintance with the entire 50,000
characters; only the educated make any pretense of knowing more than a
few hundred, and a vast majority even of learned men do not know more
than 10,000 characters. Some Japanese newspapers have undertaken to limit
themselves in the use of the ideograph. It is said that between four and five

thousand characters suffice for all the ordinary purposes of communication.
These are, without doubt, fairly well known to the educated classes. But for
the masses, there is need that the pronunciation be placed beside each
printed character, before it can be read. Furthermore, we must remember
that a Japanese youth gives the best years of his life to the bare memorizing
of these symbols.[AB]
Were European or American youth to devote to the study of Chinese the
same number of hours each day for the same number of years, I doubt if
there would be any conspicuous difference in the results. We should not
forget also that some Occidentals manifest astonishing facility in
memorizing Chinese characters.
In this connection is the important fact that the social order serves to sift out
individuals of marked mnemonic powers and bring them into prominence,
while those who are relatively deficient are relegated to the background.
The educated class is necessarily composed of those who have good powers
of memory. All others fail and are rejected. We see and admire those who
succeed; of those who fail we know nothing and we even forget that there
are such.
In response to my questions Japanese friends have uniformly assured me
that they are not accustomed to think of the Japanese as possessed of better
memories than the people of the West. They appear surprised that the
question should be raised, and are specially surprised at our high estimate of
Japanese ability in this direction.
If, however, we inquire about their powers of memory in connection with
daily duties and the ordinary acquisition of knowledge and its retention, my
own experience of twelve years, chiefly with the middle and lower classes
of society, has left the impression that, while some learn easily and
remember well, a large number are exceedingly slow. On the whole, I am
inclined to believe that, although the Japanese may be said to have good
memories, yet it can hardly be maintained that they conspicuously exceed
Occidentals in this respect.
In comparing the Occidental with the Oriental, it is to be remembered that
there is not among Occidental nations that attention to bare memorizing
which is so conspicuous among the less civilized nations. The astonishing

feats performed by the transmitters of ancient poems and religious
teachings seem to us incredible. Professor Max Müller says that the
voluminous Vedas have been handed down for centuries, unchanged,
simply from mouth to mouth by the priesthood. Every progressive race,
until it has attained a high development of the art of writing, has manifested
similar power of memory. Such power is not, however, inherent; that is to
say, it is not due to the innate peculiarity of brain structure, but rather to the
nature of the social order which demands such expenditure of time and
strength for the maintenance of its own higher life. Through the art of
writing Occidental peoples have found a cheaper way of retaining their
history and of preserving the products of their poets and religious teachers.
Even for the transactions of daily life we have resorted to the constant use
of pen and notebook and typewriter, by these devices saving time and
strength for other things. As a result, our memories are developed in
directions different from those of semi-civilized or primitive man. The
differences of memory characterizing different races, then, are for the most
part due to differences in the social order and to the nature of the
civilization, rather than to the intrinsic and inherited structure of the brain
itself.
Since memory is the foundation of all mental operations, we have given to
it the first place in the present discussion. And that the Japanese have a fair
degree of memory argues well for the prospect of high attainment in other
directions. With this in mind, we naturally ask whether they show any
unusual proficiency or deficiency in the acquisition of foreign languages?
In view of her protracted separation from the languages of other peoples,
should we not expect marked deficiency in this respect? On the contrary,
however, we find that tens of thousands of Japanese students have acquired
a fairly good reading knowledge of English, French, and German. Those
few who have had good and sufficient teaching, or who have been abroad
and lived in Occidental lands, have in addition secured ready conversational
use of the various languages. Indeed, some have contended that since the
Japanese learn foreign languages more easily than foreigners learn
Japanese, they have greater linguistic powers than the foreigner. It should
be borne in mind, however, that in such a comparison, not only are the time
required and the proficiency; attained to be considered, but also the inherent

difficulty of the language studied and the linguistic helps provided the
student.
I have come gradually to the conclusion that the Japanese are neither
particularly gifted nor particularly deficient in powers of language
acquisition. They rank with Occidental peoples in this respect.
To my mind language affords one of the best possible proofs of the general
contention of this volume that the characteristics which distinguish the
races are social rather than biological. The reason why the languages of the
different races differ is not because the brain-types of the races are different,
but only because of the isolated social evolution which the races have
experienced. Had it been possible for Japan to maintain throughout the ages
perfect and continuous social intercourse with the ancestors of the Anglo-
Saxon race, while still maintaining biological isolation, i.e., perfect freedom
from intermarriage, there is no reason to think that two distinct languages so
different as English and Japanese would have arisen. The fact that Japanese
children can accurately acquire English, and that English or American
children can accurately acquire Japanese, proves conclusively that
diversities of language do not rest on brain differences and brain heredity,
but exclusively on social differences and social heredity.
If this is true, then the argument can easily be extended to all the features
that differentiate the civilizations of different races; for the language of any
race is, in a sense, the epitome of the civilization of that race. All its ideas,
customs, theologies, philosophies, sciences, mythologies; all its
characteristic thoughts, conceptions, ideals; all its distinguishing social
features, are represented in its language. Indeed, they enter into it as
determining factors, and by means of it are transmitted from age to age.
This argument is capable of much extension and illustration.
The charge that the Japanese are a nation of imitators has been repeated so
often as to become trite, and the words are usually spoken with disdain. Yet,
if the truth were fully told, it would be found that, from many points of
view, this quality gives reason rather for congratulation. Surely that nation
which can best discriminate and imitate has advantage over nations that are
so fixed in their self-sufficiency as to be able neither to see that which is
advantageous nor to imitate it. In referring to the imitative powers of the

Japanese, then, I do not speak in terms of reproach, but rather in those of
commendation. "Monkeyism" is not the sort of imitation that has
transformed primitive Japan into the Japan of the early or later feudal ages,
nor into the Japan of the twentieth century. Bare imitation, without thought,
has been relatively slight in Japan. If it has been known at times, those
times have been of short duration.
In his introduction to "The Classic Poetry of the Japanese" Professor
Chamberlain has so stated the case for the imitative quality of the people
that I quote the following:

"The current impression that the Japanese are a nation
of imitators is in the main correct. As they copy us to-
day, so did they copy the Chinese and Koreans a
millennium and a half ago. Religion, philosophy, laws,
administration, written characters, all arts but the very
simplest, all science, or at least what then went by that
name, everything was imported from the neighboring
continent; so much so that of all that we are accustomed
to term 'Old Japan' scarce one trait in a hundred is really
and properly Japanese. Not only are their silk and
lacquer not theirs by right of invention, nor their
painting (albeit so often praised by European critics for
its originality), nor their porcelain, nor their music, but
even the larger part of their language consists of
mispronounced Chinese; and from the Chinese they
have drawn new names for already existing places, and
new titles for their ancient Gods."
While the above cannot be disputed in its direct statements, yet I can but
feel that it makes, on the whole, a false impression. Were these same tests
applied to any European people, what would be the result? Of what
European nation may it be said that its art, or method of writing, or
architecture, or science, or language even, is "its own by right of
invention"? And when we stop to examine the details of the ancient
Japanese civilization which is supposed to have been so, slavishly copied
from China and India, we shall find that, though the beginnings were indeed
imitated, there were also later developments of purely Japanese creation. In
some instances the changes were vital.
In examining the practical arts, while we acknowledge that the beginnings
of nearly all came from Korea or China, we must also acknowledge that in
many important respects. Japan has developed along her own lines. The art
of sword-making, for instance, was undoubtedly imported; but who does
not know of the superior quality and beauty of Japanese swords, the
Damascus blades of the East? So distinct is this Japanese production that it
cannot be mistaken for that of any other nation. It has received the impress

of the Japanese social order. Its very shape is due to the habit of carrying
the sheath in the "obi" or belt.
If we study the home of the laborer, or the instruments in common use, we
shall find proof that much more than imitation has been involved.
Were the Japanese mere imitators, how could we explain their architecture,
so different from that of China and Korea? How explain the multiplied
original ways in which bamboo and straw are used?
For a still closer view of the matter, let us consider the imported ethical and
religious codes of the country. In China the emphasis of Confucianism is
laid on the duty of filial piety. In Japan the primary emphasis is on loyalty.
This single change transformed the entire system and made the so-called
Confucianism of Japan distinct from that of China. In Buddhism, imported
from India, we find greater changes than Occidental nations have imposed
on their religion imported from Palestine. Indeed, so distinct has Japanese
Buddhism become that it is sometimes difficult to trace its connections in
China and India. And the Buddhistic sects that have sprung up in Japan are
more radically diverse and antagonistic to each other and to primitive
Buddhism than the denominations of Christianity are to each other and to
primitive Christianity.
In illustration is the most popular of all the Buddhist sects to-day, Shinshu.
This has sometimes been called by foreigners "Reformed" Buddhism; and
so similar are many of its doctrines to those of Christianity that some have
supposed them to have been derived from it, but without the slightest
evidence. All its main doctrines and practices were clearly formulated by its
founder, Shinrah, six hundred years ago. The regular doctrines of Buddhism
that salvation comes only through self-effort and self-victory are rejected,
and salvation through the merits of another is taught. "Ta-riki," "another's
power," not "Ji-riki," "self-power," is with them the orthodox doctrine.
Priests may marry and eat meat, practices utterly abhorrent to the older and
more primitive Buddhism. The sacred books are printed in the vernacular,
in marked contrast to the customs of the other sects. Women, too, are given
a very different place in the social and religious scale and are allowed hopes
of attaining salvation that are denied by all the older sects. "Penance,
fasting, prescribed diet, pilgrimages, isolation from society, whether as

hermits or in the cloister, and generally amulets and charms, are all tabooed
by this sect. Monasteries imposing life vows are unknown within its pale.
Family life takes the place of monkish seclusion. Devout prayer, purity,
earnestness of life, and trust in Buddha himself as the only worker of
perfect righteousness, are insisted on. Morality is taught as more important
than orthodoxy."[AC] It is amazing how far the Shin sect has broken away
from regular Buddhistic doctrine and practice. Who can say that no
originality was required to develop such a system, so opposed at vital points
to the prevalent Buddhism of the day?
Another sect of purely Japanese origin deserving notice is the "Hokke" or
"Nicheren." Its founder, known by the name of Nichiren, was a man of
extraordinary independence and religious fervor. Wholly by his original
questions and doubts as to the prevailing doctrines and customs of the then
dominant sects, he was led to make independent examination into the
history and meaning of Buddhistic literature and to arrive at conclusions
quite different from those of his contemporaries. Of the truth and
importance of his views he was so persuaded that he braved not only fierce
denunciations, but prolonged opposition and persecution. He was rejected
and cast out by his own people and sect; he was twice banished by the
ruling military powers. But he persevered to the end, finally winning
thousands of converts to his views. The virulence of the attacks made upon
him was due to the virulence with which he attacked what seemed to him
the errors and corruption of the prevailing sects. Surely his was no case of
servile imitation. His early followers had also to endure opposition and
severe persecution.
Glancing at the philosophical ideas brought from China, we find here too a
suggestion of the same tendency toward originality. It is true that Dr. Geo.
Wm. Knox, in his valuable monograph on "A Japanese Philosopher," makes
the statement that, "In acceptance and rejection alike no native originality
emerges, nothing beyond a vigorous power of adoption and assimilation.
No improvements of the new philosophy were even attempted. Wherein it
was defective and indistinct, defective and indistinct it remained. The
system was not thought out to its end and independently adopted. Polemics,
ontology, ethics, theology, marvels, heroes—all were enthusiastically
adopted on faith. It is to be added that the new system was superior to the
old, and so much of discrimination was shown."[AD] And somewhat earlier

he likewise asserts that "There is not an original and valuable commentary
by a Japanese writer. They have been content to brood over the imported
works and to accept unquestioningly politics, ethics, and metaphysics."
After some examination of these native philosophers, I feel that, although
not without some truth, these assertions cannot be strictly maintained. It is
doubtless true that no powerful thinker and writer has appeared in Japan
that may be compared to the two great philosophers of China, Shushi and
Oyomei. The works and the system of the former dominated Japan, for the
simple reason that governmental authority forbade the public teaching or
advocacy of the other. Nevertheless, not a few Japanese thinkers rejected
the teachings and philosophy of Shushi, regardless of consequences.
Notable among those rejecters was Kaibara Yekken, whose book "The
Great Doubt" was not published until after his death. In it he rejects in
emphatic terms the philosophical and metaphysical ideas of Shushi. An
article[AE] by Dr. Tetsujiro Inouye, Professor of Philosophy in the Imperial
University in Tokyo, on the "Development of Philosophical Ideas in Japan,"
concludes with these words:
"From this short sketch the reader can clearly see that
philosophical considerations began in our country with
the study of Shushi and Oyomei. But many of our
thinkers did not long remain faithful to that tradition;
they soon formed for themselves new conceptions of
life and of the world, which, as a rule, are not only more
practical, but also more advanced than those of the
Chinese."
An important reason for our Western thought, that the Japanese have had no
independence in philosophy, is our ignorance of the larger part of Japanese
and Chinese literature. Oriental speculation was moving in a direction so
diverse from that of the West that we are impressed more with the general
similarity that prevails throughout it than with the evidences of individual
differences. Greater knowledge would reveal these differences. In our
generalized knowledge, we see the uniformity so strongly that we fail to
discover the originality.
As a traveler from the West, on reaching some Eastern land, finds it difficult
at first to distinguish between the faces of different individuals, his mind

being focused on the likeness pervading them all, so the Occidental student
of Oriental thought is impressed with the remarkable similarity that
pervades the entire Oriental civilization, modes of thought, and philosophy,
finding it difficult to discover the differences which distinguish the various
Oriental races. In like manner, a beginner in the study of Japanese
philosophy hardly gives the Japanese credit for the modifications of
Chinese philosophy which they have originated.
In this connection it is well to remember that, more than any Westerner can
realize, the Japanese people have been dependent on governmental
initiative from time immemorial. They have never had any thought but that
of implicit obedience, and this characteristic of the social order has
produced its necessary consequences in the present characteristics of the
people. Individual initiative and independence have been frowned upon, if
not always forcibly repressed, and thus the habit of imitation has been
stimulated. The people have been deliberately trained to imitation by their
social system. The foreigner is amazed at the sudden transformations that
have swept the nation. When the early contact with China opened the eyes
of the ruling classes to the fact that China had a system of government that
was in many respects better than their own, it was an easy thing to adopt it
and make it the basis for their own government. This constituted the epoch-
making period in Japanese history known as the Taikwa Reform. It occurred
in the seventh century, and consisted of a centralizing policy; under which,
probably for the first time in Japanese history, the country was really
unified. Critics ascribe it to an imitation of the Chinese system. Imitation it
doubtless was; but its significant feature was its imposition by the few
rulers on the people; hence its wide prevalence and general acceptance.
Similarly, in our own times, the Occidentalized order now dominant in
Japan was adopted, not by the people, but by the rulers, and imposed by
them on the people; these had no idea of resisting the new order, but
accepted it loyally as the decision of their Emperor, and this spirit of
unquestioning obedience to the powers that be is, I am persuaded, one of
the causes of the prevalent opinion respecting Japanese imitativeness as
well as of the fact itself.
The reputation for imitativeness, together with the quality itself, is due in no
small degree, therefore, to the long-continued dominance of the feudal

order of society. In a land where the dependence of the inferior on the
superior is absolute, the wife on the husband, the children on the parents,
the followers on their lord, the will of the superior being ever supreme,
individual initiative must be rare, and the quality of imitation must be
powerfully stimulated.

XVII
ORIGINALITY—INVENTIVENESS

Originality is the obverse side of imitation. In combating the notion that
Japan is a nation of unreflective imitators, I have given numerous examples
of originality. Further extensive illustration of this characteristic is,
accordingly, unnecessary. One other may be cited, however.
The excellence of Japanese art is admitted by all. Japanese temples and
palaces are adorned with mural paintings and pieces of sculpture that
command the admiration of Occidental experts. The only question is as to
their authors. Are these, properly speaking, Japanese works of art—or
Korean or Chinese? That Japan received her artistic stimulus, and much of
her artistic ideas and technique, from China is beyond dispute. But did she
develop nothing new and independent? This is a question of fact. Japanese
art, though Oriental, has a distinctive quality. A magnificent work entitled
"Solicited Relics of Japanese Art" is issuing from the press, in which there
is a large number of chromo-xylographic and collotype reproductions of the
best specimens of ancient Japanese art. Reviewing this work, the Japan
Mail remarks:
"But why should the only great sculptors that China or
Korea ever produced have come to Japan and
bequeathed to this country the unique results of their
genius? That is the question we have to answer before
we accept the doctrine that the noblest masterpieces of
ancient Japan were from foreign lands. When anything
comparable is found in China or Korea, there will be
less difficulty in applying this doctrine of over-sea-
influence to the genius that enriched the temples of
antique Japan."[AF]

Under the early influence of Buddhism (900-1200 A.D.) Japan fairly
bloomed. Those were the days of her glory in architecture, literature, and
art. But a blight fell upon her from which she is only now recovering. The
causes of this blight will receive attention in a subsequent chapter. Let us
note here only one aspect of it, namely, official repression of originality.
Townsend Harris, in his journal, remarks on the way in which the Japanese
government has interfered with the originality of the people. "The genius of
their government seems to forbid any exercise of ingenuity in producing
articles for the gratification of wealth and luxury. Sumptuary laws rigidly
enforce the forms, colors, material, and time of changing the dress of all. As
to luxury of furniture, the thing is unknown in Japan.... It would be an
endless task to attempt to put down all the acts of a Japanese that are
regulated by authority."
The Tokugawa rule forbade the building of large ships; so that, by the
middle of the nineteenth century, the art of ship-building was far behind
what it had been two centuries earlier. Government authority exterminated
Christianity in the early part of the seventeenth century and freedom of
religious belief was forbidden. The same power that put the ban on
Christianity forbade the spread of certain condemned systems of
Confucianism. Even in the study of Chinese literature and philosophy,
therefore, such originality as the classic models stimulated was discouraged
by the all-powerful Tokugawa government. The avowed aim and end of the
ruling powers of Japan was to keep the nation in its status quo. Originality
was heresy and treason; progress was impiety. The teaching of Confucius
likewise lent its support to this policy. To do exactly as the fathers did is to
honor them; to do, or even to think, otherwise is to dishonor them. There
have not been wanting men of originality and independence in both China
and Japan; but they were not great enough to break over, or break down, the
incrusted system in which they lived—the system of blind devotion to the
past. This system, that deliberately opposed all invention and originality,
has been the great incubus to national progress, in that it has rejected and
repressed every tendency to variation. What results might not the country
have secured, had Christianity been allowed to do its work in stimulating
individual development and in creating the sense of personal responsibility
towards God and man!

A curious anomaly still remains in Japan on the subject of liberty in study
and belief. Though perfect liberty is the rule, one topic is even yet under
official embargo. No one may express public dissent from the authorized
version of primitive Japanese history. A few years ago a professor in the
Imperial University made an attempt to interpret ancient Japanese myths.
His constructions were supposed to threaten the divine descent of the
Imperial line, and he was summarily dismissed.
Dr. E. Inouye, Professor of Buddhist Philosophy in the Imperial University,
addressing a Teachers' Association of Sendai, delivered a conservative,
indirectly anti-foreign speech. He insisted, as reported by a local English
correspondent, that the Japanese people "were descended from the gods. In
all other countries the sovereign or Emperor was derived from the people,
but here the people had the honor of being derived from the Emperor. Other
countries had filial piety and loyalty, but no such filial piety and loyalty as
exist in Japan. The moral attainments of the people were altogether unique.
He informed his audience that though they might adopt foreign ways of
doing things, their minds needed no renovating; they were good enough as
they were."[AG]
As a result of this position, scholarship and credulity are curiously
combined in modern historical production. Implicit confidence seems to be
placed in the myths of the primitive era. Tales of the gods are cited as
historical events whose date, even, can be fixed with some degree of
accuracy. Although writing was unknown in Japan until early in the
Christian era, the chronology of the previous six or eight hundred years is
accepted on the authority of a single statement in the Kojiki, written 712
years A.D. This statement was reproduced from the memory of a single
man, who remembered miraculously the contents of a book written shortly
before, but accidentally destroyed by fire. In the authoritative history of
Japan, prepared and translated into English at the command of the
government for the Columbian Exposition, we find such statements as
these:
"From the time that Amaterasu-Omikami made Ninigi-no-mikoto to
descend from the heavens and subject to his administrative sway Okini-
nushi-no-mikoto and other offspring of the deities in the land, descendants
of the divine beings have sat upon the throne, generation after generation in

succession."[AH] "Descended in a direct line from the heavenly deities, the
Emperor has stood unshaken in his high place through all generations, his
prestige and dignity immutable from time immemorial and independent of
all the vicissitudes of the world about him."[AI] "Never has there been found
a single subject of the realm who sought to impair the Imperial prestige."
[AJ] It is true that in a single passage the traditions of the "age of the Deities"

are described as "strange and incredible legends," but it is added that,
however singular they are, in order to understand the history of the Empire's
beginnings, they must be studied. Then follows, without a word of criticism
or dissent, the account of the doings of the heavenly deities, in creating
Japan and its people, as well as the myriads of gods. There is no break
between the age of the gods and the history of men. The first inventions and
discoveries, such as those of fire, of mining, and of weaving are ascribed to
Amate rasu-Omikami (the Sun Goddess). According to these traditions and
the modern histories built upon them, the Japanese race came into existence
wholly independently of all other races of men. Such is the authoritative
teaching in the schools to-day.
Occidental scholars do not accept these statements or dates. That the
Japanese will evince historical and critical ability in the study of their own
early history, as soon as the social order will allow it, can hardly be
doubted. Those few who even now entertain advanced ideas do not dare to
avow them. And this fact throws an interesting light on the way in which
the social order, or a despotic government, may thwart for a time the natural
course of development. The present apparent credulity of Japanese
historical scholarship is due neither to race character nor to superstitions
lodged in the inherited race brain, but simply to the social system, which, as
yet, demands the inviolability of the Imperial line.
Now that the Japanese have been so largely relieved from the incubus of the
older social order, the question rises whether they are showing powers of
originality. The answer is not doubtful, for they have already made several
important discoveries and inventions. The Murata rifle, with which the
army is equipped, is the invention of a Japanese. In 1897 Colonel Arisaka
invented several improvements in this same rifle, increasing the velocity
and accuracy, and lessening the weight. Still more recently he has invented
a rapid-fire field-piece to superintend whose manufacture he has been sent

to Europe. Mr. Shimose has invented a smokeless powder, which the
government is manufacturing for its own use. Not infrequently there appear
in the papers notices of new inventions. I have recently noted the invention
of important improvements in the hand loom universally used in Japan, also
a "smoke-consumer" which not only abolishes the smoke, but reduces the
amount of coal used and consequently the expense. These are but a few of
the ever-increasing number of Japanese inventions.
In the, field of original scientific research is the famous bacteriologist, Dr.
Kitazato. Less widely known perhaps, but none the less truly original
explorers in the field of science, are Messrs. Hirase and Ikeno, whose
discoveries of spermatozoids in Ginko and Cycas have no little value for
botanists, especially in the development of the theory of certain forms of
fertilization. These instances show that the faculty of original thought is not
entirely lacking among the Japanese. Under favorable conditions, such as
now prevail, there is good reason for holding that the Japanese will take
their place among the peoples of the world, not only as skillful imitators
and adapters, but also as original contributors to the progress of civilization
and of science.
Originality may be shown in imitation as well as in production, and this
type of originality the Japanese have displayed in a marked way. They have
copied the institutions of no single country. It might even be difficult to say
which Western land has had the greatest influence in molding the new
social order of Japan. In view of the fact that it is the English language
which has been most in favor during the past thirty years, it might be
assumed that England and America are the favored models. But no such
hasty conclusion can be drawn. The Japanese have certainly taken ideas and
teachers from many different sources; and they have changed them
frequently, but not thoughtlessly. A writer in The Far East brings this points
out clearly:
"While Japan remained secluded from other countries,
she had no necessity for and scarcely any war vessels,
but after the country was opened to the free intercourse
of foreign powers—immediately she felt the urgent
necessity of naval defense and employed a Dutch
officer to construct her navy. In 1871 the Japanese

government employed a number of English officers,
and almost wholly reconstructed her navy according to
the English system. But in the matter of naval education
our rulers found the English system altogether
unsatisfactory, and adopted the American system for the
model of our naval academy. So, in discipline, our
naval officers found the German principle much
superior to the English, and adopted that in point of
discipline. Thus the Japanese navy is not wholly after
the English system, or the American, or the French, or
the German system. But it has been so constructed as to
include the best portions of all the different systems. In
the case of the army, we had a system of our own before
we began to utilize gunpowder and foreign methods of
discipline. Shortly before the present era we
reorganized our army by adopting the Dutch system,
then the English, then the French, and after the Franco-
Prussian war, made an improvement by adopting the
German system. But on every occasion of
reorganization we retained the most advantageous parts
of the old systems and harmonized them with the new
one. The result has been the creation of an entirely new
system, different from any of those models we have
adopted. So in the case of our civil code, we consulted
most carefully the laws of many civilized nations, and
gathered the cream of all the different codes before we
formulated our own suited to the customs of our people.
In the revision of our monetary system, our government
appointed a number of prominent economists to
investigate the characteristics of foreign systems, as to
their merits and faults, and also the different
circumstances under which various systems present
their strength and weakness. The investigation lasted
more than two years, which finally culminated in our
adoption of the gold in the place of the old silver
standard."

This quotation gives an idea of the selective method that has been followed.
There has been no slavish or unconscious imitation. On the contrary, there
has been a constant conscious effort to follow the best model that the
civilized world afforded. Of course, it may be doubted whether in fact they
have always chosen the best; but that is a different matter. The Japanese
think they have; and what foreigner can say that, under the circumstances
and in view of the conditions of the people, they have not? One point is
clear, that on the whole the nation has made great progress in recent
decades, and that the conduct of the government cannot fail to command the
admiration of every impartial student of Oriental lands. This is far from
saying that all is perfection. Even the Japanese make no such claim. Nor is
this equivalent to an assertion of Japan's equality with the leading lands of
the West, although many Japanese are ready to assert this. But I merely say
that the leaders of New Japan have revealed a high order of judicious
originality in their imitation of foreign nations.

XVIII
INDIRECTNESS—"NOMINALITY"

The Japanese have two words in frequent use which aptly describe certain
striking aspects of their civilization. They are "tomawashi ni," "yumei-
mujitsu," the first translated literally signifying "roundabout" or "indirect,"
the second meaning "having the name, but not the reality." Both these
aspects of Japanese character are forced on the attention of any who live
long in Japan.
Some years ago I had a cow that I wished to sell. Being an American, my
natural impulse was to ask a dairyman directly if he did not wish to buy; but
that would not be the most Japanese method. I accordingly resorted to the
help of a "go-between." This individual, who has a regular name in
Japanese, "nakadachi," is indispensable for many purposes. When land was
being bought for missionary residences in Kumamoto, there were at times
three or even four agents acting between the purchaser and the seller and
each received his "orei," "honorable politeness," or, in plain English,
commission. In the purchase of two or three acres of land, dealings were
carried on with some fifteen or more separate landowners. Three different
go-betweens dealt directly with the purchaser, and each of these had his go-
between, and in some cases these latter had theirs, before the landowner
was reached. A domestic desiring to leave my employ conferred with a go-
between, who conferred with his go-between, who conferred with me! In
every important consultation a go-between seems essential in Japan. That
vexatious delays and misunderstandings are frequent may be assumed.
The system, however, has its advantages. In case of disagreeable matters the
go-between can say the disagreeable things in the third person, reducing the
unpleasant utterances to a minimum.
I recall the case of two evangelists in the employ of the Kumamoto station.
Each secured the other to act as go-between in presenting his own

difficulties to me. To an American the natural course would have been for
each man to state his own grievances and desires, and secure an immediate
settlement.
The characteristic of "roundaboutness" is not, however, confined to
Japanese methods of action, but also characterizes their methods of speech.
In later chapters on the alleged Japanese impersonality we shall consider the
remarkable deficiency of personal pronouns in the language, and the wide
use of "honorifics." This substitution of the personal pronouns by honorifics
makes possible an indefiniteness of speech that is exceedingly difficult for
an Anglo-Saxon to appreciate. Fancy the amount of implication in the
statement, "Ikenai koto-we shimashita" which, strictly translated, means
"Can't go thing have done." Who has done? you? or he? or I? This can only
be inferred, for it is not stated. If a speaker wishes to make his personal
allusion blind, he can always do so with the greatest ease and without the
slightest degree of grammatical incorrectness. "Caught cold," "better ask,"
"honorably sorry," "feel hungry," and all the common sentences of daily life
are entirely free from that personal definiteness which an Occidental
language necessitates. We shall see later that the absence of the personal
element from the wording of the sentence does not imply, or prove, its
absence from the thought of either the speaker or hearer. The Japanese
language abounds in roundabout methods of expression. This is specially
true in phrases of courtesy. Instead of saying, "I am glad to see you," the
Japanese say, "Well, honorably have come"; instead of, "I am sorry to have
troubled you," they say, "Honorable hindrance have done"; instead of
"Thank you," the correct expression is, "It is difficult."
In a conversation once with a leading educator, I was maintaining that a
wide study of English was not needful for the Japanese youth; that the
majority of the boys would never learn enough English to make it of
practical use to them in after-life, and that it would be wiser for them to
spend the same amount of time on more immediately practical subjects. The
reply was that the boys needed to have the drill in English in order to gain
clear methods of thought: that the sharp distinctness of the English
sentence, with its personal pronouns and tense and number, affords a mental
drill which the Japanese can get in no other way; and that even if the boys
should never make the slightest after-use of English in reading or
conversation, the advantage gained was well worth the time expended. I

have since noticed that those men who have spent some time in the study of
a foreign language speak very much more clearly in Japanese than those
who have not had this training. In the former case, the enunciation is apt to
be more distinct, and the sentences rounded into more definite periods. The
conversation of the average Japanese tends to ramble on in a never-ending
sentence. But a marked change has come over vast numbers of the people
during the last three decades. The roundaboutness of to-day is as nothing to
that which existed under the old order of society. For the new order rests on
radically different ideas; directness of speech and not its opposite is being
cultivated, and in absolute contrast to the methods of the feudal era,
directness of governmental procedure is well-nigh universal to-day. In
trade, too, there has come a straightforwardness that is promising, though
not yet triumphant. It is safe to assume that in all respectable stores the
normal price is charged; for the custom of fixed prices has been widely
adopted. If individuals are known to have the "beating down" habit, special
prices are added for their sakes.
A personal experience illustrates the point. My wife and I had priced several
lamps, had made note of the most satisfactory, and had gone home without
buying. The next day a domestic was sent to secure the one which pleased
us best. He was charged more than we had been, and in surprise mentioned
the sum which we had authorized him to pay. The shopkeeper explained by
saying that he always told us the true price in the beginning, because we
never tried to beat him down. In truth, modern industrial conditions have
pretty well banished the old-time custom of haggling. A premium is set on
straightforwardness in business unknown to the old social order.
Roundaboutness is, however, closely connected with "yumei-mujitsu," the
other characteristic mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. This, for the
sake of simplicity, I venture to call "nominality." Japanese history is a
prolonged illustration of this characteristic. For over a thousand years
"yumei-mujitsu" has been a leading feature in governmental life. Although
the Emperor has ostensibly been seated on the throne, clothed with absolute
power, still he has often reigned only in name.[AK] Even so early as 130
A.D., the two families of Oomi and Omuraji began to exercise despotic
authority in the central government, and the feudal system, as thus early
established, continued with but few breaks to the middle of the present
century. There were also the great families which could alone furnish wives

to the Imperial line. These early took possession of the person of the
Emperor, and the fathers of the wives often exercised Imperial power. The
country was frequently and long disturbed by intense civil wars between
these rival families. In turn the Fujiwaras, the Minamotos, and the Tairas
held the leading place in the control of the Emperor; they determined the
succession and secured frequent abdication in favor of their infant sons, but
within these families, in turn, there appeared the influence of the "yumei-
mujitsu" characteristic. Lesser men, the retainers of these families,
manipulated the family leaders, who were often merely figureheads of the
contending families and clans. Emperors were made and unmade at the will
of these men behind the scenes, most of whom are quite unknown to fame.
The creation of infant Emperors, allowed to bear the Imperial name in their
infancy and youth, but compelled to abdicate on reaching manhood, was a
common device for maintaining nominal Imperialism with actual
impotence.
When military clans began to monopolize Imperial power, the people
distinctly recognized the nature of their methods and gave it the name of
"Bakufu" or "curtain government," a roundabout expression for military
government. There has been a succession of these "curtain governments,"
the last and most successful being that of the Tokugawa, whose fall in 1867-
68 brought the entire system to an end and placed the true Emperor on the
throne.
But this "yumei-mujitsu" characteristic of Japanese life has been by no
means limited to the national government. Every daimyate was more or less
blighted by it; the daimyo, or "Great Name," was in too many cases but a
puppet in the hands of his "kerai," or family retainers. These men, who were
entirely out of sight, were, in very many cases, the real holders of the power
which was supposed to be exercised by the daimyo. The lord was often a
"great name" and nothing more. That this state of affairs was always
attended with evil results is by no means the contention of these pages. Not
infrequently the people were saved by it from the incompetence and
ignorance and selfishness of hereditary rulers. Indeed, this system of
"yumei-mujitsu" government was one of the devices whereby the inherent
evils of hereditary rulers were more or less obviated. It may be questioned,
however, whether the device did not in the long run cost more than it
gained. Did it not serve to maintain, if not actually to produce, a system of

dissimulation and deception which could but injure the national character?
It certainly could not stimulate the straightforward frankness and outspoken
directness and honesty so essential to the well-being of the human race.
Although "yumei-mujitsu" government is now practically extinct in Japan,
yet in the social structure it still survives.
The Japanese family is a maze of "nominality." Full-grown young men and
women are adopted as sons and daughters, in order to maintain the family
line and name.
A son is not a legal son unless he is so registered, while an illegitimate child
is recognized as a true son if so registered. A man may be the legal son of
his grandmother, or of his sister, if so registered. Although a family may
have no children, it does not die out unless there has been a failure to adopt
a son or daughter, and an extinct family may be revived by the legal
appointment of someone to take the family name and worship at the family
shrine. The family pedigree, therefore, does not describe the actual ancestry,
but only the nominal, the fictitious. There is no deception in this. It is a
well-recognized custom of Old Japan. Its origin, moreover, is not difficult
to explain. Nor is this kind of family peculiar to Japan. It is none the less a
capital illustration of the "yumei-mujitsu" characteristic permeating the
feudal civilization, and still exerting a powerful influence. Even Christians
are not free from "nominalism," as we have frequently found in our
missionary work.
A case in mind is of an evangelist employed by our mission station. He was
to receive a definite proportion of his salary from the church for which he
worked and the rest from the station. On inquiry I learned that he was
receiving only that provided by the station, and on questioning him further
he said that probably the sum promised by the church was being kept as his
monthly contribution to the expenses of the church! Instances of this kind
are not infrequent. While in Kyushu I more than once discovered that a
body of Christians, whose evangelists we were helping to support
proportionately, were actually raising not a cent of their proportion. On
inquiry, I would be told that the evangelists themselves contributed out of
their salary the sums needed, and that, therefore, the Christians did not need
to raise it.

The mission, at one time, adopted the plan of throwing upon the local
churches the responsibility of deciding as to the fitness of young men for
mission aid in securing a theological education. It was agreed by
representatives of the churches and the mission that each candidate should
secure the approval of the deacons of the church of which he was a member,
and that the church should pay a certain proportion of the candidate's school
expenses. It was thought that by this method the leading Christians of the
young man's acquaintance would become his sponsors, and that they would
be unwilling to take this responsibility except for men in whom they had
personal confidence, and for whom they would be willing to make personal
contributions. In course of time the mission discovered that the plan was not
working as expected. The young men could secure the approval of the
deacons of their church without any difficulty; and as for the financial aid
from the church, that could be very easily arranged for by the student's
making a monthly contribution to the church of the sum which the church
should contribute toward his expenses. Although this method seems to the
average Occidental decidedly deceptive, it seemed to the Japanese perfectly
proper. The arrangement, it is needless to state, was not long continued. I
am persuaded that the correct explanation of these cases is "yumei-mujitsu."
Not long since express trains were put on between Kobe and Tokyo. One
morning at Osaka I planned to take the early express to Kyoto, distant about
thirty miles. These are the second and third cities of Japan, and the travel
between them is heavy. On applying for a ticket I was refused and told there
was no train for Kyoto. But as multitudes were buying tickets, and going
out upon the platform, I asked an official what the trouble was, and received
the explanation that for this express train no tickets could be sold for less
than forty miles; but if I would buy a ticket for the next station beyond
Kyoto, it would be all right; I could get off at Kyoto. I was assured that I
would be allowed to land and leave the station at Kyoto. This I did then,
and have repeatedly done since. The same absurd rule is applied, I am told,
between Yokohama and Tokyo.
But our interest in these illustrations is the light they shed on Japanese
character. They indicate the intellectual angle from which the people have
looked out on life. What is the origin of the characteristic? Is it due to deep-
lying race nature, to the quality of the race brain? Even more clearly than in
the case of "roundaboutness," it seems to me that "nominality" is due to the

nature of the old social order. Feudalism has always exhibited more or less
of these same features. To Anglo-Saxons, reared in a land blessed by direct
government of the people, by the people, and for the people, such methods
were not only needless but obnoxious. Nominal responsibility without real
power has been seen to breed numberless evils. We have learned to hate all
nominalism, all fiction in government, in business and, above all, in
personal character. But this is due to the Anglo-Saxon social order, the
product in large measure of centuries of Christian instruction.
Through contact with Westerners and the ideas they stand for, directness
and reality are being assimilated and developed by the Japanese. This would
be impossible were the characteristic in question due to inherent race nature
necessarily bequeathed from generation to generation by intrinsic heredity.

XIX
INTELLECTUALITY

Some writers hold that the Japanese are inherently deficient in the higher
mental faculties. They consider mediocre mentality to be an inborn
characteristic of Japan and assert that it lies at the root of the civilizational
differences distinguishing the East from the West. The puerility of Oriental
science in all its departments, the prevalence of superstition even among the
cultivated, the lack of historical insight and interpretation of history are
adduced as conclusive evidences of this view.
Foreign teachers in Japanese employ have told me that Japanese students,
as compared with those of the West, manifest deficient powers of analysis
and of generalization. Some even assert that the Japanese have no
generalizing ability whatever, their progress in civilization being entirely
due to their remarkable power of clever imitation. Mr. W.G. Aston, in
ascribing the characteristic features of Japanese literature to the
fundamental nature of the race, says they are "hardly capable of high
intellectual achievement."[AL]
While we may admit that the Japanese do not seem to have at present the
same power of scientific generalization as Occidentals, we naturally ask
ourselves whether the difference is due to natal deficiency, or whether it
may not be due to difference in early training. We must not forget that the
youth who come under the observation of foreign teachers in Japanese
schools are already products of the Japanese system of education, home and
school, and necessarily are as defective as it is.
In a previous chapter a few instances of recent invention and important
scientific discovery were given.
These could not have been made without genuine powers of analysis and
generalization. We need not linger to elaborate this point.

Another set of facts throwing light on our problem is the success of so
many Japanese students, at home and in foreign lands, in mastering modern
thought. Great numbers have come back from Europe and America with
diplomas and titles; not a few have taken high rank in their classes. The
Japanese student abroad is usually a hard worker, like his brother at home. I
doubt if any students in the new or the old world study more hours in a year
than do these of Japan. It has often amazed me to learn how much they are
required to do. This is one fair sign of intellectuality. The ease too with
which young Japan, educated in Occidental schools and introduced to
Occidental systems of thought, acquires abstruse speculations, searching
analyses, and generalized abstractions proves conclusively Japanese
possession of the higher mental faculties, in spite of the long survival in
their civilization of primitive puerility and superstitions and the lack of
science, properly so called.
Japanese youths, furthermore, have a fluency in public speech decidedly
above anything I have met with in the United States. Young men of eighteen
or twenty years of age deliver long discourses on religion or history or
politics, with an apparent ease that their uncouth appearance would not lead
one to expect. In the little school of less than 150 boys in Kumamoto there
were more individuals who could talk intelligibly and forcefully on
important themes of national policy, the relation of religion and politics, the
relation of Japan to the Occident and the Orient, than could be found in
either of the two colleges in the United States with which I was connected. I
do not say that they could bring forth original ideas on these topics. But
they could at least remember what they had heard and read and could
reproduce the ideas with amazing fluency.
A recent public meeting in Tokyo in which Christian students of the
University spoke to fellow-students on the great problems of religion,
revealed a power of no mean order in handling the peculiar difficulties
encountered by educated young men. A competent listener, recently
graduated from an American university and widely acquainted with
American students, declared that those Japanese speakers revealed greater
powers of mind and speech than would be found under similar
circumstances in the United States.

The fluency with which timid girls pray in public has often surprised me.
Once started, they never seem to hesitate for ideas or words. The same girls
would hardly be able to utter an intelligible sentence in reply to questions
put to them by the pastor or the missionary, so faint would be their voices
and so hesitating their manner.
The question as to whether the Japanese have powers of generalization
receives some light from a study of the language of the people. An
examination of primitive Japanese proves that the race, prior to receiving
even the slightest influence from China, had developed highly generalized
terms. It is worth while to call attention here to a simple fact which most
writers seem to ignore, namely, that all language denotes and indeed rests
on generalization. Consider the word "uma," "horse"; this is a name for a
whole class of objects, and is therefore the product of a mind that can
generalize and express its generalization in a concept which no act of the
imagination can picture; the imagination can represent only individuals; the
mind that has concepts of classes of things, as, for instance, of horses,
houses, men, women, trees, has already a genuine power of generalization.
Let me also call attention to such words as "wake," "reason"; "mono,"
"thing"; "koto," "fact"; "aru," "is"; "oro," "lives"; "aru koto," "is fact," or
"existence"; "ugoku koto," "movement"; "omoi," "thought"; this list might
be indefinitely extended. Let the reader consider whether these words are
not highly generalized; yet these are all pure Japanese words, and reveal the
development of the Japanese mind before it was in the least influenced by
Chinese thought. Evidently it will not do to assert the entire lack of the
power of generalization to the Japanese mind.
Still further evidence proving Japanese possession of the higher mental
faculties may be found in the wide prevalence and use of the most highly
generalized philosophical terms. Consider for instance, "Ri" and "Ki," "In"
and "Yo." No complete translation can be found for them in English; "Ri"
and "Ki" may be best translated as the rational and the formative principles
in the universe, while "In" and "Yo" signify the active and the passive, the
male and the female, the light and the darkness; in a word, the poles of a
positive and negative. It is true that these terms are of Chinese origin as
well as the thoughts themselves, but they are to-day in universal use in
Japan. Similar abstract terms of Buddhistic origin are the possession of the
common people.

Of course the possession of these Chinese terms is not offered as evidence
of independent generalizing ability. But wide use proves conclusively the
possession of the higher mental faculties, for, without such faculties, the
above terms would be incomprehensible to the people and would find no
place in common speech. We must be careful not to give too much weight
to the foreign origin of these terms. Chinese is to Japanese what Latin and
Greek are to modern European languages. The fact that a term is of Chinese
origin proves nothing as to the nature of the modern Japanese mind. The
developing Japanese civilization demanded new terms for her new
instruments and increasing concepts. These for over fifteen centuries have
been borrowed from, or constructed out of, Chinese in the same way that all
our modern scientific terms are constructed out of Latin and Greek. It is
doubtful if any of the Chinese terms, even those borrowed bodily, have in
Japan the same significance as in China. If this is true, then the originating
feature of Japanese power of generalization becomes manifest.
Indeed from this standpoint, the fact that the Japanese have made such
extensive use of the Chinese language shows the degree to which the
Japanese mind has outgrown its primitive development, demanding new
terms for the expression of its expanding life. But mental growth implies
energy of acquisition. The adoption of Chinese terms is not a passive but an
active process.
Acquisition of generalized terms can only take place with the development
of a generalizing mind. Foreign terms may help, but they do not cause that
development.
In a study of the question whether or not the Japanese possess independent
powers of analysis and generalization, we must ever remember the unique
character of the social environment to which they have been subjected.
Always more or less of an isolated nation, they have been twice or thrice
suddenly confronted with a civilization much superior to that which they in
their isolation had developed. Under such circumstances, adoption and
modification of ideas and language as well as of methods and machinery
were the most rational and natural courses.
The explanation usually given for the puerilities of Oriental science, history,
and religion has been short and simple, namely, the inherent nature of the

Oriental races, as if this were the final fact, needing and admitting no
further explanation. That the Orient has not developed history or science is
doubtless true, but the correct explanation of this fact is, in my opinion, that
the educational method of the entire Orient has rested on mechanical
memorization; during the formative period of the mind the exclusive effort
of education has been to develop a memory which acts by arbitrary or
fanciful connections and relations. A Japanese boy of Old Japan, for
instance, began his education at from seven to eight years of age and spent
three or four years in memorizing the thousands of Chinese hieroglyphic
characters contained in the Shisho and Gokyo, nine of the Chinese classics.
This completed, his teacher would begin to explain to him the meaning of
the characters and sentences. The entire educational effort was to develop
the powers of observing and memorizing accidental, superficial, or even
purely artificial relations. This double faculty of observing trifling and
irrelevant details, and of remembering them, became phenomenally and
abnormally developed.
Recent works on the psychology of education, however, have made plain
how an excessive development of a child's lower mental faculties may
arrest its later growth in all the higher departments of its intellectual nature;
the development of a mechanical memory is well known as a serious
obstacle to the higher activities of reason. Now Japanese education for
centuries, like Chinese, has developed such memory. It trained the lower
and ignored the higher. Much of the Japanese education of to-day, although
it includes mathematics, science, and history, is based on the mechanical
memory method. The Orient is thus a mammoth illustration of the effects of
over-development of the mechanical memory, and the consequent arrest of
the development of the remaining powers of the mind.
Encumbered by this educational ideal and system, how could the ancient
Chinese and Japanese men of education make a critical study of history, or
develop any science worthy of the name? The childish physics and
astronomy, the brutal therapeutics and the magical and superstitious
religions of the Orient, are a necessary consequence of its educational
system, not of its inherent lack of the higher mental powers.
If Japanese children brought up from infancy in American homes, and sent
to American schools from kindergarten days onward, should still manifest

marked deficiencies in powers of analysis and generalization, as compared
with American children, we should then be compelled to conclude that this
difference is due to diverse natal psychic endowment. Generalizations as to
the inherent intellectual deficiencies of the Oriental are based on
observations of individuals already developed in the Oriental civilization,
whose psychic defects they accordingly necessarily inherit through the laws
of social heredity. Such observations have no relevancy to our main
problem. We freely admit that Oriental civilization manifests striking
deficiencies of development of the higher mental faculties, although it is not
nearly so great as many assert; but we contend that these deficiencies are
due to something else than the inherent psychic nature of the Oriental
individual. Innumerable causes have combined to produce the Oriental
social order and to determine its slow development. These cannot be stated
in a sentence, nor in a paragraph.
In the final analysis, however, the causes which produce the characteristic
features of Japanese social order are the real sources of the differentiating
intellectual traits now characterizing the Japanese. Introduce a new social
heredity,—a new system of education,—one which relegates a mechanical
memory to the background,—one which exalts powers of rational
observation of the profound causal relations of the phenomena of nature,
and which sets a premium on such observation, analysis, and generalization,
and the results will show the inherent psychic nature of the Oriental to be
not different from that of the Occidental.

XX
PHILOSOPHICAL ABILITY

We are now prepared to consider whether or not the Japanese have
philosophical ability. The average educated Japanese believe such to be the
case. The rapidity and ease with which the upper classes have abandoned
their superstitious faiths is commonly attributed by themselves to the
philosophical nature of their minds. Similarly the rapid spread of so-called
rationalism and Unitarian thought and Higher Criticism among once earnest
Christians, during the past decade, they themselves ascribe to their interest
in philosophical questions, and to their ability in handling philosophical
problems.
Foreigners, on the other hand, usually deny them the possession of
philosophical ability.
Dr. Peery, in his volume entitled "The Gist of Japan," says: "By nature, I
think, they are more inclined to be practical than speculative. Abstract
theological ideas have little charm for them. There is a large element in
Japan that simulates a taste for philosophical study. Philosophy and
metaphysics are regarded by them as the profoundest of all branches of
learning, and in order to be thought learned they profess great interest in
these studies. Not only are the highly metaphysical philosophies of the East
studied, but the various systems of the West are looked into likewise. Many
of the people are capable of appreciating these philosophies, too; but they
do it for a purpose." Other writers make the same general charge of
philosophical incompetence. One or two quotations from Dr. Knox's
writings were given on this subject, under the head of Imitation.[AM]
What, then, are the facts? Do the Japanese excel in philosophy, or are they
conspicuously deficient? In either case, is the characteristic due to essential
race nature or to some other cause?

We must first distinguish between interest in philosophical problems and
ability in constructing original philosophical systems. In this distinction is
to be found the reconciliation of many conflicting views. Many who argue
for Japanese philosophical ability are impressed with the interest they show
in metaphysical problems, while those who deny them this ability are
impressed with the dependence of Japanese on Chinese philosophy.
The discussions of the previous chapter as to the nature of Japanese
education and its tendency to develop the lower at the expense of the higher
mental faculties, have prepared us not to expect any particularly brilliant
history of Japanese philosophy. Such is indeed the case. Primitive Japanese
cosmology does not differ in any important respect from the primitive
cosmology of other races. The number of those in Old Japan who took a
living interest in distinctly metaphysical problems is indisputably small.
While we admit them to have manifested some independence and even
originality, as Professor Inouye urges,[AN] yet it can hardly be maintained
that they struck out any conspicuously original philosophical systems.
There is no distinctively Japanese philosophy.
These facts, however, should not blind us to the distinction between latent
ability in philosophical thought and the manifestation of that ability. The old
social order, with its defective education, its habit of servile intellectual
dependence on ancestors, and its social and legal condemnation of
independent originality, particularly in the realm of thought, was a mighty
incubus on speculative philosophy. Furthermore, crude science and
distorted history could not provide the requisite material from which to
construct a philosophical interpretation of the universe that would appeal to
the modern Occidental.

In spite, however, of social and educational hindrances, the Japanese have
given ample evidence of interest in metaphysical problems and of more or
less ability in their solution. Religious constructions of the future life,
conceptions as to the relations of gods and men and the universe, are in fact
results of the metaphysical operations of the mind. Primitive Japan was not
without these. As she developed in civilization and came in contact with
Chinese and Hindu metaphysical thought, she acquired their characteristic

systems. Buddhist first, and later Confucian, metaphysics dominated the
thought of her educated men. In view of the highly metaphysical character
of Buddhist doctrines and the interest they have produced at least among
the better trained priests, the assertion that the Japanese have no ability in
metaphysics cannot be maintained.
At one period in the history of Buddhism in Japan, prolonged public
discussions were all the fashion. Priests traveled from temple to temple to
engage in public debate. The ablest debater was the abbot, and he had to be
ready to face any opponent who might appear. If a stranger won, the abbot
yielded his place and his living to the victor. Many an interesting story is
told of those times, and of the crowds that would gather to hear the debates.
But our point is that this incident in the national life shows the appreciation
of the people for philosophical questions. And although that particular
fashion has long since passed away, the national interest in discussions and
arguments still exists. No monks of the West ever enjoyed hair-splitting
arguments more than do many of the Japanese. They are as adept at mental
refinements and logical juggling as any people of the West, though possibly
the Hindus excel them.
If it be said that Confucianism was not only non-metaphysical, but uniquely
practical, and for this reason found wide acceptance in Japan, the reply
must be first that, professing to be non-metaphysical, it nevertheless had a
real metaphysical system of thought in the background to which it ever
appealed for authority, a system, be it noted, more in accord with modern
science and philosophy than Buddhist metaphysics; and secondly, although
Confucianism became the bulwark of the state and the accepted faith of the
samurai, it was limited to them. The vast majority of the nation clung to
their primitive Buddhistic cosmology. That Confucianism rested on a
clearly implied and more or less clearly expressed metaphysical foundation
may be seen in the quotations from the writings of Muro Kyuso which are
given in chapter xxiv. We should note that the revolt of the educated classes
of Japan from Buddhism three hundred years ago, and their general
adoption of Confucian doctrine, was partly in the interests of religion and
partly in the interests of metaphysics. In both respects the progressive part
of the nation had become dissatisfied with Buddhism. The revolt proves not
lack of religious or metaphysical interest and insight, but rather the reverse.

Not a little of the teaching of Shushi (1130-1200 A.D.) and of Oyomei
(1472-1528 A.D.), Chinese philosophical expounders of Confucianism, is
metaphysical. The doctrine of the former was widely studied and was the
orthodox doctrine in Japan for more than two centuries, all other doctrine
and philosophy being forbidden by the state. It is true that the central
interest in this philosophical instruction was the ethical. It was felt that the
entire ethical system rested on the acceptance of a particular metaphysical
system. But so far from detracting from our argument this statement rather
adds. For in what land has not the prime interest in metaphysics been
ethical? A study of the history of philosophy shows clearly that philosophy
and metaphysics arose out of religious and ethical problems, and have ever
maintained their hold on thinking men, because of their mutually vital
relations. In Japan it has not been otherwise. If anyone doubts this he should
read the Japanese philosophers—in the original, if possible; if not, then in
such translations and extracts as Dr. Knox has given us in his "A Japanese
Philosopher," and Mr. Aston in his "Japanese Literature." The ethical
interest is primary, and the metaphysical interest is secondary,[AO] to be
sure, but not to be denied.
Occidental philosophy has found many earnest and capable Japanese
students. The Imperial University has a strong corps of philosophical
instructors. Occidental metaphysical thought, both materialistic and
idealistic, has found many congenial minds. Indeed, it is not rash to say that
in the thought of New Japan the distinguishing Oriental metaphysical
conceptions of the universe have been entirely displaced by those of the
West. Christians, in particular, have entirely abandoned the old polytheistic,
pantheistic, and fatalistic metaphysics and have adopted thoroughgoing
monotheism.
Ability to understand and sufficient interest to study through philosophical
and metaphysical systems of foreign lands indicate a mental development
of no slight order, whatever may be the ability, or lack of it, in making
original contributions to the subject. That educated Japanese have shown
real ability in the former sense can hardly be doubted by those who have
read the writings of such men as Goro Takahashi, ex-president Hiroyuki
Kato, Prof. Yujiro Motora, Prof. Rikizo Nakashima, or Dr. Tetsujiro Inouye.
The philosophical brightness of many of Japan's foreign as well as home-
trained scholars argues well for the philosophical ability of the nation.

A recent conversation with a young Japanese gives point to what has just
been said. The young man suddenly appeared at my study door, and, with
unusually brief salutations, said that he wished me to talk to him about
religion. In answer to questions he explained that he had been one of my
pupils ten years ago in the Kumamoto Boys' School; that he had been
baptized as a Christian at that time, but had become cold and filled with
doubts; that he had been studying ever since, having at one time given
considerable attention to the Zen sect of Buddhism; but that he had found
no satisfaction there. He accordingly wished to study Christianity more
carefully. For three hours we talked, he asking questions about the Christian
conception of God, of the universe, of man, of sin, of evolution, of Christ,
of salvation, of the object of life, of God's purpose in creation, of the origin
and nature of the Bible. Toward the latter part of our conversation, referring
to one idea expressed, he said, "That is about what Hegel held, is it not?" As
he spoke he opened his knapsack, which I then saw to be full of books, and
drew out an English translation of Hegel's "Philosophy of History"; he had
evidently read it carefully, making his notes in Japanese on the margin. I
asked him if he had read it through. "Yes," he replied, "three times." He also
incidentally informed me that he had thought of entering our mission
theological training class during the previous winter, but that he was then in
the midst of the study of the philosophy of Kant, and had accordingly
decided to defer entering until the autumn. How thoroughly he had
mastered these, the most profound and abstruse metaphysicians that the
West can boast, I cannot state. But this at least is clear; his interest in them
was real and lasting. And in his conversation he showed keen appreciation
of philosophical problems. It is to be noted also that he was a self-taught
philosopher—for he had attended no school since he studied elementary
English, ten years before, while a lad of less than twenty.
As a sample of the kind of men I not infrequently meet, let me cite the case
of a young business man who once called on me in the hotel at Imabari,
popularly called "the little philosopher." He wished to talk about the
problem of the future life and to ask my personal belief in the matter. He
said that he believed in God and in Jesus as His unique son and revealer, but
that he found great difficulty in believing in the continued life of the soul
after death. His difficulty arose from the problems of the nature of future
thinking; shall we continue to think in terms of sense perception, such as

time, space, form, color, pleasure, and pain? If not, how can we think at all?
And can we then remember our present life? If we do, then the future life
will not be essentially different from this, i.e., we must still have physical
senses, and continue to live in an essentially physical world. Here was a set
of objections to the doctrine of the future life that I have never heard as
much as mentioned by any Occidental youth. Though without doubt not
original with him, yet he must have had in some degree both philosophical
ability and interest in order to appreciate their force and to seek their
solution.
In conversation not long since with a Buddhist priest of the Tendai sect,
after responding to his request for a criticism of Buddhism, I asked him for
a similarly frank criticism of Christianity. To my surprise, he said that while
Christianity was far ahead of Buddhism in its practical parts and in its
power to mold character, it was deficient in philosophical insight and
interest. This led to a prolonged conversation on Buddhistic philosophy, in
which he explained the doctrines of the "Ku-ge-chu," and the "Usa and
Musa." Without attempting to explain them here, I may say that the first is
amazingly like Hegel's "absolute nothing," with its thesis, antithesis, and
synthesis, and the second a psychological distinction between volitional and
spontaneous emotions.
In discussing Japanese philosophical ability, a point often forgotten is the
rarity of philosophical ability or even interest in the West. But a small
proportion of college students have the slightest interest in philosophical or
metaphysical problems. The majority do not understand what the distinctive
metaphysical problems are. In my experience it is easier to enter into a
conversation with an educated man in Japan on a philosophical question
than with an American. If interest in philosophical and metaphysical
questions in the West is rare, original ability in their investigation is still
rarer.
We conclude, then, that in regard to philosophical ability the Japanese have
no marked racial characteristic differentiating them from other races.
Although they have not developed a distinctive national philosophy, this is
not due to inherent philosophical incompetence. Nor, on the other hand, is
the relatively wide interest now manifest in philosophical problems
attributable to the inherent philosophical ability of the race. So far as Japan

is either behind or in advance of other races, in this respect, it is due to her
social order and social inheritance, and particularly to the nature, methods,
and aims of the educational system, but not to her intrinsic psychic
inheritance.

XXI
IMAGINATION

In no respect, perhaps, have the Japanese been more sweepingly criticised
by foreigners than in regard to their powers of imagination and idealism.
Unqualified generalizations not only assert the entire lack of these powers,
but they consider this lack to be the distinguishing inherent mental
characteristic of the race. The Japanese are called "prosaic," "matter-of-
fact," "practical," "unimaginative."
Mr. Walter Dening, describing Japanese mental characteristics, says:
"Neither their past history nor their prevailing tastes
show any tendency to idealism. They are lovers of the
practical and the real; neither the fancies of Goethe nor
the reveries of Hegel are to their liking. Our poetry and
our philosophy and the mind that appreciates them are
alike the results of a network of subtle influences to
which the Japanese are comparative strangers. It is
maintained by some, and we think justly, that the lack
of idealism in the Japanese mind renders the life of
even the most cultivated a mechanical, humdrum affair
when compared with that of Westerners. The Japanese
cannot understand why our controversialists should wax
so fervent over psychological, ethical, religious, and
philosophical questions, failing to perceive that this
fervency is the result of the intense interest taken in
such subjects. The charms that the cultured Western
mind finds in the world of fancy and romance, in
questions themselves, irrespective of their practical
bearings, is for the most part unintelligible to the
Japanese."[AP]

Mr. Percival Lowell expends an entire chapter in his "Soul of the Far East,"
in showing how important imagination is as a factor in art, religion, science,
and civilization generally, and how strikingly deficient Japanese are in this
faculty. "The Far Orientals," he argues, "ought to be a particularly
unimaginative set of people. Such is precisely what they are. Their lack of
imagination is a well-recognized fact."[AQ]
Mr. Aston, characterizing Japanese literature, says:
"A feature which strikingly distinguishes the Japanese
poetic muse from that of Western nations is a certain
lack of imaginative power. The Japanese are slow to
endow inanimate objects with life. Shelley's 'Cloud,' for
example, contains enough matter of this kind for many
volumes of Japanese verse. Such lines as:
'From my wings are shaken
The dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest
On their mother's breast
As she dances about the sun,'
would appear to them ridiculously overcharged with
metaphor, if not absolutely unintelligible."[AR]

On the other hand, some writers have called attention to the contrary
element of Japanese mental nature. Prof. Ladd, for instance, maintains that
the characteristic mental trait of the Japanese is their sentimentality. He has
shown how their lives are permeated with and regulated by sentiment.
Ancestral worship, patriotism, Imperial apotheosis, friendship, are
fashioned by idealizing sentiment. In our chapters on the emotional
elements of Japanese character we have considered how widespread and
powerful these ideals and sentiments have been and still are.
Writers who compare the Chinese with the Japanese remark the practical
business nature of the former and the impractical, visionary nature of the

latter.
For a proper estimate of our problem we should clearly distinguish between
the various forms of imagination. It reveals itself not merely in art and
literature, in fantastic conception, in personification and metaphor, but in
every important department of human life. It is the tap-root of progress, as
Mr. Lowell well points out. It pictures an ideal life in advance of the actual,
which ideal becomes the object of effort. The forms of imagination may,
therefore, be classified according to the sphere of life in which it appears. In
addition to the poetic fancy and the idealism of art and literature generally,
we must distinguish the work of imagination in the æsthetic, in the moral, in
the religious, in the scientific, and in the political life. The manifestation of
the imaginative faculty in art and in literature is only one part of the
æsthetic imagination.
In studying Japanese æsthetic characteristics, we noted how unbalanced
was the development of their æsthetic sense. This proposition of unbalanced
development applies with equal force to the imaginative faculty as a whole.
Conspicuously lacking in certain directions, it is as conspicuously
prominent in others. Rules of etiquette are the products of the æsthetic
imagination, and in what land has etiquette been more developed than in
feudal Japan? Japanese imagination has been particularly active in the
political world. The passionate loyalty of retainers to their lord, of samurai
to their daimyo, of all to their "kuni," or clan, in ancient times, and now, of
the people to their Emperor, are the results of a vivid political idealizing
imagination. Imperial apotheosis is a combination of the political and
religious imagination. And in what land has the apotheosizing imagination
been more active than in Japan? Ambition and self-conceit are likewise
dependent on an active imaginative faculty.
There can be no doubt the writers quoted above have drawn attention to
some salient features of Japanese art. In the literature of the past, the people
have not manifested that high literary imagination that we discover in the
best literature of many other nations.
This fact, however, will not justify the sweeping generalizations based upon
it. Judging from the pre-Elizabethan literature, who would have expected
the brilliancy of the Elizabethan period? Similarly in regard to the Victorian

period of English literature. Because the Japanese have failed in the past to
produce literature equal to the best of Western lands, we are not justified in
asserting that she never will and that she is inherently deficient in literary
imagination. In regard to certain forms of light fancy, all admit that
Japanese poems are unsurpassed by those of other lands. Japanese amative
poetry is noted for its delicate fancies and plays on words exceedingly
difficult, if not impossible, of translation, or even of expression, to one
unacquainted with the language.
The deficiencies of Japanese literature, therefore, are not such as to warrant
the conclusion that they both mark and make a fundamental difference in
the race mind. For such differences as exist are capable of a sociological
explanation.
The prosaic matter-of-factness of the Japanese mind has been so widely
emphasized that we need not dwell upon it here. There is, however, serious
danger of over-emphasis, a danger into which all writers fall who make it
the ground for sweeping condemnatory criticism.
They are right in ascribing to the average Japanese a large amount of
unimaginative matter-of-factness, but they are equally wrong in unqualified
dogmatic generalizations. They base their inductions on insufficient facts, a
habit to which foreigners are peculiarly liable, through ignorance of the
language and also of the inner thoughts and life of the people.
The prosaic nature of the Japanese has not impressed me so much as the
visionary tendency of the people, and their idealism. The Japanese
themselves count this idealism a national characteristic. They say that they
are theorizers, and numberless experiences confirm this view.
They project great undertakings; they scheme; they discuss contingencies;
they make enormous plans; all with an air of seriousness and yet with a
nonchalance which shows a semi-conscious sense of the unreality of their
proposals. In regard to Korea and China and Formosa, they have hatched
political and business schemes innumerable. The kaleidoscopic character of
Japanese politics is in part due to the rapid succession of visionary schemes.
One idea reigns for a season, only to be displaced by another, causing
constant readjustment of political parties. Frequent attacks on government
foreign policy depend for their force on lordly ideas as to the part Japan

should play in international relations. Writing about the recent discussions
in the public press over the question of introducing foreign capital into
Japan, one contributor to the Far East remarks that "It has been treated
more from a theoretical than from a practical standpoint.... This seems to
me to arise from a peculiar trait of Japanese mind which is prone to dwell
solely on the theoretical side until the march of events compels a sudden
leap toward the practical." This visionary faculty of the Japanese is
especially conspicuous in the daily press. Editorials on foreign affairs and
on the relations of Japan to the world are full of it.
I venture to jot down a few illustrations of impractical idealism out of my
personal knowledge. An evangelist in the employ of the Kumamoto station
exemplified this visionary trait in a marked degree. Nervous in the extreme,
he was constantly having new ideas. For some reason his attention was
turned to the subject of opium and the evils China was suffering from the
drug, forced on her by England. Forthwith he came to me for books on the
subject; he wished to become fully informed, and then he proposed to go to
China and preach on the subject. For a few weeks he was full of his
enterprise. It seemed to him that if he were only allowed the opportunity he
could convince the Chinese of their error, and the English of their crime.
One of his plans was to go to England and expostulate with them on their
un-Christian dealings with China. A few weeks later his attention was
turned to the wrongs inflicted on the poor on account of their ignorance
about law and their inability to get legal assistance. This idea held him
longer than the previous.
He desired to study law and become a public pleader in order to defend the
poor against unjust men of wealth. In his theological ideas he was likewise
extreme and changeable; swinging from positive and most emphatic belief
to extreme doubt, and later back again. In his periods of triumphant faith it
seemed to him that he could teach the world; and his expositions of truth
were extremely interesting. He proposed to formulate a new theology that
would dissolve forever the difficulties of the old theology. In his doubts,
too, he was no less interesting and assertive. His hold on practical matters
was exceedingly slender. His salary, though considerably larger than that of
most of the evangelists, was never sufficient. He would spend lavishly at
the beginning of the month so long as he had the money, and then would
pinch himself or else fall into debt.

Mr. ——, the head of the Kumamoto Boys' School during the period of its
fierce struggles and final collapse, whom I have already referred to as the
Hero-Principal,[AS] is another example of this impractical high-strung
visionariness. No sooner had he reached Kumamoto, than there opened
before our enchanted eyes the vision of this little insignificant school
blooming out into a great university. True, there had been some of this
bombast before his arrival; but it took on new and gorgeous form under his
master hand. The airs that he put on, displaying his (fraudulent) Ph.D., and
talking about his schemes, are simply amusing to contemplate from this
distance. His studies in the philosophy of religion had so clarified his mind
that he was going to reform both Christianity and Buddhism. His sermons
of florid eloquence and vociferous power, never less than an hour in length,
were as marked in ambitious thoughts as in pulpit mannerisms. He threw a
spell over all who came in contact with him. He overawed them by his
vehemence and tremendous earnestness and insistence on perfect obedience
to his masterful will. In one of his climactic sermons, after charging
missionaries with teaching dangerous errors, he said that while some were
urging that the need of the times was to "his back to Luther," and others
were saying, that we must "his back to Christ" (these English words being
brought into his Japanese sermon), they were both wrong; we must "hie
back to God"; and he prophesied a reformation in religion, beginning there
in Kumamoto, in that school, which would be far and away more important
in the history of the world than was the Lutheran Reformation.
The recent history of Christianity in Japan supplies many striking instances
of visionary plans and visionary enthusiasts. The confident expectation
entertained during the eighties of Christianizing the nation before the close
of the century was such a vision. Another, arising a few years later, was the
importance of returning all foreign missionaries to their native lands and of
intrusting the entire evangelistic work to native Christians, and committing
to them the administration of the immense sums thus set free. For it was
assumed by these brilliant Utopians that the amount of money expended in
supporting missionaries would be available for aggressive work should the
missionaries be withdrawn, and that the Christians in foreign lands would
continue to pour in their contributions for the evangelization of Japan.
Still another instance of utopian idealism is the vision that Japan will give
birth to that perfect religion, meeting the demands of both heart and head,

for which the world waits. In January, 1900, Prof. T. Inouye, of the Imperial
University, after showing quite at length, and to his own satisfaction, the
inadequacy of all existing religions to meet the ethical and religious
situation in Japan, maintained this ambitious view.
Some Japanese Christians are declaring the need of Japonicized
Christianity. "Did not the Greeks transform Christianity before they
accepted it? And did not the Romans, and finally the Germans, do the
same? Before Japan will or can accept the religion of Christ, it must be
Japonicized." So they argue; "and who so fit to do it as we?" lies in the
background of their thought.
Many a Christian pastor and evangelist, although not sharing the ambition
of Prof. Inouye, nevertheless glows with the confident expectation that
Japonicized Christianity will be its most perfect type. "No one need wonder
if Japan should be destined to present to the world the best type of
Christianity that has yet appeared in history," writes an exponent of this
view, at one time a Christian pastor. In this connection the reader may recall
what was said in chapter xiv. on Japanese Ambition and Conceit, qualities
depending on the power of seeing visions. We note, in passing, the
optimistic spirit of New Japan. This is in part due, no doubt, to ignorance of
the problems that lie athwart their future progress, but it is also due to the
vivid imaginative faculty which pictures for them the glories of the coming
decades when they shall lead not only the Orient, but also the Occident, in
every line of civilization, material and spiritual, moral and religious. A dull,
unimaginative, prosaic nature cannot be exuberantly optimistic. It is evident
that writers who proclaim the unimaginative matter-of-factness of the
Japanese as universal and absolute, have failed to see a large side of
Japanese inner life.
Mr. Percival Lowell states that the root of all the peculiarities of Oriental
peoples is their marked lack of imagination. This is the faculty that "may in
a certain sense be said to be the creator of the world." The lack of this
faculty, according to Mr. Lowell, is the root of the Japanese lack of
originality and invention; it gives the whole Oriental civilization its
characteristic features. He cites a few words to prove the essentially prosaic
character of the Japanese mind, such as "up-down" for "pass" (which word,
by the way, is his own invention, and reveals his ignorance of the

language), "the being (so) is difficult," in place of "thank you." "A lack of
any fanciful ideas," he says, "is one of the most salient traits of all Far
Eastern peoples, if indeed a sad dearth can properly be called salient.
Indirectly, their want of imagination betrays itself in their everyday sayings
and doings, and more directly in every branch of thought." I note, in
passing, that Mr. Lowell does not distinguish between fancy and
imagination. Though allied faculties, they are distinct. Mr. Lowell's extreme
estimate of the prosaic nature of the Japanese mind I cannot share. Many
letters received from Japanese friends refute this view by their fanciful
expressions. The Japanese language, too, has many fanciful terms. Why
"pass" is any more imaginative than "up-down," to accept Mr. Lowell's
etymology, or "the being (so) is difficult" than "thank you," I do not see. To
me the reverse proposition would seem the truer. And are not "breaking-
horns" for "on purpose," and "breaking-bones" for "with great difficulty,"
distinctly imaginative terms, more imaginative than the English? In the
place of our English term "sun," the Japanese have several alternative terms
in common use, such as "hi," "day," "Nichirin," "day-ball," "Ten-to Sama,"
"the god of heaven's light;" and for "moon," it has "tsuki," "month," "getsu-
rin," "month ball." The names given to her men-of-war also indicate a
fanciful nature. The torpedo destroyers are named "Dragon-fly," "Full
Moon," "The Moon in the Cloud," "Seabeach," "Dawn of Day," "Clustering
Clouds," "Break of Day," "Ripples," "Evening Mist," "Dragon's Lamp,"
"Falcon," "Magpie," "White-naped Crane," and "White Hawk." Surely, it
cannot be maintained that the Japanese are utterly lacking in fancy.
Distinguishing between fancy as "the power of forming pleasing, graceful,
whimsical, or odd mental images, or of combining them with little regard to
rational processes of construction," and imagination, in its more
philosophical use, as "the act of constructive intellect in grouping the
materials of knowledge or thought into new, original, and rational systems,"
we assert without fear of successful contradiction, that the Japanese race is
not without either of these important mental faculties.
In addition to the preceding illustrations of visionary and fanciful traits, let
the reader reflect on the significance of the comic and of caricature in art.
Japanese Netsuke (tiny carvings of exquisite skill representing comical men,
women, and children) are famous the world over. Surely, the fancy is the
most conspicuous mental characteristic revealed in this branch of Japanese

art. In Japanese poetry "a vast number of conceits, more or less pretty," are
to be found, likewise manifesting the fancy of both the authors who wrote
and the people who were pleased with and preserved their writings.[AT] The
so-called "impersonal habit of the Japanese mind," with a corresponding
"lack of personification of abstract qualities," doubtless prevents Japanese
literature from rising to the poetic heights attained by Western nations. But
this lack does not prove the Japanese mind incapable of such flights. As
describing the actual characteristics of the literature of the past the assertion
of "a lack of imaginative power" is doubtless fairly correct. But the inherent
nature of the Japanese mind cannot be inferred from the deficiencies of its
past literature, without first examining the relation between its characteristic
features and the nature of the social order and the social inheritance.
Are the Japanese conspicuously deficient in imagination, in the sense of the
definition given above? The constructive imagination is the creator of
civilization. Not only art and literature, but, as already noted, science,
philosophy, politics, and even the practical arts and prosaic farming are
impossible without it. It is the tap-root of invention, of discovery, of
originality.

It is needless to repeat what has been said in previous chapters[AU] on
Japanese imitation, invention, discovery, and originality. Yet, in
consideration of the facts there given, are we justified in counting the
Japanese so conspicuously deficient in constructive, imagination as to
warrant the assertion that such a lack is the fundamental characteristic of
the race psychic nature?
As an extreme case, look for a moment at their imitativeness. Although
imitation is considered a proof of deficient originality, and thus of
imagination, yet reflection shows that this depends on the nature of the
imitation. Japanese imitation has not been, except possibly for short
periods, of that slavish nature which excludes the work of the imagination.
Indeed, the impulse to imitation rests on the imagination. But for this
faculty picturing the state of bliss or power secured in consequence of
adopting this or that feature of an alien civilization, the desire to imitate
could not arise. In view, moreover, of the selective nature of Japanese
imitation, we are further warranted in ascribing to the people no
insignificant development of the imagination.

In illustration, consider Japan's educational system. Established no doubt on
Occidental models, it is nevertheless a distinctly Japanese institution. Its
buildings are as characteristically Japonicized Occidental school buildings
as are its methods of instruction. Japanese railroads and steamers, likewise
constructed in Japan, are similarly Japonicized—adapted to the needs and
conditions of the people. To our eyes this of course signifies no
improvement, but assuredly, without such modification, our Western
railroads and steamers would be white elephants on their hands, expensive
and difficult of operation.
What now is the sociological interpretation of the foregoing facts? How are
the fanciful, visionary, and idealistic characteristics, on the one hand, and,
on the other, the prosaic, matter-of-fact, and relatively unimaginative
characteristics, related to the social order?
It is not difficult to account for the presence of accentuated visionariness in
Japan. Indeed, this quality is conspicuous among the descendants of the
military and literary classes; and this fact furnishes us the clew. "From time
immemorial," to use a phrase common on the lips of Japanese historians, up
to the present era, the samurai as a class were quite separated from the
practical world; they were comfortably supported by their liege lords;
entirely relieved from the necessity of toiling for their daily bread, they
busied themselves not only with war and physical training, but with literary
accomplishments, that required no less strenuous mental exertions.
Furthermore, in a class thus freed from daily toil, there was sure to arise a
refined system of etiquette and of rank distinctions. Even a few centuries of
life would, under such conditions, develop highly nervous individuals in
large numbers, hypersensitive in many directions. These men, by the very
development of their nervous constitutions, would become the social if not
the practical leaders of their class; high-spirited, and with domineering
ideas and scheming ambitions, they would set the fashion to all their less
nervously developed fellows. Freed from the exacting conditions of a
practical life, they would inevitably fly off on tangents more or less
impractical, visionary.
If, therefore, this trait is more marked in Japanese character than in that of
many other nations, it may be easily traced to the social order that has ruled

this land "from time immemorial." More than any other of her mental
characteristics, impractical visionariness may be traced to the development
of the nervous organization at the expense of the muscular. This
characteristic accordingly may be said to be more inherently a race
characteristic than many others that have been mentioned. Yet we should
remember that the samurai constitute but a small proportion of the people.
According to recent statistics (1895) the entire class to-day numbers but
2,050,000, while the common people number over 40,000,000. It is,
furthermore, to be remembered that not all the descendants of the samurai
are thus nervously organized. Large numbers have a splendid physical
endowment, with no trace of abnormal nervous development. While the old
feudal order, with its constant carrying of swords, and the giving of honor
to the most impetuous, naturally tended to push the most high-strung
individuals into the forefront and to set them up as models for the imitation
of the young, the social order now regnant in Japan faces in the other
direction. Such visionary men are increasingly relegated to the rear. Their
approach to insanity is recognized and condemned. Even this trait of
character, therefore, which seems to be rooted in brain and nerve structure
is, nevertheless, more subject to the prevailing social order than would at
first seem possible.
Its rise we have seen was due to that order, and the setting aside of these
characteristics as ideals at least, and thus the bringing into prominence of
more normal and healthy ideals, is due to the coming in of a new order.
Japanese prosaic matter-of-factness may similarly be shown to have
intimate relations to the nature of the social order. Oppressive military
feudalism, keeping the vast majority of the people in practical bondage,
physical, intellectual, and spiritual, would necessarily render their lives and
thoughts narrow in range and spiritless in nature. Such a system crushes out
hope. From sunrise to sunset, "nembyaku nenju," "for a hundred years and
through all the year," the humdrum duties of daily life were the only
psychic stimuli of the absolutely uneducated masses. Without ambition,
without self-respect, without education or any stimulus for the higher
mental life, what possible manifestation of the higher powers of the mind
could be expected? Should some "sport" appear by chance, it could not long
escape the sword of domineering samurai. Even though originally
possessing some degree of imagination, cringing fear of military masters,

with the continuous elimination by ruthless slaughter of the more idealizing,
less submissive, and more self-assertive individuals of the non-military
classes, would finally produce a dull, imitative, unimaginative, and matter-
of-fact class such as we find in the hereditary laboring and merchant
classes.
Furthermore, Japanese civilization, like that of the entire Orient, with its
highly communalized social order, is an expression of passive submission
to superior authority. Although an incomplete characterization, there is still
much truth in saying that the Orient is an expression of Fate, the Occident
of Freedom. We have seen that a better contrasted characterization is found
in the terms communal and individual. The Orient has known nothing of
individualism. It has not valued the individual nor sought his elevation and
freedom. In every way, on the contrary, it has repressed and opposed him.
The high development of the individual culminating in powerful personality
has been an exceptional occurrence, due to special circumstances. A
communal social order, often repressing and invariably failing to evoke the
higher human faculties, must express its real nature in the language,
literature, and customs of the people. Thus in our chapter on the Æsthetic
Characteristics of the Japanese[AV] we saw how the higher forms of
literature were dependent on the development of manhood and on a
realization of his nature. A communal social order despising, or at least
ignoring the individual, cannot produce the highest forms of literature or
art, because it does not possess the highest forms of psychic development.
Take from Western life all that rests on or springs from the principles of
individual worth, freedom, and immortality, and how much of value or
sublimity will remain? The absence from Japanese literature and language
of the higher forms of fancy, metaphor, and personification on the one hand,
and, on the other, the presence of widespread prosaic matter-of-factness, are
thus intimately related to the communal nature of Japan's long dominant
social order.
Similarly, in regard to the constructive imagination, whose conspicuous
lack in Japan is universally asserted by foreign critics, we reply first that the
assertion is an exaggeration, and secondly, that so far as it is fact, it is
intimately related to the social order. In our discussions concerning
Japanese Intellectuality and Philosophical Ability,[AW] we saw how intimate
a relation exists between the social order, particularly as expressed in its

educational system, and the development of the higher mental faculties.
Now a moment's reflection will show how the constructive imagination,
belonging as it does to the higher faculties, was suppressed by the system of
mechanical and superficial education required by the social order. Religion
apotheosized ancestral knowledge and customs, thus effectively
condemning all conscious use of this faculty. So far as it was used, it was
under the guise of reviving old knowledge or of expounding it more
completely.
This, however, has been the experience of every race in certain stages of its
development. Such periods have been conspicuously deficient in powerful
literature, progressive science, penetrating philosophy, or developing
political life. When a nation has once entered such a social order it becomes
stagnant, its further development is arrested. The activity of the higher
faculties of the mind are in abeyance, but not destroyed. It needs the electric
shock of contact and conflict with foreign races to startle the race out of its
fatal repose and start it on new lines of progress by demanding, on pain of
death, or at least of racial subordination, the introduction of new elements
into its social order by a renewed exercise of the constructive imagination.
For without such action of the constructive imagination a radical and
voluntary modification of the dominant social order is impossible.
Old Japan experienced this electric shock and New Japan is the result. She
is thus a living witness to the inaccuracy of those sweeping generalizations
as to her inherent deficiency of constructive imagination.
It is by no means our contention that Japanese imagination is now as widely
and profoundly exercised as that of the leading Western nations. We merely
contend that the exercise of this mental faculty is intimately related to the
nature of the whole social order; that under certain circumstances this
important faculty may be so suppressed as to give the impression to
superficial observers of entire absence, and that with a new environment
necessitating a new social order, this faculty may again be brought into
activity.
The inevitable conclusion of the above line of thought is that the activity
and the manifestation of the higher faculties is so intimately related to the
nature of the social order as to prevent our attributing any particular mental

characteristics to a race as its inherent and unchangeable nature. The
psychic characteristics of a race at any given time are the product of the
inherited social order. To transform those characteristics changes in the
social order, introduced either from without, or through individuals within
the race, are alone needful. This completes our specific study of the
intellectual characteristics of the Japanese. It may seem, as it undoubtedly
is, quite fragmentary. But we have purposely omitted all reference to those
characteristics which the Japanese admittedly have in common with other
races. We have attempted the consideration of only the more outstanding
characteristics by which they seem to be differentiated from other races. We
have attempted to show that in so far as they are different, the difference is
due not to inherent psychic nature transmitted by organic heredity, but to
the nature of the social order, transmitted by social heredity.

XXII
MORAL IDEALS

Even a slight study of Japanese history suffices to show that the faculty of
moral discrimination was highly developed in certain directions. In what
land have the ideal and practice of loyalty been higher? The heroes most
lauded by the Japanese to-day are those who have proved their loyalty by
the sacrifice of their lives. When Masashige Kusunoki waged a hopeless
war on behalf of one branch of the then divided dynasty, and finally
preferred to die by his own hand rather than endure the sight of a victorious
rebel, he is considered to have exhibited the highest possible evidence of
devoted loyalty. One often hears his name in the sermons of Christian
preachers as a model worthy of all honor. The patriots of the period
immediately preceding the Meiji era, known as the "Kinnoka," some of
whom lost their lives because of their devotion to the cause of their then
impotent Emperor, are accorded the highest honor the nation can give.
The teachings of the Japanese concerning the relations that should exist
between parents, and children, and, in multitudes of instances, their actual
conduct also, can hardly be excelled. We can assert that they have a keen
moral faculty, however further study may compel us to pronounce its
development and manifestations to be unbalanced.
Better, however, than generalizations as to the ethical ideals of Japan, past
and present, are actual quotations from her moral teachers. The following
passages are taken from "A Japanese Philosopher," by Dr. Geo. W. Knox,
the larger part of the volume consisting of a translation of one of the works
of Muro Kyuso—who lived from 1658 to 1734. It was during his life that
the famous forty-seven ronin performed their exploit, and Kyu-so gave
them the name by which they are still remembered, Gi-shi, the "Righteous
Samurai." The purpose of the work is the defense of the Confucian faith and
practice, as interpreted by Tei-shu, the philosopher of China whom Japan

delighted to honor. It discusses among other things the fundamental
principles of ethics, politics, and religion. Dr. Knox has done all earnest
Western students of Japanese ethical and religious ideas an inestimable
service in the production of this work in English.
"The 'Way' of Heaven and Earth is the 'Way' of Gyo and
Shun [semi-mythical rulers of ancient China idealized
by Confucius]; the 'Way' of Gyo and Shun is the 'Way'
of Confucius and Mencius, and the 'Way' of Confucius
and Mencius is the 'Way' of Tei-Shu. Forsaking Tei-
Shu, we cannot find Confucius and Mencius; forsaking
Confucius and Mencius, we cannot find Gyo and Shun;
and forsaking Gyo and Shun, we cannot find the 'Way'
of Heaven and Earth. Do not trust implicitly an aged
scholar; but this I know, and therefore I speak. If I say
that which is false, may I be instantly punished by
Heaven and Earth."[AX]
"Recently I was astounded at the words of a
philosopher: 'The "Way" comes not from Heaven,' he
said, 'it was invented by the sages. Nor is it in accord
with nature; it is a mere matter of æsthetics and
ornament. Of the five relations, only the conjugal is
natural, while loyalty, filial obedience, and the rest were
invented by the sages, and have been maintained by
their authority ever since.' Surely, among all heresies
from ancient days until now, none has been so
monstrous as this."[AY]
"Kujuro, a lad of fifteen years, quarreled with a
neighbor's son over a game of go, lost his self-control,
and before he could be seized, drew his sword and cut
the boy down. While the wounded boy was under the
surgeon's care, Kujuro was in custody, but he showed
no fear, and his words and acts were calm beyond his
years. After some days the boy died, and Kujuro was
condemned to hara-kiri. The officers in charge gave him
a farewell feast the night before he died. He calmly

wrote to his mother, took ceremonious farewell of his
keeper and all in the house, and then said to the guests:
'I regret to leave you all, and should like to stay and talk
till daybreak; but I must not be sleepy when I commit
hara-kiri to-morrow, so I'll go to bed at once. Do you
stay at your ease and drink the wine.' So he went to his
room and fell asleep, all being filled with admiration as
they heard him snore. On the morrow he rose early,
bathed and dressed himself with care, made all his
preparations with perfect calmness, and then, quiet and
composed, killed himself. No old, trained, self-
possessed samurai could have excelled him. No one
who saw it could speak of it for years without tears.... I
have told you this that Kujuro may be remembered. It
would be shameful were it to be forgotten that so young
a boy performed such a deed."[AZ]
"We are not to cease obeying for the sake of study, nor
must we establish the laws before we begin to obey. In
obedience we are to establish its Tightness and
wrongness."[BA]
"We learn loyalty and obedience as we are loyal and
obedient. To-day I know yesterday's short-comings, and
to-morrow I shall know to-day's.... In our occupations
we learn whether conduct conforms to right and so
advance in the truth by practice."[BB]
"Besides a few works on history, like the Sankyo Ega
Monogatari, which record facts, there are no books
worth reading in our literature. For the most part they
are sweet stories of the Buddhas, of which one soon
wearies. But the evil is traditional, long-continued, and
beyond remedy. And other books are full of lust, not
even to be mentioned, like the Genji Monogatari, which
should never be shown to a woman or a young man.
Such books lead to vice. Our nobles call the Genji
Monogatari a national treasure, why, I do not know,

unless it is that they are intoxicated with its style. That
is like plucking the spring blossom unmindful of the
autumn's fruit. The book is full of adulteries from
beginning to end. Seeing the right, ourselves should
become good, seeing the wrong, we should reprove
ourselves. The Genji Monogatari, Chokonka, and
Seishoki are of a class, vile, mean, comparable to the
books of the sages as charcoal to ice, as the stench of
decay to the perfume of flowers."[BC]
"To the samurai, first of all is righteousness; next life,
then silver and gold. These last are of value, but some
put them in the place of righteousness. But to the
samurai even life is as dirt compared to righteousness.
Until the middle part of the middle ages customs were
comparatively pure, though not really righteous.
Corruption has come only during this period of
government by the samurai. A maid servant in China
was made ill with astonishment when she saw her
mistress, soroban (abacus) in hand, arguing prices and
values. So was it once with the samurai. They knew
nothing of trade, were economical and content."[BD]
"Even in the days of my youth, young folks never
mentioned the price of anything; and their faces
reddened if the talk was of women. Their joy was in
talk of battles and plans for war. And they studied how
parents and lords should be obeyed, and the duty of
samurai. But nowadays the young men talk of loss and
gain, of dancing girls and harlots and gross pleasures. It
is a complete change from fifty or sixty years ago....
Said Aochi to his son: 'There is such a thing as trade.
See that you know nothing of it. In trade the profit
should always go to the other side.... To be proud of
buying high-priced articles cheap is the good fortune of
merchants, but should be unknown to samurai. Let it
not be even so much as mentioned.... Samurai must

have a care of their words, and are not to speak of
avarice, cowardice, or lust.'"[BE]
A point of considerable interest to the student of Japanese ethical ideals is
the fact that the laws of Old Japan combined legal and moral maxims.
Loyalty and morality were conceived as inseparable. Ieyasu (abdicated in
1605, and died in 1616), the founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate, left a
body of laws to his successors as his last will, in accordance with which
they should rule the land. These laws were not made public, but were kept
strictly for the guidance of the rulers. They are known as the Testament or
"Honorable Will" of Ieyasu, and consist of one hundred rules. It will serve
our purpose here to quote some of those that refer to the moral ideal.
"No one is to act simply for the gratification of his own
desires, but he is to strive to do what may be opposed to
his desires, i.e., to exercise self-control, in order that
everyone may be ready for whatever he may be called
upon by his superiors to do."
"The aged, whether widowers or widows, and orphans,
and persons without relations, every one should assist
with kindness and liberality; for justice to these four is
the root of good government."
"Respect the gods [or God], keep the heart pure, and be
diligent in business during the whole life."
"When I was young I determined to fight and punish all
my own and my ancestors' enemies, and I did punish
them; but afterwards, by deep consideration, I found
that the way of heaven was to help the people, and not
to punish them. Let my successors follow out this
policy, or they are not of my line. In this lies the
strength of the nation."
"To insure the Empire peace, the foundation must be
laid in the ways of holiness and religion, and if men
think they can be educated, and will not remember this,
it is as if a man were to go to a forest to catch fish, or

thought he could draw water out of fire. They must
follow the ways of holiness."
"Japan is the country of the gods [or God—'Shinkoku'].
Therefore, we have among us Confucianism,
Buddhism, and Shintoism, and other sects. If we leave
our gods [or God] it is like refusing the wages of our
master and taking them from another."
"In regard to dancing women, prostitutes, brothels,
night work, and all other improper employments, all
these are like caterpillars or locusts in the country.
Good men and writers in all times have written against
them."
"It is said that the Mikado, looking down on his people,
loves them as a mother does her children. The same
may be said of me and my government. This
benevolence of mind is called Jin. This Jin may be said
to consist of five parts; these are humanity, integrity,
courtesy, wisdom, and truth. My mode of government is
according to the way of heaven. This I have done to
show that I am impartial, and am not assisting my own
relatives and friends only."[BF]
These quotations are perhaps sufficient, though one more from a recent
writer has a peculiar interest of its own, from the fact that the purpose of the
book from which the quotation is taken was the destruction of the
tendencies toward approval of Western thought. It was published in 1857.
The writer, Junzo Ohashi, felt himself to be a witness for truth and
righteousness, and, in the spirit of the doctrine he professed, sealed his faith
with a martyr's suffering and death, dying (in August, 1868) from the effect
of repeated examination by torture for a supposed crime, innocence of
which he maintained to the end. It is interesting to note that two of his
granddaughters, "with the physics and astronomy of the West, have
accepted its religion."

"The West knows not the 'Ri'[BG] of the virtues of the
heart which are in all men unchangeably the same. Nor

does it know that the body is the organ of the virtues,
however careful its analysis of the body may be. The
adherents of the Western Philosophy indeed study
carefully the outward appearances, but they have no
right to steal the honored name of natural philosophy.
As when 'Ki' is destroyed, 'Ri' too disappears, so, with
their analysis of 'Ki,' they destroy 'Ri,' and thus this
learning brings benevolence and righteousness and
loyalty and truth to naught. Among the Westerners who
from of old have studied details minutely, I have not
heard of one who was zealous for the Great Way, for
benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, and truth, and who
opposed the absurdities of the Lord of Heaven
[God].'[BH] 'Let then the child make its parent, Heaven;
the retainer, his lord; the wife, her husband; and let each
give up life for righteousness. Thus will each serve
Heaven. But if we exalt Heaven above parent or lord,
we shall come to think that we can serve it though they
be disobeyed, and like wolf or tiger shall rejoice to kill
them. To such fearful end does the Western learning
lead."[BI]
The foregoing quotations reveal the exalted nature of the ideals held by at
least some of the leaders of ethical thought in Japan. Taken as a whole, the
moral ideals characterizing the Japanese during their entire historical period
have been conspicuously communal. The feudal structure of society has
determined the peculiar character of the moral ideal. Loyalty took first rank
in the moral scale; the subordination of the inferior to the superior has come
next, including unquestioning obedience of children to parents, and of wife
to husband. The virtues of a military people have been praised and often
gloriously exemplified. The possession of these various ideals and their
attainment in such high degree have given the nation its cohesiveness. They
make the people a unit. The feudal training under local daimyos was fitting
the people for the larger life among the nations of the world on which they
are now entering. Especially is their sense of loyalty, as exhibited toward
the Emperor, serving them well in this period of transition from Oriental to
Occidental social ideals.

Let us now examine some defective moral standards and observe their
origin in the social order. Take, for instance, the ideal of truthfulness. Every
Occidental remarks on the untruthfulness of the Japanese. Lies are told
without the slightest apparent compunction; and when confronted with the
charge of lying, the culprit often seems to feel little sense of guilt. This trait
of character was noted repeatedly by the early negotiators with Japan.
Townsend Harris and Sir Rutherford Alcock made frequent mention of it.
When we inquire as to the moral ideal and actual instruction concerning
truthfulness, we are amazed to find how inadequate it was. The inadequacy
of the teaching, however, was not the primal cause of the characteristic.
There is a far deeper explanation, yet very simple, namely, the nature of the
social order. The old social order was feudal, and not industrial or
commercial. History shows that industrial and commercial nations develop
the virtue of truthfulness far in advance of military nations. For these
virtues are essential to them; without them they could not long continue to
prosper.
So in regard to all the aspects of business morality, it must be admitted that,
from the Occidental standpoint, Old Japan was very deficient. But it must
also be stated that new ideals are rapidly forming. Buying and selling with a
view to making profit, though not unknown in Old Japan, was carried on by
a despised section of the community. Compared with the present, the
commercial community of feudal times was mean and small. Let us note
somewhat in detail the attitude of the samurai toward the trader in olden
times, and the ideals they reveal.
The pursuit of business was considered necessarily degrading, for he who
handled money was supposed to be covetous. The taking of profit was
thought to be ignoble, if not deceitful. They who condescended to such an
occupation were accordingly despised and condemned to the lowest place
in the social scale. These ideas doubtless helped to make business
degrading; traders were doubtless sordid and covetous and deceitful. In the
presence of the samurai they were required to take the most abject postures.
In addressing him, they must never stand, but must touch the ground with
their foreheads; while talking with him they must remain with their hands
on the ground. Even the children of samurai always assumed the lordly
attitude toward tradesmen. The sons of tradesmen might not venture into a
quarrel with the sons of samurai, for the armed children of the samurai were