t EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE SOCIAL AND PSrCHIC SIDNEY L. GULICK, M. A. Missionary of the American Board in Japan New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh Copyright, 1903, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY {May) REFSE New York : 1 58 Fifth Avenue Chicago : 63 Washington Street Toronto : 27 Richmond Street, W. London : 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh : 30 St. Mary Street PREFACE The present work is an attempt to interpret the characteristics of modern Japan in the Hght 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 na- ture 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 inter- course and mutual influence. The core of this work consists of addresses to Ameri- can and English audiences delivered by the writer dur- ing his recent furlough. Since returning to Japan, he has been able to give but fragments of time to the com- pletion of the outlines then sketched, and though he would gladly reserve the manuscript for further elabo- ration, he yields to the urgency of friends who deem it wise that he delay no longer in laying his thought be- fore the wider public. To Japanese readers the writer wishes to say that although he has not hesitated to make statements pain- ful 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 " for- eign." It may be well to say that neither the one nor vi PREFACE the other has any derogatory impHcation, although anti-foreign natives, and anti-native foreigners, some- times 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, inform- ative, and well-balanced. Had the last named come to hand much earlier it would have received frequent ref- erence and quotation in the body of this volume, de- spite 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 read- ing 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 „>v INTRODUCTION 13 I. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS Occidental conceptions of the recent history of Japan — Japan seems to be contradicting our theory of national evolu- tion — Similarities of ancient and modern Japan — Jap- anese evolution is " natural " — The study of Japanese social evolution is of unusual interest, because it has ex- perienced 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 be- tween 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 instrurnents 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 discus- sion " an insufficient principle of progress — Two lines of I CONTENTS PAGE 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 clement of civilization — Mastery of nature — The defect of Occidental civilization, . . 6i V. JAPANESE SENSITIVENESS TO ENVIRONMENT Our main question — Illustrations — Japanese students abroad — Sensitiveness to ridicule — Advantages and dis- advantages of this characteristic — National sensitiveness to foreign criticism — Nudity — Formosa — Mental and physical tlexibility — Adjustability — Some apparent ex- ceptions — Chinese ideographs — How account for these characteristics, VI. WAVES OF FEELING— ABDICATION The Japanese are emotional — An illustration from politics — The tendency to run to extremes — Danger of over- emphasizing 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 — Tovi^nsend 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 — IModcrn moral heroes — Hero-worship depends on personality and idealism — The new social order is producing new ideals and new heroes, 8g VIII. LOVE FOR CHILDREN Japanese love for children — Children's festivals — Toys and toy-stores^ — Do Japanese love children more than Amer- icans do? — Importance in Japan of maintaininc: the family line — The looseness of the Japanese family tic — Early cessation of demonstrative affection — Infan- ticide, q6 CONTENTS IX. MARITAL LOVE Affection between husband and wife — Occidental and Orien- tal 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. Nee- sima — A personal experience — Illegitimate children — Fraudulent registration — Adult adoption— Divorce — Monogamy, polygamy, and prostitution — Race character, social order, and affection — Position of women — The so- cial order and affection — The social order and the valu- ation 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, . . . . 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 confi- dence and trustfulness — Relation to communalistic feudalism — Changes in the social order and in charac- ter — The American Board's experience in trusting Jap- anese honor — The Doshisha and its difficulties — Sus- piciousness — Necessary under the old social order — The need of constant care in conversation, . . • iiS 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 Asy- lums — Treatment of horses — Torture in Old Japan — Crucifixion and transfixion by spears — Hard-hearted- ness cultivated under feudalism — Cruelty and the hu- mane feelings in the Occident — Abolition of cruel cus- toms in ancient and in Old Japan — Cruelty a sociolog- ical, not a biological characteristic — The rise of humane feelings — Doctors and hospitals — Philanthropy, . . I27 4 CONTENTS XII. AMBITION— CONCEIT PAGE Ambition, both individual and national — The " Kumamoto Band " — Sclf-confidcncc and conceit — Refined in na- ture — Ilkistrations 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-confi- dence and assumptions not without ground — Self-con- fidence 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 de- votion 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 — Jap- anese Imperial succession is of Oriental t3'pe — Concu- bines and children of the reigning Emperor — Apotheosis, Oriental and Occidental — Apotheosis and national unity — The political conflict between Imperial and popu- lar sovereignty — Japanese and Roman apotheosis — Prof. Nash quoted — Courage — Cultivated in ancient times — A peculiar feature of Japanese courage — " Harakiri " — W. E. Griffis quoted — A boy hero — Relation of courage to social order — Japanese courage not only physical — A modern instance of moral courage, .... 144 XIV. FICKLENESS— STOLIDITY- STOICISM Illustrations of fickleness — Prof. Chamberlain's explana- tion — 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 fluc- tuation is passing away — Tmpassiveness — " Putty faces" — Distinguish between stupidity and stoicism — Stupid stolidity among the farmers — Easily removed — Social stolidity cultivated — Demrmded by the old social order — The indiuMHH' of Buddhism in suppressing ex- pression of emotion — An illuslration of suppressed ciu-i- osity — Lack of emotional manifestations when the Em- CONTENTS 5 PAGE peror 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. .ESTHETIC CHARACTERISTICS The wide development of the aesthetic sense in Japan — Japanese aesthetic 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 — Esthetics of speech — The aesthetic sense and the use of personal pronouns — Deficiency of the aesthetic development in regard to speech — Sociological explanations — Close re- lation of aesthetics and conduct — Sociological explana- tion for the wide development of. the aesthetic sense — The classes lived in close proximity — The spirit of de- pendence and imitation — Universality of culture more apparent than real — Defects of a:sthetic taste — Defective etiquette — How accounted for — Old and new condi- tions — " Western taste debasing Japanese art " — Illus- tration of aboriginal aesthetic defects — Colored photo- graphs—esthetic defects of popular shrines — The aes- thetics of music — Experience of the Hawaiian people — Literary aesthetic development — Aston quoted — Archi- tectural aesthetic development — Esthetic 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 — Hin-* du memory — Max Miiller 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. Charnberlain'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 adop- tion — 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 V I 6 CONTENTS XVII. ORIGINALITY— INVENTIVENESS PAGE Originality in art — Authoritative suppression of originality — Townsend Harris quoted — Suppression of Christianity and of heterodox Confucianism — Modern suppression of historical research — Yet Jaiian is not wholly lacking in originality — Recent discoveries and inventions — Orig- inality in borrowing from the West — Quotations from a native paper, 203 XVIII. INDIRECTNESS—" NOMINALITY " " Roundaboutness " — Some advantages of this characteris- tic — Illustrations — Study of English for direct and ac- curate habits of thought — Rapid modern growth of di- rectness — " Nominality " — All Japanese history an illus- tration — 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 peurile 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 — Aleta- physics and ethics — Japanese students of Occidental phi- losophy — A personal experience — " The little philoso- pher " — A Buddhist priest — Rarity of original philo- sophical ability and even interest — Philosophical ability and the social order in the West % XXI. IMAGINATION Some criticisms of Japanese mental traits — Wide range of imaginative activity — Some salient points — Unbalanced \ CONTENTS 7 PAGE 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 imita- tion — 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 so- cial 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 litera- ture — On the ideal of the samurai in relation to trade — Old Japan combined statute and ethical law — " The testament of lyeyasu " — Ohashi's condemnation of West- ern 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 individ- ual — Confucian and Buddhistic teaching in regard to concubinage and polygamy — Sociological interpreta- tion — Japan not exceptional — Actual morality of Old Japan — Modern growth of immorality — Note on the " Social Evil " — No ancient teaching in regard to mas- culine 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 ex- perience at a hot-spring — Mr. Hearn on privacy — Indi- 8 CONTENTS PAGE vidualism 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 — Statis- tics — 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 mis- management — 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. Pfleidercr's view — Pcrcival Lowell's definition of re- ligion — 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 re- ligion lightly — Statements concerning religion by Messrs. Fukuzawa, Kato, and Ito — Statements of Japanese ir- religion are not to be lightly accepted — Incompetence of many critics — We must study all the religious phenom- ena—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, 2S6 XXVI. SOME RELIGIOUS PHENOMENA Stoical training conceals religious emotions — The earnest- ness of many suppliants — Buddhistic and Shinto prac- tice 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 re- ligious history — Shinto — Buddhism — Confucianism — Christianity — Roman Catholicism — Protestantism — Re- ligious characteristics are social, not essential or racial. 296 XXVII. SOME RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS Japruu'sc conceptions as to deity — The number and relation of the gods to the tmiverso — Did the Jnpanes-e have the monotheistic conception ? — Attractiveness of Christian CONTENTS 9 PAGE monotfieism — Confucian and Buddhist monism — Reli- gious 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 de- cree) — Japan not unique — Sociological interpretations of religious characteristics, 310 XXVIII. SOME RELIGIOUS PRACTICES Loyalty and filial piety as religious phenomena — Gratitude as a religious trait — Hearn quoted — Unpleasant ex- periences of ingratitude — Modern suppression of phal- licism — 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 NA- TIONAL EVOLUTION Progress is from smaller to larger communities — Arrest of development — The necessity of individualism — The rela- tion of communal to individual development — A possible misunderstanding — The problem of distribution — Per- sonality, 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 imper- sonality 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 con- demnation of " falling in love " — Sociological significance of divorce and of " falling in love," .... 344 10 CONTENTS PAGE XXXI. THE JAPANESE NOT IMPERSONAL The problem stated — Definitions — Remarks on definitions — Characteristics of a person — Impersonality defined — A preliminary summary statement — Definitions of Com- munalism and Individualism — The argument for " impersonality " from Japanese politeness — Some difficulties of this interpretation — The sociological interpretation of politeness — The significance of Japa- nese sensitiveness — Altruism as a proof of impersonality — Japanese selfishness and self-assertiveness — Distinc- tion between communal and individualistic altruism — Deficiency of personal pronouns as a proof of imperson- ality — A possible counter-argument — Substitutes for per- sonal 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 person- alities in Japan — Feudalism and strong personalities, . 356 XXXII. IS BUDDHISM IMPERSONAL? Self-suppression as a proof of impersonality — Self-suppres- s-ion cannot be ascribed to a primitive people — Esoteric Buddhism not popular — Buddhism emphasized intro- spection 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 attrib- utes 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 hut abstract — Buddhist doctrine of illu- sion — Popular Buddhism not philosophical — Relation of " ingwa," Fate, to the development of personality — Rela- tion of belief in freedom to the fact of freedom — Socio- logical consequences of Buddhist doctrine. . . . 377 XXXIH. TRACES OF PERSONALITY IN SHINTOISM, BUDDHISM, AND CON- FUCIANISM Human illogicalness providential — Some devices for avoid- ing the evils of logical conclusions — Buddliistic actual appeal to personal self-activity— Practical Confucianism CONTENTS II PAGE an antidote to Buddhist poison — Confucian ethics pro- duced strong persons — The personal conception of deity is widespread — Shinto gods all persons — Popular Bud- dhist gods are personal — Confucian " Heaven " implies personality — The idea of personality not wholly wanting in the Orient — The idea of divine personality not diffi- cult to impart to a Japanese — A conversation with a Buddhist priest — Sketch of the development of Japanese personality — Is personality inherent? — Intrinsic and phe- nomenal personality — Note on the doctrine of the per- sonality 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 Per- sonality — 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 — Con- sequences 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 — Re- cent abdication of Shinto as a religion — Primitive Shinto world - view — Shinto and modern science — Shinto sanctions for the modern social order — Bud- dhism is individualistic — Lacks social ideals and sanc- tions — 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 his- tory — Confucianism restored the waning communal sanctions — The difference between Shinto and Confu- cian 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 inter- course re-established Shinto sanctions — Japan's modern religious problem — Difficulty of combining individual and communal religious elements— Christianity has 12 CONTENTS PAGE accomplished it — Individualism in and through com- munalism — A modern expansion of communal religion — Shared by Japan — Some Japanese recognize the need of religion for Japan — Sociological function of individual- istic religion in the higher human evolution — Obstacle to evolution through the development of intellect — The Japanese mind is outgrowing its old religious concep- tions — The dependence of religious phenomena on the ideas dominating society — Note on National and Uni- versal 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 diffi- culty 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, 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 dis- cussion to advanced races — Divergent evolution depend- ent on segregation — Distinction between racial and so- cial unity — Relation of the individual psychic character to the social order — " Race soul " a convenient fiction — Psychic function produces psychic organis'm — Causes and nature of plasticity and fixity of society — Relation of incarnate ideas to character and destiny — Valueless- ness of " floating " ideas — Progress is at once communal and individual — Personality is its cause, aim, and cri- terion — Progress in personality is ethico-religious — Japanese social and psychic evolution not exceptional, . 43S 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 back- ward races. The correctness of any interpretation as to the sig- nificance of this conflict between the opposing civiliza- tions 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 civiliza- tions. The inadequacy of the physiological theory of na- tional character may be seen almost at a glance by a look at Japan. Were an Oriental necessarily and un- changeably 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 besfins to build 14 INTRODUCTION her national temple on the bedrock of universal truth and righteousness. The conflict is practically over in Japan because she has done this. In loyallv ac- cepting science, popular education, and the rights of every individual to equal protection by the government, Japan has accepted the fundamental conceptions of civ- ilization held in the West, and has thus become an in- tegral part of Christendom, a fact of world-wide signifi- cance. It proves that the most important differences now separating the great races of men are civiliza- tional, 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 move- ments 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, be- cause 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 thou- sands of years have been undergoing divergent evolu- tion, producing radically different languages, customs, civilizations, systems of thought and world-views, and have resulted even in marked physiological and psy- chological 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 inter- national 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 aeon/oh which wc arc entering. What arc to be the INTRODUCTION 15 final consequences of this wide intercourse? Can a people change its character? Can a nation fully pos- sessed 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 des- tinies of the Oriental races already unalterably de- termined? 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 conse- quences. 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 pro- ducing 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 mani-' fest 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 role to which she is destined as the natural leader of the Oriental races in their adop- tion of Occidental modes of life and thought, justifies a careful study of Japanese character. He who really i6 INTRODUCTION understands Japan, has gained the magic key for un- locking 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 un- questionably 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 resi- dent," 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 peo- ple, 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 witli 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 Japa- nese people or language, contains the following para- graph: " In the case of such writers as Sir Edwin Arnold and Mr. Lafcadio Ilearn it is quite apparent that the logical INTRODUCTION 17 faculty is in abeyance. Imagination reigns supreme. As poetic flights or outbursts, the works of these authors on Japan are dehghtful 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 de- tail, did space allow." — Japan Mail, May 7, i8p8. But even more harmful to the reading public of Eng- land and America are the hastily formed yet, neverthe- less, widely published opinions of tourists and news- paper 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 im- pression so common to-day that Japan's recent devel- opments are anomalous, even contrary to the laws of national growth, is chiefly due to the superficial writ- ings 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 Commis- sioner of the Pall Mall Gazette, Mr, Henry Norman, i8 INTRODUCTION 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 impres- sion 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 crea- tion. 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. Tlie 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. ii6. 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 thedrs 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 per- suaded that there is anything praiseworthy in her old INTRODUCTION 19 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 misun- derstand 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 misun- derstandings 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 de- termining their development. In the East this error arises from and rests upon its polytheism, and the ac- companying 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 senti- ments. 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 domi- neering spirit of Western nations. But the most subtle and scholarly doctrine appealed to in support of national pride is the biological concep- tion 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 mis- conception. Spencer, for example, ' makes sociology a branch of biology. More recent sociological writers, however, such as Professors Giddings and 20 INTRODUCTION Fairbanks, have taken special pains to assert the essentially physic 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 de- velo])ment 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 reg- ulate psychic development and the progress of civiliza- tion 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 ap- peared to have "jumped out of her skin," or suddenly to have escaped from the heredity of her past millen- niums 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 crea- tion," but it is also due to the still current popular view that the social organism is biological, and subject there- fore to the laws of biological evolution. On this as- sumption, some hold that the progress of Japan, how- ever it may appear, is really superficial. v>hile others represent it as somehow having evaded the laws regu- lating the development of other races. A nation's char- acter and characteristics are conceived to be the prod- uct of brain-structure; these can change only as brain structure changes. Brain is held to determine civiliza- tion, rather than civilization brain. Hampered by this defective view, popular writers inevitably describe Japan to the West in terms that necessarily misrepre- sent her, and that at the same tinu' pander to Occitlental pride and prejudice. lUit tliis misunderstanding of Japan reveals an ecjually profound misunderstanding in regard to ourselves. INTRODUCTION 21 Occidental peoples are supposed to be what they are in civilization and to have reached their high attain- ments in theoretical and applied science, in philosophy and in practical politics, because of their unique brain- structures, brains secured through millenniums of bio- logical 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 dififerences 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-psy- chological 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 dif- ference between social and physiological heredity and , evolution is unappreciated except by a few of the most I recent sociological writers. The part that association, / social segregation, and social heredity take in the main- tenance, not only of once developed languages and civi- lizations, 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 person- ality. 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 dis- tinctive characteristic of human evolution and of human association, and it should accordingly be the funda- mental principle of social science. Many writers on the East have emphasized what they call its " imper- sonal " 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 22 INTRODUCTION is a self-conscious, self-dctcrminative 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 aflfect or determine progress are those which afifect or deter- mine personality. The biological evolution of man from the animal has been, it is true, frankly assumed in this work. No at- tempt 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 evolu- tion 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 haveproduced 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 re- mains 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 per- sonality. 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 civiliza- tion 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 tele- 24 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE graph, the daily paper, the intelhgent reporters and writers of books and magazine articles, the rapid steam travel and the many travelers — all these have made pos- sible this sudden actjuisition of knowledge and startling reversal of opinion. There is reason, however, to think that much mis- apprehension 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 cor- responded with her actual attainments. But they assume that there was nothing of importance in the old civilization; that it was little superior to organized bar- barism. These people conceive of the change which has taken place in Japan during the past thirty years as a revolu- tion, not as an evolution ; as an abandonment of the old, and an adoption of the new, civilization. They con- ceive the old tree of civilization to have been cut down and cast into the fire, and a new tree to have been im- ported 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 im- provements imported from abroad, and which conse- quently 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 andiron with its vegetable oil, dim light, and flickering flame. Recently, however, an electric-light comi)any was organized in that city, and this brilliant illuminant was hitroduccd not only PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 25 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 illumi- nation, 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 con- tradicting 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 some- thing 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 riew 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 Japa- nese so suddenly abandon Oriental for Occidental civili- zation? 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 26 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 suf- fered 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 lan- guage to the philosophy of the new religions, that Japanese civilization, language, and religion are mark- edly 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 under- stand 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 dififerently 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 stuily 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 differ- ence is due to the environment alone is impos- sible, 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 PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 27 \ who seek to understand the secret of Japan's newly won power and reputation by looking sim- ply at her newly acquired forms of government, her reconstructed national social structure, her recently con- structed roads and railroads, telegraphs, representative government, etc., and especially at her army and navy organized on European models and armed with Eu- ropean weapons, are not unlike those who would dis- cover the secret of human life by the study of anatomy. This external view and this method of interpretation are, therefore, fundamentally erroneous. Never, per- haps, 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 civiliza- tion. No magician's wand has been waved over the land to make the people forget the traditions of a^ thou- sand years and fall in with those of the new regime. 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 con- tinuous growth; it is not the mere accumulation of ex- ternal additions; it does not consist alone of the acquisi- tion of the machinery and the institutions of the Occi- dent. 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 28 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 manu- factures, the infinite variety of mechanical and other conveniences? Or is it not rather the social and intel- ^ lectual and ethical state of a people? ^Manifestly the 1 latter. The tools indeed of civilization may be imported i into a half-civilized, or barbarous country; such impor- tation, 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 doubt- less 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 pro- gressive modification of the old organs under new con- ditions. The modern locomotive did not spring com- plete from the mind of James Watt; it is the result of thousands of years of human experience and conse- quent evolution, beginning first pcrhajis with a rolling log, becoming a rude cart, and being gratlually trans- formed by successive inventions until it has become one of the marvels of the nineteenth century. It is impos- sible for those who liave attained the view-jioint of modern science to conceive of discontinuous progress; of continually rising types of being, of thought, or of PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 29 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 adop- tion 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, ofif-hand, without prepa- ration, 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 experi- enced such unique changes in her environment. Her history brings into clear light some principles of evolu- tion which the usual 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 30 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 evolu- tion 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, anni- hilators 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 illus- trate great things by small, and human by physical, no one wlio has visited Geneva has failed to see the beau- tiful 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 qtiite distinct; the one, turbitl; the other, clear as cr\slal: yet they press PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 31 each against the other, now a Httle of the Rhone's clear current forces its way into the Arve, soon to be carried ofif, 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 iden- tity 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 civiliza- •tion, that of the far East and that of the far West, are jDeginning to flow in a single channel. These streams are exceedingly diverse, in social structure, in govern- ment, in moral ideals and standards, in religion, in psy- chological and metaphysical conceptions. Can they live together? Or is one going to drive out and anni- hilate 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 Occi- dento-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 cer- tain 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 im- possible 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 Occident- alize it. But there is no reason for thinking that it will 32 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE! 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 Occidentaliza- tion 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 min- gling 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 min- gling of two civilizations. It is not smooth and noise- less, but attended with pressure and pain. It is a colli- sion 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 con- spicuous 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 s]ion- taneous, 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 evo- lution. In Japan, on the other hand, evolution is PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 33 natural. There has not been the sHghtest physical com- pulsion laid on her from without. With two rare ex- ceptions, 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 lan- guage, literature, and religions from ten to twelve cen- turies 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 occu- pancy. 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 cover- ing 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 cus- toms, 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 prin- ciples 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 34 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE by the communication of new ideas." Free choice has made Japan reject Chinese astronomy, surgery, medi- cine, and jurisprudence. The early choice to admit for- eigners to Japan to trade may have been made en- tirely 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 in- herited mental and temperamental characteristics, re- acting 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 cen- tral region. This mythological history narrates the cir- cumstances 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, tra- dition shows us the progenitors of the modern Japa- nese people as conquerors from the west and south who drove the aborigines before them and gradually took possession of the entire land. That these con- querors 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. Vic- tory was followed by federation. And through the development of a common language, of common cus- toms and common ideas, the tribes were unified socially 35 36 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE and psychically. Consciousness of this unity was em- phasized by the age-long struggle against the Ainu, who were not completely conquered tmtil the eighteenth century-. With the dawn of authentic history- (500600 a. d.) we find amalgamation of the conquering tribes, with, however, constantly recurring inter-clan and inter- family wars. ^lany of these continued for scores and even hundreds of years — proving that, in the modem 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 \'ia Korea, through the nominal ac- ceptance 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 aflected 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 Bar- barian-expelling Generalissim.o." This ofiice devel- oped in power tmtil, 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 centun.-. 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 HISTORICAL SKETCtI 37 — 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 ele- ment of civilization, was in some respects disastrous to her original growth. Instead of working out the prob- lems 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 com- posite religion of which they are the heirs. Moreover, early contact with China and her enor- mous literature checked the development of the native language and the growth of the native literature. The language suffered arrest because of the rapid introduc- tion of Chinese terms for all the growing needs of thought and civilization. Modern Japanese is a com- pound of the original tongue and Japonicized Chinese. Native speculative thought likewise found little encour- agement or stimulus fo independent activity in the presence of the elaborate and in many respects pro- found philosophies brought from India and Cliina. From earliest times the government of Japan was essentially feudal. Powerful families and clans dis puted and fought for leadership, and the political his- tory 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 38 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE shrewd Tokiigawa family, the poHcy of which was peace and national self-sufficiency. The representatives of the Occidental nations (chiefly of Spain and Portui^al) 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. Feudal- ism 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 coun- try 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 regime of over 250 years. During- this period no influences came from other lands to disturb the natural development. With the ex- ception of three ships a year from Holland, an occa- sional 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 mak- ing 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 Im- perial line which they had practically supplanted. The casual student of Jai)an has been e(|ually igno- rant of the real mental and moral caliber of the Japa- nese. Dressed in clothing that apjieared to us fantastic, and armed with cumbersome armor and old-fashioned HISTORICAL SKETCH 39 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; educa- tion was limited to the samurai, or military class, re- tainers 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 un- known. 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. Archi- tecture had received its great impulse from the intro- duction 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 40 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE certain school of Confucian teachers known as " Shin- Gaku " — " Heart-Knowledge." Art also made prog- ress, 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 po- litical and social order: the lack of a foreign foe to com- pel abandonment of the tribal organization; the moun- tainous 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 innova- tions 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 thor- ough-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 Toku- gawa Shogunate served to arouse ever-growing opposi- tion because of its stern repression of individual opinion. It not only forbade the Christian religion, but also all independent thought in religious philosoi)hy and in poli- tics. The particular form of Confucian moral philoso- phy 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, last- ing 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 his- HISTORICAL SKETCH 41 tory. Indeed, they had no other outlet for their ener- gies. As they studied the history of the past and com- pared their resuUs with the facts of the present, it grad- ually dawned on the minds of the scholars of the eigh- teenth century, that the Tokugawa family were exer- cising 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 reve- nues. It is possible for us to see now that these early Jap- anese scholars idealized their ancient history, and as- signed 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 ac- cepted 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 Em- peror 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, there- fore, the scholars announced that the existing govern- ment 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 re- ligious 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 42 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE family would have taken place even though there had been no interference of foreign nations, no extraneous influences. But eciually certain is it that these antag- onisms 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 for- eigners. 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 gun- boats, 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 dcjue only bv the overthrow of HISTORICAL SKETCH 43 the Tokugawa Shogawa; which was effected in 1867-68 after a short struggle, marked by great clemency. We thus reahze 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 depend- ent 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 at- tained, 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 Gov- ernment " was early translated, and read by all the think- ing 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 assem- blies and a national diet. In other words, the theories and practices of the West in regard to the political or- 44 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE ganization 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 sup- plied 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 loco- motion by land and sea, the postal and telegraphic sys- tems of communication, the steam printing press, the system of popular education, and the modern organiza- tion of the army and the navy. These instruments Japan made haste to acquire. But for these, the rapid trans- formation 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 exi:)lanation of one of the most astonishing changes in national attitude that his- tory 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 tlicse foreigners is impossi- ble; 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 witli marvelous readiness, for a reason which few foreigners can appreciate. Mad this HISTORICAL SKETCH 45 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 sanc- tion 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, how- ever, 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 ques- tion, resort was thus made to intellectual force, and with real success. The practice since then has not been so much to re- tain the foreigner as to learn of him and then to elimi- nate 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 gov- ernment. A foreigner is useful not for what he can do, but for what he can teach. When any Japanese can do 46 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 fea- tures. In government, she is no longer arbitrary, auto- cratic, and hereditary, but constitutional and representa- tive. Town, provincial, and national legislative assem- blies 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 meth- ods. 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 ex- clusively 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 arc needed at once. Middle and high schools throughout the land are re- jecting 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. News- papers, magazines, and books pour forth from the uni- versal 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, ])olitical, and religious liberty has been practically secure now for over two decades, guaran- teed by the constitution, and enforced by the courts. HISTORICAL SKETCH 47 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 mat- ters, with the result that the national health has im- proved 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 con- spicuously. 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 re- placed the old footpaths, except in the most mountain- ous 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 pro- ductive 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 reckon- ing 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 transforma- tions produced by the " restoration " of the present Em- peror, upon the overthrow of the " Bakufu," or " Cur- tain 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. 48 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE Its magic wand left nothing untouched and unchanged. It was the Restoration that overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate, which reigned supreme for over two cen- turies and a half. It was the Restoration that brought us face to face with the Occidentals. It was the Resto- ration that pulled the demigods of the Feudal lords down to the level of the commoners. It was the Res- toration 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 earth- quakes 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 mes- senger, 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 Soc- rates and Aristotle the chairs left vacant by Confucius and Mencius. It was the Restoration that let Shak- spere and Goethe take the place of Bakin and Chika- matsu. It was the Restoration that deprived the people of the swords and topnots. In short, after the Restora- tion 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 every- thing " (p. 541). A natural outcome of the Restoration is the exuber- ant patriotism that is so characteristic a feature of New Japan. The very term " ai-koku-shin " is a new crea- tion, almost as new as the thing. This word is an in- cidental proof of the general correctness of the conten- tion 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 HISTORICAL SKETCH 49 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 na- tional 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 be- fore knew. Japanese patriotism has only in this gen- eration come to self-consciousness. This leads it to many a strange freak. It is vociferous and imperious, and often very impractical and Chauvinistic. It fre- quently takes the form of u.ncompromising 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, criticis- ing 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 50 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 chil- dren be weakened. So far as appears but one voice was raised for a more liberal policy. Mr. Y. Kamada main- tained 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 shal- lowness 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 syml)ol for the l^nipcror has been in vogue since 700 a. d., the custom having been adopted from Qiina. "When in 1859 a national flag corre- sponding to those of Europe became necessary, the Sun Banner naturally stepped into the vacant place." * The second fact is the recent origin of the festival * " Tliiiij^s Japanese," p. 156. HISTORICAL SKETCH 51 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. Stan- ford 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.* * Let not the reader gather from the very brief glance at the attainments of New Japan, that she has overtaken the nations of Christendom in all important respects; for such is far from the case. He needs to be on his guard not to overestimate what has been accomplished. Ill THE PROBLEM OF PROGRESS WHAT constitutes progress? And what is the true criterion for its measurement? In adopt- ing Western methods of Hfe and thought, is Japan advancing or receding? The simphcity of the life of the common people, their freedom from fashions that fetter the Occidental, their independence of furni- ture in their homes, their few wants and fewer necessi- ties — these, when contrasted with the endless needs and demands of an Occidental, are accepted by some as evi- dences 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 los- ing their former happiness under the stress of new con- ditions. 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, un- sophisticated peoi)le; 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 con- cerned. 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 lortl lived in rela- tive luxury, yet in such small communities tliere never was the great difference between classes that we find in 52 THE PROBLEM OF PROGRESS 53 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 ofifense 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 com- punction, sometimes simply to test a sword. In de- scribing those times one man said to me, " They used to' cut ofif 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 ac- quaintances, whether, in view of the increasing difificul- ties 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 indi- vidual rights and freedom and the manhood that comes from just laws for all. A striking feature of those Japanese who are un- changed by foreign ways is their obsequious manner toward superiors and officials. The lordly and often- times 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 pun- 54 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE ishable with instant death at the hands of the retainers who accompanied the lord. Dnrins^ 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. When 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 compara- tively 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. h\or, 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 ajipcar! 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 tliat women, constituting half the popula- THE PROBLEM OF PROGRESS 55 tion, 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." * '' 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 castiga- tion." " 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 * Prof. B. H. Chamberlain. 56 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE must serve him with all reverence and worship, not de- spising 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 instruc- tion 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 con- duct, 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 concu- bines that may l)c found in the homes of the higher THE PROBLEM OF PROGRESS 57 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,* and her menial position, justify the assertion that there was much room for improve- ment. 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 indi- vidual 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 un- measured 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 happi- ness 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. Re- gardless of distressing circumstances, the child is able to laugh and play, and this because he is a child ; a child *Only since the coming of the new period has it become pos- sible for a woman to gain a divorce from her husband. 58 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE in his ignorance of actual life, and in his inability to per- ceive the true conditions in which he lives. Not other- wise, 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 rvded, 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 ex- ception, 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 man- hood or w^omanhood among the people. The happi- ness 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. Sym- pathy, in its full meaning, was unknown in Old Jajian. The barbarous custom of casting out the leper from the home, to wander a lonely exile, living on the charity of THE PROBLEM OF PROGRESS 59 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 ion 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 thd present time. They also overlook the profound happi- •ness and widespread prosperity of the present era. Trade, commerce, manufactures, travel, the freest of intercommunication, newspapers, and international re- lations, 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 miore Vs^orthy and profoundly enjoy- able, 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 condi- tions 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 centraliza- tion ; it is rather a problem of so developing the structure of society that the individual may have the fullest oppor-^.J ^ ^rj tunity for development. 6o EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE The measure of progress is not the degree of racial unification, of political centralization, or of unrcflective happiness, but rather the degree and the extent of indi- vidual personality. Racial unification, political centrali- zation, 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 pur- pose 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 ad- herence 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 Evolu- tion,* 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 * Chapter xxix. Some may care to read this chapter at this point. 6i 62 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 govern- ment 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 disap- proval. 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 in- dependent 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 use- ful 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; /. c, that it is far less difficult to develop communalism than com- muno-individualism. The family of arrested civiliza- tions, of which China and India and Japan, until re- cent 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 in- dividual 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 gov- ernment 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 diffi- culty 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 shared more or less fully by all the governed. THE METHOD OF PROGRESS 63 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 discus- sion is the necessary consequence of the wide acceptance of this conception. It is therefore the real root of prog- ress. 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 tnat stage of de- velopment 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 regime, I cannot see that that centralization would have been ac- companied 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 g/U^f^^'^ made in the direction of nationality it would still have been a despotism. The common man would have re- mained a helpless and hopeless slave. Art might have ^1 u/"^'^'^^' 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 in- herent value of a human being could not arise spon- taneously in Japan, he will conclude that the progress . ^^.^J* of Japan depended on securing this important concep- '^Y^^x,u-<_, tion from without. Exactly this has taken place. By J^^^ __^^ her thorough-going abandonment of the feudal social / Q order and adoption of the constitutional and representa- V^ tive government of Christendom, whether she recog- "P Vy^-^^,"" nizes it or not, she has accepted the principles of the in- W herent worth of manhood and womanhood, as well as . ,y^. . ^ 64 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE government by discussion. Japan has thus, by imita- tion 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 de- sirable for its full comprehension. We have already noted quite briefly* how Japan was supplied by the West wath the ideal of national unity and the material instru- ments 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 imi- tation, but if progress is to be real and lasting, both must grow to independence. The first and by far the most important is the psychi- cal, 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 comprehen- sion, and the mind spontaneously awakes to wonderful activity. The old stagnation is no longer possible. Dis- cussion 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 pre- sented 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 build- ing of ships, the invention of machinery, the taming and using of the forces of nature, but also with methods * Cf. chapter ii. THE METHOD OF PROGRESS 65 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 \yith Western peoples to convince the most conserva- tive 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-preser- vation was the first great stimulus that drove new thoughts into unwilling brains. There can be no doubt that the Japanese were right f^y- 'i^-' in this analysis of the situation. Had they insisted on k>^- . maintaining their old methods of national life and social ^^^^JuJ-t.-: 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 per- sisting 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 combina- tion of national characteristics, — the powers of ob- servation, 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 de- liverance came was through the acquisition of numerous new ideas. These were presented by persons who thor- oughly believed in them and who admittedly had a power not possessed by the Japanese themselves. Though unable to originate these ideas, the Japanese f^^ ^^"^"^'^ yet proved themselves capable of understanding and ; ^. N appreciating them — in a measure at least. They were -^ . j^ at first attracted to that which related chiefly to the ex- t ^^ '"^ ternals^ of civilization, to that which would contribute immediately to the complete political centralization of the nation. With great rapidity they adopted Western. 66 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE ideas about warfare and weapons. They sent their young men abroad to study the civiHzation of the for- eign 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 lib- erty 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 na- tion without any mediating group. These rights and liberities are secured to the individual by a constitution and by laws enacted by representative legi^fetures. 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 suf- ficient 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 ami 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 THE METHOD OF PROGRESS 67 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 ?on. 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 prac- tices be thought to constitute progress or not will de- pend 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 continu- ously 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 intro- duced a social order fitted to a wide development of per- sonality. 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 ad- vantages 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. 68 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE The enthusiastic admirer of Japan hardly finds words wherewith sufiiciently to praise the simphcity of her pre-Meiji civihzation. No furniture brings confusion to the room; no machinery distresses the ear with its groanings or the eye with its unsighthness. Xo fac- tories blacken the sky with smoke. No trains screech- ing 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 cook- ing 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 chajacter 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 ofif with- out." * 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 Jap- anese 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 su]iposition of the purchaser that it adds cither to his health or his comfort. In witness are the luuulreds of *" Kokoro," by L. llcarii, ]). 31. THE METHOD OF PROGRESS 69 thousands of straw hats, the glass windows everywhere, and the meat-shops in each town and city of the Em- pire. 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 stilT 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 Occi- dental civilization have their definite place and value, either in contributing directly to the comfort and happi- ness 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 in- telligent? 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 simi- lar questions might be asked, to which no definite an- swers are needful. Further discussion of details seems unnecessary. Yet the full significance of this point can hardly be appre- ciated 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 70 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 con- sists, 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 suit- able 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 in- crease his health, his wealth, his knowledge, his com- fort, 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 an- nihilates time and space; he defies the storms; he tun- nels 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 alierr man; all are subject to his command and will. He in- vestigates 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 psychi- cal, practical and ideal, that is otherwise unattainable. I By them he gains and gives external expression to the reality of his inner nature, his freedom, liis juM'Sonality. True, instead of bringing health and long life, knowledge and deep enjoyment, they may become the means of bit- terest curses. But the lesson to learn from this fact THE METHOD OF PROGRESS 71 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 not ^ its multiplicity of machinery, but the defective view that \ still blinds the eyes of the multitude as to the true na- -^ ture 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 n ;^ life in the form of social organization and mechanical ^cU^'t^ c,^-^ invention. This makes it possible for nations more or ik"^'"'^^^^ less backward in "social and civilizational development iv^'*^^^''*'^ to gain in a relatively short time the advantages won r aM 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 advan- tages slowly gained by advanced peoples speedily ac- crues through social heredity to any backward race really desiring to enter the social heritage. Thus does the paradox of Japan's recent progress be- come thoroughly intelligible. 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, show- ing their origin in the peculiar nature of the so- cial order which so long prevailed in Japan. This is a study of Japanese psychogenesis. The ques- tion 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 na- ture of social evolution in general, depends upon the answer to this question. We naturally begin with that characteristic of Jap- anese nature which would seem to be more truly con- genital 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 con- scious feeling, rapidly pervading the whole people, that the feudal system would be unable to maintain the na- tional 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 in- stances, of which I have noted several. During a conversation with Drs. I-'orsythe and Dale, 72 SENSITIVENESS TO ENVIRONMENT 73 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, pro- vided he spent one summer in Germany and another in France. Japanese sensitiveness is manifested in many unex- pected ways. An observant missionary lady once re- marked 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 aflfixed 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. Man}' replies were given by the children — " snakes," " wild beasts," " fathers," " gods," " ghosts," " de- mons," " 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, nam.ely. 74 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE to b e lancrhpfl at " This speech, with its vivid illustra- tions, made a lastinj^ impression on the mind of the boy, and on reading what I had written he realized how pow- erful 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, man- ners, and speech of one's associates, and prompt con- formity to them, through imitation. The sensitiveness of Japanese students to each new environment is thus easily understood. And this sensitiveness to environ- ment has its advantages as well as its disadvantages. I have already referred to the help it gives to the estab- lishment 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 re- sembled 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 opin- ion. 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 atten- tion. It must be acknowledged, however, that now at last, twenty-five years after their jnissage. they are almost everywhere beginning to be enforced by the authorities. SENSITIVENESS TO ENVIRONMENT 75 My other illustration of sensitiveness to foreign opin- ion 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 govern- ment 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 nat- ural 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. " (i) 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 annoy- ance. 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 76 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 oiY 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. Num- ber 7, however, which hails from Osaka, is somewhat nar- row and prejudiced. The injunction not to sell houses to foreigners is, as the Jiji Shimpo points out, absurd and mischievous." * The sensitiveness of the people also works to the ad- vantage 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 char- acteristic. 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 diffi- cult for individuals to break away from their surround- ings 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 excejitional conditions, may have succeeded in breaking awa) from * Japan Mail, September 30, 1S99. SENSITIVENESS TO ENVIRONMENT 77 ft 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 environ- ment are other qualities which make it efifective. They are: great flexibility, adjustability, agility (both mental and physical), and the powers of keen attention to de- tails 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 im- migrants. 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 of^cials 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 use- ful 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 78 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 line-lookino;, accomplished gentleman whom he knew a few years before as a crude, ungainly youth. I am con- vinced that it is the possession of this set of charac- teristics 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 ex- ceptions. 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 pos- sibility of simplifying the colossal task of memorizing these uncorrelated ideographs does not seem to have occurred to the Japanese; though it is now being at- tempted by the foreigner. Perhaps a partial explana- tion 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 per- sonal and human, than to the impersonal and physical environment. The customary explanation of the group of char- acteristics considered in this chapter is that they arc 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 expla- nation at all. Accepting the characteristics as empiri- cal, inexplicable facts, the real problem is evaded, pushed into prehistoric times, that convenient dumping ground of biological, anthropological, and sociological diffi- culties. Japanese flexibility, imitativencss, and sensitiveness to environment are to be accounted for by a care- ful consideration of the national environment and social order. Modern ])sychology has called at- SENSITIVENESS TO ENVIRONMENT 79 tentioii to the astonishing part played by imitation, conscious and unconscious, in the evokition 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 spe- cial notice to the trait. But the rapidity of the move- ment has been due to the peculiarities of her environ- ment. For long periods she has been in complete isola- tion, and when brought into contact with foreign na- tions, 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 na- ture. 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 acknowledg- ment and sometimes even without knowledge, the Jap- anese, on the other hand, have repeatedly been placed in such circumstances as to see the superiority of for- eign 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 8o EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 influ- ences. 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 cir- cumstances. The spirit of the Chinaman, on the con- trary, 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 capa- ble 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, ab- solute obedience, constant, conscious imitation, secre- tiveness, 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 su- periority 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 peo])le. This is due to the nature of Japanese feudalism. It has made the body of the na- tion conspicuously subject to the ruling brain and has conferred on Japan her unique sensitiveness to en- vironment. SENSITIVENESS TO ENVIRONMENT 8i Susceptibility to slight changes in the feehngs of lords and masters and corresponding flexibiHty were important social traits, necessary products of the old social order. Those deficient in these regards would in- evitably lose in the struggle for social precedence, if not in the actual struggle for existence. These character- istics would, accordingly, be highly developed. Bearing in mind, therefore, the character of the fac- tors 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 emo- tional, but the full significance of this element of their nature is far from realized. It underlies their en- tire 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 pof^tical life of the nation comes to mind in this connection. For months previous to the outbreak of tho recent war with China, there had been a prolonged struggle between the Cabinet and the po- litical 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 Cab- inet, 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 lead- ership. The nation waxed hot over the discussion. Sus- cessive 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 pro])osed by the Cabinet, unless so reduced as to crijiplc the government, the reason con- stantly urged being that the Cabinet was not compe- tent to administer the expenditure of such large sluns of money. There were no direct charges of fraud,, but 82 WAVES OF FEELING— ABDICATION 83 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 extrav- agance, and a great explosion seemed inevitable, when, suddenly, a breeze from a new quarter arose and abso- lutely changed the face of the nation. War with China was whispered, and then noise-d around. Events moved rapidly. One or two success- ful encounters with the Chinese stirred the warlike pas- sion 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 con- fidence 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 na- tion was a unit in regard to the war. There was not the slightest sign of a " peace party." Of all the Jap- anese 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 ex- tremely liberal; if conservative, they are extremely con- servative. 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 84 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE Christians. Men who for years had done effective work in upbuilding the Church, men who had hfted 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 evan- gelical 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 emo- tional natures. Care must be taken, however, not to over-emphasize this extremist tendency. In some respects, I am con- vinced that it is more apparent than real. The appear- ance 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 en- thusiastic 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 character- istics 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 mem- bers from their customary places of worship. On in- quiry 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 be- came dissatisfied with the high-handed antl radical pas- WAVES OF FEELING -ABDICATION 85 tor, 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 in- justice 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 mod- ify the results. So silent were they that we were tempted to think them either ignorant of what was tak- ing place, or else indififerent to it. We now know, how- ever, that many felt deeply on the matter, but were sim- ply silent according to the Japanese custom. But silent dissent does not necessarily last indefi- nitely, though it may continue for years. As soon as some check has been put upon the rising tide of feel- ing, 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 ascend- ant 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 feel- ing, there are many well-balanced men who are not car- ried with the tide. The steady progress made by the nation during the past generation, in spite of emo- tional actions and reactions, must be largely attributed to the presence in its midst of these more stable na- tures. These are the men who have borne the respon- sibilities 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 in- dignation 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 at- tempt to fight Russia to allow themselves to be car- ried away by sentimental notions of patriotism. Theirs 86 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 thrash- ing 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 characteris- tics of the people, that we may well give it further at- tention at this point. In describing it, I can do no better than quote from J. H. Gubbins' valuable introduc- tion to his translation of the New Civil Code of Japan.* " Japanese scholars who have investigated the sub- ject 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 abdica- tion 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 mon- asteries, abdicating sovereigns shaved their heads and entered the priesthood, and when subsequently the cus- tom 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, tlie custom of abdi- cation 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 sev- erance from tradition and religious associations, whether * Part II. p. xxxii. WAVES OF FEELING— ABDICATION 87 re:,l 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 ' in kio ' 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 seclu- sion 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 posi- tion of the individual vis-a-vis the family being un- affected; in the other case, it is the position of head of the family which is relinquished, with the result of the complete efifacement 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 incom- patible with the^jimitinuation 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 addi- tion to the duties and responsibilities incumbent upon his position, has to bear the brunt of the tedious cere- monies 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. Tliat in many cases the reason for ab- dication lies in the wish to escape from the tyrannical 88 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE calls of family life, rather than in mere desire for idle- ness 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 per- son'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 pub- lished by the Shogunate in 1862. To a list of 268 rul- ing daimyos is added a list of 104 " in kio." In addition to what we may call political and family abdication, described above, is personal abdication, re- ferred to on a previous page. Are the traits of Japanese character considered in this chapter inherent and necessary? Already our de- scription 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 re- sponsibility 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 dis- approve 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. Per- sonal abdication and silent disa])proval, 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 exag- geration. Not only is the primitive religion, Shintoism, systematic hero-worship, but every hero known to his- tory 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 wait- ing 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 cari- cature. His face is distorted by a fierce frenzy of pas- sion, his eyeballs glaring, his hair fiying, and his hands hold with a mighty grip the two-handed sword where- with he is hewing to pieces an enemy. I am often amazed at the difference between the pictures of Japa- nese heroes and the living Japanese I see. This differ- ence is manifestly due to the idealizing process; for they 89 }( 90 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE love to see their heroes in their passionate moods and tenses. The craving for heroes, even on the part of those who are famihar with Western thought and customs, is a feature of great interest. Well do I remember the en- thusiasm 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 ap- peared 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 horse- back, 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 Japa- nese 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 re- gard as heroes. Since missionaries are not officials and do not have the manners of heroes, it is not to be ex- pected that the Jai")anese 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 Mciji, while giving them secular edu- HEROES AND HERO-WORSHIP 91 cation combined with Christian instruction. The condi- tions, 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 fearless- ness and assumption of superiority, he out-samuraied the samurai. He was a man of impressive and imperi- ous 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 transforma- tion 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 Chris- tian boys' school in Kumamoto, and the church with it, went for a whole year without principal and pastor be- cause they could not secure a man of national reputa- tion. They wanted a hero-principal, who would cut a 92 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 Em- pire and even to foreign lands. The unpretentious, un- prepossessing-looking man who was chosen temporarily, though endowed with common sense and rather un- usual 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 Scot- land; his passage money must be raised by the scho'ol 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 frag- ments 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 pro- portion of the people, especially the young men, there is nevertheless a class whose ideal heroes are not mili- tary, 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. 1 have recently read a Japanese novel l)ased upon the life of one such HEROES AND HERO-WORSHIP 93 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 tradi- tion 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 liis life may have been, this is certainly the representation of bis 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 prev- alent one. Not long since I heard the following coup- let 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 94 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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, prom- ises 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 num- berless 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 gen- tleman, educated in science, in history, and in foreign languages; but above all, he must be versetl in political economy and law. This new ideal of a national hero HEROES AND HERO-WORSHIP 95 has been brought in by the order of society, and in pro- portion 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 l\ praised by foreign writers is the love for chil- X JLdren. 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 con- spicuously 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 Jap- anese are esi)ecially fond of their children is the slight amount of punislimcnt and reprimand which they admin- ister. 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 marketl degree, more, for in- 96 LOVE FOR CHILDREN 97 stance, than Americans? And if so, is this due to their nature, or may it be attributed to their family Hfe 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 West, 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 op- portunity 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 civiliza- tion, and there are accordingly more opportunities for the manifestation of the father's affection for the chil- dren. 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 birth- 98 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE days, the uniform experience of the foreiiii^ner 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 spe- cial 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 mani- fested 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 determin- ing even so fundamental a trait as affection for off- spring. Affection for children is, however, not limited to the day of their birth or the period of their infancy. In judg- ing of the relative possession by different races of affec- tion 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 edu- cation. 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 chil- dren 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. AmouiJ- the mid- LOVE FOR CHILDREN 99 die 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 lliis respect. The differences between the East and the West are largely due to the differing in- dustrial and family conditions induced by the social order. The correctness of this general statement will per- haps 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 Jap- anese family together. It is one of the constant wonders to us Westerners how families can break up into frag- ments, as they constantly do. One third of the mar- riages 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 com- mon. Or, perhaps, it would be truer to say that divorce would be far more frequent than it is but for the moth- er'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 par- ents 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 le- gitimacy ; 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 ex- clusively, the adoption of an adult; the cases where 100 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 se- cured 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 atten- tion 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 no- torious 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 j\Iarch, 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 40-501 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 imtil deliv- ered by Christianity. Widespread infanticide proves a wide lack of natural afTection. 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 LOVE FOR CHILDREN loi 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 in- volved in poverty, for the members beyond that limit did not have the liberty to travel in search of new occu- pation. 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 deny- ing it altogether. In his brilliant but fallacious volume, entitled " Tlie 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 imperson- ality. That " falling in love " is not a recognized part of the family system, and that marriage is arranged regard- less 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 hus- bands 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 consjMcuously 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 mar- riage. The one counts woman the equal, if not the su- perior 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 impiu-e, beneath the dignity of a true man, and not to be taken into consideratiiMi 102 MARITAL LOVE 103 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 im- portant; 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 re- main 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 re- cent 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 " help- mate"; 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 every- thing, svv'eet-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 104 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE intellectual life of the nation. Politics, art, literature, science, are closed books to her. She cannot think logi- cally 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." * In face of all these facts, it is evident that the emo- tional element of character which plays so large a part ill the relation of the sexes in the West has little, if any, counterpart in the Far East. Where the emotional ele- ment 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 hus- band which is freely accorded her Western sister by her husband. f I wish, however, to add at once that this is a topic about which it is dangerous to dogmatize, for the cus- toms 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 re- ceiving the loving care which is expected by her West- */apan Mail, June 4, 1898, p. 586. f If all that has been said above as to the relative lack of affec- tion between husband and wife is true, it will help to make more credible, because more intelligible, the preceding cliapter as to the relative lack of love for children. Where the relation between husband and wife is what we have depicted it, where the children are systematically taught to feel for their father re- spect rather than love, the relation between the father and the children, or the mother and the children, cannot be the same as in lands where all these customs are reversed. MARITAL LOVE 105 ern 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 ex- emplified to a large degree even in the home, and under circumstances when we should think it impossible. Kiss- ing was an unknown art in Japan, and it is still un- known, except by name, to the great majority of the peo- ple. 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 Jap- anese 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 ex- hibit 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 so- cial 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 ic6 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 under- taking. 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; espe- cially 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 re- producing 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 for- eigners. Suddenly, without any introduction, he re- marked 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; espe- cially 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 ])ut 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, there- fore, very gladly to help my wife with hers. Yet, so con- trary to Japanese precedent was this act of mine that this well-educated gentleman and Christian, who had had much intercourse with foreigners, could not sec in it anything except the imperious command of the wife MARITAL LOVE 107 and the slavish obedience of the husband. His concep- tion 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 gen- eral 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 par- cels, 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 registra- tion, 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 al- ways 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 io8 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE divorced his second wife, the son was induced to take care of her also. Another evangeUst, 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, tliat 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 an^l would not consent to this arrangement. And so the mat- ter 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 con- sulted 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 ami accom- MARITAL LOVE 109 plished 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 pri- vate 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 Jan- uary 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 pri- vate institution. Though not a Christian himself, nor making any professions of advocating Christianity, yet Mr. Fukuzawa has come out strongly in favor of mo- nogamy. His description of the existing social and fam- ily 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 sliate of family life may also be gath- ered from the large numbers of public and secret prosti- tutes 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 de- ficient is the average home life of the people. A pro- fessing 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 civili- zation to-day. He argued that they supply the men with that female element in social life which the ordi- no EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE nary woman cannot provide; were the average wives and daughters sufificiently accomphshed to share in the social hfe 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 so- ciety that allows so little scope for the natural afifections of the heart, unless by saying that that order is the true expression of their nature? Must w^e not say that the element of affection in the present social order is deficient because the Jajjanese 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 re- cent times. In his exhaustive work on " The History of Human Marriage," W^estermarck 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 rudimen- tary development. Now it is conspicuous that the con- ception 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 posi- tion 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 recjuirc even a statement. Every. MARITAL LOVE iii 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 develop- ment has remained to this day; it has not experienced those modifications and restrictions which have arisen in the West. The national government dealt with fam- ilies 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 consider- ations, 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 character- istics of the Japanese are not inherent; they are the re- sults of the social and industrial order; as this order changes, they too will surely change. The entire civili- zation 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 develop- ment 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 in- estimable 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, in- sisting on concubinage and all that it implies, are sure to wane before those nations which loyally adopt and prac- tice the higher ideals of human worth. The weakness 112 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE of heathen lands arises in no sHght degree from their cheap estimate of human Ufe. 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 ac- cepted 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 con- structed 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, regard- less 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 neces- sity of monogamy; but, aside from the Christians, none appear to see how this is to be done. Even Mr, Fukuzawa says that the first stcj) in the reform of the family and the establishment of monogamy is to develop public sentiment against prostitution and plural or I MARITAL LOVE 113 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 meas- uring both men and women, together with its concep- tions 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.* He does not see that *The effect of Christian missions cannot be measured by the numbers of those who are to be counted on the church rolls ; almost unconsciously the nation is absorbing Christian ideals from the hundreds of Christian missionaries and tens of thou- sands of Christian natives. The necessities of the new social order make their teachings intelligible and acceptable as the older social order did not and could not. This accounts for the astonishing change in the anti-Christian spirit of the Japanese. This spirit did not cease at once on the introduction of the new social order, nor indeed is it now entirely gone. But the change from the Japan of thirty years ago to the "japan of to-day, in its attitude toward Christianity, is more marked than that of any great nation in history. A similar change in the Roman Empire took place, but it required three hundred years. This change in Japan may accordingly be called truly miraculous, not in the sense, however, of a result without a cause, for the causes are well understood. Among the Christians, especially, the old order is rapidly giv- ing way to the new. Christianity has brought a new conception of woman and her place in the home and her relation to her hus- band. Japanese Christian girls, and recently non-Christian girls, are seeking an education which shall fit them for their en- larging life. Many of the more Christian young men do not want heathen wives, with their low estimate of themselves and their duties, and they are increasingly unwilling to marry those of whom they know nothing and for whom they care not at all. Already the idea that love is the only safe foundation for the home is beginning to take root in Japan. This changing ideal is bringing marked social changes. In some churches an intro- duction committee is appointed whose special function is to introduce marriageable persons and to hold social meetings where the young people may become acquainted. Here an im- portant evolution in the social order is taking place before our eyes, but not a few of the world's wise men are too exalted to see it. Love and demonstrative affection between husband and 114 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE representative government and popular rights cannot stand for any length of time on any other foundation. wife will doubtless become as characteristic of Japan in the future as their absence has been characteristic in the past. To recapitulate : these distinctive cliaracteristics of the emotional life of the Japanese might at first seem to be so deep-rooted as to be inherent, vet they are really due to the ideas and customs of the social order, and are liable to change with any new sys- tem of ideas and customs that may arise. The higher develop- ment of the emotional life of the Japanese waits now on the reorganization of the family life ; this rests on a new idea as to the place and value of woman as such and as a human being ; this in turn rests on the wide acceptance of Christian ideals as to God and their mutual relations. It involves, likewise, new ideals as to man's final destiny. In Japan's need of these Christian ideals we find one main ground and justification, if justification be needed, for missionary enterprise among this Eastern people. X CHEERFULNESS — INDUSTRY — TRUTHFUL. NESS— SUSPICIOUSNESS MANY writers have dwelt with dehght 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 fiower 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 gov- ernment, of trade and of education, is introducing cus- toms 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 char- acteristics are largely the result of special social condi- tions, 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 in- dividual 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 im- "5 ii6 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE • maturity, it is bound to change with growth, to be lost with coming maturity. Yet the Japanese are by no means given up to a cheer- ful view of life. Many an individual is morose and dejected in the extreme. Tliis disposition is ever stimu- lated 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 disap- pointment 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 in- fluence 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 efifort is made to learn of those whose lives arc 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 conclu- sion. Again I wish to call attention to the fact that the prominence of children and young people is in part the cause of the ai^pearance of general happiness. Tlie Japa- nese 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 ihcy seldom have yards. Here they gather in great numbers and play most enthusiastically, utterly regardless of the CHEERFULNESS— INDUSTRY 1 1 7 passers-by, for these latter are all on foot or in jinriki- shas, 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 cus- tomary 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 in- struction 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 ii8 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 per- sistent 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 oppo- site nature. The farmers and mechanics and carpenters, among regular laborers, and the entire life of the com- mon people in their homes, give an impression of indif- ference 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 ordi- nary social life, the loss of time seems to be a matter of no consequence whatever. Polite palaver takes un- stinted 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 civiliza- tion was easy-going; it had no clocks; it hardly knew the time of day; it never hastened. The hour was esti- mated 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 genu- flections and strikings of the head on the floor, always demanded time. Furthermore, the very character of the footgear compelled and still compels a shuflling, am- bling 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 character- istics of New Japan are social inlu'rit.-uices from feudal times, characteristics which are still hampering its de- CHEERFULNESS— INDUSTRY 119 velopment. 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 list- lessness that is in marked contrast to that of the W.est. This is partly due to the fact that the house work is rela- tively 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 Amierica. This is not wholly due to slowness of movement, how- ever, 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 re- quired 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 re- sult 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 120 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 dif- ferences, was a thing practically unknown in the older civilization. Everything of a business nature was left to honor, and was carried on in mutual confi- dence. 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 gencrallv ac- cepted 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 dis- agreement, 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 corresjiondence with an evangelist with regartl to his employment was carried on. and the settlement finally concluded, and the man set to work without a CHEERFULNESS— IND USTRY 1 2 1 word said about money matters. It need hardly be said that no foreigner took part in that correspond- ence. The simple, childhke trustfuhiess 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 disposi- tion 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 treat- ment. 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 al- ready 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, necessi- tating personal ownership of property, and the uni- versal 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 trans- formation 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 122 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 con- fidence 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, how- ever, mission . work was freely allowed by the govern- ment and welcomed by many of the people in all parts of the land, and as it became desirable to have con- tinuous 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 appar- ently 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 indi- vidual missionary, but was to be held by the Christians for the use of the mission to which the missionary be- longed. 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 no'diing of the fact that in those early days the mention of docu- mentary relationshi])s would have greatly luu-t tlio ten- der feelings of honor which were so prominent a [)art of CHEERFULNESS— INDUSTRY 123 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 mis- sionaries 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, be- sides 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 be- quest, Mr. Harris of New London gave over one hun- dred 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 prop- erty 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. Tliey 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 trus- tees 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 Em- pire, 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 manage- ment of the Doshisha move further and further away 124 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 repre- sentatives 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 mis- sionary members of the faculty accordingly resigned. In order to secure exemption from the draft for its students the trustees of the Doshisha abrogated cer- tain 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 con- stitution which the trustees, on taking office, had indi- vidually 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 sub- stance 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 mag- nanimously, as they appeared to think, to allow^ the mis- sionaries 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 sup- posed. It would not be fair not to add that this experience in Kyoto does not exeni])lify the universal Ja])ancse char- acter. There are many Japanese who dee]ily de]ilore and condemn the whole proceeding. Some of the CHEERFULNESS— INDUSTRY 125 Doshisha alumni have exerted themselves strenuously to have righteousness done. Passing now from the character of trustful confi- dence, we take up its opposite, suspiciousness. The de- velopment 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 ofif 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 fami- lies, 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 fre- quent. 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 ex- perience 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 sug- gestion, 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, al- 126 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE though customarily thought to be deep-seated traits of race nature, arc, 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 A CCORDING to the teachings of Confucius, jeal- I\ ousy is one of the seven just grounds on which a X^-L. woman may be divorced. In the " Greater Learn- ing for Women," * occur the following words : " Let her never even dream of jealousy. If her husband be disso- lute, she must expostulate with him, but never either render her countenance frightful or her accents re- pulsive, 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 inno- cent 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 recog- nized as a marked, and, as might appear, inevitable char- acteristic 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 dis- * Chapter v. p. 82. 127 128 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE appear. 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 Chris- tian 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 jeal- ousy 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 affec- tions 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 ambi- tion and jealousy go hand in hand. Wherever a man's rise in popularity and influence depends on the over- throw 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 cus- tom, 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 wo itadakazu." " With the enemy of country, or father, one cannot live under the same heaven.'" The tales of heroic Japan abound in stt)ries 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 doctine is to return good for good, and evil with justice." This saying JEALOUS Y— REVENGE 1 29 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 pecuharly harmonized with the mihtarism 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 indi- vidual thought and life regulated, this, and many other evil traits of human character, might become radically changed in a short time. Intelligent Christian Social- ism is based on this theory and seems to have no little support for its position. Are Japanese cruel or humane? The general impres- sion of the casual tourist doubtless is that they are hu- mane. 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 dis- position. I well remember the shock I received when 130 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE I discovered, not far from my home in Kumamoto, an in- sane 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 travel- ing 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 medi- cal assistance nor loving tendance, but was simply fed like a wild beast in a managerie. 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 con- trolled 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 signifi- cant 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 not afifirm 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 incrcilible, were JEALOUSY— REVENGE 1 3 1 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 follow- ing statement, already referred to on a previous page: " Despite the issue of several proclamations . . . peo- ple 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 household- ers even went to the length of thrusting out of doors and abandoning to utter destitution servants who suf- fered from chronic maladies. . . Whenever an epi- demic occurred, the number of deaths that resulted was enormous." * 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 govern- ment, 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 es- tablished 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 asy- lums, 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 Mat- suye. 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 * P. 133. 132 EVOLUTION OF THE JAPANESE 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 doc- trines of Buddha, as has been stated, to give up eating animal food, it is exceedingly strange that the people ap- parently 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 bru- tality of its driver, and they will sit calmly in a jinrikisha while its drawer, with throbbing heart and str