JAPAN AS IT IS TO-DAY
“In the Japan of to-day the
world has before it a unique example of an Eastern
people displaying the power to assimilate and to adopt
the civilisation of the West, while preserving its
own national dignity unimpaired,” aptly remarks
a modern writer. It is, indeed, in its powers
of assimilation and adaptation that Japan, I think,
stands unique among not only the nations of the world
at the present time, but amongst the nations of whom
we have any historical record. In one of his
books on Japan books which I may, in passing,
remark give a more vivid insight into the life of
the Japanese people than the works of any other writer Mr.
Lafcadio Hearn remarks that the so-called adoption
of Western civilisation within a term of comparatively
few years cannot mean the addition to the Japanese
brain of any organs or powers previously absent from
her, nor any sudden change in the mental or moral
character of the race. Changes of that kind cannot
be made in a generation. The Europeanising of
Japan, Mr. Hearn in fact suggests, means nothing more
than the rearrangement of a part of the pre-existing
machinery of thought, while the mental readjustments
effected by taking on Western civilisation, or what
passes for it, have given good results only along
directions in which the Japanese people have always
shown special capacity. There has, in a word,
he asserts, been no transformation nothing
more than the turning of old abilities into new and
larger channels. Indeed the tendency of the people
of Japan, when dispassionately investigated, will be
seen to have been always moving in the same direction.
A slight retrospect will, I think, clearly prove the
truth of this assertion.
It is now about fifty years since
Japan was first awakened, perhaps rudely awakened,
from her slumber of two and a half centuries.
When the European Powers and the United States of
America knocked, perhaps somewhat rudely, at her door,
it turned slowly on its hinges and creaked owing to
the rust of many long years. How came it that
a country which had imported its art, literature,
religion, and civilisation, a country which until
1868 had a mediaeval feudalism for its social basis,
a country which until then was notorious for the practice
of hara-kiri and the fierceness of its two-sworded
Samurai should so suddenly take on Western attributes
and become a seat of liberty and the exponent of Western
civilisation in the Far East? All this is to
some persons a rather perplexing problem. But
the reasons are not, I think, far to seek. If
we go back many centuries we shall find that Japan,
though always tenacious of her national characteristics,
never evinced any indisposition to mingle with or
adopt what was good in other races. The national
character for many hundreds of years has always displayed
what I may term the germs of liberalism, and has not
been influenced by narrow and petty national ideals
concerning the customs, religion, art, or literature
of other countries. As against this statement
may be urged the action of Japan in expelling the
Portuguese missionaries, destroying thoroughly Christianity,
both buildings and converts, and effectually and effectively
shutting the country against all intercourse with Europe
and America for over two centuries. The answer
of the Japanese of to-day to this question is simple
enough. They point out that, although the object
of St. Francis Xavier and his missionaries was essentially
spiritual, viz., to convert Japan to Christianity,
that of many of the foreigners who accompanied or
succeeded him was not in any sense spiritual, but
on the contrary was grossly and wickedly material.
Accordingly Japan, having rightly or wrongly concluded
that not only her civilisation but her national life,
her independent existence, were menaced by the presence
and the increasing number of these foreigners, she
decided, on the principle that desperate diseases
require desperate remedies, to expel them and to effectually
seal her country against any possibility of future
foreign invasions. I am not, I may remark, defending
her action in the matter; I am only putting forward
the views of Japanese men of light and leading of
to-day in regard thereto.
When, many centuries ago, the Koreans
brought to Japan the religion, laws, literature, and
art of China, these were adopted and assimilated.
Both Buddhism and Confucianism existed side by side
in the country with the old Shinto religion.
And, accordingly, during the many centuries which
have elapsed since the religion of China and the ethical
doctrines of her great teacher were introduced into
Japan, there has never been a violent conflict between
them and the ancient religion of the country.
Had the Portuguese invaders confined themselves to
a religious propaganda only, the Christian converts
they made would not have been interfered with and
the Christian religion, strong and vigorous, would
have existed uninterruptedly in Japan until to-day
side by side with Buddhism and Shintoism. When
St. Francis Xavier came to Japan Buddhism was the
prevailing religion, and it undoubtedly had, as it
still has, a great hold upon the people. But
the preaching of the intrepid Jesuit and the missionaries
he brought with him had an enormous success.
The Christian religion was embraced by representatives
of every class. In the year 1550 St. Francis,
writing to Goa, placed on record for all time his opinion
of the Japanese. “The nation,” writes
he, “with which we have to deal here surpasses
in goodness any of the nations ever discovered.
They are of a kindly disposition, wonderfully desirous
of honour, which is placed above everything else.
They listen with great avidity to discourse about
God and divine things. In the native place of
Paul they received us very kindly, the Governor, the
chief citizens, and indeed the whole populace.
Give thanks to God therefore that a very wide and promising
field is open to you for your well-roused piety to
spend its energies in.” It certainly was
a remarkable fact that a nation which had for so many
centuries been under the influences of Buddhism should
have welcomed these Portuguese missionaries.
But it must be remembered that Japan had not that
prejudice against foreigners which is very often the
outcome of foreign conquest and foreign oppression.
No foreign Power had ever conquered or indeed set
its foot in the land. Both China and Korea had
made various attempts on the independence of Japan,
but unsuccessfully. Japan had never had to endure
any humiliation at the hands of foreign invaders,
consequently her nationalism had no narrow, selfish
meaning, and accordingly she saw no reason for putting
any obstacle in the way of St. Francis Xavier and
his followers until she concluded, however much or
little reason there may have been for her conclusions,
that the incoming of these foreigners in some measure
menaced her national existence. Before she arrived
at that conclusion she was apparently prepared to welcome
all that was good in the ethical teaching of the Portuguese
missionaries, and, if a section of her population
desired to embrace a religion to whose ethical teaching
she had no objection; there was no reason, in her
opinion, why that religion should not exist side by
side with those more ancient religions which had lived
amicably together during many centuries.
For nearly two hundred and fifty years
Japan resolved to remain in a state of isolation.
Then, as I have said, European Powers and the great
Republic of the West came knocking and knocking loudly
at her doors, and as a result thereof her thinking
men came to realise that in a state of isolation a
continued civilised existence is impossible.
Accordingly Japan, tentatively at first, opened certain
portions of her country to European intercourse, and
as an inevitable consequence thereof found it necessary
to adopt European ideas and European armaments.
The country had kept out the aggressor for some two
thousand years or thereabouts, and Japan clearly saw
that if the aggressor was to be kept out in the future,
the near future, she would probably have to fight
to maintain her national existence. The war with
China was the outcome of the feeling that Korea under
the suzerainty of China was a constant menace to not
only the prosperity but the existence of the Empire.
The same feeling undoubtedly led to the war with Russia,
as Japan considered, and rightly in my opinion, that
the possession of Korea by Russia meant the loss of
national independence. That war was not as so
many wars have been, the result of a racial hatred,
the outcome of a spirit of revenge, or waged for aggressive
designs. It was forced upon Japan, and was in
every sense purely defensive. Japan waged it
confident in her own strength from the fact that in
the two thousand years of her history she had, in all
the conflicts in which she had engaged, kept in view
the one ideal the conservation of the national
existence, an ideal which she has consistently realised.
The position of Japan at the present
moment is not only extremely interesting but extraordinary
in a degree. She is the cynosure for the eyes
of the civilised world, and for some years she has
been subjected at the hands of experts and amateurs
of all descriptions to the most minute investigation.
Every phase of her national life has been rigidly
scrutinised and exhaustively written about. The
national character and characteristics have undergone
the most intricate psychological examination, and
if the world does not now know the real Japan it is
certainly not from lack of material, literary material,
whereon to form a judgment. Indeed the attention
Japan has received has been sufficient to turn the
head of any people. I am not sure that this large
output of literature on matters Japanese has effected
very much in the direction of enabling a sound judgment
to be formed regarding the country and the people.
Many writers who have dissertated upon Japan during
the past couple of decades seem to have imagined that
they had discovered it, and their impressions have
been penned from that standpoint.
There used some years ago to be an
advertisement of a “Popular Educator”
in which a youth with a curly head of hair and a face
of delightful innocence was depicted. Underneath
the portrait the inquiry was printed, “What
will he become?” And there was then given an
illustrated alternative as to the appearance of this
innocent youth at different ages in his career according
to the path he trod in life. One alternative
eventuated in the final evolution of an ancient and,
from his appearance, very palpable villain, the other
of a benevolent-looking old gentleman who quite evidently
only lived to do good. It seems to me that a
large number of persons in various parts of the world
are to-day, as they have been for some time past, asking
the question in reference to Japan, “What will
she become?” It is without doubt a highly interesting
inquiry, but the answer to it, so far as my knowledge
goes, is not like the advertisement I have referred
to, one of two courses the one leading to
perdition, the other to prosperity. On the contrary,
the answers seem to be as numerous and varied as the
answerers, and most of the answers would appear to
have been arrived at simply and merely by the false
premises and very often the entirely erroneous “facts”
of the inquirers.
A favourite and fallacious method
of dealing with Japan is that of regarding it as an
Oriental nation, essentially Oriental with a thin
veneer of Occidentalism. People who so reason,
or occasionally do not reason at all but confine themselves
to mere assertions, suggest that the difference between
the Oriental and the Occidental is such that not a
few years of perfunctory contact but centuries of time
are necessary to bring about a real transmogrification.
Persons who so think point not only to the difference
in everything material in respect of East and West,
but to a radical difference in psychology, an entire
distinction in the mental outlook of each. They
accordingly conclude that the differences so evident
on all sides are not mere accidentals but fundamental,
ineradicable. Scratch the Japanese, they in effect
say, and beneath his veneer of civilisation you will
find the barbarian, barbarism and Orientalism being
with these persons synonymous terms. And if any
incredulity in the matter be expressed they will triumphantly
point to the recurrence of hara-kiri among the
soldiers and sailors in the late war. A well-known
writer on racial psychology has expressed himself
dogmatically on this very point. I will quote
two or three of his pronouncements in the matter.
“Each race possesses a constitution
as unvarying as its anatomical constitution.
There seems to be no doubt that the former corresponds
to a certain special structure of the brain.
“A negro or a Japanese may easily
take a university degree or become a lawyer; the sort
of varnish he thus acquires is, however, quite superficial,
and has no influence on his mental constitution....
What no education can give him because they are created
by heredity alone, are the forms of thought, the logic,
and, above all, the character of the Western man.
“Cross-breeding constitutes
the only infallible means at our disposal of transforming
in a fundamental manner the character of a people,
heredity being the only force powerful enough to contend
with heredity. Cross-breeding allows of the creation
of a new race, possessing new physical and psychological
characteristics.”
Now, whether these views be correct
in the main or partially correct as regards other
races, I have no hesitation in describing them as
inaccurate to a degree in reference to the Japanese.
Not peculiar brain formation, but social evolution,
environment, education are responsible for the traits
which distinguish the Japanese from other Eastern
nations. To assert, as do some psychological experts,
that the mental constitution of races is as distinct
and unchangeable as their physiological or anatomical
characteristics is, to my mind, a fact not borne out
by the history of the world. Physiological or
anatomical distinctions are apparent, and can be classified;
mental idiosyncrasies do not lend themselves to cataloguing.
It is, I know, possible to draw up at any particular
period a list of what I may term the idiosyncrasies
of any race at that period. A writer in a London
newspaper some little time back attempted to do so
in reference to Oriental races generally. He
enumerated the degraded position of women, the licentiousness
of the men, the recognition and prevalence of prostitution,
the non-desire of the youth for play, contempt for
Western civilisation, and general hatred of foreigners.
Admitting these charges to be correct, the characteristics
detailed are, I may point out, merely ephemeral incidents.
A contempt for Western civilisation and hatred of
the foreigner, for example, which was certainly at
one time pronounced in Japan, are rapidly passing away.
The position of women in that country has also greatly
improved, just as it has improved in Europe, while
as regards prostitution and licentiousness Europe
has, in my opinion, no need to throw stones.
There are undoubtedly a large number of persons who are
convinced, or have been convinced, by the arguments of others, that the progress
of Japan is a mere mushroom growth which cannot last. A few years ago one
of the leading English papers in Japan attempted, to some extent, to voice this
opinion in an article striking the note of warning for the benefit of the West
against putting too much faith in those writers who had intimately studied Japan
from within, and whose works were in general appreciation not only for their
literary style, but for the vivid insight they gave into everything respecting
the country. Quoth the journal in question:
“In the case of such writers
as Sir Edwin Arnold and Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, it is
quite apparent that the logical faculty is in abeyance.
Imagination reigns supreme. As poetic flights
or outbursts the works of these authors on Japan are
delightful reading. But no one who has studied
the Japanese in a deeper manner, by more intimate daily
intercourse with all classes of the people than either
of these writers pretends to have had, can possibly
regard a large part of their description as anything
more than pleasing fancy. Both have given rein
to the poetic fancy, and thus have, from a purely literary
point of view, scored a success granted to few....
But as exponents of Japanese life and thought they
are unreliable.... They have given form and beauty
to much that never existed, except in vague outline
or in undeveloped germs in the Japanese mind.
In doing this they have unavoidably been guilty of
misrepresentation.... The Japanese nation of
Arnold and Hearn is not the nation we have known for
a quarter of a century, but a purely ideal one manufactured
out of the author’s brains. It is high
time that this was pointed out. For while such
works please a certain section of the English public,
they do a great deal of harm among a section of the
Japanese public, as could be easily shown in detail
did space allow.”
I quite admit the fact that many Japanese
themselves are quite convinced that there is a great
gulf fixed between the ideas and the philosophy of
Europe and those of the East, their own country included.
In a book dealing particularly with the art of Japan,
written in English by a Japanese, he attempts to emphasise
this matter. He remarks: “Asia is
one. The Himalayas divide only to accentuate
two mighty civilisations the Chinese, with
its communism of Confucius, and the Indian, with its
individualism of the Védas. But not even the snowy barriers
can interrupt for one moment that broad expanse of love for the Ultimate and
Universal which is the common-thought inheritance of every Asiatic race,
enabling them to produce all the great religions of the world, and
distinguishing them from those maritime people of the Mediterranean and the
Baltic who loved to dwell on the particular, and to search out the means not the
end of life. Indeed, the writer of this book appears to be in a condition
of transcendentalism in reference to the East. In another portion of it he
waxes eloquent in regard to what he terms the glory of Asia, in language which I
will briefly quote. He remarks:
“But the glory of Asia is something
more positive than these. It lies in that vibration
of peace that beats in every heart; that harmony which
brings together emperor and peasant; that sublime intuition
of oneness which commands all sympathy, all courtesy,
to be its fruits, making Takakura, Emperor of Japan,
remove his sleeping robes on a winter night because
the frost lay cold on the hearths of his poor; or
Taiso of Tang forego food because his people were feeling
the pinch of famine; ... it lies in that worship of
feeling which casts around poverty the halo of greatness,
impresses his stern simplicity of apparel on the Indian
prince, and sets up in China a throne whose imperial
occupant alone amongst the great secular
rulers of the world never wears a sword.”
It were unkind to criticise eloquence
of this description too seriously. The fact,
if it be a fact, that the Emperor of China never wears
a sword is in one sense interesting but it proves nothing.
It is well to get down from eloquence of this kind
to concrete facts, to come back to the point whence
we started, viz., What will Japan become?
What is her present condition? Any one who compares
the Japan of to-day with the Japan of, say, thirty
or forty years ago will, I think, impatiently sweep
aside some of the absurd theories to which I have
referred, psychological and otherwise. The unprejudiced
man, letting his mind indulge in retrospect, and comparing
that retrospective view with the present actuality,
will, I believe, have no difficulty in determining
that though Japan is and must remain an Oriental nation,
what she has acquired of recent years is neither veneer
or varnish, but has been assimilated into the very
system of the people. Very probably Japan will
never become thoroughly Occidentalised. There
are many of us who hope she never may. I believe,
however, that in adopting many Occidental customs and
habits she will adapt and modify them to her own needs,
and in due course evolve a race neither distinctly
Occidental nor Oriental while retaining many of her
past customs and her ancient characteristics.
She will, in a word, be as far as possible an eclectic
nation, and it is, so far as I know, the first time
in the history of the world that an attempt has been
made to develop such.
There are, I know, many people in
Europe as well as in Japan who feel and express some
apprehension in regard to what they term young Japan.
This term, like many other terms, has never been accurately
defined, but I take it to mean that portion of the
country consisting of the young or younger men who
have been educated according to Western ideas, have
acquired Western modes of thought, and have developed I
do not use the word in an opprobrious sense a
bumptiousness. It is assumed, on what grounds
I know not, that this section it must after
all be a small section of the population
of the country has aspirations to make things “hum,”
if I may use an expressive bit of American slang.
Young Japan, we are led to believe, is intensely ambitious
and extremely cocksure. It cannot and will not
go slow; on the contrary, it is in a fearful hurry,
and is in reference to every matter political, commercial,
religious, a hustler. It has no doubts upon any
subject, and no difficulty in regard to making up its
mind on any matter. This is what we hear and
read. How much of it all is true I know not.
I am very largely of opinion that this representation
of young Japan is altogether a caricature. Youth
we know in every clime is impulsive and impetuous.
There is no need to go to Japan to convince ourselves
of that fact. But youth, if it have these defects,
also possesses enthusiasm, and I should be inclined
to describe that as one of the most pleasing characteristics
of the youth of Japan. After all, time will cure
Young Japan of some of its defects. Young Japan
will grow old, and if it loses its enthusiasm it will
gain experience. I not only have no fear of these
vivacious young men who love their country and are
proud of it. I regard them not as a danger, but
as a pleasing feature in the progress of Japan, and
a potent factor in its future prosperity.
The writers and critics to whom I
have referred in this chapter seem to be oblivious
of the fact that progress is the law of nature.
It has nothing to do with either climate or race.
I admit that it may be affected by environment or
other causes of a temporary nature. The Occidental
visiting the East sees things that are strange to him a
people, the colour of whose skin and the contour of
whose features are different to his own; costume,
style of architecture, and many other matters entirely
dissimilar to what he has viewed in his own country.
He accordingly jumps to the absolutely erroneous conclusion
that these people are uncivilised, and that their
lack of civilisation is due to some mental warp or
some defect in either the structure or the size of
their brain. Of course such a conception is entirely
erroneous, and yet it is marvellous to what an extent
it prevails. These people are for all practical
purposes the same as himself, except that they have
been affected by various matters and circumstances
that I have called ephemeral. What a nation,
like an individual, needs is the formation of a distinct
character. Now, the character of a nation depends,
in my opinion, on the high or low estimate it has
formed as to the meaning and purpose of life, and
also the extent to which it adheres to the unwritten
moral law, which is, after all, something superior
to, because higher than, mere legal enactments.
I confess that as I wander about this marvellous country
of Japan, as I mingle with its common people and see
them in various phases of their lives I say to myself,
as St. Francis Xavier said of them more than three
hundred years ago, “This nation is the delight
of my soul.” The critic, the hypercritic,
is everywhere. He suspects everybody and everything.
He can find occult motives and psychological reasons
for everything. I confess I am a trifle tired
of the critic, especially the psychological critic,
in reference to Japan. I view the people there
as they are to-day, and I have satisfied myself that
we can see at work in Japan the formation of a nation
with a character. I care not to investigate the
mental processes at work, or the difference between
the brain of the Japanese and the brain of the European.
I do see this, however, that the leaders of the people,
the educated and cultured classes of the land, are
intent on cutting out of the national character anything
which is indefensible, or has been found unserviceable,
and equally intent on adopting and adapting from any
and every nation such qualities as it is considered
would the better enable Japan to advance on the paths
of progress and freedom, illuminating her way as a
nation and as a people by a shining illustration of
all that is best in the world, having sloughed off
voluntarily and readily every characteristic, however
ancient, which reason and justice and experience had
shown to be unworthy of a power aspiring to stand out
prominently before the world.
In Sir Rutherford Alcock’s work
on Japan, “The Capital of the Tycoon,”
published some forty-four years ago, a work which,
as I have elsewhere said, is of undoubted value though
somewhat marred by the prejudices of the author, he
attempted a forecast of the future of the country,
but, like so many prophets, his vaticinations
have proved highly inaccurate. “Japan,”
he remarked, “is on the great highway of nations,
the coveted of Russia, the most absorbing, if not the
most aggressive of all the Powers; and a perpetual
temptation alike to merchant and to missionary, who,
each in different directions, finding the feudalism
and spirit of isolation barriers to their path, will
not cease to batter them in breach, or undermine them
to their downfall. Such seems to be the probable
fate of Japan, and its consummation is little more
than a question of time. When all is accomplished,
whether the civilising process will make them as a
people wiser, better, or happier, is a problem of
more doubtful solution. One thing is quite certain,
that the obstructive principle which tends to the rejection
of all Western innovations and proselytism as abominations,
is much too active and vigorous in the Japanese mind
to leave a hope that there will not be violent and
obstinate resistance; and this inevitably leading
to corresponding violence in the assault, there must
be a period of convulsion and disorder before the change
can be effected, and new foundations laid for another
social edifice.” Whether the civilising
process will make the Japanese people wiser, better,
or happier is the problem the answer to which can only
be given in the future. Obviously we are not
in a position to completely answer this question to-day.
Indeed, before answering it at any time it might be
advisable to invite the definition of wisdom and happiness.
There were wisdom and happiness long prior to the time
when the merchant and the missionary to whom Sir Rutherford
Alcock refers battered and undermined Japan’s
feudalism and spirit of isolation. But, mirable
dictu, Japan, instead of developing that obstructive
principle which Sir Rutherford considered was so active
and vigorous in the Japanese mind has, on the contrary,
developed a spirit of adaptation and assimilation
of Western innovations, and in so doing has in all
probability saved herself from the cupidity not only
of Russia, but of other Western Powers. Sir Rutherford
Alcock was not a psychologist, but quite evidently
he too misread the Japanese mind and its workings.
Truth to tell, Japan as it is to-day
gives the lie to nearly all the prophets, and demonstrates
that the psychologist is merely a charlatan.
Her development, her evolution has proceeded along
no particular lines. The fearful and awful rocks
in the way, mediaevalism and feudalism, were got rid
of almost with a stroke of the pen, and everybody
in Japan, from the Emperor to the peasant, has adapted
himself to the changed order of things. It is
the most wonderful transformation scene in the history
of the world, and it is still in progress. What
the end of it all will be I have, bearing the dangers
of prophecy well in mind, attempted to show in a final
chapter. But I may remark that nothing in regard
to the forces at work in Japan of recent years, and
the outcome of the same so far gives me at any rate
more unmixed pleasure than the way in which the theorists
have been confounded, those men who cut and carve
and label human beings, whether individually or in
the aggregate, as if they were mere blocks of wood.
The Oriental mind, we have been told, cannot do this;
Oriental prejudices and idiosyncrasies and modes of
thought and hereditary influences will not admit of
that; the traditions of the Far East, that mysterious
thing, will prevent the other we have been
told all this, I repeat, and told it ad nauseam.
Japan as it is to-day refutes these prophecies, these
dogmatic pronouncements, psychical and ethnological.
The Japanese race, when regarded from what I deem
to be the only correct standpoint for forming a sound
judgment as to the position it holds among the races
of the world, namely, in respect of the size and convolution
of the brain, occupies in my opinion a high, a very
high place. All other factors, often given such
undue prominence in forming an estimate as to the character
of any people I regard as mere accidentals.
The story of Japan during the last thirty or forty
years affords ample proof of what I have said; the
position of the country to-day offers visible demonstration
of it. Japan has reached and will keep the position
of a great Power, and the Japanese that of a great
people, just because of the preponderating mental
abilities of the population of the country, its capacity
for assimilation, its desire for knowledge, its pertinacity,
strenuousness, and aspirations to possess and acquire
by the process of selection the very best the world
can give it.