civilization is not for a moment contended. The stiff starched shirt
may certainly be asked to give an account of itself and justify its
continued existence, if it can. But I think the proposition is capable
of defense that the vast majority of the implements of our Occidental
civilization have their definite place and value, either in
contributing directly to the comfort and happiness of their possessor,
or in increasing his health and strength and general mental and
physical power. What is it that makes the Occidental longer-lived than
the Japanese? Why is he healthier? Why is he more intelligent? Why is
he a more developed personality? Why are his children more energetic?
Or, reversing the questions, why has the population of Japan been
increasing with leaps and bounds since the introduction of Western
civilization and medical science? Why is the rising generation so free
from pockmarks? Why is the number of the blind steadily diminishing?
Why are mechanisms multiplying so rapidly--the jinrikisha, the
railroads, the roads, the waterworks and sewers, the chairs, the
tables, the hats and umbrellas, lamps, clocks, glass windows and
shoes? A hundred similar questions might be asked, to which no
definite answers are needful.
Further discussion of details seems unnecessary. Yet the full
significance of this point can hardly be appreciated without a
perception of the great principle that underlies it. The only way in
which man has become and continues to be increasingly superior to
animals is in his use of mechanisms. The animal does by brute force
what man accomplishes by various devices. The inventiveness of
different races differs vastly. But everywhere, the most advanced are
the most powerful. Take the individual man of the more developed race
and separate him from his tools and machines, and it is doubtless
true that he cannot in some selected points compete with an individual
of a less developed race. But let ten thousand men of the higher
development compete with ten thousand of the lower, each using the
mechanisms under his control, and can there be any doubt as to which
is the superior?
In other words, the method of human progress consists, in no small
degree, in the progressive mastery of nature, first through
understanding her and then through the use of her immense forces by
means of suitable mechanisms. All the machines and furniture, and
tools and clothing, and houses and canned foods, and shoes and boots,
and railroads and telegraph lines, and typewriters and watches, and
the ten thousand other so-called "impedimenta" of the Occidental
civilization are but devices whereby Western man has sought to
increase his health, his wealth, his knowledge, his comfort, his
independence, his capacity of travel--in a word, his well-being.
Through these mechanisms he masters nature. He extracts a rich living
from nature; he annihilates time and space; he defies the storms; he
tunnels the mountains; he extracts precious ores and metals from the
rock-ribbed hills; with a magic touch he loosens the grip of the
elements and makes them surrender their gold, their silver, and, more
precious still, their iron; with these he builds his spacious cities
and parks, his railroads and ocean steamers; he travels the whole
world around, fearing neither beast nor alien man; all are subject to
his command and will. He investigates and knows the constitution of
stellar worlds no less than that of the world in which he lives. By
his instruments he explores the infinite depths of heaven and the no
less infinite depths of the microscopic world. All these reviled
"impedimenta" thus bring to the race that has them a wealth of life
both physical and psychical, practical and ideal, that is otherwise
unattainable. By them he gains and gives external expression to the
reality of his inner nature, his freedom, his personality. True,
instead of bringing health and long life, knowledge and deep
enjoyment, they may become the means of bitterest curses. But the
lesson to learn from this fact is how to use these powers aright, not
how to forbid their use altogether. They are not to be branded as
hindrances to progress.
The defect of Occidental civilization to-day is hot its multiplicity
of machinery, but the defective view that still blinds the eyes of the
multitude as to the true nature and the legitimate goal of progress.
Individual, selfish happiness is still the ideal of too many men and
women to permit of the ideal which carries the Golden Rule into the
markets and factories, into the politics of parties and nations, which
is essential to the attainment of the highest progress. But no one who
casts his eyes over the centuries of struggle and effort through which
man has been slowly working his way upward from the rank of a beast to
that of a man, can doubt that progress has been made. The worth of
character has been increasingly seen and its possession desired. The
true end of effort and development was never more clear than it is at
the close of the nineteenth century. Never before were the conditions
of progress so bright, not only for the favored few in one or two
lands, but for the multitudes the world over. Isolation and separation
have passed from this world forever. Free social intercourse between
the nations permits wide dissemination of ideas and their application
to practical life in the form of social organization and mechanical
invention. This makes it possible for nations more or less backward in
social and civilizational development to gain in a relatively short
time the advantages won by advanced nations through ages of toil and
under favoring circumstances. Nation thus stimulates nation, each
furnishing the other with important variations in ideas, customs,
institutions, and mechanisms resulting from long-continued divergent
evolution. The advantages slowly gained by advanced peoples speedily
accrues through social heredity to any backward race really desiring
to enter the social heritage.
Thus does the paradox of Japan's recent progress become thoroughly
intelligible.
V
JAPANESE SENSITIVENESS TO ENVIRONMENT
With this chapter we begin a more detailed study of Japanese social
and psychic evolution. We shall take up the various characteristics of
the race and seek to account for them, showing their origin in the
peculiar nature of the social order which so long prevailed in Japan.
This is a study of Japanese psychogenesis. The question to which we
shall continually return is whether or not the characteristic under
consideration is inherent and congenital and therefore inevitable. Not
only our interpretation of Japanese evolution, past, present, and
future, but also our understanding of the essential nature of social
evolution in general, depends upon the answer to this question.
We naturally begin with that characteristic of Japanese nature which
would seem to be more truly congenital than any other to be mentioned
later. I refer to their sensitiveness to environment. More quickly
than most races do the Japanese seem to perceive and adapt themselves
to changed conditions.
The history of the past thirty years is a prolonged illustration of
this characteristic. The desire to imitate foreign nations was not a
real reason for the overthrow of feudalism, but there was, rather, a
more or less conscious feeling, rapidly pervading the whole people,
that the feudal system would be unable to maintain the national
integrity. As intimated, the matter was not so much reasoned out as
felt. But such a vast illustration is more difficult to appreciate
than some individual instances, of which I have noted several.
During a conversation with Drs. Forsythe and Dale, of Cambridge,
England, I asked particularly as to their experience with the Japanese
students who had been there to study. They both remarked on the fact
that all Japanese students were easily influenced by those with whom
they customarily associated; so much so that, within a short time,
they acquired not only the cut of coats and trousers, but also the
manner and accent, of those with whom they lived. It was amusing, they
said, to see what transformations were wrought in those who went to
the Continent for their long vacations. From France they returned with
marked French manners and tones and clothes, while from Germany they
brought the distinctive marks of German stiffness in manner and
general bearing. It was noted as still more curious that the same
student would illustrate both variations, provided he spent one summer
in Germany and another in France.
Japanese sensitiveness is manifested in many unexpected ways. An
observant missionary lady once remarked that she had often wondered
how such unruly, self-willed children as grow up under Japanese
training, or its lack, finally become such respectable members of
society. She concluded that instead of being punished out of their
misbehaviors they were laughed out of them. The children are
constantly told that if they do so and so they will be laughed at--a
terrible thing.
The fear of ridicule has thus an important sociological function in
maintaining ethical standards. Its power may be judged by the fact
that in ancient times when a samurai gave his note to return a
borrowed sum, the only guarantee affixed was the permission to be
laughed at in public in case of failure. The Japanese young man who is
making a typewritten copy of these pages for me says that, when still
young, he heard an address to children which he still remembers. The
speaker asked what the most fearful thing in the world was. Many
replies were given by the children--"snakes," "wild beasts,"
"fathers," "gods," "ghosts," "demons," "Satan," "hell," etc. These
were admitted to be fearful, but the speaker told the children that
one other thing was to be more feared than all else, namely, "to be
laughed at." This speech, with its vivid illustrations, made a lasting
impression on the mind of the boy, and on reading what I had written
he realized how powerful a motive fear of ridicule had been in his own
life; also how large a part it plays in the moral education of the
young in Japan.
Naturally enough this fear of being laughed at leads to careful and
minute observation of the clothing, manners, and speech of one's
associates, and prompt conformity to them, through imitation. The
sensitiveness of Japanese students to each new environment is thus
easily understood. And this sensitiveness to environment has its
advantages as well as its disadvantages. I have already referred to
the help it gives to the establishment of individual conformity to
ethical standards. The phenomenal success of many reforms in Japan may
easily be traced to the national sensitiveness to foreign criticism.
Many instances of this will be given in the course of this work, but
two may well be mentioned at this point. According to the older
customs there was great, if not perfect, freedom as to the use of
clothing by the people. The apparent indifference shown by them in the
matter of nudity led foreigners to call the nation uncivilized. This
criticism has always been a galling one, and not without reason. In
many respects their civilization has been fully the equal of that of
any other nation; yet in this respect it is true that they resembled
and still do resemble semi-civilized peoples. In response to this
foreign criticism, however, a law was passed, early in the Meiji era,
prohibiting nudity in cities. The requirement that public bathing
houses be divided into two separate compartments, one for men and one
for women, was likewise due to foreign opinion. That this is the case
may be fairly inferred from the fact that the enforcement of these
laws has largely taken places where foreigners abound, whereas, in the
interior towns and villages they receive much less attention. It must
be acknowledged, however, that now at last, twenty-five years after
their passage, they are almost everywhere beginning to be enforced by
the authorities.
My other illustration of sensitiveness to foreign opinion is the
present state of Japanese thought about the management of Formosa. The
government has been severely criticised by many leading papers for its
blunders there. But the curious feature is the constant reference to
the contempt into which such mismanagement will bring Japan in the
sight of the world--as if the opinion of other nations were the most
important issue involved, and not the righteousness and probity of the
government itself. It is interesting to notice how frequently the
opinion of other nations with regard to Japan is a leading thought in
the mind of the people.
In this connection the following extract finds its natural place:
In a very large number of schools throughout the country special
instructions have been given to the pupils as to their behavior
towards foreigners. From various sources we have culled the
following orders bearing on special points, which we state as
briefly as possible.
(1) Never call after foreigners passing along the streets or roads.
(2) When foreigners make inquiries, answer them politely. If unable
to make them understand, inform the police of the fact.
(3) Never accept a present from a foreigner when there is no reason
for his giving it, and never charge him anything above what is
proper.
(4) Do not crowd around a shop when a foreigner is making
purchases, thereby causing him much annoyance. The continuance of
this practice disgraces us as a nation.
(5) Since all human beings are brothers and sisters, there is no
reason for fearing foreigners. Treat them as equals and act
uprightly in all your dealings with them. Be neither servile nor
arrogant.
(6) Beware of combining against the foreigner and disliking him
because he is a foreigner; men are to be judged by their conduct
and not by their nationality.
(7) As intercourse with foreigners becomes closer and extends over
a series of years, there is danger that many Japanese may become
enamored of their ways and customs and forsake the good old customs
of their forefathers. Against this danger you must be on your
guard.
(8) Taking off your hat is the proper way to salute a foreigner.
The bending of the body low is not be commended.
(9) When you see a foreigner be sure and cover up naked parts of
the body.
(10) Hold in high regard the worship of ancestors and treat your
relations with warm cordiality, but do not regard a person as your
enemy because he or she is a Christian.
(11) In going through the world you will often find a knowledge of
a foreign tongue absolutely essential.
(12) Beware of selling your souls to foreigners and becoming their
slaves. Sell them no houses or lands.
(13) Aim at not being beaten in your competition with foreigners.
Remember that loyalty and filial piety are our most precious
national treasures and do nothing to violate them.
Many of the above rules are excellent in tone. Number 7, however,
which hails from Osaka, is somewhat narrow and prejudiced. The
injunction not to sell houses to foreigners is, as the _Jiji
Shimpo_ points out, absurd and mischievous.[H]
The sensitiveness of the people also works to the advantage of the
nation in the social unity which it helps to secure. Indeed I cannot
escape the conviction that the striking unity of the Japanese is
largely due to this characteristic. It tends to make their mental and
emotional activities synchronous. It retards reform for a season, to
be sure, but later it accelerates it. It makes it difficult for
individuals to break away from their surroundings and start out on new
lines. It leads to a general progress while it tends to hinder
individual progress. It tends to draw back into the general current of
national life those individuals who, under exceptional conditions, may
have succeeded in breaking away from it for a season. This, I think,
is one of the factors of no little power at work among the Christian
churches in Japan. It is one, too, that the Japanese themselves little
perceive; so far as I have observed, foreigners likewise fail to
realize its force.
Closely connected with this sensitiveness to environment are other
qualities which make it effective. They are: great flexibility,
adjustability, agility (both mental and physical), and the powers of
keen attention to details and of exact imitation.
As opposed to all this is the Chinese lack of flexibility. Contrast a
Chinaman and a Japanese after each has been in America a year. The one
to all appearances is an American; his hat, his clothing, his manner,
seem so like those of an American that were it not for his small size,
Mongolian type of face, and defective English, he could easily be
mistaken for one. How different is it with the Chinaman! He retains
his curious cue with a tenacity that is as intense as it is
characteristic. His hat is the conventional one adopted by all Chinese
immigrants. His clothing likewise, though far from Chinese, is
nevertheless entirely un-American. He makes no effort to conform to
his surroundings. He seems to glory in his separateness.
The Japanese desire to conform to the customs and appearances of those
about him is due to what I have called sensitiveness; his success is
due to the flexibility of his mental constitution.
But this characteristic is seen in multitudes of little ways. The new
fashion of wearing the hair according to the Western styles; of
wearing Western hats, and Western clothing, now universal in the army,
among policemen, and common among officials and educated men; the use
of chairs and tables, lamps, windows, and other Western things is due
in no small measure to that flexibility of mind which readily adopts
new ideas and new ways; is ready to try new things and new words, and
after trial, if it finds them convenient or useful or even amusing, to
retain them permanently, and this flexibility is, in part, the reason
why the Japanese are accounted a fickle people. They accept new ways
so easily that those who do not have this faculty have no explanation
for it but that of fickleness. A frequent surprise to a missionary in
Japan is that of meeting a fine-looking, accomplished gentleman whom
he knew a few years before as a crude, ungainly youth. I am convinced
that it is the possession of this set of characteristics that has
enabled Japan so quickly to assimilate many elements of an alien
civilization.
Yet this flexibility of mind and sensitiveness to changed conditions
find some apparently striking exceptions. Notable among these are the
many customs and appliances of foreign nations which, though adopted
by the people, have not been completely modified to suit their own
needs. In illustration is the Chinese ideograph, for the learning of
which even in the modern common-school reader, there is no arrangement
of the characters in the order of their complexity. The possibility of
simplifying the colossal task of memorizing these uncorrelated
ideographs does not seem to have occurred to the Japanese; though it
is now being attempted by the foreigner. Perhaps a partial explanation
of this apparent exception to the usual flexibility of the people in
meeting conditions may be found in their relative lack of originality.
Still I am inclined to refer it to a greater sensitiveness of the
Japanese to the personal and human, than to the impersonal and
physical environment.
The customary explanation of the group of characteristics considered
in this chapter is that they are innate, due to brain and nerve
structure, and acquired by each generation through biological
heredity. If closely examined, however, this is seen to be no
explanation at all. Accepting the characteristics as empirical
inexplicable facts, the real problem is evaded, pushed into
prehistoric times, that convenient dumping ground of biological,
anthropological, and sociological difficulties.
Japanese flexibility, imitativeness, and sensitiveness to environment
are to be accounted for by a careful consideration of the national
environment and social order. Modern psychology has called attention
to the astonishing part played by imitation, conscious and
unconscious, in the evolution of the human race, and in the
unification of the social group. Prof. Le Tarde goes so far as to make
this the fundamental principle of human evolution. He has shown that
it is ever at work in the life of every human being, modifying all his
thoughts, acts, and feelings. In the evolution of civilization the
rare man thinks, the millions imitate.
A slight consideration of the way in which Occidental lands have
developed their civilization will convince anyone that imitation has
taken the leading part. Japan, therefore, is not unique in this
respect. Her periods of wholesale imitation have indeed called special
notice to the trait. But the rapidity of the movement has been due to
the peculiarities of her environment. For long periods she has been in
complete isolation, and when brought into contact with foreign
nations, she has found them so far in advance of herself in many
important respects that rapid imitation was the only course left her
by the inexorable laws of nature. Had she not imitated China in
ancient times and the Occident in modern times, her independence, if
not her existence, could hardly have been maintained.
Imitation of admittedly superior civilizations has therefore been an
integral, conscious element of Japan's social order, and to a degree
perhaps not equaled by the social order of any other race.
The difference between Japanese imitation and that of other nations
lies in the fact that whereas the latter, as a rule, despise foreign
races, and do not admit the superiority of alien civilizations as a
whole, imitating only a detail here and there, often without
acknowledgment and sometimes even without knowledge, the Japanese, on
the other hand, have repeatedly been placed in such circumstances as
to see the superiority of foreign civilizations as a whole, and to
desire their general adoption. This has produced a spirit of imitation
among all the individuals of the race. It has become a part of their
social inheritance. This explanation largely accounts for the striking
difference between Japanese and Chinese in the Occident. The Japanese
go to the West in order to acquire all the West can give. The Chinaman
goes steeled against its influences. The spirit of the Japanese
renders him quickly susceptible to every change in his surroundings.
He is ever noting details and adapting himself to his circumstances.
The spirit of the Chinaman, on the contrary, renders him quite
oblivious to his environment. His mind is closed. Under special
circumstances, when a Chinaman has been liberated from the
prepossession of his social inheritance, he has shown himself as
capable of Occidentalization in clothing, speech, manner, and thought
as a Japanese. Such cases, however, are rare.
But a still more effective factor in the development of the
characteristics under consideration is the nature of Japanese
feudalism. Its emphasis on the complete subordination of the inferior
to the superior was one of its conspicuous features. This was a factor
always and everywhere at work in Japan. No individual was beyond its
potent influence. Attention to details, absolute obedience, constant,
conscious imitation, secretiveness, suspiciousness, were all highly
developed by this social system. Each of these traits is a special
form of sensitiveness to environment. From the most ancient times the
initiative of superiors was essential to the wide adoption by the
people of any new idea or custom. Christianity found ready acceptance
in the sixteenth century and Buddhism in the eighth, because they had
been espoused by exalted persons. The superiority of the civilization
of China in early times, and of the West in modern times, was first
acknowledged and adopted by a few nobles and the Emperor. Having
gained this prestige they promptly became acceptable to the rank and
file of people who vied with each other in their adoption. A
peculiarity of the Japanese is the readiness with which the ideas and
aims of the rulers are accepted by the people. This is due to the
nature of Japanese feudalism. It has made the body of the nation
conspicuously subject to the ruling brain and has conferred on Japan
her unique sensitiveness to environment.
Susceptibility to slight changes in the feelings of lords and masters
and corresponding flexibility were important social traits, necessary
products of the old social order. Those deficient in these regards
would inevitably lose in the struggle for social precedence, if not in
the actual struggle for existence. These characteristics would,
accordingly, be highly developed.