been famous for centuries,--trees trained and clipped into
extraordinary shapes. Some have the form of dragons; others have the
form of pagodas, ships, umbrellas. Supposing that one of these trees
were abandoned to its own natural tendencies, it would eventually
lose the queer shape so long imposed upon it; but the outline would
not be altered for a considerable time, as the new leafage would at
first unfold only in the direction of least resistance: that is to
say, within limits originally established by the shears and the
pruning-knife. By sword and law the old Japanese society had been
pruned and clipped, bent and bound, just like such a tree; and after
the reconstructions of the Meiji period,--after the abolition of the
daimiates, and the suppression of the military class, it still
maintained its former shape, just as the tree would continue to do
when first abandoned by the gardener. Though delivered from the bonds
of feudal law, released from the shears of military rule, the great
bulk of the social structure preserved its ancient [382] aspect; and
the rare spectacle bewildered and delighted and deluded the Western
observer. Here indeed was Elf-land,--the strange, the beautiful, the
grotesque, the very mysterious,--totally unlike aught of strange and
attractive ever beheld elsewhere. It was not a world of the
nineteenth century after Christ, but a world of many centuries before
Christ: yet this fact--the wonder of wonders--remained unrecognized;
and it remains unrecognized by most people even to this day.
Fortunate indeed were those privileged to enter this astonishing
fairyland thirty odd years ago, before the period of superficial
change, and to observe the unfamiliar aspects of its life: the
universal urbanity, the smiling silence of crowds, the patient
deliberation of toil, the absence of misery and struggle. Even yet,
in those remoter districts where alien influence has wrought but
little change, the charm of the old existence lingers and amazes; and
the ordinary traveller can little understand what it means. That all
are polite, that nobody quarrels, that everybody smiles, that pain
and sorrow remain invisible, that the new police have nothing to do,
would seem to prove a morally superior humanity. But for the trained
sociologist it would prove something different, and suggest something
very terrible. It would prove to him that this society had been
moulded under immense coercion, and that the coercion must have been
exerted uninterruptedly [383] for thousands of years. He would
immediately perceive that ethics and custom had not yet become
dissociated, and that the conduct of each person was regulated by the
will of the rest. He would know that personality could not develop in
such a social medium,--that no individual superiority dare assert
itself, that no competition would be tolerated. He would understand
that the outward charm of this life--its softness, its smiling
silence as of dreams--signified the rule of the dead. He would
recognize that between those minds and the minds of his own epoch no
kinship of thought, no community of sentiment, no sympathy whatever
could exist,--that the separating gulf was not to be measured by
thousands of leagues, but only by thousands of years,--that the
psychological interval was hopeless as the distance from planet to
planet. Yet this knowledge probably would not--certainly should
not--blind him to the intrinsic charm of things. Not to feel the
beauty of this archaic life is to prove oneself insensible to all
beauty. Even that Greek world, for which our scholars and poets
profess such loving admiration, must have been in many ways a world
of the same kind, whose daily mental existence no modern mind could
share.
Now that the great social tree, so wonderfully clipped and cared for
during many centuries, [384] is losing its fantastic shape, let us
try to see how much of the original design can still be traced.
Under all the outward aspects of individual activity that modern
Japan presents to the visitor's gaze, the ancient conditions really
persist to an extent that no observation could reveal. Still the
immemorial cult rules all the land. Still the family-law, the
communal law, and (though in a more irregular manner) the clan-law,
control every action of existence. I do not refer to any written law,
but only to the old unwritten religious law, with its host of
obligations deriving from ancestor-worship. It is true that many
changes--and, in the opinion of the wise, too many changes--have been
made in civil legislation; but the ancient proverb, "Government-laws
are only seven-day laws," still represents popular sentiment in
regard to hasty reforms. The old law, the law of the dead, is that by
which the millions prefer to act and think. Though ancient social
groupings have been officially abolished, re-groupings of a
corresponding sort have been formed, instinctively, throughout the
country districts. In theory the individual is free; in practice he
is scarcely more free than were his forefathers. Old penalties for
breach of custom have been abrogated; yet communal opinion is able to
compel the ancient obedience. Legal enactments can nowhere effect
immediate [385] change of sentiment and long-established
usage,--least of all among a people of such fixity of character as
the Japanese. Young persons are no more at liberty now, than were
their fathers and mothers under the Shogunate, to marry at will, to
invest their means and efforts in undertakings not sanctioned by
family approval, to consider themselves in any way enfranchised from
family authority; and it is probably better for the present that they
are not. No man is yet complete master of his activities, his time,
or his means.
Though the individual is now registered, and made directly
accountable to the law, while the household has been relieved from
its ancient responsibility for the acts of its members, still the
family practically remains the social unit, retaining its patriarchal
organization and its particular cult. Not unwisely, the modern
legislators have protected this domestic religion: to weaken its bond
at this time were to weaken the foundations of the national moral
life,--to introduce disintegrations into the most deeply seated
structures of the social organism. The new codes forbid the man who
becomes by succession the head of a house to abolish that house: he
is not permitted to suppress a cult. No legal presumptive heir to the
headship of a family can enter into another family as adopted son or
husband; nor can he abandon the paternal house to establish an
independent [386] family of his own.* Provision has been made to meet
extraordinary cases; but no individual is allowed, without good and
sufficient reason, to free himself from those traditional obligations
which the family-cult imposes. As regards adoption, the new law
maintains the spirit of the old, with fresh provision for the
conservation of the family religion,--permitting any person of legal
age to adopt a son, on the simple condition that the person adopted
shall be younger than the adopter. The new divorce-laws do not permit
the dismissal of a wife for sterility alone (and divorce for such
cause had long been condemned by Japanese sentiment); but, in view of
the facilities given for adoption, this reform does not endanger the
continuance of the cult. An interesting example of the manner in
which the law still protects ancestor-worship is furnished by the
fact that an aged and childless widow, last representative of her
family, is not permitted to remain without an heir. She must adopt a
son if she can: if she cannot, because of poverty, or for other
reasons, [387] the local authorities will provide a son for
her,--that is to say, a male heir to maintain the family-worship.
Such official interference would seem to us tyrannical: it is simply
paternal, and represents the continuance of an ancient regulation
intended to protect the bereaved against what Eastern faith still
deems the supreme misfortune,--the extinction of the home-cult.... In
other respects the later codes allow of individual liberty unknown in
previous generations. But the ordinary person would not dream of
attempting to claim a legal right opposed to common opinion. Family
and public sentiment are still more potent than law. The Japanese
newspapers frequently record tragedies resulting from the prevention
or dissolution of unions; and these tragedies afford strong proof
that most young people would prefer even suicide to the probable
consequence of a successful appeal to law against family decision.
[*That is to say, he cannot separate himself from the family in law;
but he is free to live in a separate house. The tendency to further
disintegration of the family is shown by a custom which has been
growing of late years,--especially in Tokyo: the custom of demanding,
as a condition of marriage, that the bride shall not be obliged to
live in the same house with the parents of the bridegroom. This
custom is yet confined to certain classes, and has been adversely
criticised. Many young men, on marrying, leave the parental home to
begin independent housekeeping,--though remaining legally attached
to their parents' families, of course.... It will perhaps be asked,
What becomes of the cult in such cases? The cult remains in the
parental home. When the parents die, then the ancestral tablets are
transferred to the home of the married son.]
The communal form of coercion is less apparent in the large cities;
but everywhere it endures to some extent, and in the agricultural
districts it remains supreme. Between the new conditions and the old
there is this difference, that the man who finds the yoke of his
district hard to bear can flee from it: he could not do so fifty
years ago. But he can flee from it only to enter into another state
of subordination of nearly the same kind. Full [388] advantage,
nevertheless, has been taken of this modern liberty of movement:
thousands yearly throng to the cities; other thousands travel over
the country, from province to province; working for a year or a
season in one place, then going to another, with little more to hope
for than experience of change. Emigration also has been taking place
upon an extensive scale; but for the common class of emigrants, at
least, the advantage of emigration is chiefly represented by the
chance of earning larger wages. A Japanese emigrant community abroad
organizes itself upon the home-plan;* and the individual emigrant
probably finds himself as much under communal coercion in Canada,
Hawaii, or the Philippine Islands, as he could ever have been in his
native province. Needless to say that in foreign countries such
coercion is more than compensated by the aid and protection which the
communal organization insures. But with the constantly increasing
number of restless spirits at home, and the ever widening experience
of Japanese emigrants abroad, it would seem likely that the power of
the commune for compulsory cooperation must become considerably
weakened in the near future.
[*Except as regards the communal cult, perhaps. The domestic cult is
transplanted; emigrants who go abroad, accompanied by their families,
take the ancestral tablets with them. To what extent the communal
cult may have been established in emigrant communities, I have not
yet been able to learn. It would appear, however, that the absence of
Ujigami in certain emigrant settlements is to be accounted for solely
by the pecuniary difficulty of constructing such temples and
maintaining competent officials. In Formosa, for example, though the
domestic ancestor-cult is maintained in the homes of the Japanese
settlers, Ujigami have not yet been established. The government,
however, has erected several important Shinto temples; and I am told
that some of these will probably be converted into Ujigami when the
Japanese population has increased enough to justify the measure.]
[389] As for the tribal or clan law, it survives to the degree of
remaining almost omnipotent in administrative circles, and in all
politics. Voters, officials, legislators, do not follow principles in
our sense of the word: they follow men, and obey commands. In these
spheres of action the penalties of disobedience to orders are endless
as well as serious: by a single such offence one may array against
oneself powers that will continue their hostile operation for years
and years,--unreasoningly, implacably, blindly, with the weight and
persistence of natural forces,--of winds or tides. Any comprehension
of the history of Japanese politics during the last fifteen years is
not possible without some knowledge of clan-history. A political
leader, fully acquainted with the history of clan-parties, and their
offshoots, can accomplish marvellous things; and even foreign
residents, with long experience of Japanese life, have been able, by
pressing upon clan-interests, to exercise a very real power in
government circles. But to the ordinary foreigner, Japanese
contemporary politics must appear a chaos, a disintegration, a
hopeless flux. The truth is that most things remain, under varying
outward forms, "as all were ordered, ages since,"--though the [390]
shiftings have become more rapid, and the results less obvious, in
the haste of an era of steam and electricity.
The greatest of living Japanese statesmen, the Marquis Ito, long ago
perceived that the tendency of political life to agglomerations, to
clan-groupings, presented the most serious obstacle to the successful
working of constitutional government. He understood that this
tendency could be opposed only by considerations weightier than
clan-interests, considerations worthy of supreme sacrifice. He
therefore formed a party of which every member was pledged to pass
over clan-interests, clique-interests, personal and every other kind
of interests, for the sake of national interests. Brought into
collision with a hostile cabinet in 1903, this party achieved the
feat of controlling its animosities even to the extent of maintaining
its foes in power; but large fragments broke off in the process. So
profoundly is the grouping-tendency, the clan-sentiment, identified
with national character, that the ultimate success of Marquis Ito's
policy must still be considered doubtful. Only a national danger--the
danger of war,--has yet been able to weld all parties together, to
make all wills work as one.
Not only politics, but nearly all phases of modern life, yield
evidence that the disintegration of the old society has been
superficial rather than fundamental. Structures dissolved have
recrystallized, taking forms [391] dissimilar in aspect to the
original forms, but inwardly built upon the same plan. For the
dissolutions really effected represented only a separation of masses,
not a breaking up of substance into independent units; and these
masses, again cohering, continue to act only as masses. Independence
of personal action, in the Western sense, is still almost
inconceivable. The individual of every class above the lowest must
continue to be at once coercer and coerced. Like an atom within a
solid body, he can vibrate; but the orbit of his vibration is fixed.
He must act and be acted upon in ways differing little from those of
ancient time.
As for being acted upon, the average man is under three kinds of
pressure: pressure from above, exemplified in the will of his
superiors; pressure about him, represented by the common will of his
fellows and equals; pressure from below, represented by the general
sentiment of his inferiors. And this last sort of coercion is not the
least formidable.
Individual resistance to the first kind of pressure--that represented
by authority--is not even to be thought of; because the superior
represents a clan, a class, an exceedingly multiple power of some
description; and no solitary individual, in the present order of
things, can strive against a combination. To resist injustice he must
find ample support, in [392] which case his resistance does not
represent individual action.
Resistance to the second kind of pressure--communal coercion
--signifies ruin, loss of the right to form a part of the social
body.
Resistance to the third sort of pressure, embodied in the common
sentiment of inferiors, may result in almost anything,--from
momentary annoyance to sudden death,--according to circumstances.
In all forms of society these three kinds of pressure are exerted to
some degree; but in Japanese society, owing to inherited tendency,
and traditional sentiment, their power is tremendous.
Thus, in every direction, the individual finds himself confronted by
the despotism of collective opinion: it is impossible for him to act
with safety except as one unit of a combination. The first kind of
pressure deprives him of moral freedom, exacting unlimited obedience
to orders; the second kind of pressure denies him the right to use
his best faculties in the best way for his own advantage (that is to
say, denies him the right of free competition); the third kind of
pressure compels him, in directing the actions of others, to follow
tradition, to forbear innovations, to avoid making any changes,
however beneficial, which do not find willing acceptance on the part
of his inferiors.
These are the social conditions which, under [393] normal
circumstances, make for stability, for conservation; and they
represent the will of the dead. They are inevitable to a militant
state; they make the strength of that state; they render facile the
creation and maintenance of formidable armies. But they are not
conditions favourable to success in the future international
competition,--in the industrial struggle for existence against
societies incomparably more plastic, and of higher mental energy.
[394]
[395]
MODERN RESTRAINTS
For even a vague understanding of modern Japan, it will be necessary
to consider the effect of the three forms of social coercion,
mentioned in the preceding chapter, as restraints upon individual
energy and capacity. All three represent survivals of the ancient
religious responsibility. I shall treat of them in order inverse,
beginning with the under-pressure.
It has often been asserted by foreign observers that the real power
in Japan is exercised not from above, but from below. There is some
truth in this assertion, but not all the truth: the conditions are
much too complex to be covered by any general statement. What cannot
be gainsaid is that superior authority has always been more or less
restrained by tendencies to resistance from below.... At no time in
Japanese history, for example, do the peasants appear to have been
left without recourse against excessive oppression,--notwithstanding
all the humiliating regulations imposed on their existence. They were
suffered to frame their own village-laws, to estimate the possible
amount of [396] their tax-payments,--and to make protest--through
official channels--against unmerciful exaction. They were made to pay
as much as they could; but they were not reduced to bankruptcy or
starvation; and their holdings were mostly secured to them by laws
forbidding the sale or alienation of family property. Such was at
least the general rule. There were, however, wicked daimyo, who
treated their farmers with extreme cruelty, and found ways to prevent
complaints or protests from reaching the higher authorities. The
almost invariable result of such tyranny was revolt; and the tyrant
was then made responsible for the disorder, and punished. Though
denied in theory, the right of the peasant to rebel against
oppression was respected in practice; the revolt was punished, but
the oppressor was likewise punished. Daimyo were obliged to reckon
with their farmers in regard to any fresh imposition of taxes or
forced labour. We also find that although heimin were made subject to
the military class, it was possible for artizans and commercial folk
to form, in the great cities, strong associations by which military
tyranny was kept in check. Everywhere the reverential deference of
the common people to authority, as exercised in usual directions,
seems to have been accompanied by an extraordinary readiness to defy
authority exercised in other directions.
It may seem strange that a society in which religion [397] and
government, ethics and custom, were practically identical, should
furnish striking examples of resistance to authority. But the
religious fact itself supplies the explanation. From the earliest
period there was firmly established, in the popular mind, the
conviction that implicit obedience to authority was the universal
duty under all ordinary circumstances. But with this conviction there
was united another,--that resistance to authority (excepting the
sacred authority of the Supreme Ruler) was equally a duty under
extraordinary circumstances. And these seemingly opposed convictions
were not really inconsistent. So long as rule followed precedent,--so
long as its commands, however harsh, did not conflict with sentiment
and tradition,--that rule was regarded as religious, and there was
absolute submission. But when rulers presumed to break with ethical
usage,--in a spirit of reckless cruelty or greed,--then the people
might feel it a religious obligation to resist with all the zeal of
voluntary martyrdom. The danger-line for every form of local tyranny
was departure from precedent. Even the conduct of regents and princes
was much restrained by the common opinion of their retainers, and by
the knowledge that certain kinds of arbitrary conduct were likely to
provoke assassination.
Deference to the sentiment of vassals and retainers was from ancient
time a necessary policy with Japanese rulers,--not merely because of
the peril involved [398] by needless oppression, but much more
because of the recognition that duties are well performed only when
subordinates feel assured that their efforts will be fairly
considered, and that sudden needless changes will not be made to
their disadvantage. This old policy still characterizes Japanese
administration; and the deference of high authority to collective
opinion astonishes and puzzles the foreign observer. He perceives
only that the conservative power of sentiment, as exercised by groups
of subordinates, remains successfully opposed to those conditions of
discipline which we think indispensable to social progress. Just as
in Old Japan the ruler of a district was held, responsible for the
behaviour of his subjects, so to-day, in New Japan, every official in
charge of a department is held responsible for the smooth working of
its routine. But this does not mean that he is responsible only for
the efficiency of a service: it means that he is held responsible
likewise for failure to satisfy the wishes of his subordinates, or at
least the majority of his subordinates. If this majority be
displeased with their minister, governor, president, manager, chief,
or director, the fact is considered proof of administrative
incompetency.... Perhaps educational circles afford the most curious
examples of this old idea of responsibility. A student-revolt is
commonly supposed to mean, not that the students are intractable, but
that the superintendent or teacher does not know [399] his business.
Thus the principal of a college, the director of a school, holds his
office only on the condition that his rule gives satisfaction to a
majority of the students. In the higher government institutions, each
professor or lecturer is made responsible for the success of his
lectures. No matter how great may be his ability in other directions,
the official instructor, unable to make himself liked by his pupils,
will be got rid of in short order--unless some powerful protectors
interfere on his behalf. The efforts of the man will never be judged
(officially) by any accepted standard of excellence,--never estimated
by their intrinsic worth; they will be considered only according to
their direct effect upon the average of minds.* Almost everywhere
this antique system of responsibility is maintained. A minister of
state is by public sentiment made responsible not only for the
results of his administration, but likewise for any scandals or
troubles that may occur in his department, independently of the
question whether he could or could not have prevented them. To a
considerable degree, therefore, it is true that the ultimate [400]
power is below. The highest official is not able with impunity to
impose his personal will in certain directions; and, for the time
being, it is probably better that his powers are thus restrained.