Out of the East (15 page)

Probably their fanatical attacks, not only upon the native spirit, the native religion, and the native code of ethics, but even upon the native dress and customs, may partly account for some recent extraordinary displays of national feeling by the Japanese Christians themselves. Some have openly expressed their desire to dispense altogether with the presence of foreign proselytizers, and to create a new and peculiar Christianity, to be essentially Japanese and essentially national in spirit. Others have gone much further,—demanding that all mission schools, churches, and other property, now held (to satisfy or evade law) in Japanese names, shall be made over in fact as well as name to Japanese Christians, as a proof of the purity of the motives professed. And in sundry cases it has already been found necessary to surrender mission schools altogether to native direction.

I spoke in a former paper of the splendid enthusiasm with which the entire nation had seconded the educational efforts and purposes of the Government.
⁴
Not less zeal and self-denial have been shown in aid of the national measures of self-defense. The Emperor himself having set the example, by devoting a large part of his private income to the purchase of ships-of-war, no murmur was excited by the edict requiring one tenth of all government salaries for the same purpose. Every military or naval officer, every professor or teacher, and nearly every employee of the Civil Service
⁵
thus contributes monthly to the naval defense. Minister, peer, or member of Parliament, is no more exempt than the humblest post-office clerk. Besides these contributions by edict, to continue for six years, generous donations are voluntarily made by rich land-owners, merchants, and bankers throughout the Empire. for, in order to save herself, Japan must become strong quickly: the outer pressure upon her is much too serious to admit of delay. Her efforts are almost incredible, and their success is not improbable. But the odds against her are vast; and she
may
—stumble. Will she stumble? It is very hard to predict. But a future misfortune could scarcely be the result of any weakening of the national spirit. It would be far more likely to occur as a result of political mistakes,—of rash self-confidence.

It still remains to ask what is the likely fate of the old morality in the midst of all this absorption, assimilation, and reaction. And I think an answer is partly suggested in the following conversation which I had recently with a student of the University. It is written from memory, and is therefore not exactly verbatim, but has interest as representing the thought of the new generation—witnesses of the vanishing of the gods:—

"Sir, what was your opinion when you first came to this country, about the Japanese? Please to be quite frank with me."

"The young Japanese of to-day?"

"No."

"Then you mean those who still follow the ancient customs, and maintain the ancient forms of courtesy,—the delightful old men, like your former Chinese teacher, who still represent the old samurai spirit?"

"Yes. Mr. A-an ideal samurai.

I mean such as he."

"I thought them all that is good and noble. They seemed to me just like their own gods."

"And do you still think so well of them? "

"Yes. And the more I see the Japanese of the new generation, the more I admire the men of the old."

"We also admire them. But, as a foreigner, you must also have observed their defects."

"What defects?"

"Defects in practical knowledge of the Western kind."

"But to judge the men of one civilization by the standard requirements of another, which is totally different in organization, would be unjust. It seems to me that the more perfectly a man represents his own civilization, the more we must esteem him as a citizen, and as a gentleman. And judged by their own standards, which were morally very high, the old Japanese appear to me almost perfect men."

"In what respect? "

"In kindness, in courtesy, in heroism, in self-control, in power of self-sacrifice, in filial piety, in simple faith, and in the capacity to be contented with a little."

"But would such qualities be sufficient to assure practical success in the struggle of Western life?"

"Not exactly; but some of them would assist."

"The qualities really necessary for practical success in Western life are just those qualities wanting to the old Japanese—are they not?"

"I think so."

"And our old society cultivated those qualities of unselfishness, and courtesy, and benevolence which you admire, at the sacrifice of the individual. But Western society cultivates the individual by unrestricted competition,—competition in the power of thinking and acting."

"I think that is true."

"But in order that Japan be able to keep her place among nations, she must adopt the industrial and commercial methods of the West. Her future depends upon her industrial development; but there can be no development if we continue to follow our ancient morals and manners."

"Why?"

"Not to be able to compete with the West means ruin; but to compete with the West we must follow the methods of the West; and these are quite contrary to the old morality."

"Perhaps."

"I do not think it can be doubted. To do any kind of business upon a very large scale, men must not be checked by the idea that no advantage should be sought which could injure the business of others. And on the other hand, wherever there is no restraint on competition, men who hesitate to compete because of mere kindliness of heart, must fail. The law of the struggle is that the strong and active shall win, the weak and the foolish and the indifferent lose. But our old morality condemned such competition."

"That is true."

"Then, Sir, no matter how good the old morality, we cannot make any great industrial progress, nor even preserve our national independence, by following it. We must forsake our past. We must substitute law for morality."

"But it is not a good substitute."

"It has been a good substitute in the West, if we can judge by the material greatness and power of England. We must learn in Japan to be moral by reason, instead of being moral by emotion. A knowledge of the moral reason of law is itself a moral knowledge."

"For you, and those who study cosmic law, perhaps. But what of the common people? "

"They will try to follow the old religion; they will continue to trust in their gods. But life will, perhaps, become more difficult for them. They were happy in the ancient days."

The foregoing essay was written two years ago. Later political events and the signing of new treaties obliged me to remodel it last year; and now, while the proofs are passing through my hands, the events of the war with China compel some further remarks. What none could have predicted in 1893 the whole world recognizes in 1895 with astonishment and with admiration.
Japan has won in her jiujutsu
. Her autonomy is practically restored, her place among civilized nations seems to be assured: she has passed forever out of Western tutelage. What neither her arts nor her virtues could ever have gained for her, she has obtained by the very first display of her new scientific powers of aggression and destruction.

Not a little has been hastily said about long secret preparation for the war made by Japan, and about the flimsiness of her pretexts for entering upon it. I believe that the purposes of her military preparations were never other than those indicated in the preceding chapter. It was to recover her independence that Japan steadily cultivated her military strength for twenty-five years. But successive pulses of popular reaction against foreign influence during that period—each stronger than the preceding—warned the Government of the nation's growing consciousness of power and of its ever-increasing irritation against the treaties. The reaction of 1893-94 took so menacing a form through the House of Representatives that the dissolution of the Diet became an immediate necessity. But even repeated parliamentary dissolutions could only have postponed the issue. It has since been averted partly by the new treaties, and partly by the sudden loosening of the Empire's military force against China. Should it not be obvious that only the merciless industrial and political pressure exercised by a combined Occident against Japan really compelled this war,—as a manifestation of force in the direction of least resistance? Happily that manifestation has been effectual. Japan has proved herself able to hold her own against the world. She has no wish to break her industrial relations with the Occident unless further imposed upon ; but with the military revival of her Empire it is almost certain that the day of Occidental influence upon her—whether direct or indirect—is definitely over. further anti-foreign reaction may be expected in the natural order of things,—not necessarily either violent or unreasonable, but embodying the fullest reassertion of national individuality. Some change even in the form of government is not impossible, considering the questionable results of experimentation with Constitutional Government made by a people accustomed for untold centuries to autocratic rule. But the fallacy of Sir Harry Parkes's prediction that Japan would become "a South American republic" warns against ventures to anticipate the future of this wonderful and enigmatic race.

It is true that the war is not yet over ;—but the ultimate triumph of Japan seems beyond doubt,—even allowing for the formidable chances of a revolution in China. The world is already asking with some anxiety what will come next? Perhaps the compulsion of the most peaceable and most conservative of all nations, under both Japanese and Occidental pressure, to really master our arts of war in self-defense. After that perhaps a great military awakening of China, who would be quite likely, under the same circumstances as made New Japan, to turn her arms
South and West
. For possible ultimate consequences, consult Dr. Pearson's recent book,
National Character.

It is to be remembered that the art of jiujutsu was invented in China. And the West has yet to reckon with China,—China, the ancient teacher of Japan,—China, over whose changeless millions successive storms of conquest have passed only as a wind over reeds. Under compulsion, indeed, she may be forced, like Japan, to defend her integrity by jiujutsu. But the end of that prodigious jiujutsu might have results the most serious for the entire world. It might be reserved for China to avenge all those aggressions, extortions, exterminations, of which the colonizing West has been guilty in dealing with feebler races.

Already thinkers, summarizing the experience of the two great colonizing nations,—thinkers not to be ignored, both French and English,—have predicted that the earth will never be fully dominated by the races of the West, and that the future belongs to the Orient. Such, too, are the convictions of many who have learned by long sojourn in the East to see beneath the surface of that strange humanity so utterly removed from us in thought,—to comprehend the depth and force of its tides of life,—to understand its immeasurable capacities of assimilation,—to discern its powers of self-adaptation to almost any environment between the arctic and antarctic circles. And in the judgment of such observers nothing less than the extermination of a race comprising more than one third of the world's population could now assure us even of the future of our own civilization.

Perhaps, as has been recently averred by Dr. Pearson, the long history of Western expansion and aggression is even now approaching its close. Perhaps our civilization has girdled the earth only to force the study of our arts of destruction and our arts of industrial competition upon races much more inclined to use them against us than for us. Even to do this we had to place most of the world under tribute,—so colossal were the powers needed. Perhaps we could not have attempted less, because the tremendous social machinery we have created, threatens, like the Demon of the old legend, to devour us in the same hour that we can find no more tasks for it.

A wondrous creation, indeed, this civilization of ours,—ever growing higher out of an abyss of ever-deepening pain; but it seems also to many not less monstrous than wonderful. That it may crumble suddenly in a social earthquake has long been the evil dream of those who dwell in its summits. That as a social structure it cannot endure, by reason of its moral foundation, is the teaching of Oriental wisdom.

Certainly the results of its labors cannot pass away till man shall have fully played out the drama of his existence upon this planet. It has resurrected the past;—it has revived the languages of the dead;—it has wrested countless priceless secrets from Nature;—it has analyzed suns and vanquished space and time;—it has compelled the invisible to become visible;—it has torn away all veils save the veil of the Infinite;—it has founded ten thousand systems of knowledge;—it has expanded the modern brain beyond the cubic capacity of the mediaeval skull;—it has evolved the most noble, even if it has also evolved the most detestable, forms of individuality;—it has developed the most exquisite sympathies and the loftiest emotions known to man, even though it has developed likewise forms of selfishness and of suffering impossible in other eras. Intellectually it has grown beyond the altitude of the stars. That it must, in any event, bear to the future a relation incomparably vaster than that of Greek civilization to the past, is impossible to disbelieve.