Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/122

82 mere money-making and the lack of a strong desire for wealth. The merchant, engaged in trade,—that is, in money-making pursuits,—was ranked below the soldier, the farmer, and the artisan. The typical Japanese believed that "the love of money is the root of all evil," and was not actuated by "the accursed greed for gold" (auri sacra fames). No sordid views of life on a cash basis were held by the Japanese, and not even the materialism of modern life has yet destroyed their generous and philanthropic instincts. They are as truly altruistic as Occidentals are egoistic.

The modern characteristic expressed by the term "practical" does not belong to the Japanese, who are rather visionary in disposition. This trait is undoubtedly an effect of the old distaste for money-making pursuits, and renders the Japanese people, on the whole, incapable of attending strictly and carefully to the minutiæ of business. They do not, indeed, appear to possess the mental and moral qualities which go to make a successful merchant or business man. This is the testimony both of those who have studied their psychological natures and of those who have had actual business experience with them. The former say that unpracticality and a distaste for money-making are natural elements of the Japanese character, as is evidenced by the fact that, in ancient society, the merchant was assigned to the fourth class—below the soldier, the farmer, the artisan.