Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/349

 THE JAPANESE AS PEERS OF WESTERN PEOPLES 333

from the symmetry which was bequeathed us by the great Greeks. If, therefore, there is any peril to art involved in current inter- national relations, it must be to the yellow race quite as much as from it. It is worth while to notice here, as a precondition of all art, that the Japanese are beyond compare the neatest and cleanest people upon earth. Neither street, yard, nor house is ever seen in the least littered or disordered; while, as already noticed, a daily hot bath keeps the whole people as fresh and fragrant as new hay.

Even a slight acquaintance with the history and present prac- tices of the Japanese can leave no doubt that they possess a keen moral faculty, however it may have been diverted from our standards by varying conditions. There is added comfort in this fact for those who believe in the " yellow peril ; " for, even should the Mongolian develop his vast material resources in his own behalf, he could still be depended upon to respect our rights at least as much as we have his, for that could strain no moral faculty at all worth the name. The "varying conditions" just cited were communalism as contrasted with our individualism, and feudalism in contrast with our industrialism. Such broad political and social facts as these determine special virtues by the score. Thus, the chief duty in Japanese eyes was loyalty to the feudal lord, which, since the restoration in 1868, was transformed into loyalty to the national lord or Mikado, now emerged from his sacred seclusion in the Kyoto palace. This loyalty was bind- ing, whatever might be the character of the liege lord; indeed, retainers have sometimes committed suicide to place emphasis upon disregarded admonitions to a dissolute or headstrong mas- ter; and the duty of vendetta avenging the murder of a lord or kinsman was carried out with a self-sacrificing zeal that reached its climax in the "Forty-seven Ronins" glorified by all Japanese to this day. And this Japanese loyalty still possesses the sovereign seal of kesshi, " ready even to death," as is every- where evident in the war just closed. In a call for a forlorn hope, practically everyone responds, some observing an old custom of writing the petition in their own blood. Japanese can count the cost and then be perfectly determined. In feudal times children