Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/34

 from her, she detected the wide interval separating her material civilisation from that of the West. Thenceforth it became the constantly expressed aspiration of every educated Japanese that his country soon "get level" with Occidental nations in the race of progress. That wish was paramount from the very beginning. There was not the least attempt to throw any bridge of extenuation across the gulf of inferiority. The frankly recognised facts inspired an earnest resolve to alter them if possible, and as speedily as possible. How many Japanese students have overtaxed their powers of endurance under the goad of that aspiration, how many statesmen have made it the prime motive of their administration, no one can conceive who has not observed these people closely since they first stepped out of the shadow of isolation.

Strangers discussing the character of the Japanese have assigned to it an extraordinary element of patriotism, and inferred abnormal readiness to make sacrifices on the altar of love of country. There is no warrant for such a theory. The Japanese doubtless have their full share of patriotism, but they cannot claim an unexceptional measure of it. What is mistaken for an unusual abundance of the sentiment is simply its morbid activity, caused, on the one hand, by a genuine perception of the distance they have to traverse before they reach the elevation of prosperity and progress on which Occidental nations stand; on