Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/130

 jurist would reject as emotional. They took for guide the sentiment of right, not its science, and moral duty assumed in their eyes altruistic extensions that trenched upon the confines of romance. Educated to anticipate compromise as the issue of every dispute, they carried the spirit of concession into all controversies, and thus neither in the story of the individual nor in the history of the nation can the student find many examples of that fiercely implacable assertiveness which conviction begets in an Occidental. The Japanese will readily sacrifice his own life to vindicate right, but he does not require others to make any such sacrifice. He may be persuaded of the truth of his own opinions, but he does not exact general deference to them, and he pursues his most cherished aims with neighbourly deference and courteous deprecation not altogether unsuggestive of moral limpness. Buddhism doubtless contributed to educate this mood, for Buddhism, as the Japanese knew it, was essentially a creed of compromises, engrafting other faiths upon its own stem rather than seeking to uproot them. It is scarcely to be questioned that the emotional fires kindled by religious polemics in every age of Europe's civilised existence had some part in welding the mind of the average Occidental to its present implacable tenacity of opinion. But Buddhism never served such a purpose. Its tendency was rather to inspire deference to the views of others and to deprecate sectarian strife. Perhaps