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Rh incidents, and, for the rest, the faith of Shaka has little sway over the student mind in Japan. The phenomenon is modern: it is not an outcome of Japanese nature nor yet of Buddhist teaching, but is due to the stress of endeavouring to reach the standards of Western acquirement with grievously inadequate equipment, opportunities and resources. In order to support himself and pay his academic fees many a Japanese has to fall into the ranks of the physical labourer during a part of each day or night. Ill-nourished, over-worked and, it may be, disappointed, he finds the struggle intolerable and so passes out into the darkness. But he is not a normal type. The normal type is light-hearted and buoyant. One naturally expects to find, and one does find, that this moral sunshine is associated with good temper. The Japanese is exceptionally serene. Irascibility is regarded as permissible in sickly children only: grown people are supposed to be superior to displays of impatience. But there is a limit of imperturbability, and when that limit is reached, the subsequent passion is desperately vehement. It has been said that these traits go to make the Japanese soldier what he is. The hardships of a campaign cause him little suffering since he never frets over them, but the hour of combat finds him forgetful of everything save victory. In the case of the military class—and prior to the Restoration of 1867 the term “military class” was synonymous with “educated class”—this spirit of stoicism was built up by precept on a solid basis of heredity. The samurai (soldier) learned that his first characteristic must be to suppress all outward displays of emotion. Pain, pleasure, passion and peril must all find him unperturbed. The supreme test, satisfied so frequently as to be commonplace, was a shocking form of suicide performed with a placid mien. This capacity, coupled with readiness to sacrifice life at any moment on the altar of country, fief or honour, made a remarkably heroic character. On the other hand, some observers hold that the education of this stoicism was effected at the cost of the feelings it sought to conceal. In support of that theory it is pointed out that the average Japanese, man or woman, will recount a death or some other calamity in his own family with a perfectly calm, if not a smiling, face. Probably there is a measure of truth in the criticism. Feelings cannot be habitually hidden without being more or less blunted. But here another Japanese trait presents itself—politeness. There is no more polite nation in the world than the Japanese. Whether in real courtesy of heart they excel Occidentals may be open to doubt, but in all the forms of comity they are unrivalled. Now one of the cardinal rules of politeness is to avoid burdening a stranger with the weight of one’s own woes. Therefore a mother, passing from the chamber which has just witnessed her paroxysms of grief, will describe calmly to a stranger—especially a foreigner—the death of her only child. The same suppression of emotional display in public is observed in all the affairs of life. Youths and maidens maintain towards each other a demeanour of reserve and even indifference, from which it has been confidently affirmed that love does not exist in Japan. The truth is that in no other country do so many dual suicides occur—suicides of a man and woman who, unable to be united in this world, go to a union beyond the grave. It is true, nevertheless, that love as a prelude to marriage finds only a small place in Japanese ethics. Marriages in the great majority of cases are arranged with little reference to the feelings of the parties concerned. It might be supposed that conjugal fidelity must suffer from such a custom. It does suffer seriously in the case of the husband, but emphatically not in the case of the wife. Even though she be cognisant—as she often is—of her husband’s extra-marital relations, she abates nothing of the duty which she has been taught to regard as the first canon of female ethics. From many points of view, indeed, there is no more beautiful type of character than that of the Japanese woman. She is entirely unselfish; exquisitely modest without being anything of a prude; abounding in intelligence which is never obscured by egoism; patient in the hour of suffering; strong in time of affliction; a faithful wife; a loving mother; a good daughter; and capable, as history shows, of heroism rivalling that of the stronger sex. As to the question of sexual virtue and morality in Japan, grounds for a conclusive verdict are hard to find. In the interests of hygiene prostitution is licensed, and that fact is by many critics construed as proof of tolerance. But licensing is associated with strict segregation, and it results that the great cities are conspicuously free from evidences of vice, and that the streets may be traversed by women at all hours of the day and night with perfect impunity and without fear of encountering offensive spectacles. The ratio of marriages is approximately 8.46 per thousand units of the population, and the ratio of divorces is 1.36 per thousand. There are thus about 16 divorces for every hundred marriages. Divorces take place chiefly among the lower orders, who frequently treat marriage merely as a test of a couple’s suitability to be helpmates in the struggles of life. If experience develops incompatibility of temper or some other mutually repellent characteristic, separation follows as a matter of course. On the other hand, divorces among persons of the upper classes are comparatively rare, and divorces on account of a wife’s unfaithfulness are almost unknown.

Concerning the virtues of truth and probity, extremely conflicting opinions have been expressed. The Japanese samurai always prided himself on having “no second word.” He never drew his sword without using it; he never gave his word without keeping it. Yet it may be doubted whether the value attached in Japan to the abstract quality, truth, is as high as the value attached to it in England, or whether the consciousness of having told a falsehood weighs as heavily on the heart. Much depends upon the motive. Whatever may be said of the upper class, it is probably true that the average Japanese will not sacrifice expediency on the altar of truth. He will be veracious only so long as the consequences are not seriously injurious. Perhaps no more can be affirmed of any nation. The “white lie” of the Anglo-Saxon and the hōben no uso of the Japanese are twins. In the matter of probity, however, it is possible to speak with more assurance. There is undoubtedly in the lower ranks of Japanese tradesmen a comparatively large fringe of persons whose standard of commercial morality is defective. They are descendants of feudal days when the mercantile element, being counted as the dregs of the population, lost its self-respect. Against this blemish—which is in process of gradual correction—the fact has to be set that the better class of merchants, the whole of the artisans and the labouring classes in general, obey canons of probity fully on a level with the best to be found elsewhere. For the rest, frugality, industry and patience characterize all the bread-winners; courage and burning patriotism are attributes of the whole nation.

There are five qualities possessed by the Japanese in a marked degree. The first is frugality. From time immemorial the great mass of the people have lived in absolute ignorance of luxury in any form and in the perpetual presence of a necessity to economize. Amid these circumstances there has emerged capacity to make a little go a long way and to be content with the most meagre fare. The second quality is endurance. It is born of causes cognate with those which have begotten frugality. The average Japanese may be said to live without artificial heat; his paper doors admit the light but do not exclude the cold. His brazier barely suffices to warm his hands and his face. Equally is he a stranger to methods of artificial cooling. He takes the frost that winter inflicts and the fever that summer brings as unavoidable visitors. The third quality is obedience; the offspring of eight centuries passed under the shadow of military autocracy. Whatever he is authoritatively bidden to do, that the Japanese will do. The fourth quality is altruism. In the upper classes the welfare of the family has been set above the interests of each member. The fifth quality is a genius for detail. Probably this is the outcome of an extraordinarily elaborate system of social etiquette. Each generation has added something to the canons of its predecessor, and for every ten points preserved not more than one has been discarded. An instinctive respect for minutiae has thus been inculcated, and has gradually extended to all the affairs of life. That this accuracy may sometimes degenerate into triviality, and that such absorption in trifles may occasionally hide the broad horizon, is conceivable.