Chapter 8

Imitation of admittedly superior civilizations has therefore been an integral, conscious element of Japan's social order, and to a degree perhaps not equaled by the social order of any other race.

The difference between Japanese imitation and that of other nations lies in the fact that whereas the latter, as a rule, despise foreign races, and do not admit the superiority of alien civilizations as a whole, imitating only a detail here and there, often without acknowledgment and sometimes even without knowledge, the Japanese, on the other hand, have repeatedly been placed in such circumstances as to see the superiority of foreign civilizations as a whole, and to desire their general adoption. This has produced a spirit of imitation among all the individuals of the race. It has become a part of their social inheritance. This explanation largely accounts for the striking difference between Japanese and Chinese in the Occident. The Japanese go to the West in order to acquire all the West can give. The Chinaman goes steeled against its influences. The spirit of the Japanese renders him quickly susceptible to every change in his surroundings. He is ever noting details and adapting himself to his circumstances. The spirit of the Chinaman, on the contrary, renders him quite oblivious to his environment. His mind is closed. Under special circumstances, when a Chinaman has been liberated from the prepossession of his social inheritance, he has shown himself as capable of Occidentalization in clothing, speech, manner, and thought as a Japanese. Such cases, however, are rare.

But a still more effective factor in the development of the characteristics under consideration is the nature of Japanese feudalism. Its emphasis on the complete subordination of the inferior to the superior was one of its conspicuous features. This was a factor always and everywhere at work in Japan. No individual was beyond its potent influence. Attention to details, absolute obedience, constant, conscious imitation, secretiveness, suspiciousness, were all highly developed by this social system. Each of these traits is a special form of sensitiveness to environment. From the most ancient times the initiative of superiors was essential to the wide adoption by the people of any new idea or custom. Christianity found ready acceptance in the sixteenth century and Buddhism in the eighth, because they had been espoused by exalted persons. The superiority of the civilization of China in early times, and of the West in modern times, was first acknowledged and adopted by a few nobles and the Emperor. Having gained this prestige they promptly became acceptable to the rank and file of people who vied with each other in their adoption. A peculiarity of the Japanese is the readiness with which the ideas and aims of the rulers are accepted by the people. This is due to the nature of Japanese feudalism. It has made the body of the nation conspicuously subject to the ruling brain and has conferred on Japan her unique sensitiveness to environment.

Susceptibility to slight changes in the feelings of lords and masters and corresponding flexibility were important social traits, necessary products of the old social order. Those deficient in these regards would inevitably lose in the struggle for social precedence, if not in the actual struggle for existence. These characteristics would, accordingly, be highly developed.

Bearing in mind, therefore, the character of the factors that have ever been acting on the Japanese psychic nature, we see clearly that the characteristics under consideration are not to be attributed to her inherent race nature, but may be sufficiently accounted for by reference to the social order and social environment.

VI

WAVES OF FEELING--ABDICATION

It has long been recognized that the Japanese are emotional, but the full significance of this element of their nature is far from realized. It underlies their entire life; it determines the mental activities in a way and to a degree that Occidentals can hardly appreciate. Waves of feeling have swept through the country, carrying everything before them in a manner that has oftentimes amazed us of foreign lands. An illustration from the recent political life of the nation comes to mind in this connection. For months previous to the outbreak of the recent war with China, there had been a prolonged struggle between the Cabinet and the political parties who were united in their opposition to the government, though in little else. The parties insisted that the Cabinet should be responsible to the party in power in the Lower House, as is the case in England, that thus they might stand and fall together. The Cabinet, on the other hand, contended that, according to the constitution, it was responsible to the Emperor alone, and that consequently there was no need of a change in the Cabinet with every change of party leadership. The nation waxed hot over the discussion. Successive Diets were dissolved and new Diets elected, in none of which, however, could the supporters of the Cabinet secure a majority; the Cabinet was, therefore, incapable of carrying out any of its distinctive measures. Several times the opposition went so far as to decline to pass the budget proposed by the Cabinet, unless so reduced as to cripple the government, the reason constantly urged being that the Cabinet was not competent to administer the expenditure of such large sums of money. There were no direct charges of fraud, but simply of incompetence. More than once the Cabinet was compelled to carry on the government during the year under the budget of the previous year, as provided by the constitution. So intense was the feeling that the capital was full of "soshi,"--political ruffians,--and fear was entertained as to the personal safety of the members of the Cabinet. The whole country was intensely excited over the matter. The newspapers were not loath to charge the government with extravagance, and a great explosion seemed inevitable, when, suddenly, a breeze from a new quarter arose and absolutely changed the face of the nation.

War with China was whispered, and then noised around. Events moved rapidly. One or two successful encounters with the Chinese stirred the warlike passion that lurked in every breast. At once the feud with the Cabinet was forgotten. When, on short notice, an extra session of the Diet was called to vote funds for a war, not a word was breathed about lack of confidence in the Cabinet or its incompetence to manage the ordinary expenditures of the government; on the contrary, within five minutes from the introduction of the government bill asking a war appropriation of 150,000,000 yen, the bill was unanimously passed.

Such an absolute change could hardly have taken place in England or America, or any land less subject to waves of emotion. So far as I could learn, the nation was a unit in regard to the war. There was not the slightest sign of a "peace party." Of all the Japanese with whom I talked only one ever expressed the slightest opposition to the war, and he on religious grounds, being a Quaker.

The strength of the emotional element tends to make the Japanese extremists. If liberals, they are extremely liberal; if conservative, they are extremely conservative. The craze for foreign goods and customs which prevailed for several years in the early eighties was replaced by an almost equally strong aversion to anything foreign.

This tendency to swing to extremes has cropped out not infrequently in the theological thinking of Japanese Christians. Men who for years had done effective work in upbuilding the Church, men who had lifted hundreds of their fellow-countrymen out of moral and religious darkness into light and life, have suddenly, as it has appeared, lost all appreciation of the truths they had been teaching and have swung off to the limits of a radical rationalism, losing with their evangelical faith their power of helping their fellow-men, and in some few cases, going over into lives of open sin. The intellectual reasons given by them to account for their changes have seemed insufficient; it will be found that the real explanation of these changes is to be sought not in their intellectual, but in their emotional natures.

Care must be taken, however, not to over-emphasize this extremist tendency. In some respects, I am convinced that it is more apparent than real. The appearance is due to the silent passivity even of those who are really opposed to the new departure. It is natural that the advocates of some new policy should be enthusiastic and noisy. To give the impression to an outsider that the new enthusiasm is universal, those who do not share it have simply to keep quiet. This takes place to some degree in every land, but particularly so in Japan. The silence of their dissent is one of the striking characteristics of the Japanese. It seems to be connected with an abdication of personal responsibility. How often in the experience of the missionary it has happened that his first knowledge of friction in a church, wholly independent and self-supporting and having its own native pastor, is the silent withdrawal of certain members from their customary places of worship. On inquiry it is learned that certain things are being done or said which do not suit them and, instead of seeking to have these matters righted, they simply wash their hands of the whole affair by silent withdrawal.

The Kumi-ai church, in Kumamoto, from being large and prosperous, fell to an actual active membership of less than a dozen, solely because, as each member became dissatisfied with the high-handed and radical pastor, he simply withdrew. Had each one stood by the church, realizing that he had a responsibility toward it which duty forbade him to shirk, the conservative and substantial members of the church would soon have been united in their opposition to the radical pastor and, being in the majority, could have set matters right. In the case of perversion of trust funds by the trustees of the Kumamoto School, many Japanese felt that injustice was being done to the American Board and a stain was being inflicted on Japan's fair name, but they did nothing either to express their opinions or to modify the results. So silent were they that we were tempted to think them either ignorant of what was taking place, or else indifferent to it. We now know, however, that many felt deeply on the matter, but were simply silent according to the Japanese custom.

But silent dissent does not necessarily last indefinitely, though it may continue for years. As soon as some check has been put upon the rising tide of feeling, and a reaction is evident, those who before had been silent begin to voice their reactionary feeling, while those who shortly before had been in the ascendant begin to take their turn of silent dissent. Thus the waves are accentuated, both in their rise and in their relapse, by the abdicating proclivity of the people.

Yet, in spite of the tendency of the nation to be swept from one extreme to another by alternate waves of feeling, there are many well-balanced men who are not carried with the tide. The steady progress made by the nation during the past generation, in spite of emotional actions and reactions, must be largely attributed to the presence in its midst of these more stable natures. These are the men who have borne the responsibilities of government. So far as we are able to see, they have not been led by their feelings, but rather by their judgments. When the nation was wild with indignation over Europe's interference with the treaty which brought the China-Japanese war to a close, the men at the helm saw too clearly the futility of an attempt to fight Russia to allow themselves to be carried away by sentimental notions of patriotism. Theirs was a deeper and truer patriotism than that of the great mass of the nation, who, flushed with recent victories by land and by sea, were eager to give Russia the thrashing which they felt quite able to administer.

Abdication is such an important element in Japanese life, serving to throw responsibility on the young, and thus helping to emphasize the emotional characteristics of the people, that we may well give it further attention at this point. In describing it, I can do no better than quote from J.H. Gubbins' valuable introduction to his translation of the New Civil Code of Japan.[I]

"Japanese scholars who have investigated the subject agree in tracing the origin of the present custom to the abdication of Japanese sovereigns, instances of which occur at an early period of Japanese history. These earlier abdications were independent of religious influences, but with the advent of Buddhism abdication entered upon a new phase. In imitation, it would seem, of the retirement for the purpose of religious contemplation of the Head Priests of Buddhist monasteries, abdicating sovereigns shaved their heads and entered the priesthood, and when subsequently the custom came to be employed for political purposes, the cloak of religion was retained. From the throne the custom spread to Regents and high officers of state, and so universal had its observance amongst officials of the high ranks become in the twelfth century that, as Professor Shigeno states, it was almost the rule for such persons to retire from the world at the age of forty or fifty, and nominally enter the priesthood, both the act and the person performing it being termed 'niu do.' In the course of time, the custom of abdication ceased to be confined to officials, and extended to feudal nobility and the military class generally, whence it spread through the nation, and at this stage of its transition its connection with the phase it finally assumed becomes clear. But with its extension beyond the circle of official dignitaries, and its consequent severance from tradition and religious associations, whether real or nominal abdication changed its name. It was no longer termed 'niu do,' but 'in kio,' the old word being retained only in its strict religious meaning, and 'inkyo' is the term in use to-day.

"In spite of the religious origin of abdication, its connection with religion has long since vanished, and it may be said without fear of contradiction that the Japanese of to-day, when he or she abdicates, is in no way actuated by the feeling which impelled European monarchs in past times to end their days in the seclusion of the cloister, and which finds expression to-day in the Irish phrase, 'To make one's soul.' Apart from the influence of traditional convention, which counts for something and also explains the great hold on the nation which the custom has acquired, the motive seems to be somewhat akin to that which leads people in some Western countries to retire from active life at an age when bodily infirmity cannot be adduced as the reason. But with this great difference, that in the one case, that of Western countries, it is the business or profession, the active work of life, which is relinquished, the position of the individual vis-à-vis the family being unaffected; in the other case, it is the position of head of the family which is relinquished, with the result of the complete effacement of the individual so far as the family is concerned. Moreover, although abdication usually implies the abandonment of the business, or profession, of the person who abdicates, this does not necessarily follow, abdication being in no way incompatible with the continuation of the active pursuits in which the person-in question is engaged. And if an excuse be needed in either case, there would seem to be more for the Japanese head of family, who, in addition to the duties and responsibilities incumbent upon his position, has to bear the brunt of the tedious ceremonies and observances which characterize family life in Japan, and are a severe tax upon time and energies, while at the same time he is fettered by the restrictions upon individual freedom of action imposed by the family system. That in many cases the reason for abdication lies in the wish to escape from the tyrannical calls of family life, rather than in mere desire for idleness and ease, is shown by the fact that just as in past times the abdication of an Emperor, a Regent, or a state dignitary, was often the signal for renewed activity on his part, so in modern Japanese life the period of a person's greatest activity not infrequently dates from the time of his withdrawal from the headship of his family."

The abdicating proclivities of the nation in pre-Meiji times are well shown by the official list of daimyos published by the Shogunate in 1862. To a list of 268 ruling daimyos is added a list of 104 "inkyo."

In addition to what we may call political and family abdication, described above, is personal abdication, referred to on a previous page.

Are the traits of Japanese character considered in this chapter inherent and necessary? Already our description has conclusively shown them to be due to the nature of the social order. This was manifestly the case in regard to political and family abdication. The like origin of personal abdication is manifest to him who learns how little there was in the ancient training tending to give each man a "feeling of independent responsibility to his own conscience in the sight of Heaven." He was taught devotion to a person rather than to a principle. The duty of a retainer was not to think and decide, but to do. He might in silence disapprove and as far as possible he should then keep out of his lord's way; should he venture to think and to act contrary to his lord's commands, he must expect and plan to commit "harakiri" in the near future. Personal abdication and silent disapproval, therefore, were direct results of the social order.

VII

HEROES AND HERO-WORSHIP

If a clew to the character of a nation is gained by a study of the nature of the gods it worships, no less valuable an insight is gained by a study of its heroes. Such a study confirms the impression that the emotional life is fundamental in the Japanese temperament. Japan is a nation of hero-worshipers. This is no exaggeration. Not only is the primitive religion, Shintoism, systematic hero-worship, but every hero known to history is deified, and has a shrine or temple. These heroes, too, are all men of conspicuous valor or strength, famed for mighty deeds of daring. They are men of passion. The most popular story in Japanese literature is that of "The Forty-seven Ronin," who avenged the death of their liege-lord after years of waiting and plotting. This revenge administered, they committed harakiri in accordance with the etiquette of the ethical code of feudal Japan. Their tombs are to this day among the most frequented shrines in the capital of the land, and one of the most popular dramas presented in the theaters is based on this same heroic tragedy.

The prominence of the emotional element may be seen in the popular description of national heroes. The picture of an ideal Japanese hero is to our eyes a caricature. His face is distorted by a fierce frenzy of passion, his eyeballs glaring, his hair flying, and his hands hold with a mighty grip the two-handed sword wherewith he is hewing to pieces an enemy. I am often amazed at the difference between the pictures of Japanese heroes and the living Japanese I see. This difference is manifestly due to the idealizing process; for they love to see their heroes in their passionate moods and tenses.

The craving for heroes, even on the part of those who are familiar with Western thought and customs, is a feature of great interest. Well do I remember the enthusiasm with which educated, Christian young men awaited the coming to Japan of an eminent American scholar, from whose lectures impossible things were expected. So long as he was in America and only his books were known, he was a hero. But when he appeared in person, carrying himself like any courteous gentleman, he lost his exalted position.

Townsend Harris showed his insight into Oriental thought never more clearly than by maintaining his dignity according to Japanese standards and methods. On his first entry into Tokyo he states, in his journal, that although he would have preferred to ride on horseback, in order that he might see the city and the people, yet as the highest dignitaries never did so, but always rode in entirely closed "norimono" (a species of sedan chair carried by twenty or thirty bearers), he too would do the same; to have ridden into the limits of the city on horseback would have been construed by the Japanese as an admission that he held a far lower official rank than that of a plenipotentiary of a great nation.

It is not difficult to understand how these ideals of heroes arose. They are the same in every land where militarism, and especially feudalism, is the foundation on which the social order rests.

Some of the difficulties met by foreign missionaries in trying to do their work arise from the fact that they are not easily regarded as heroes by their followers. The people are accustomed to commit their guidance to officials or to teachers or advisers whom they can regard as heroes. Since missionaries are not officials and do not have the manners of heroes, it is not to be expected that the Japanese will accept their leadership.

A few foreigners have, however, become heroes in Japanese eyes. President Clark and Rev. S.R. Brown had great influence on groups of young men in the early years of Meiji, while giving them secular education combined with Christian instruction. The conditions, however, were then extraordinarily exceptional, and it is a noticeable fact that neither man remained long in Japan at that time. Another foreigner who was exalted to the skies by a devoted band of students was a man well suited to be a hero--for he had the samurai spirit to the full. Indeed, in absolute fearlessness and assumption of superiority, he out-samuraied the samurai. He was a man of impressive and imperious personality. Yet it is a significant fact that when he was brought back to Japan by his former pupils, after an absence of about eighteen years, during which they had continued to extol his merits and revere his memory, it was not long before they discovered that he was not the man their imagination had created. Not many months were needed to remove him from his pedestal. It would hardly be a fair statement of the whole case to leave the matter here. So far as I know, President Clark and Rev. S.R. Brown have always retained their hold on the imagination of the Japanese. The foreigner who of all others has perhaps done the most for Japan, and whose services have been most heartily acknowledged by the nation and government, was Dr. Guido F. Verbeck, who began his missionary work in 1859; he was the teacher of large numbers of the young men who became leaders in the transformation of Japan; he alone of foreigners was made a citizen and was given a free and general pass for travel; and his funeral in 1898 was attended by the nobility of the land, and the Emperor himself made a contribution toward the expenses. Dr. Verbeck is destined to be one of Japan's few foreign heroes.