Evolution of the Japanese, Social and Psychic | Page 5

individualistic--Lacks social ideals and sanctions--Hence it could not displace Shinto--Shinto and Buddhism are supplementary--Produced a period of prosperity--The defect of Buddhist individualism--Imperfect acceptance of Shinto--Effect of political history--Confucianism restored the waning communal sanctions--The difference between Shinto and Confucian social ideals and sanctions--The difference between Shinto and Confucian world-views--Rejection of the Confucian social order--An interpretation--The failure of Confucianism to become a religion--Western intercourse re-established Shinto sanctions--Japan's modern religious problem--Difficulty of combining individual and communal religious elements--Christianity has accomplished it--Individualism in and through communalism--A modern expansion of communal religion--Shared by Japan--Some Japanese recognize the need of religion for Japan--Sociological function of individualistic religion in the higher human evolution--Obstacle to evolution through the development of intellect--The Japanese mind is outgrowing its old religious conceptions--The dependence of religious phenomena on the ideas dominating society--Note on National and Universal religions--Buddhism not properly classified as Universal--The classification of religions, 404
XXXVI. WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ORIENT
The conclusion reached in this work--Contrary to the opinion of tourists, residents, and many sociologists--Professor Le Bon quoted--Social psychic characteristics not inherent--Evolution and involution--Advocates of inherent Oriental traits should catalogue those traits--An attempt by the London _Daily Mail_--Is the East inherently intuitive, and the West logical?--The difficulty of becoming mutually acquainted--The secret of genuine acquaintance--Is the East inherently meditative and the West active?--Oriental unity and characteristics are social, not inherent--Isolated evolution is divergent--Mutual influence of the East and the West--Summary statement, 422
XXXVII. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
Review of our course of thought--Purpose of this chapter--The problem studied in this work--Interrelation of social and psychic phenomena--Heredity defined and analyzed--Evolution defined--Exact definition of our question, and our reply--What would be an adequate disproof of our position--Reasons for limiting the discussion to advanced races--Divergent evolution dependent on segregation--Distinction between racial and social unity--Relation of the individual psychic character to the social order--"Race soul" a convenient fiction--Psychic function produces psychic organism--Causes and nature of plasticity and fixity of society--Relation of incarnate ideas to character and destiny--Valuelessness of "floating" ideas--Progress is at once communal and individual--Personality is its cause, aim, and criterion--Progress in personality is ethico-religious--Japanese social and psychic evolution not exceptional, 438

INTRODUCTION
The tragedy enacted in China during the closing year of the nineteenth century marks an epoch in the history of China and of the world. Two world-views, two types of civilization met in deadly conflict, and the inherent weakness of isolated, belated, superstitious and corrupt paganism was revealed. Moreover, during this, China's crisis, Japan for the first time stepped out upon the world's stage of political and military activity. She was recognized as a civilized nation, worthy to share with the great nations of the earth the responsibility of ruling the lawless and backward races.
The correctness of any interpretation as to the significance of this conflict between the opposing civilizations turns, ultimately, on the question as to what is the real nature of man and of society. If it be true, as maintained by Prof. Le Bon and his school, that the mental and moral character of a people is as fixed as its physiological characteristics, then the conflict in China is at bottom a conflict of races, not of civilizations.
The inadequacy of the physiological theory of national character may be seen almost at a glance by a look at Japan. Were an Oriental necessarily and unchangeably Oriental, it would have been impossible for Japan to have come into such close and sympathetic touch with the West.
The conflict of the East with the West, however, is not an inherent and unending conflict, because it is not racial, but civilizational. It is a conflict of world-views and systems of thought and life. It is a conflict of heathen and Christian civilizations. And the conflict will come to an end as soon as, and in proportion as, China awakes from her blindness and begins to build her national temple on the bedrock of universal truth and righteousness. The conflict is practically over in Japan because she has done this. In loyally accepting science, popular education, and the rights of every individual to equal protection by the government, Japan has accepted the fundamental conceptions of civilization held in the West, and has thus become an integral part of Christendom, a fact of world-wide significance. It proves that the most important differences now separating the great races of men are civilizational, not physiological. It also proves that European, American, and Oriental peoples may be possessed by the same great ideals of life and principles of action, enabling them to co-operate as nations in great movements to their mutual advantage.
While even we of the West may be long in learning the full significance of what has been and still is taking place in Japan and more conspicuously just now, because more tragically, in China, one thing is clear: steam and electricity have abolished forever the old isolation of the nations.
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