“But you must have, as a foreigner, also observed their defects.”
“What defects?”
“Such weaknesses or faults as foreigners would observe.”
“No. According as a man is more or less perfectly adapted to the society to which he belongs, so is he to be judged as a citizen and as a man. To judge a man by the standards of a society totally different to his own would not be just.”
“That is true.”
“Well, judged by that standard, the old-fashioned Japanese were perfect men. They represented fully all the virtues of their society. And that society was morally better than ours.”
“In what respect?”
“In kindness, in benevolence, in generosity, in courtesy, in heroism, in self-sacrifice, in simple faith, in loyalty, in self-control,—in the capacity to be contented with a little,—in filial piety.”
“But would those qualities you admire in the old Japanese suffice for success in Western life—practical success?”