"The life of a people, its institutions, beliefs, and arts, are but the visible expression of its invisible soul. For a people to transform its institutions, beliefs, and arts it must first transform its soul."[[DJ]]
"Each race possesses a constitution as unvarying as its anatomical constitution. There seems to be no doubt that the former corresponds to a certain special structure of the brain."[[DK]]
"A negro or a Japanese may easily take a university degree or become a lawyer; the sort of varnish he thus acquires is, however, quite superficial and has no influence on his mental constitution. What no education can give him, because they are created by heredity alone, are the forms of thought, the logic, and above all the character of the Western man."[[DL]]
"Cross-breeding constitutes the only infallible means at our disposal of transforming in a fundamental manner the character of a people, heredity being the only force powerful enough to contend with heredity. Cross-breeding allows of the creation of a new race, possessing new physical and psychological characteristics."[[DM]]
Such, then, being the opinion of travelers, residents, and professional sociologists, it is not to be lightly rejected. Nor has it been lightly rejected by the writer. For years he agreed with this view, but repeated study of the problem has convinced him of the fallacy of both the conception and the argument, and has brought him to the position maintained in this work.
The characteristics differentiating Occidental and
Oriental peoples and civilizations are undoubtedly great. But they are differences of social evolution and rest on social, not on biological heredity. Anatomical differences are natal, racial, and necessary. Not so with social characteristics and differences. These are acquired by each individual chiefly after birth, and depend on social environment which determines the education from infancy upward. Furthermore, an entire nation or race, if subjected to the right social environment, may profoundly transform its institutions, beliefs, and arts, which in turn transform what Prof. Le Bon and kindred writers call the invisible "race soul." Racial activity produces race character, for "Function produces organism." I cannot agree with these writers in the view that the race soul is a given fixed entity. Social psychogenesis is a present and a progressive process. Japan is a capital illustration of it. In the development of races and civilizations involution is as continuous a process as evolution. Evolution is, indeed, only one-half of the process. Without involution, evolution is incomprehensible. And involution is the more interesting half, as it is the more significant. In modern discussion much that passes by the name of evolution is, in reality, a discussion of involution.
The attentive reader will have discovered that the real point of the discussion of Japanese characteristics given in the preceding chapters has been on the point of involution. How have these characteristics arisen? has been our ever-recurring question. The answer has invariably tried to show their relation to the social order. In this way we have traversed a large number of leading characteristics of the Japanese. We have seen how they arose, and also how they are now being transformed by the new Occidentalized social order. We have seen that not one of the characteristics examined is inherent, that is, due to brain structure, to biological heredity. We have concluded, therefore, that the psychical characteristics which differentiate races are all but wholly social.
It is incumbent on advocates of the biological view to point out in detail the distinguishing inherent traits of the Orient. Let them also catalogue the essential psychic characteristics of Occidentals. Such an attempt is seldom made. And when it is made it is singularly unconvincing. Although Prof. Le Bon states that the mental constitution of races is as distinctive and unaltering as their anatomical characteristics, he fails to tell us what they are. This is a vital omission. If the differences are as distinct as he asserts, it would seem to be an easy matter to describe them. Whatever the clothing adopted, it is an easy matter for one to distinguish a European from an Asiatic, an Englishman from an Italian, a Japanese from a Korean, a Chinaman from a Hindu. The anatomical characteristics of races are clear and easily described. If the psychic characteristics are equally distinct, why do not they who assert this distinctness describe and catalogue these differences?
Occasionally a popular writer makes something of an attempt in this direction, but with astonishingly slight results. A recent writer in the London Daily Mail has illustrated afresh the futility of all attempts to catalogue the distinguishing characteristics of the Oriental. He names the inferior position assigned to women, the licentiousness of men, licensed prostitution, lack of the play instinct among Oriental boys, scorn of Occidental civilization, and the rude treatment of foreigners. Many of his statements of facts are sadly at fault. But supposing them to be true, are they the differentiating characteristics of the Orient? Consider for a moment what was the position of woman in ancient times in the Occident, and what was the moral character of Occidental men? Is not prostitution licensed to-day in the leading cities of Europe? And is there not an unblushing prostitution in the larger cities of England and America which would put to shame the licensed prostitution of Japan? Are Orientals and their civilization universally esteemed and considerately treated in the Occident? Surely none of these are uniquely Oriental characteristics, distinguishing them from Occidental peoples as clearly as the anatomical characteristics of oblique eyes and yellow skin.