e indeed called special
notice to the trait. But the rapidity of the movement has been due to
the peculiarities of her environment. For long periods she has been in
complete isolation, and when brought into contact with foreign
nations, she has found them so far in advance of herself in many
important respects that rapid imitation was the only course left her
by the inexorable laws of nature. Had she not imitated China in
ancient times and the Occident in modern times, her independence, if
not her existence, could hardly have been maintained.

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 w