Christian order of
society did not permit. Sociability between the sexes was not allowed.
The new freedom naturally results in greater vivacity and a far freer
play of facial expression than the older order could produce. The
vivacity and sociability of the geisha (dancing and singing girls),
whose business it is to have social relations with the men, freely
conversing with them, still further substantiates the view that the
stolid, irrepressive features of the usual Japanese woman are social,
not essential, characteristics. The very same girls exhibit
alternately stolidity and vivacity according as they are acting as
geisha or as respectable members of society.

This completes our direct study of the various elements characterizing
the emotional nature of the Japanese. It is universally admitted that
the people are conspicuously emotional. We have shown, however, that
their feelings are subject to certain remarkable suppressions.

It remains to be asked why the Japanese are more emotional than other
races? One reason doubtless is that the social conditions were such as
to stimulate their emotional rather than their intellectual powers.
The military system upon which the social structure rested kept the
nation in its mental infancy. Twenty-eight millions of farmers and a
million and a half of soldiers was the proportion during the middle of
the nineteenth century. Education was limited to the soldiers. But
although they cultivated their minds somewhat, their very occupation
as soldiers required them to obey rather than to think; their
hand-to-hand conflicts served mightily to stimulate the emotions. The
entire feudal order likewise was calculated to have the same effect.
The intellectual life being low, its inhibitions were correspondingly
weak. When, in the future, the entire population shall have become
fairly educated, and taught to think independently; and when
government by the people shall have become much more universal,
throwing responsibility on the people as never before, and stimulating
discussion of the general principles of life, of government, and of
law, then must the emotional features of the nation become less
conspicuous.

It is a question of relative development. As children run to extremes
of thought and action on the slightest occasion, simply because their
intellects have not come into full activity, weeping at one moment and
laughing at the next, so it is with national life. Where the general