o
the nature of her past social order, and is changing With that order.
Racial moral traits, therefore, are not due to inherent nature, to
essential character, to brain structure, nor are they transmitted from
father to son by the mere fact of physical generation. On the
contrary, the distinguishing ethical characteristics of races, as seen
in their ethical ideals and their moral conduct, are determined by the
dominant social order, and vary with it. Ethical characteristics are
transmitted by association, transmission is therefore not limited to
the relation of parents and children. The bearing of this fact on the
problem of the moral transformation of races could be easily shown.

XXV

ARE THE JAPANESE RELIGIOUS?

Said Prof. Pfleiderer to the writer in the winter of 1897: "I am sorry
to know that the Japanese are deficient in religious nature." In an
elaborate article entitled, "Wanted, a Religion," a missionary
describes the three so-called religions of Japan, Buddhism,
Confucianism, and Shintoism, and shows to his satisfaction that none
of these has the essential characteristics of religion.

Mr. Percival Lowell has said that "Sense may not be vital to religion,
but incense is."[BX] In my judgment, this is the essence of nonsense,
and is fitted to incense a man's sense.

The impression that the Japanese people are not religious is due to
various facts. The first is that for about three hundred years the
intelligence of the nation has been dominated by Confucian thought,
which rejects active belief in supra-human beings. When asked by his
pupils as to the gods, Confucius is reported to have said that men
should respect them, but should have nothing to do with them. The
tendency of Confucian ethics, accordingly, is to leave the gods
severely alone, although their existence is not absolutely denied.
When Confucianism became popular in Japan, the educated part of the
nation broke away from Buddhism, which, for nearly a thousand years,
had been universally dominant. To them Buddhism seemed superstitious
in the extreme. It was not uncommon for them to criticise it severely.
Muro Kyu-so,[BY] speaking of the immorality that was so common in the
native literature, says: "Long has Buddhism made Japan to think of
nothing as important except the worship of Buddha.

So it is that evil customs prevail, and there is no one who does not
find pleasure in lust.... Take out the lust and Buddhism from that
book, and the