arious distinctive
Japanese characteristics, it is important that we gain an insight into
the general principles which govern the development of unified,
national life. These principles render Japanese history luminous.

Let us first fix our attention on the fact that every step in the
progress of mankind has been from smaller to larger communities. In
other words, human progress has been through the increasing extension
of the communal principle. The primitive segregative man, if there
ever really was such a being, hardly deserves to be called man. Social
qualities he had very slight, if at all; his altruistic actions and
emotions were of the lowest and feeblest type. His life was so
self-centered--we may not call it selfish, for he was not conscious of
his self-centeredness--that he was quite sufficient to himself except
for short periods of time. It was a matter of relative indifference to
him whether his kinsmen survived or perished. His life was in only the
slightest degree involved in theirs. The first step of progress for
him depended on the development of some form of communal life. The
primary problem of the social evolution of man was that of taking the
wild, self-centered, self-sufficient man, and of teaching him to move
in line with his fellow-men. And this problem confronted not only
mankind at the beginning, but it has also been the great problem of
each successive stage. After the individual has been taught to live
with, to work with and for, and to love, his immediate kinsmen (in
other words to merge his individual interests in those of the family,
and to count the family interests of more importance than his own),
the next step was to induce the family to look beyond its little
world and be willing to work with and for neighboring families. When,
after ages of conflict, this step was in a measure secured and the
family-tribe was fairly formed, this group in turn must be taught to
take into its view a still larger group, the tribal nation. Throughout
the ages the constant problem has been the development of larger and
larger communal groups. This general process has been very aptly
called by Mr. Bagehot the taming process. The selfward thoughts and
ambitions of the individual man have been thus far driven more and
more into the background of fact, if not of consciousness. The
individual has been brought into vital and organic relations with
ever-increasing multitudes of his fellow-men. It is, therefore,