apanese ethics, are Confucian virtues, imported
along with the rest of ancient Chinese culture. But even before the
irruption of European influences, China and Japan had had such different
histories and national temperaments that doctrines originally similar
had developed in opposite directions. China has been, since the time of
the First Emperor (_c._ 200 B.C.), a vast unified bureaucratic land
empire, having much contact with foreign nations--Annamese, Burmese,
Mongols, Tibetans and even Indians. Japan, on the other hand, was an
island kingdom, having practically no foreign contact except with Korea
and occasionally with China, divided into clans which were constantly at
war with each other, developing the virtues and vices of feudal
chivalry, but totally unconcerned with economic or administrative
problems on a large scale. It was not difficult to adapt the doctrines
of Confucius to such a country, because in the time of Confucius China
was still feudal and still divided into a number of petty kingdoms, in
one of which the sage himself was a courtier, like Goethe at Weimar. But
naturally his doctrines underwent a different development from that
which befel them in their own country.

In old Japan, for instance, loyalty to the clan chieftain is the virtue
one finds most praised; it is this same virtue, with its scope enlarged,
which has now become patriotism. Loyalty is a virtue naturally praised
where conflicts between roughly equal forces are frequent, as they were
in feudal Japan, and are in the modern international world. In China, on
the contrary, power seemed so secure, the Empire was so vast and
immemorial, that the need for loyalty was not felt. Security bred a
different set of virtues, such as courtesy, considerateness, and
compromise. Now that security is gone, and the Chinese find themselves
plunged into a world of warring bandits, they have difficulty in
developing the patriotism, ruthlessness, and unscrupulousness which the
situation demands. The Japanese have no such difficulty, having been
schooled for just such requirements by their centuries of feudal
anarchy. Accordingly we find that Western influence has only accentuated
the previous differences between China and Japan: modern Chinese like
our thought but dislike our mechanism, while modern Japanese like our
mechanism but dislike our thought.

From some points of view, Asia, including Russia, may be regarded as a
unity; but from this unity Japan mu