velopment of the country of recent years. I know
from experience that though statistics are the fad of a few they are
caviare to the great mass of the public. Nor have I dealt at all with
politics or political parties in new Japan. It is, I think,
unfortunate that the Japanese people, in adopting or adapting English
institutions, should have introduced the political party system so
much in evidence in Great Britain and other European countries.
Whether that system works well in the West, where it has been in
existence for centuries and is not always taken over-seriously by
party politicians themselves, is a question upon which I shall express
no opinion. But I think it is problematical whether such a system is
well adapted for an Oriental people, possessed of and permeated by an
ancient civilisation--a people whose feelings, sentiments, modes of
thought, prejudices and passions are so essentially different from
those of Western nations. Be that as it may, Japanese politics find no
place in this work.

The morality or otherwise of the Japanese is a matter which has been
much discussed and written about. The views of speakers and writers in
regard thereto, so far as I have been able to ascertain them, have
been largely affected by their prejudices or the particular standpoint
from which they have regarded the matter. The result, in my opinion,
has been that an entirely erroneous conception of the whole subject of
Japanese morality has not only been formed but has been set forth in
speech or writing, and a grave injustice has been done to the Japanese
in this matter, to say nothing of the entirely false view of the
whole question which has been promulgated. In this book I have
endeavoured to deal with this thorny subject, so far as it can be
dealt with in a book, free from prejudice or preconceived ideas of any
kind. I have simply confined myself to facts, and have endeavoured to
represent the whole matter as it appears to the Japanese and to
morality according to the Japanese standard.

I have deemed it necessary to deal at some length with the various
phases of Japanese art, which it is no exaggeration to say has
permeated the whole nation so that the Japanese may truthfully be
termed the most artistic people in the world. Of course it is
impossible to deal exhaustively in a work of this kind with Japanese
art. I have, however, endeavoured to describe the principal art
industries of the country and to set forth what I