arding it as an Oriental nation, essentially Oriental with a thin
veneer of Occidentalism. People who so reason, or occasionally do not
reason at all but confine themselves to mere assertions, suggest that
the difference between the Oriental and the Occidental is such that
not a few years of perfunctory contact but centuries of time are
necessary to bring about a real transmogrification. Persons who so
think point not only to the difference in everything material in
respect of East and West, but to a radical difference in psychology,
an entire distinction in the mental outlook of each. They accordingly
conclude that the differences so evident on all sides are not mere
accidentals but fundamental, ineradicable. Scratch the Japanese,
they in effect say, and beneath his veneer of civilisation you will
find the barbarian, barbarism and Orientalism being with these persons
synonymous terms. And if any incredulity in the matter be expressed
they will triumphantly point to the recurrence of hara-kiri among the
soldiers and sailors in the late war. A well-known writer on racial
psychology has expressed himself dogmatically on this very point. I
will quote two or three of his pronouncements in the matter.

[Illustration: FIREWORKS IN TOKIO (SUMMER)
FROM A PRINT BY HIROSHIGE]

"Each race possesses a constitution as unvarying as its anatomical
constitution. There seems to be no doubt that the former corresponds
to a certain special structure of the brain.

"A negro or a Japanese may easily take a university degree or become a
lawyer; the sort of varnish he thus acquires is, however, quite
superficial, and has no influence on his mental constitution.... What
no education can give him because they are created by heredity alone,
are the forms of thought, the logic, and, above all, the character of
the Western man.

"Cross-breeding constitutes the only infallible means at our disposal
of transforming in a fundamental manner the character of a people,
heredity being the only force powerful enough to contend with
heredity. Cross-breeding allows of the creation of a new race,
possessing new physical and psychological characteristics."

Now, whether these views be correct in the main or partially correct
as regards other races, I have no hesitation in describing them as
inaccurate to a degree in reference to the Japanese. Not peculiar
brain formation, but social evolution, environment, education are
responsible for the trait