rally an
optimist, that in the Japan of the future, the not far-distant future,
the world is destined to see a nation not only morally but mentally
great, a nation which will develop in conjunction those high moral
qualities which will give it what I may term a pronounced, a
well-defined character, and an intellectual greatness superior to that
of ancient Greece and Rome, because restrained and illumined by the
predominance and potency of moral characteristics which those great
nations did not possess.

CHAPTER XXV

THE FUTURE OF JAPAN--NATIONAL--POLITICAL--ITS INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD

I have now come to my final chapter, in which I propose to offer some
remarks embodying my opinion as to the future of Japan from a national
and political standpoint, as also her influence upon the world
generally. The theme is a great one, and would require a volume for
its proper treatment. Obviously, therefore, it cannot be dealt with
other than cursorily in the few pages I am about to devote to it.

Readers of this book will, I think, have had borne in upon them the
fact that I am not only an ardent admirer of, but a believer in Japan
and the Japanese. I utterly scout the idea put forward by some writers
that what they have taken on of Western civilisation is either a veneer
or a varnish, or that the advancement of the nation resembles the
growth of the mushroom and is no more stable. I regard the Japanese as
a serious people and the nation as having a serious purpose. If I did
not there would be no need for me to dilate upon its future, for the
simple reason that its future would be incomprehensible, and
accordingly be absolutely impossible to forecast. As it is, it appears
to me that the future of Japan is as plain as the proverbial
pike-staff. I say this with a full knowledge of the dangers attendant
on prophecy and the risk to the reputation of the vaticinator should
events prove that he was mistaken in his prevision or erroneous in his
conclusions.

I have traced in these pages what I may term the national development
of Japan; how, after two and a half centuries of isolation, it,
recognising the force of circumstances, determined to impose upon its
own ancient civilisation all that was best in that of the West, and,
having so determined, took practical and effective steps to that end.
What is to be the result of it all, the result, that is to say, not
upon a few thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of Japanese, but