In the past, and even down to the present time, the sexual relations of the Japanese have been characterized by a certain greater degree of looseness and lack of moral and social re straint than has been the case among the peo ple of Europe and of North America. This has not been due, however, to any excess of sexual appetite or to deficiency in moral feeling or lack of a moral code. It has chiefly been due to the social constitution of the people, and to the fact that the prevailing ethical and religious opinions and principals did not emphasize the sexual re lation as being, primarily considered, a matter of ethical concernment. We have, therefore, on the one hand a certain naive openness of speech and of conduct in these matters, such as as tonishes and shocks the reader of the Kojiki and of much of the older and more modern litera ture, as well as the observer of customs which have prevailed well down into the modern era. Such are phallic worship in religion, concubi nage, licensed prostitution, promiscuous bathing and free exposure of the person, as well as a relatively low estimate put upon the value of sexual purity as a personal virtue, when con sidered apart from the sentiment of loyalty. On the other hand, there is in Japan a relative absence of the more coarse and brutal forms of sensuality; and on the part of woman a tradi tional willingness for self-sacrifice which it is difficult even to explain, and much less to jus tify, to the Occidental mind, but which frequent ly springs from the very noblest sentiments of devotion and loyalty. The changes for the bet ter, both in opinion and in practice, which are taking place in the country, make it perfectly clear that inferiority, whether from the point of view of intellect or morality, cannot be charged against the Japanese in this regard. It is also worthy of mention that the more serious moral and religious didactic literature of the Japan ese, as represented in dramatic form by the is almost absolutely free from any im pure suggestions.
As to the other emotions and sentiments, the life of feeling among the Japanese corresponds in general to the type already described. Anger, jealousy, envy, grief, sympathy and the domestic and friendly emotions are quick to kindle, and tend to run to excess or to change to their op posites when they have either become them selves exhausted or have seized upon any ob served or imagined reason for change. But the artistic feeling which produces a fine sense of propriety and a regard for personal dignity, re inforced by that carefully defined and legally guarded system of rules of behavior (especially under the Tokugawa dynasty), to which refer ence has already been made, serve to modify and repress the manifestation of these feelings. Even smiles and laughter come often to be the mask of grief and sadness rather than the ex pression of happiness and rejoicing. Hate and love, jealousy and sympathy, strong dislike and strong liking, hide behind an unmoved or cour teous demeanor and finally break forth to the surprise of the foreigner who is self-deceived, rather than deliberately deceived by others, through a lack either of insight or of „sympathy. Thus the subtle, complicated and indirect. rather than the open, simple and frank character of the mental life becomes still, further empha sized in the conduct of the Here again, however, under the prevailing sense of honor and the ruling principle of loyalty, as the one belongs both to the temperament and to the historical development of the people, and as the other is the gift of the Confucian ethics em phasized and deepened by the same historical development, the very highest examples of a knightly and trustworthy manhood have been commendably frequent in Japan.
More particular examination of the intel lectual traits of the Japanese calls for something like the following analysis. These traits are such, however, as on the whole go with, or rather are an integral part of the sentimental temperament in its higher and finer forms of culture. And, first, we may note an exceedingly vivid, enterprising, and, so to say, hopeful in tellectual interest and a widely varied intellec tual curiosity. The average Japanese has an inquiring mind. This often manifests itself as a naive and almost childish desire to know how natural objects are constituted and how mann faCtured articles are made. It is back of the quiet, open-eyed wonder with which the children stare at the manners and dress of the foreigner (marked by an almost complete absence of any tendency to rudeness or violence) ; and it shows itself in that semi-religious feeling of mystery with which the displays of freakishness, as well as of power, by nature are regarded. What has been called the °(hopeful) character of this varied intellectual interest leads to the ready confidence that whatever anyone else has made may as well, or even better, be made by the Japanese; and it is perhaps also influential in producing the so frequent conviction that even the fundamental mysteries of existence and of human life are not beyond the possibility of a new and much improved solution by some ad venturesome young Japanese philosopher who may add the training of modern science to his own extraordinary native ability.
This native curiosity is undoubtedly produc tive of an unusual versatility of intellectual op erations and achievements. The Japanese mind is decidedly gifted in adapting itself to changed conditions and adapting means to ends. This is the truth which underlies the charge so often made in recent times that the Japanese are amerely imitative) and not ((original) or inde pendently inventive. It is scarcely necessary to remark in this connection that the claim to be original, in any very strict meaning of that word, cannot be fairly made by any individual or any nation. And, on the other hand, no people have produced a type of race-culture more strongly marked by distinct characteristics, or signalized by individual members of stronger character, than have the Japanese. It is the versatility and adaptability othe intellect of the race, rather than the merely imitative quality of their achievement, which is noteworthy. The notion, therefore, that Japan owes its recent remark ably rapid progress entirely to its opportunity to borrow what other people had worked out for themselves in an original way, is quite in defensible in the face of historic truth. The whole history of Japan has been marked es sentially ,by the same characteristics. Through all this history, foreign languages and litera tures, manufactures and arts, arms and ships and modes of warfare, have been adopted, adapted and improved upon to meet the peculiar requirements and necessities of the national de velopment.