The artistic temperament of the Japanese, under stimulation and guidance from teachers and examples from China and Korea, and from their own physical environment, has responded with a form of art which, in many of its char acteristic features, is unique. The paintings, sculpture and literature which were the more direct product of the philosophical and religious conceptions of Buddhism (especially for a thou sand years from the 7th century onward) closely resembles, in many of their principal features, the art of mediaeval Christian Europe. But it is in their representation of natural objects, or their decorative art when natural objects or sug gestions from nature are employed, that the artistic imagination and achievement of the Japanese is most distinctive and most admirable. Here we find a quickness and delicacy of per ception, a tenderness and depth of sympathy, a wealth of suggestiveness which knows how to address the appreciative soul without details that obscure and confuse, such as have been nowhere else developed to the same degree. These qualities of Japanese art are the direct result of the race-temperament and mental char acteristics of the people, as they have already been described. These aptitudes have not only produced celebrated artists and schools of art, but have also — which is a more difficult and distinctive thing — developed a people pene trated throughout with the appreciation and love of the beautiful, whether as produced by natural forces or by human skill. Emperors, shoguns, warriors and abbots and monks write poetry ; contests of skill in poetical composition become interesting and exciting court func tions ; the ceremonials connected with the view ing of the cherry-blossoms or the chrysanthe mums, or with the making of tea, are diligently cultivated by the nobility and by the leaders of the nation. On the other hand, peasants, fisher men and coolies look in an admiring and wor shipful way upon what of nature's life-work seems to other peoples trivial and uninteresting; they, too, collect and cherish pretty stones, shells, etc., treat with personal affection flowers, grasses and shrubs, and take a sentimental pleasure in moon-viewing, in listening to the chirping of the cicada or the kirigirisu, and in the beauties of the temple grove or its treasures of brasses, carvings and kakemonos. A branch just thrown across a misty sky, a bird just alighted upon a lotus-stem and opening its throat for song, a fish swimming against the current, as well as a tiger lapping water from a stream, or engaged in a life-and-death struggle with another tiger, the head of Fuji reflected in Lake Hakone — such are the themes which, with infinite variation in details, inspire both the pictorial and the poetical art of the Japanese. And if the critic is inclined to bring against such work the charge of those weaknesses which are undoubtedly characteristic of the msthetical products and conceptions of the sentimental temperament, he may be reminded that the strength also of this kind of art consists in just this —its tender and sympathetic appreciation, and suggestive reproduction, of what a coarser taste regards as trivial or indifferent. That the Japanese are capable of historical painting in a spirited and large style, their past endeavors would seem to make clear. And when their pictorial and poetical compositions come again under the inspiring influence of philosophy and religion, there is good reason to hope that their artistic efforts of the similar motif and charac ter will greatly excel those to which Buddhism gave birth. See HISTORY OF JAPANESE FINE ART.
In estimating the moral characteristics of the Japanese it is absolutely essential to determine what we mean by morality. In the compre hensive but strictly appropriate meaning of the word, all races have essentially the same moral character. That is to say, they all have pre ferred forms of conduct, make value-judgments of the ethical type, are stirred and guided by feelings of obligation, approbation and dis approbation, merit and demerit, in view of dif ferent kinds of conduct ; and they all hold them selves and others responsible under some theory of a voluntary self-control. As to what particu lar forms of conduct are preferred, and have attached to them the appropriate feelings, and as to what in action is deemed morally right or morally wrong, although there is really a much more fundamental agreement than is ordinarily supposed, there exists, of course, a great variety both of opinions and of practice.
With this general truth assumed, we may safely declare that the Japanese are as truly moral as any other race of civilized human beings. But the particular form which the moral code and the practice approved by the public conscience have taken has been chiefly shaped by the Confucian ethics, with modifica tions from the Buddhist religion. As has al ready been explained, the central principle of this ethics is loyalty — shown, according to the prevalent circumstances and relations, to the emperor as the civil, military and religious head of the nation, or to the liege-lord or mili tary chieftain, to the parent, to the clan, to the sworn ally or friend. This principle of loyalty is oftentimes so overpowering in its influence as to obscure the other obligations of a symmet rical moral law, and even to produce startling and almost grotesque effects. For example, while it developed a carefully regulated code of suicide and blood-revenge, it also fostered unreasonable and insane feeling of obligation to commit harikari for the vindication of one's own honor, or murder in the execution of ven geance upon others. But when inspired by a worthy cause and guided by a due amount of practical wisdom, it has, as has already been said, been productive of a most admirable type and of many splendid examples of a noble devotion to moral ideals. The less obtrusive, but from the Christian point of view no less important, virtues of pity, kindliness, humility and resignation owe their existence and their cultivation, here as everywhere, largely to the influences of religion.
In connection with this explanation of the Japanese type of morals, another consideration is not without importance. This kind of moral ity is personal, rather than theoretical or legal, in the more restricted meaning of the latter term. But it is also, of course, an affair of custom; hence the right and wrong of conduct is determined, not so much by the application of abstract principles, or of a so-called moral law, with its unconditional imperative and its uni versal claims, as by resort to the appeal to what is proper under different personal relations. In the virtues of gratitude and personal devotion the Japanese are not excelled, and probably are not equaled, by any other people.
The relative absence of an established code of business morality, and the low condition of business morals, among the Japanese, is fre quently remarked; and the fact cannot be de nied. It does not, however, show any funda mental deficiency in the moral consciousness of the people, or even any relative inferiority in the average grade of the public morality in general. The deficiency is to be explained as growing out of historical conditions. For in the first place, in the Old Japan men of honor did not engage in business; they did not even in general regard the getting and expenditure of money as a matter that came immediately into touch with their right to consider themselves men of honor. There were, indeed, some honorable men in trade; but the honorable class did not, and could not, engage in trade. Besides, the considera tions which influenced all classes in their finan cial transactions with each other were of the same personal sort, to which reference has frequently been made. Not the keeping of one's word or contract, as such; not the being fair, honest and truthful with all as a matter of either principle or policy; but the being loyal to the person to whom your loyalty was pledged — this consideration overcame and often ex tinguished all other considerations. At the present time, a great crowd of untrained and uninformed multitudes, from the lower and the lowest classes, without experience or estab lished moral principles and reputation, have rushed into all the various branches of labor, trade, manufacturing and other forms of busi ness. If, however, as seems probable, and even fairly certain, the instruction of the government schools, and the experience of life, are per mitted to mold and to guide the inherited tem perament and prevalent mental and moral char acteristics of the people, the Japanese will suc ceed in attaining the front rank of honor in the pursuits of peace, as they have certainly already attained that rank in the science and art of war.