Note (return) — Chapter I

But, it may be still asked, is it not Utopian to suppose that Plato's conception of the Harmony of the Soul—the intensification both of passion and of thought by their conscious co-ordination—can ever become a part of the general political ideals of a modern nation? Perhaps most men before the war between Russia and Japan would have answered, Yes. Many men would now answer, No. The Japanese are apparently in some respects less advanced in their conceptions of intellectual morality than, say, the French. One hears, for instance, of incidents which seem to show that liberty of thought is not always valued in Japanese universities. But both during the years of preparation for the war, and during the war itself, there was something in what one was told of the combined emotional and intellectual attitude of the Japanese, which to a European seemed wholly new. Napoleon contended against the 'idéologues' who saw things as they wished them to be, and until he himself submitted to his own illusions he ground them to powder. But we associate Napoleon's clearness of vision with personal selfishness. Here was a nation in which every private soldier outdid Napoleon in his determination to see in warfare not great principles nor picturesque traditions, but hard facts; and yet the fire of their patriotism was hotter than Gambetta's. Something of this may have been due to the inherited organisation of the Japanese race, but more seemed to be the effect of their mental environment. They had whole-heartedly welcomed that conception of Science which in Europe, where it was first elaborated, still struggles with older ideals. Science with them had allied, and indeed identified, itself with that idea of natural law which, since they learnt it through China from Hindustan, had always underlain their various religions.[64] They had acquired, therefore, a mental outlook which was determinist without being fatalist, and which combined the most absolute submission to Nature with untiring energy in thought and action.