Science is supposed to
tend to rationalism; yet the spread of scientific knowledge in Japan has
synchronized with a great intensification of Mikado-Worship, the most
anachronistic feature in the Japanese civilization. For sociology, for
social psychology, and for political theory, Japan is an extraordinarily
interesting country. The synthesis of East and West which has been
effected is of a most peculiar kind. There is far more of the East than
appears on the surface; but there is everything of the West that tends
to national efficiency. How far there is a genuine fusion of Eastern and
Western elements may be doubted; the nervous excitability of the people
suggests something strained and artificial in their way of life, but
this may possibly be a merely temporary phenomenon.
Throughout Japanese politics since the Restoration, there are two
separate strands, one analogous to that of Western nations, especially
pre-war Germany, the other inherited from the feudal age, which is more
analogous to the politics of the Scottish Highlands down to 1745. It is
no part of my purpose to give a history of modern Japan; I wish only to
give an outline of the forces which control events and movements in that
country, with such illustrations as are necessary. There are many good
books on Japanese politics; the one that I have found most informative
is McLaren's _Political History of Japan during the Meiji Era_
1867-1912 (Allen and Unwin, 1916).
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