From without, Japan is threatened with
the risk of war against America or of a revival of China. From within,
there will be, before long, the risk of proletarian revolution.
From all these dangers, there is only one escape, and that is a
diminution of the birth-rate. But such an idea is not merely abhorrent
to the militarists as diminishing the supply of cannon-fodder; it is
fundamentally opposed to Japanese religion and morality, of which
patriotism and filial piety are the basis. Therefore if Japan is to
emerge successfully, a much more intense Westernizing must take place,
involving not only mechanical processes and knowledge of bare facts, but
ideals and religion and general outlook on life. There must be free
thought, scepticism, diminution in the intensity of herd-instinct.
Without these, the population question cannot be solved; and if that
remains unsolved, disaster is sooner or later inevitable.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 46: McLaren, op. cit. p. 19.]
[Footnote 47: Kegan Paul, 1910, vol. i. p. 20.]
[Footnote 48: "What _popular_ Shinto, as expounded by its village
priests in the old time, was we simply do not know. Our carefully
selected and edited official edition of Shinto is certainly not true
aboriginal Shinto as practised in Yamato before the introduction of
Buddhism and Chinese culture, and many plausible arguments which
disregard that indubitable fact lose much of their weight.
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