China has been, since the time of
the First Emperor (_c._ 200 B.C.), a vast unified bureaucratic land
empire, having much contact with foreign nations--Annamese, Burmese,
Mongols, Tibetans and even Indians. Japan, on the other hand, was an
island kingdom, having practically no foreign contact except with Korea
and occasionally with China, divided into clans which were constantly at
war with each other, developing the virtues and vices of feudal
chivalry, but totally unconcerned with economic or administrative
problems on a large scale. It was not difficult to adapt the doctrines
of Confucius to such a country, because in the time of Confucius China
was still feudal and still divided into a number of petty kingdoms, in
one of which the sage himself was a courtier, like Goethe at Weimar. But
naturally his doctrines underwent a different development from that
which befel them in their own country.
In old Japan, for instance, loyalty to the clan chieftain is the virtue
one finds most praised; it is this same virtue, with its scope enlarged,
which has now become patriotism. Loyalty is a virtue naturally praised
where conflicts between roughly equal forces are frequent, as they were
in feudal Japan, and are in the modern international world. In China, on
the contrary, power seemed so secure, the Empire was so vast and
immemorial, that the need for loyalty was not felt.
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