and truth to naught.  Among the Westerners who from of old have studied details minutely, I have not heard of one who was zealous for the Great Way, for benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, and truth, and who opposed the absurdities of the Lord of Heaven [God].’[BH] ’Let then the child make its parent, Heaven; the retainer, his lord; the wife, her husband; and let each give up life for righteousness.  Thus will each serve Heaven.  But if we exalt Heaven above parent or lord, we shall come to think that we can serve it though they be disobeyed, and like wolf or tiger shall rejoice to kill them.  To such fearful end does the Western learning lead."[BI]

The foregoing quotations reveal the exalted nature of the ideals held by at least some of the leaders of ethical thought in Japan.  Taken as a whole, the moral ideals characterizing the Japanese during their entire historical period have been conspicuously communal.  The feudal structure of society has determined the peculiar character of the moral ideal.  Loyalty took first rank in the moral scale; the subordination of the inferior to the superior has come next, including unquestioning obedience of children to parents, and of wife to husband.  The virtues of a military people have been praised and often gloriously exemplified.  The possession of these various ideals and their attainment in such high degree have given the nation its cohesiveness.  They make the people a unit.  The feudal training under local daimyos was fitting the people for the larger life among the nations of the world on which they are now entering.  Especially is their sense of loyalty, as exhibited toward the Emperor, serving them well in this period of transition from Oriental to Occidental social ideals.

Let us now examine some defective moral standards and observe their origin in the social order.  Take, for instance, the ideal of truthfulness.  Every Occidental remarks on the untruthfulness of the Japanese.  Lies are told without the slightest apparent compunction; and when confronted with the charge of lying, the culprit often seems to feel little sense of guilt.  This trait of character was noted repeatedly by the early negotiators with Japan.  Townsend Harris and Sir Rutherford Alcock made frequent mention of it.  When we inquire as to the moral ideal and actual instruction concerning truthfulness, we are amazed to find how inadequate it was.  The inadequacy of the teaching, however, was not the primal cause of the characteristic.  There is a far deeper explanation, yet very simple, namely, the nature of the social order.  The old social order was feudal, and not industrial or commercial.  History shows that industrial and commercial nations develop the virtue of truthfulness far in advance of military nations.  For these virtues are essential to them; without them they could not long continue to prosper.