climate, the topography, and the Indian foundation remain, and will remain. But the problems are not so simple, nor readily referred to such simple agents. Gambling exists in other climes, non-government may be found on temperate plains, and cruelty and superstition occur in all mankind.

There has been some talk of an English translation of the book. It will not be understood by English readers, and will be particularly misjudged by all Americans save those who know Mexico sympathetically. In Mexico itself the book caused a sensation. For ten successive evenings the thinkers of the Mexican metropolis-literary men, teachers, students, public men, scientific workers-representing the different learned societies, gathered for its discussion, the author himself being present. At the close of this detailed examination the book was highly commended.

Guerrero comes of "Liberal" stock, and is himself of that political party. He is a clear thinker on public affairs, and in politics seeks to warn and direct. His journal, La Republica, was suppressed after fourteen numbers. In it he asserted purely Liberal ideas, warned against the dangers of revolution, and aimed to contribute to the solving of the most pressing political question in Mexico today—the presidential succession.

FREDERICK STARR.

Evolution of the Japanese. By SIDNEY L. GULICK, M.A., Missionary of the American Board in Japan. Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Co. Pp. vi + 457.

THIS work presents the best description and the most searching analysis that has yet appeared of that unique ethnical phenomenon, the modern reconstruction of Japan. As description the work constitutes a very treasury of mental characterization so classified as to require nearly all of the thirty-seven chapters of the work. Herein the work is a match for the Chinese Characteristics by Arthur Smith, which supplies an exact anatomy of the Chinese mind. But, unlike Mr. Smith, our author had a host of previous writers to deal with; and these have been so criticised and so supplemented from first-hand knowledge that they are now superseded for a reader that can peruse but one work. A typical treatment is that of Japanese intellectuality, which is shown to compare fairly with that of Americans, while the fact that Japanese-in common with other orientals-had never developed an independent history or science is explained by the much

mechanical memorization, required during the formative period to learn the thousands of Chinese ideographs. Another treatment is that of Japanese politeness, which is rightly proverbial, since it shows not only in details of everyday routine, but in the very structure of the language, where it has precluded the development of personal pronouns. Mr. P. Lowell and others have attributed this politeness to the "impersonality" of the Japanese, whereas our author holds that "minute etiquette is the lubricant of a feudal social order," and points out that, did it depend on an inherent quality like impersonality, it would not under the new industrialism of Japan have so much declined. Another treatment is accorded philosophical ability, which foreigners have generally denied to the Japanese, but which our author credits to them on various grounds. The Japanese themselves point in proof to the rapidity and ease with which they discarded their superstitions, and to the rapid spread of rationalism in its place. Moreover, they first took great interest in the subtle metaphysics of Buddhism, and then generally abandoned it in favor of the Chinese system of Chu Hi. Japanese students abroad have won laurels in philosophy, and those at home reveal no deficiency to their foreign instructors, as the present reviewer, after six years of such work in the Dashisha College, Kyoto, can also testify. Here Mr. Gulick administers a warning to all critics so salutary that it deserves transcribing :

In discussing Japanese philosophical ability, a point often forgotten is the rarity of philosophical ability or even interest in the West. But a small proportion of college students show the slightest interest in philosophical or metaphysical problems. The majority do not even understand what the distinctive metaphysical problems are. In my experience it is easier to enter into a conversation with an educated man in Japan on a philosophical question than with an American. If interest in philosophical and metaphysical questions in the West is rare, original ability in their investigation is still

rarer.

The obvious conclusion is that the Japanese show no marked racial trait in this sphere. The same result appears from a survey of recent Japanese originality in science. The Murata rifle, with which the Japanese army is equipped, is the invention of a Japanese, and was further improved by Colonel Arisaka in 1897, while the smokeless powder used was invented by Mr. Shimose. The German bacteriologist, Dr. Behring, must freely share his laurels with his collaborator, the Japanese Dr. Kitasato, and the distinction of isolating the active. principle in adrenalin, now the most powerful astringent known, fell to Dr. Takamine after European and American chemists had vainly

sought it for decades. Messrs. Hirose and Ikeno are equally distinguished in botany. In general, the Japanese have learned modern sciences with an astonishing rapidity and thoroughness, not excluding the naval and military arts, as now evident.

Perhaps the most interesting case of all, however, is where the author shows that this ability to change is itself attributable, not to any intrinsic heredity, but to the social order, inasmuch as Japanese have been learners from their earliest times, and thus have pervasive among them "a spirit of imitation;" besides which national tutelage, the individual Japanese has been taught imitation by the need for it under feudalism.

But all this judicious observation is concurrently subordinated to an analysis of causes for these traits and for their recent transformation; and this aspect rightly gives title to the book, Evolution of the Japanese. The general conclusion is well stated by the author on P. 425:

How have these characteristics arisen ? has been our ever-recurring question. The answer has invariably tried to show their relation to the social order. . . . . We have seen that not one of the characteristics examined is inherent, that is, due to brain structure, to biological heredity. We have concluded, therefore, that the psychical characteristics which differentiate races are all but wholly social.

An extremer conclusion on p. 441 runs that "such inherent differences, if they exist, are so vague and intangible as practically to defy dicovery and clear statement, and may be practically ignored;" but another parallel passage on p. 438 takes the more moderate and safe position "that the evolution of the psychic characteristics of all races is due to social more than to biological evolution." There is a wide latitude here that would justify rejection of one degree, but acceptance of either of the others. The inclination of the author is clearly toward disallowing inheritance of traits, in any degree, as appears from his treatment of the data passim, and in such phrases as "the Anglo-Saxon is what he is because of his social heredity" (p. 21). However, so far as this lack of precision concerns inheritance of acquired traits, it may only reflect the uncertainty of the conclusions for and against Weismann, with a strong tendency toward his denial of such inheritance. But in respect to congenital variation, the author's denial is wholly in conflict with prevalent biological and sociological opinion, as he admits, pp. 20 and 21, a strong tendency

The italics of these three quotations are mine.

toward his denial of such inheritance. This congenital element is, of course, accepted by Weismann, and, indeed, without it evolution would obviously be impossible for him. So at least in the material world; but in the mental sphere is a third means at disposal, to which our author has repeatedly turned, namely, the dependence of traits, and even the trait of changing traits ("sensitiveness to environment"), upon the social order. The mental entity that is subject of these traits is cited in several passages as equally the cause and end of evolution, and as a person. Thus, in the Introduction: "But a still more important factor in the determination of social and psychic evolution, generally unrecognized by sociologists, is the nature and function of personality." Chap. 3 holds that the criterion of progress is personality; chap. 29 is devoted to showing how the primitive, mainly segregative, man was tamed by formation of rigid ideas and customs into a unified nation, at which stage farther progress depends on fracture of "the cake of custom" by an individualism that shall yet include communalism, which is precisely personality. Chap. 36, again, would show that the determinative trait of the Orient is this communalism; but of the Occident, this individualism, namely, personality. Finally, chap. 37 closes the work with attribution of all progress to personality:

Personality, expressing and realizing itself in communal and individual life, in objective and subjective forms, is at once the cause and the goal of progress. Social and psychic evolution are, therefore, in the last analysis, personal processes. (P. 446.)

My objection to such a conception is that it leaves the notion of personality wholly static, and thus abandons its inner development, which I conceive it to have precisely as every living entity has a congenital variation. This development of the person, though probably only to a slight degree modified by inheritance of acquired traits, has an inner variation which is needed to originate those traits unaccountable for by physical environment. On the contrary, the origin of these traits is attributed by our author to the "personalized psychic nature," under determination of conditions "which differ for different lands, peoples, ages, and political relations, producing diverse social orders. for each separated group" (p. 439). But these several conditions. reduce to "lands" only; for "peoples" is only a synonym for "psychic nature;" "ages" or time can do nothing by themselves; and "political relations" are the social order, not "produce" it. Now, an always undifferentiated person in interaction with little various material environments seems to me inadequate to explain the immense varieties of racial and national culture.

For example, here are Japanese producing a feudal system peculiarly strong and reacting under it to an exceptional degree, and learning from neighbors as most other peoples, even under like conditions, have failed to do, and at the same time avoiding the vices of those neighborteachers, such as opium-smoking and foot-binding among the Chinese. They now astonish everyone by an eclecticism never practiced by people before nor now, not only adapting but adopting every best quality from the world over. Only the Greeks approximated this achievement; and when Galton credits them, in consequence, with the highest ability yet possessed by mankind, what does that mean except that their "personality" or mind had differentiated under congenital variation into a specific nature not since attained by any people, until the Japanese came to sight? The author decries prehistory as the "common dumping-ground" for sociologists; but does not his undifferentiated but "plastic" (p. 445) personality serve the same purpose, namely, to dispose of difficulties? Thus, it allows him to use such a phrase as "strong personalities" (p. 443) without assigning any ground for them. He admits, however, that "it may perhaps be an open question whether the lowest races are such because of social differences only or also because of defective psychic heredity. While all Japanese traits appear to proceed from the Japanese "social order" the exceptionally fine results imply a good scholar as well as a good school. This scholar is compact partly of Malay and partly of Mongolian congenital heredity, and hence his marked variaiton in body and mind from the Chinese that he has always first copied and then criticised and is now goading into progress. Besides the bodily marks of this variation from westerners are his less nervous sensitivity, so that his minor surgical operations are performed without anesthetic, and a mental trait that impels him to perform certain acts in a way that seems unnatural to us, as when he pulls plane and saw, turns locks and screws to the left in order to fasten them, mounts a horse from the right, beaches a boat stern first, eats sweets before meats, and begins his books at the—that is, our-end. These singular traits cannot be explained by the "social order," and are left unnoticed by Mr. Gulick. Other such traits are the absence of the active play-instinct among the boys-no Japanese boy climbs a tree for fun-and, per contra, the prominence of death, the perceptive and constructive sense manifested in the incomparable Japanese decorative art-Richard Neuther ranks them first among all peoples. And whence the unique Japanese asymmetry in art, which has yet proved acceptable among all other culture-peoples?