his own opinions unreservedly.  The Occidental, accustomed to this direct and open manner, spontaneously doubts the man who lacks it.  It is impossible for the Occidental to feel genuinely acquainted with an Oriental who does not respond in Occidental style of frank open intercourse.  Furthermore, it is not Japanese custom to open one’s heart, to make friends with everyone who comes along.  The hail-fellow-well-met characteristic of the Occident is a feature of its individualism, that could not come into being in a feudal civilization in which every respectable man carried two swords with which to take instant vengeance on whoever should malign or doubt him.  Universal secretiveness and conventionality, polite forms and veiled expressions, were the necessary shields of a military feudalism.  Both the social order and the language were fitted to develop to a high degree the power of attention to minutest details of manner and speech and of inferring important matters from slight indications.  The whole social order served to develop the intuitional method in human relations.  Reliance was placed more on what was not said than on what was clearly expressed.  A doubting state of mind was the necessary psychological prerequisite for such an inferential system.  And doubt was directly taught.  “Hito wo mireba dorobo to omoye,” “when you see a man, count him a robber,” may be an exaggeration, but this ancient proverb throws much light on the Japanese chronic state of mind.  Mutual suspicion—­and especially suspicion of strangers—­was the rule in Old Japan.  Among themselves the Japanese make relatively few intimate friends.  They remark on Occidental skill in making friends.

That the foreigner is not admitted to the inner social life of the Japanese is likewise not difficult of explanation, if we bear in mind the nature of that social life.  Is it possible for one who keeps concubines, who takes pleasure in geisha, and who visits houses of prostitution, to converse freely and confidentially with those who condemn these practices?  Can he who stands for a high-grade morality, who criticises in unsparing measure the current morality of Japanese society, expect to be admitted to its inner social circles?  Impossible.  However friendly the relations of Japanese and foreigners may be in business and in the diplomatic corps, the moral chasm separating the social life of the Occident from that of the Orient effectually prevents a foreigner from being admitted to its inner social life.

It might be thought that immoral Occidentals would be so admitted.  Not so.  The Japanese distinguish between Occidentals.  They know well that immoral Occidentals are not worthy of trust.  Although for a season they may hobnob together, the intimacy is shallow and short-lived; it rests on lust and not on profound sympathies of head and heart.