The customary explanation of the group of characteristics considered in this chapter is that they are innate, due to brain and nerve structure, and acquired by each generation through biological heredity.  If closely examined, however, this is seen to be no explanation at all.  Accepting the characteristics as empirical inexplicable facts, the real problem is evaded, pushed into prehistoric times, that convenient dumping ground of biological, anthropological, and sociological difficulties.

Japanese flexibility, imitativeness, and sensitiveness to environment are to be accounted for by a careful consideration of the national environment and social order.  Modern psychology has called attention to the astonishing part played by imitation, conscious and unconscious, in the evolution of the human race, and in the unification of the social group.  Prof.  Le Tarde goes so far as to make this the fundamental principle of human evolution.  He has shown that it is ever at work in the life of every human being, modifying all his thoughts, acts, and feelings.  In the evolution of civilization the rare man thinks, the millions imitate.

A slight consideration of the way in which Occidental lands have developed their civilization will convince anyone that imitation has taken the leading part.  Japan, therefore, is not unique in this respect.  Her periods of wholesale imitation have indeed called special notice to the trait.  But the rapidity of the movement has been due to the peculiarities of her environment.  For long periods she has been in complete isolation, and when brought into contact with foreign nations, she has found them so far in advance of herself in many important respects that rapid imitation was the only course left her by the inexorable laws of nature.  Had she not imitated China in ancient times and the Occident in modern times, her independence, if not her existence, could hardly have been maintained.

Imitation of admittedly superior civilizations has therefore been an integral, conscious element of Japan’s social order, and to a degree perhaps not equaled by the social order of any other race.

The difference between Japanese imitation and that of other nations lies in the fact that whereas the latter, as a rule, despise foreign races, and do not admit the superiority of alien civilizations as a whole, imitating only a detail here and there, often without acknowledgment and sometimes even without knowledge, the Japanese, on the other hand, have repeatedly been placed in such circumstances as to see the superiority of foreign civilizations as a whole, and to desire their general adoption.  This has produced a spirit of imitation among all the individuals of the race.  It has become a part of their social inheritance.  This explanation largely accounts for the striking difference between Japanese and Chinese in the Occident.  The Japanese go to the West in order to acquire all the West can give.  The Chinaman goes steeled