y to do and to suffer.’ In Japan as in Italy‘the rude manners of the Middle Ages’made of man a superb animal,‘wholly militant and wholly resistant.’ And this is why the sixteenth century displays in the highest degree the principal quality of the Japanese race, that great diversity which one finds there between minds (esprits) as well as between temperaments. While in India and even in China men seem to differ chiefly in degree of energy or intelligence, in Japan they differ by originality of character as well. Now, individuality is the sign of superior races and of civilizations already developed. If we make use of an expression dear to Nietzsche, we might say that in Asia, to speak of humanity is to speak of its plains; in Japan as in Europe, one represents it above all by its mountains.”
To the pervading characteristics of the men of whom M. de la Mazeliere writes, let us now address ourselves. I shall begin with Rectitude.
[Footnote 1: Lafcadio Hearn, Exotics and Retrospectives, p. 84.]
[Footnote 2: The English People, p. 188.]
[Footnote 3: “Feudal and Modern Japan”Vol. I, p. 183.]