' The Japanese have advanced, not because their
brains have suddenly become larger, or their moral and intellectual
capabilities have all at once made a leap forward, but because their
intercourse with Western nations, after centuries of isolated seclusion,
showed them that certain characteristic features of European
civilization would be of great use in strengthening and enriching their
own country, developing its resources, and giving it the power to resist
aggression. If the Japanese were as members of the _homo sapiens_
inferior to us fifty years ago, they are inferior to us now. If they are
our equals to-day--and the burden of proof certainly now rests on him
who wishes to show that they are not--our knowledge of the origin and
history of Eastern peoples, scanty though it is, should certainly tend
to assure us that the Chinese are our equals, too. There is no valid
reason for supposing that the Chinese people are ethnically inferior to
the Japanese. They have preserved their isolated seclusion longer than
the Japanese, because until very recently it was less urgently necessary
for them to come out of it. They have taken a longer time to appreciate
the value of Western science and certain features of Western
civilization, because new ideas take longer to permeate a very large
country than a small one, and because China was rich within her own
borders of all the necessaries of life.
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