SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not been reserved for review in other forms.] Evolution of the Japanese. By Sidney L. Gulick, M.A. (Fleming H. Revell Company. 7s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Gulick describes himself as a "Missionary of the American Board in Japan," and we gather from what he says that he has spent many years in the country. He appreciates fully the marvellous progress that the country has made, though he very reasonably refuses to see in it a phenomenon unique in the history of the world. He analyses with much acuteness, as it seems to us, the characteristics of the Japanese people. Among these he dwells on their "Sensitive- ness to Environment." Probably there has never been a nation possessing BO open a mind for the accepting of foreign civilisa- tion. Then they are extraordinarily homogeneous. Their out- ward similarity has its counterpart in their mental state. "As far as I could learn," writes Mr. Gulick, "the nation was a unit in regard of the war [with China]." Ambition is a leading feature in their mental constitution; it is partly counter- acted by their fickleness. They have high aims, but they change them rapidly. The weak point of their civilisa- tion and their development is the condition of the women. Here their aptitude for the assimilation of Western ideas seems to fail them. They appear to be simply incapable of understanding how a Western Christian looks upon woman. Mr. Gulick tells us how an English-speaking Japanese expressed to him his wonder that he could endure the tyranny exercised over him by his wife. Asked to explain himself, he said that he had seen Mr. Gulick buttoning his wife's shoes. (The shoes are taken off on entering a Japanese house, and a woman naturally is sometimes in a difficulty about putting them on again.) In spiritual matters the Japanese, open-minded as he seems to be, has some serious dis- abilities. He can hardly understand the meaning of "sin." Call him a sinner, and he thinks you accuse him of being a law-breaker. It is hard for him to understand that there can be sin when there is no breach of outward law. A writer so well informed and so manifestly reasonable and calm in his judgments does great service when he gives us his well-considered views on such a subject as this.
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