An Introduction to the History of Japan (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE RACES AND CLIMATE OF JAPAN Which is the more potent factor in building up the edifice of civilisation, race or climate? This has been a riddle repeatedly presented to various scholars of various ages, and has not yet been completely solved. The immanent force of the race deeply rooted in the principle of heredity on the one hand, and the influence of the physical milieu on the other, have been, are, and will be, ever the two important factors, cooperating in -engendering any sort of civilisation, yet are they not always friendly forces, but, in a sense, rivals, competing for the ascendency. Looking back into the history of the interminable controversy as to the position of the two, and taking into consideration the fact that they are not the only factors contributing to the progress of civilisation, it would perhaps seem to be a waste of labour to try anew to solve the question. If one should endeavour to explain the respective importance of the two factors, putting due stress on each at the same time, he would then be in danger of falling into a self-contradiction or of begging the question endlessly; otherwise he must be satisfied with being the sermoniser of quite a commonplace truism! This is not, however, the place to enter into a discussion to determine the preponderant influence of either of the two, a discussion perhaps fruitful enough, but almost hopeless of arriving at a final solution. But as in recording the history of any country one should begin well at the beginning, I, too, cannot desist from starting with a description of the race and of the climate, with their relations to the history, of Japan. Of these two factors, I need not say much about the first. It is about forty years since meteorological observations have been regularly and co...