et the characteristics of
modern Japan in the light of social science. It also seeks to throw
some light on the vexed question as to the real character of so-called
race-nature, and the processes by which that nature is transformed. If
the principles of social science here set forth are correct, they
apply as well to China and India as to Japan, and thus will bear
directly on the entire problem of Occidental and Oriental social
intercourse and mutual influence.

The core of this work consists of addresses to American and English
audiences delivered by the writer during his recent furlough. Since
returning to Japan, he has been able to give but fragments of time to
the completion of the outlines then sketched, and though he would
gladly reserve the manuscript for further elaboration, he yields to
the urgency of friends who deem it wise that he delay no longer in
laying his thought before the wider public.

To Japanese readers the writer wishes to say that although he has not
hesitated to make statements painful to a lover of Japan, he has not
done it to condemn or needlessly to criticise, but simply to make
plain what seem to him to be the facts. If he has erred in his facts
or if his interpretations reflect unjustly on the history or spirit of
Japan, no one will be more glad than he for corrections. Let the
Japanese be assured that his ruling motive, both in writing about
Japan and in spending his life in this land, is profound love for the
Japanese people. The term "native" has been freely used because it is
the only natural correlative for "foreign." It may be well to say that
neither the one nor the other has any derogatory implication,
although anti-foreign natives, and anti-native foreigners, sometimes
so use them.

The indebtedness of the writer is too great to be acknowledged in
detail. But whenever he has been conscious of drawing directly from
any author for ideas or suggestions, effort has been made to indicate
the source.

Since the preparation of the larger part of this work several
important contributions to the literature on Japan have appeared which
would have been of help to the writer, could he have referred to them
during the progress of his undertaking. Rev. J.C.C. Newton's "Japan:
Country, Court, and People"; Rev. Otis Cary's "Japan and Its
Regeneration"; and Prof. J. Nitobe's "Bushido: The Soul of Japan,"
call for special mention. All are excellent works, interesting,
condensed, informative, a