that culture can be transmitted from people to people. He says
that the ruin of Japan is yet to come, from the attempt to adopt foreign
ways.[109] The best information is that the mores of the Japanese masses
have not been touched. The changes are all superficial with respect to
the life of the people and their character.[110] "Iyeyasu was careful to
qualify the meaning of 'rude.' He said that the Japanese term for a rude
fellow signified 'an other-than-expected person'--so that to commit an
offense worthy of death it was only necessary to act in an 'unexpected
manner,' that is to say, contrary to prescribed etiquette."[111] "Even
now the only safe rule of conduct in a Japanese settlement is to act in
all things according to local custom; for the slightest divergence from
rule will be observed with disfavor. Privacy does not exist; nothing can
be hidden; everybody's vices or virtues are known to everybody else.
Unusual behavior is judged as a departure from the traditional standard
of conduct; all oddities are condemned as departures from custom, and
tradition and custom still have the force of religious obligations.
Indeed, they really _are_ religious and obligatory, not only by reason
of their origin, but by reason of their relation also to the public
cult, which signifies the worship of the past. The ethics of Shinto were
all included in conformity to custom. The traditional rules of the
commune--these were the morals of Shinto: to obey them was religion; to
disobey them impiety."[112] Evidently this is a description of a society
in which tradition and current usage exert complete control. It is idle
to imagine that the masses of an oriental society of that kind could, in
a thousand years, assimilate the mores of the Occident.

+96. Case of the Hindoos.+ Nivedita[113] thinks that the Hindoos have
adopted foreign culture easily. "One of the most striking features of
Hindoo society during the past fifty years has been the readiness of the
people to adopt a foreign form of culture, and to compete with those
who are native to that culture on equal terms." Monier-Williams tells
us, however, that each Hindoo "finds himself cribbed and confined in all
his movements, bound and fettered in all he does by minute traditional
regulations. He sleeps and wakes, dresses and undresses, sits down and
stands up, goes out and comes in, eats and drinks, speaks and is silent,
acts and refrains from acting, according to ancient rule."[114]