ther in individuals or the aggregates of individuals that we term
nations, must be largely affected by the food partaken of. I,
accordingly, look forward, not immediately of course, to a material
change in the general physique of the Japanese people. I am not, as I
know some persons are, of opinion that that change is likely to be
brought about by intermarriage or unions of a temporary nature between
Japanese and Europeans. There have been a few marriages, and there
have no doubt been a good many unions, but the effect on the national
breed has been small, and though it may be to some extent greater in
the future, I do not look in this direction for any alteration in the
physical characteristics of the Japanese people. That alteration will,
in my opinion, be brought about by a change in the food of the people.

As regards the moral advancement of the Japanese race I shall say
little, for the somewhat paradoxical reason that it is a matter on
which so much might be said. Indeed, this is a subject on which a
definition of the term moral might be advisable before entering into
any prolonged consideration of it. I shall not attempt that
definition, simply because I feel convinced that to do so would be to
provoke controversy. As I have said in this book, moral, morality, and
immorality are all terms that have to some extent lost their original
meaning. I may say briefly in this connection that I use the term
moral advancement simply and solely in respect of the practice of the
duties of life from a high ethical point of view. That is, I know, a
somewhat vague definition, but I think it will serve its purpose. Ever
since Japan has been thrown open to foreigners we have heard a good
deal about morality and immorality, both in the strict and the
perverted sense of those words. The European who came there, male and
female, was, or affected to be, shocked at the relations between the
sexes he found prevailing. He saw prostitution recognised and
regulated. He heard of, and in the old days possibly saw, something of
phallic worship. He witnessed or heard of men and women making their
ablutions together in public wash-houses, and he--sometimes it was a
she--affected to be horrified at such a proceeding. Better, much
better, it was inferred, the custom of the lower classes in England,
never to wash at all, than this horrible outrage on public decency.
And then the merchant or the trader who came to Japan, he also prated
about commer