438 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



adopting the weapons of the Western nations, must beat them 

 on their own ground as Japan beat Russia ; or, sooner or later, 

 China will inevitably succumb to the invasion of the West, and 

 partition between the European Powers will be her fate. Here, 

 as elsewhere, the alternative is adaptation or elimination. 



This alternative presented itself to Japan thirty-five years ago, 

 and she made her choice then. When the American fleet first 

 came to seek to open commercial relations with the Empire of 

 the Mikado, Japan was forced to choose between either the 

 acquisition of Western culture and Western methods, so as to beat 

 the West with its own weapons, or else the conservation of the 

 old regime and eventual annihilation. It says much for the 

 foresight of the Japanese, and much for their power of adaptation, 

 that they chose the former alternative. History knows no other 

 instance so striking of an old nation, which was highly civiUsed 

 before Christianity was ever heard of, adapting itself with such 

 wonderful rapidity to conditions diametrically antagonistic to 

 those in which its whole evolution had taken place. A nation 

 capable of thus adapting itself, of thus breaking down the barriers 

 of custom and tradition 2,500 years old, is a nation whose organic, 

 or biological, superiority is incontestable. But had not the 

 applied sciences made such enormous progress, had not the 

 Western world, through the development of these, been brought 

 into closer touch with the East, the East would not have changed, 

 for there would have been no reason for the change. The evolution 

 of Japan has been in correlation with the evolution of other States. 



For, be it noted, the evolution of society must be determined 

 in accordance with two factors. First, the evolution of neigh- 

 bouring societies, and, second, the shiftings of the balance of 

 power within the society itself ; just as the development of the 

 individual is determined by that of other individuals, and by the 

 miniature struggle between the determinants of its own germ- 

 plasm. The examples of China and Japan show ujs an evolution 

 brought about, not by internal necessities, but by the external 



