It is rather derogatory to our national pride to have to aver that we are so deeply indebted to Chinese civilisation. Yet the facts cannot be denied, nor the truth falsified. Moreover, we need not be ashamed that we brought in so much from China, while we gave very little to the Chinese in exchange. How could we, who were very late in commencing a civilised national life, initiate a new civilisation independent of that of China, without imitating it? Was not the Chinese civilisation too far advanced and too overpowering for the Japanese of that time, the Japanese who were still at the outset of their evolutionary march? On the contrary, justice should be done to the fact, that we not only improved ourselves by availing ourselves of such a high civilisation, but withstood it at the same time, being far from dwindling away as a result of having come into contact with it, as many uncivilised races have done in a similar case. No impartial historian would fail to observe that there is some capacity not borrowed but inborn in the Japanese people, by force of which they were able to consolidate themselves as a compact nation, possessing striking characteristics quite different from those of China. And it is especially to be noted to the honour of the Japanese, that the more we helped ourselves to Chinese culture, the wider became the divergence between the two countries. Could such a way of introducing an alien civilisation be designated a servile imitation? I am far from trying to embellish every phase of the history of Japan, whatever its due merit may be, and would be content if even a few of the wanton calumnies current vis a vis Japan be set aright by making her real history understood, which is not very easy to grasp, but yet not so sterile as it is reputed to be by some foreign historians.