On the other hand, we are in no wise bound to minimise the significance of the tropical element, in number as well as in influence, as regards the formation of the Japanese people. The remarkable differences in distance make it very natural to suppose that the immigrants from the tropical regions might have been less numerous than those from the north. Still it is not utterly improbable that a pretty substantial number of the Southerners might have come over into Japan, drifted over not only by the current but by the wind also, sometimes in groups, sometimes sporadically, and that they could subdue the inhabitants by force of martial courage yet unenervated and not by that of a superior civilisation only. The main difficulty in establishing this assertion lies in the fact that it is not quite certain whether they were really brave and heroic enough to achieve such a conquest. As to the linguistic consideration which is the favourite resort of many ethnologists it can be said that it is not more harmful to the one hypothesis than it is advantageous to the other. It is quite needless to argue that there is little sign of the existence of any linguistic affinity between the language of Japan and those of the tropical lands, except in a few words. This lack of linguistic affinity, however, can be explained away, while maintaining the importance of the ancient immigrants from the South, by considering that the ancestors of the ruling class, having been inferior as regards civilisation to the other stock or stocks of people whom they found already settled prior to them in Japan, and having been perhaps inferior in number also, gradually lost not only their language but many of their racial characteristics as well. Similar examples may be found in abundance in the history of Europe, the Normans in Sicily, and the Goths in Italy being among the most conspicuous. It is not impossible to suppose the like process to have taken place in Japan also. Summing up what is stated above, I cannot but think that the prehistoric immigrants into our country from the South were by no means a negligible factor in constituting the island nation, though the majority of immigrants might have come from the nearest continental shores, and in this majority it is not necessary to exclude the Chinese element altogether. It seems to me probable that southern Japan, especially the island of Kyushu, was inhabited in the prehistoric age by the Ainu, and by immigrants from the North as well as from the South side by side. But what was the relative distribution of these agglomerate races at a certain precise date is now a question very hard to settle definitely. CHAPTER III JAPAN BEFORE THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM AND CHINESE CIVILISATION