+94. Arbitrary change.+ We often meet with references to Abraham Lincoln and Alexander II as political heroes who set free millions of slaves or serfs "by a stroke of the pen." Such references are only flights of rhetoric. They entirely miss the apprehension of what it is to set men free, or to tear out of a society mores of long growth and wide reach. Circumstances may be such that a change which is imperative can be accomplished in no other way, but then the period of disorder and confusion is unavoidable. The stroke of the pen never does anything but order that this period shall begin. +95. Case of Japan.+ Japan offers a case of the voluntary resolution of the ruling class of a nation to abandon their mores and adopt those of other nations. The case is unique in history. Humbert says that the Japanese were in the first throes of internal revolution when foreigners intervened.[107] Schallmeyer infers that the "adaptability of an intelligent and disciplined people is far greater than we, judging from other cases, have been wont to believe."[108] Le Bon absolutely denies 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.