[189] The primitive kinship group is a characteristic feature of Chinese society. “Thousands of Chinese villages comprise exclusively persons having the same surname and the same ancestors” (A. H. Smith, _Chinese Characteristics_ (1894), p. 226). “I have seen a town of 25,000 people, all belonging to the same clan and bearing the same family name” (Martin, _The Lore of Cathay_ (1901), p. 272). Along with this clan constitution of society goes the principle of collective responsibility. The group is to a great degree held responsible for the conduct of each of its members. In case of serious crime, as, for instance, treason, all the male adult members of the criminal’s family are punished along with the offender (Westermarck, _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_ (1906), vol. i, p. 45). Recently the punishment of relatives of the offender has been abolished in certain cases. [190] The efforts of the Chinese government to put an end to the use of opium among its subjects--the anti-opium decree was issued in 1906--is the most noteworthy matter in the recent moral history of China. This movement is motived by moral feeling as truly as is the movement among ourselves for the suppression of the liquor traffic. It is, in the words of Professor Edward A. Ross, “the most extensive warfare on a vicious private habit that the world has ever known” (_The Changing Chinese_ (1911), p. 146). [191] “The Emperor is sacred and inviolable.”--_Japanese Constitution_, art. iii. [192] The state in Japan occupies the place of the Church with us. “To look up to the state as a sacred institution has always been characteristic of the people, and from the great work of the recent reformation onward there has not been a single event of national consequence which has not originated in this peculiar turn of mind” (Count Okuma, _Fifty Years of New Japan_ (1909), vol. ii, p. 559). [193] Corresponding to the knights in European feudalism were the samurai, above them the daimios, and at the head of the system the Shogun. [194] Japanese boys and men, Dr. William Elliot Griffis affirms, are “more tender and careful with all living creatures than are those of Christendom” (_The Religions of Japan_ (1895), p. 294). Buddhism caused in large measure the disuse of flesh for food. [195] This word means “the way of the warrior,” or “the rule of knighthood.” [196] Nitobé, _Bushido: the Soul of Japan_, p. 98. The edition cited throughout this chapter is that of G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905. The Introduction is by William Elliot Griffis. [197] Nitobé, _Bushido_, p. 32. [198] _Ibid._ p. 30. [199] For the subject of the downfall of feudalism and the Restoration, see Count Okuma, _Fifty Years of New Japan_ (1909), vol. i, chap. ii. [200] Nitobé, _Bushido_, p. 189. [201] Baron Kikuchi, in Sadler, _Moral Instruction and Training in Schools_ (1908), vol. ii, p. 323. [202] Scherer, _What is Japanese Morality?_ (1906), p. 10. [203] Nitobé, _Bushido_, p. vi.