Nor is it difficult to learn from authentic sources the two most potent reasons for the unfortunate and evil state throughout their history of the Korean people. These reasons are, on the one hand, the physical results of repeated invasions from the outside; and, on the other hand, the adoption and perpetuation, in a yet more mischievous and degraded fashion, of the civil and official corruptions received from Korea’s ancient suzerain, China. It is customary to attach great importance, both as respects the damage done to the material interests of the country, and also as accounting for the Korean hatred of the Japanese, to the invasion of Hideyoshi. But the undoubted facts do not bear out this contention. The lasting effects of this incoming of foreign armed forces from the south, and of their short-lived and partial occupation of Korean territory, were relatively unimportant. None of the institutions of Korea were changed; none of her physical resources were largely depleted. It was just those places in which the Japanese remained in the most intimate relations with the Koreans, where there was least permanent development of race hatred. But the results of the successive invasions from the north and northwest, by the wild tribes, by the Mongols, and by the Chinese and Manchu dynasties, were much more injurious in every way to the physical well-being of the peninsula. It is one of the most remarkable contrasts between Japan and Korea that, whereas the more distinctly moral elements of Confucianism moulded a noble and knightly type of character in the former country, in its neighbor the doctrines of the great Oriental teacher chiefly resulted in forming the average official into a more self-conceited but really corrupt and mischievous personality. Indeed, the baleful influence of China, especially since the establishment of the Manchu dynasty, has been the principal hindrance to the industrial and civic development of Korea. The contribution made to its civilization by Chinese letters, inventions, and arts, has been no adequate compensation for the depressing and debasing character of the imported political and social system. The official institutions and practices of the suzerain have for centuries been bad enough at home; but here they have been even worse, whether admiringly copied or enforced by the influence of its Court and the power of its army. And, whereas the great multitude of the Chinese people have displayed for a long time the inherent power of industrial self-development and of successful business intercourse with foreigners, the Koreans have thus far been relatively lacking in the qualities essential for every kind of material and governmental success. Thus all the civilization of Korea has been so characterized by weakness and corruption as to excite contempt as well as disapprobation from the moralist’s and the economist’s points of view. It is China and not Japan