Japan cannot be compared for a moment with China; for, much younger than her Celestial neighbour—since she received her civilization at her hands at a period contemporary with the fall of the Roman Empire, when the annals of China reached as far back into the night of time as those of Egypt—she has not had time to fossilize herself in sterile admiration of the past, and she has never adopted that mandarinate which China considers one of her chief glories, but which is in reality slowly ruining her. Above all, like Europe in the Middle Ages, she has submitted to the virile influences of the feudal system, and, therefore, there is no reason _à priori_ why she should not succeed in her enterprise. Whether or no Japan wishes to convert herself on every point into an absolutely Europeanized nation, and a Western European nation at that, is another question which demands close attention. Possibly it is an exaggeration to say that the promoters of the remarkable series of reforms which have lately been effected in Japan had ever an eye to so complete a transformation. The first reform which engrossed their attention was undoubtedly to place their country, which had so suddenly broken through her ancient tradition of isolation, on a military, naval, and an economical basis, that would enable her to treat as an equal with any of the other nations of the world. The Japanese are the only Oriental people who have understood the conditions necessary to attain this aim. Japan discerned that by accepting a military and economic position equal to that of any European country, she was also obliged to undergo immense changes in every department of her national existence, and she unflinchingly faced her new position, resolved to accomplish every sort of transformation in order to place herself on a firm footing.