One might have imagined that Japan's new religionists would have experienced some difficulty in persuading foreign nations of the truth of their dogmas. Things have fallen out otherwise. Europe and America evince a singular taste for the marvellous, and find a zest in self-depreciation. Our eighteenth-century ancestors imagined all perfections to be realised in China, thanks to the glowing descriptions then given of that country by the Jesuits. Twentieth-century Europe finds its moral and political Eldorado in distant Japan, a land of fabulous antiquity and incredible virtues. There is no lack of pleasant-mannered persons ready to guide trustful admirers in the right path. Official and semi-official Japanese, whether ambassadors and ministers-resident or peripatetic counts and barons, make it their business to spread a legend so pleasing to the national vanity, so useful as a diplomatic engine. Lectures are delivered, books are written in English, important periodicals are bought up, minute care is lavished on the concealment, the patching-up, and glossing-over of the deep gulf that nevertheless is fixed between East and West. The foreigner cannot refuse the bolus thus artfully forced down his throat. He is not suspicious by nature. How should he imagine that people who make such positive statements about their own country are merely exploiting his credulity? HE has reached a stage of culture where such mythopoeia has become impossible. On the other hand, to control information by consulting original sources lies beyond his capacity.