Having thus far followed my enumeration of the various factors in the formation of the present thought in Japan, some of you might perhaps be curious to know what Christianity has contributed towards the general stock of modern Japanese mentality. It must surely have exercised a very healthy influence on our mind since its re-introduction at the beginning of the present Meiji period. Some have indeed gone so far as to say that we owe the whole success we have up to now achieved in this remarkable war to the holy inspiration we drew from the teaching of Jesus Christ. I indorse this opinion to its full extent, but only if we are to understand by His teaching that whole body of truth and love which are of the essence of Christianity, and which we used in former days to call by other names, such as Bushido, Confucianism, etc. But if you insist on having it understood in a narrow sectarian sense, with a personal God and rigid formalities as its main features, then I should say that I cannot agree with you, for this Christianity occupies rather an awkward place in our Japanese mind, finding itself somewhere between the national worship of the living dead, and modern agnosticism, or scientific monism. In our earlier fishery for new knowledge in the Western seas, fish other than those fit for our table were caught and dressed along with some really nourishing; the result was disastrous, and we gradually came to learn more caution than at first. The Roman Catholics, more enthusiastic than discreet, committed wholesale outrages on our harmless ways of faith in the early days of the seventeenth century, which did much to leave in bad repute the creed of Jesus Christ. And since the prohibition against Christianity was removed, many a missionary has been so particular about the plate in which the truth is served as to make us doubt, with reason, if that be the spirit of the immortal Teacher. The truth and poetry that breathe in your Gospels have been too often paraphrased in the senseless prose of mere formalism. Otherwise Christianity would have rendered us better help in our eternal march towards the ideal emancipation. There remains still one highly important thing to be considered as a formative element of the Japanese spirit. I mean the landscape and the physical aspects of Japan in general. It is well known that an intimate connection exists between the mind and the nature which surrounds it. A moment's consideration of the development of Hellenic sculpture and of the Greek climate, or of the Teutonic mythology and the physical condition of Northern Europe, will bring conviction on that point. Is not the effect of the blue sky on Italian painting, and the influence of the dusky heaven on the, pictorial art of the Netherlands, clearly traceable in the productions of the old masters? A study of London psychology at the present moment will never be complete without special chapters on your open spaces and your fogs.