Excerpt from An Essay on the Civilisations of India, China Japan Instead of describing my journey in detail I have thought it will be more interesting to offer some reflections on the general spirit and character of the civilisations of India, China, and Japan, and the apparent and probable efiects upon these civilisations of contact with the West. Any conclusions one may arrive at on a subject so comprehensive are, of course, of the most tentative and hazardous kind, and what I set down here is-rather the starting point than the end of an inquiry. I shall not, however, waste time and space in constantly qualifying and apologising for my statements. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.