(1) Based on several researches on modernizations, J. W. Hall summarized at least 32 characteristic features of modernization from the political, social, economic Jerand intellectual spheres, as part of his attempt to define modernization. Not withstanding its usefulness and comprehensiveness, yet in a few instances, he failed to distinguish between the essential process of modernization and some of its effects. The weakening of religious and cultural agreedogmas is one of the suggested characteristics which is in reality only an effect relative to time and place. See Hall, J. W., Changing Conceptions of the Modernization of Japan, in Jansen, M.B., Changing Attitudes toward Modernization (New Jerandsey, Princeton University Press, 1965)Google Scholar

(2) Toynbee, A. J., The Present Day Experiment in Western Civilization (London, Oxford University Press, 1962)Google Scholar: “Today the whole world is bent on being modern;but this agreeable word ‘modern’ is a euphemism. It is a substitute for the less agreedogmas able word ‘Western’ [p. 24.] The motive for using the word modern instead of Western for the introduction of science and democracy is merely to save face for “it goes against the grain to admit that one's own ancestral way of life is not adequate to the situation in which one now finds oneself” [loc. cit.]

(3) Yanaga, Chotoshi, Japan since Perry (New York, McGraw Hill, 1949)Google Scholar.

(4) Eisenstadt, S. N., Breakdowns of Modernizations, Economic Development and Cultural Change, XII (1964), 345–367Google Scholar.

(5) These traits are each subject to further elaboration. We have, however, to stress that only recourse to actual concrete historical instances can express adequately what is meant by modern science. It should involve the entire corpus of knowledge related to modern science and its origin in Western Europe from at least the xviith century. Only then will the differentiating traits between modern science and its precursors be made clear. The invention of the steam engine, the discovery of electricity, the microscope, and a host of other things are specifically unique traits of modern science and technology.

(6) Rustow and Ward have hinted at the possibility that the central aspect of modernization as a historical phenomenon is man's rapidly increasing control of the forces of nature. See Rustow, D. A., Ward, R. E. (eds.), Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey (New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1964), p. 4Google Scholar. The following is their view of modernization: “Modernization as a historical concept includes such specific aspects of change as industrialization of the economy or secularization of ideas, but it is not limited to these. It involves a marked increase in geographic and social mobility, a spread of secular, scientific, and technical education, a transition from ascribed to achieved status, an increase in material standards of living and many related and subsidiary phenomena. Rough numerical measures of modernization are provided, in our century, by the ratio of inanimate to animate energy used in the economy, the proportion of the working force employed in secondary and tertiary rather than primary production (that is, in manufacturing and services, as opposed to agriculture and fishing), the degree of urbanization, the extent of literacy, the circulation of mass media, the gross national product per capita, and the length of life expectancy at birth” [pp. 3–4.]

(7) Jacobs, Norman, in his The Origin of Modern Capitalism and Eastern Asia (Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 1958)Google Scholar, suggested that Japan and Western Europe belong to the same basic type of modern capitalism while India and China to another. The criteria of classification are certain historical and structural factors facilitating the rise of modern capitalism in Japan and Western Europe at the period of take-off.

(8) Shinga, Fukushima, The Building of a National Army, The Developing Economies, III (1965), special issue: The Modernization of Japan, pp. 520–521Google Scholar. In the eyes of the author feudal restrictions prevented the successful completion of the modernization process in the Tokugawa period.

(9) Kuwaki, Ayao, Development of the Study of Science in Japan, in Nitobe, Inazo, Western Influence in Modern Japan (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1931)Google Scholar.

(10) For other significant aspects see Munakata Seiya, The Course and problems of National Education, in The Developing Economies, op. cit.

(11) From Asian history the only country we can think of in which modernization and large scale Westernization went hand in hand is the Philippines. It is the only Asian country profoundly and consistently influenced by Western culture for the last four centuries. See Phelan, John L., The Hispanization of the Philippines (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1959)Google Scholar.

(12) An instance where modernization was wellnigh impossible was the religion of the Toradjas in Central Celebes, Indonesia. See Adriani, N., The Effect of Western Rule on Animistic Heathenism, in Verzamelde Geschriften, III (Haarlem, De Erven F. Bohn, 1932)Google Scholar.

(13) Firth, Raymond, Elements of Social Organization (Boston, Beacon Press, 1964), pp. 112–113Google Scholar.

(14) There is a host of literature on the subject. Among those dealing with the interpretation of such movements the following may be noted: Inglis, Judy, Cargo Cults: The Problem of Explanation, Oceania, XXVII (1957), 149–263Google Scholar, and Stanner, W. E. H., On the Interpretation of Cargo Cults, Oceania, XXIX (1958), 1–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(15) Elsewhere I had discussed Weber's thesis on religion and the rise of capitalism with reference to Southeast Asia. See Alatas, Syed Hussein, The Weber Thesis and Southeast Asia, Archives de Sociologie des Religions XV (1963), 21–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Id. Collective Representations and Economic Development, Kajian Ekonomi Malaysia, II (1965), 104–113.

(16) I am unable to trace one or two published statements made several years back, but from time to time this opinion emerges in discussions among Malaysian intellectuals.

(17) Under the term Malay is included the 41,400 aborigenes. For detailed information on the occupational census of the Malays and Chinese, see Fell, H., 1957 Populations Census of the Federation of Malaya (report n° 14), Department of Statistics, Kuala Lumpur, 1960Google Scholar.

(18) In this connection, Weber's writings on Islam are, on the whole, absolutely untrustworthy. So are many of his remarks on Buddhism. He misses even the elementary knowledge of the religion and its historical facts. There is hardly a more disfigured picture of Islam than that depicted by Weber. See, for instance, Weber, Max, The Sociology of Religion, tr. Fischoff, R. (Boston, Beacon Press, 1964)Google Scholar.

(19) A quotation from an authority may be helpful here. “Islamic law favours every practical activity, and holds in great esteem agriculture, commerce, and every kind of work; it censures all thoses who burden others with their maintenance, requires every man to keep himself by the produce of his own labour, and does not despise any sort of work whereby man may make himself independent of others”. Santillana, D. De, Law and Society, in Arnold, T. and Guillame, A., The Legacy of Islam (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1931), p. 289Google Scholar.

(20) Ryan, Bryce, Social Values and Social Change in Ceylon, in Cahnman, W. J. and Boskoff, Alvin, Sociology and History (Glencoe, The Free Press, 1964)Google Scholar. As the author noted, the above values characterizing the Sinhalese status-achievement-work ethos has no support in religion comparable to the Protestant support of Capitalism. The support comes from the cultural and institutional background rather than Buddhism. Buddhism does not hinder the emergence of modern capitalist values, though it does not suggest them.

(21) Weber, Max, The Religion of China, translated and edited by Gerth, H. (Glencoe, The Free Press, 1951), p. 199Google Scholar.

(22) Ibid. p. 196.

(23) Weber, , op cit. p. 198Google Scholar.

(24) Ibid. p. 236.

(25) Ibid. pp. 236–237.

(26) Ibid. p. 237.

(27) This temple now includes the deification of 3 pioneering leaders of Chinese settlers, Sheng Ming Li, Chung Lai and Yap Ah Loy himself. On this subject see Middlebrooke, S. M., Loy, Yap Ah, Journal Malayan Branch Royal Asiatic Society, XXIV (1951) 3–100Google Scholar; and Suing, Wan Ming, Yap Ah Loy and Hsien Szu Shih Yeh Miao (Malaya in History), Malayan Historical Society, IX (1965), nos. 1, 2Google Scholar.

(28) The Emperor Yong Lu had discouraged his subjects from pursuing trade as a profession. His edict of 30 July 1402 A.D. prohibited private trade overseas. See Gangwu, Wang, The Opening of Relations between China and Malacca, 1403–1405, in Bastin, J. and Roolvink, R., Malayan and Indonesian Studies (London, Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 100Google Scholar.

(29) Quiggin, A. Hingston, A Survey of Primitive Money (London, Methuen, 1949)Google Scholar. See pp. 200, 248. Authentic bank-notes in paper were mentioned in the time of Emperor Hsien Tsung (c. A.D. 800).

(30) For a comprehensive and detailed summary of the impedements to capitalism and modernization, see Fairbank, J.K., Reischaher, E. O., Craig, A. M., East Asia, the Modern Transformation (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1965), pp. 88–116Google Scholar.

(31) See White, L., Technology and Social Change (London, Oxford University Press, 1962)Google Scholar.

(32) Munshi, Abdullah bin Adbul Kadir, Kesah Pelayaran Abdullah (Singapore, Malaya Publishing House, 1961)Google Scholar.

(33) Munshi, Abdullah, Hikayat Abdullah (Singapore, Malaya Publishing House, 1949)Google Scholar.

(34) Ibid. pp. 23–25.

(35) On this see Baki, Aminuddin bin, The Institution of Debt Slavery in Perak, Peninjau Sejarah [Kuala Lumpur], I (1966), 1–11Google Scholar

(36) The figures of the number of chiefs and population were derived from Aminuddin bin Baki, op. cit..

(37) On this see the classical Malay historical text, Sejarah Melayu, written probably not earlier then the XVIth century by an anonymous author. See also Hikayat Hang Tuah.

(38) Abdullah, , op. cit.. pp. 108–109Google Scholar.

(39) Ahmad, Syed Sheikh Al-Hadi bin, Menuntut Ketinggian Ahan Anak2 Negeri (Striving for the progress of the indigenous people), Al–Imam, II (1907), n° 1; (Malay newspaper in Arabic script)Google Scholar.

(40) The term disintegration is here used in the sense suggested by Ralph Linton. Integration is described by Linton as “the progressive development of more and more perfect adjustements between the various elements which compose the total culture”. Disintegration is the reverse process. As it is with such key concepts in the social sciences, the term is best clarified by conin crete instances, and this was done by Linton. See his Study of Man (New York, Appetlon-Century, 1936), pp. 347–366Google Scholar.

(41) Elkin, A. P., Man and His Cultural Heritage, Oceania, XX (1949–1950), pp. 16–17Google Scholar.

(42) For his elaborate and detailed presentation, see Ames, Michael M., Magical Animism and Buddhism: A structural analysis of the Sinhalese religious system, in Harper, L. B., Aspects of Religion in South Asia, Journal of Asian Studies, XXIII (1964), 21–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(43) Ames, Michael M., Buddha and the Dancing Goblin: A theory of magic and religion, American Anthropologist, LXVI (1964), p. 77Google Scholar.

(44) Ibid. pp. 78–79.

(45) Regarding the conflict between Islam and magical animism, the following observation was made by a British administrator Maxwell, G., In Malay Forests (London, Blackwood, 1905)Google Scholar: “The pawangs are dying out. It is not that civilization of British rule exercices a direct influence upon the native belief in this respect, but that this civilization is making the inhabitant of the Peninsula more of a Muhammadan and less of a Malay. The more he learns of his religion the more he realises how impossible is the compromise that has been allowed to exist for the last four or five centuries between the pre-Muhammadan beliefs and the precepts of the prophet” [p. 305].

(46) See Wertheim, W. F., Indonesian Society in Transition (The Hague, van Hoeve, 1959)Google Scholar: “Islam contributed in large measure to the humanising of numerous Asian customs” [p. 196]. “The individualising trait of Islam is the adoption of Roman law on the protection of private property and the rejection of the intermediary between God and the individual, and the denial of any autonomous community save the Islamic. Islam gave the small man a sense of individual worth” [p. 198]. In this sense it was the fermenting agent for the xxth century revolutionary process.

(47) Wertheim notes a somewhat similar observation on Java. “External trade was not much encouraged by the chiefs, who generally preferred to tax the farmers' produce to the utmost. In consequence there was no strong incentive for the peasant to increase his production. There was on the whole no question of large surpluses, although the rice surplus in the irrigated areas was usually sufficient to support a governing super-structure of Javanese princes, residing with their retinue in the kraton (princely court) towns”, op. cit. p. 90.

(48) This factor, the rule of law, is certainly not the only pre-condition of modern capitalism and modernization. But nevertheless it is a pre-condition which ensures the smooth operation of other pre-conditions. On the significance of the rule of law in the birth of modern Japan, see Reischauer, Edwin O., Japanese Feudalism, in Coulborn, Rushton, Feudalism in History (New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1956)Google Scholar.

(49) It may here be helpful to refer again to Santillana, Law and Society, in Arnold and Guillame, op cit.: “Islamic law favours every practical activity, and holds in great esteem agriculture, commerce, and every kind of work; it censures all those who burden others with their maintenance, requires every man to keep himself by the produce of his own labour, and does not despise any sort of work whereby man may keep himself independent of others” [p. 289, n. 19].

(50) Tjokroaminoto, H. O. S., Islam dan Sosialisme (Djakarta, Bulan Bintang, 1951)Google Scholar. (This work was written in Mataram, November, 1924.)

(51) Patani, Mohammed bin Daud, Semangat Penghidupan, Majlis Ugama Islam dan Adat Istiadat Melayu (Kelantan, Kota Bahru, 1922)Google Scholar. (In Malay Arabic script, 2nd edition).

(52) Economically active is defined as all those working for at least four months prior to the enumeration period.