"An Outline of Civilization" is a work that had a profound impact on Japan's path to modernization. It compares and discusses human civilization from the historical perspective of how Japan escaped the fate of national subjugation and genocide and how it became a modern and powerful nation. The author believes that the term civilization includes all material and spiritual wealth of human society, but among these factors, he particularly emphasizes the importance of moral wisdom. He believes that the level of civilization of a country can be measured by the moral and intellectual level of its people. Based on this, he divided the countries of the world into three types: barbarism, semi-civilization and civilization, and made an in-depth comparison of Japanese civilization, Chinese civilization and Western civilization. He concluded that Western civilization was the highest civilization at that time and that Japan lagged behind the West. Therefore, he strongly advocated that Japan break away from the shackles of East Asian civilization dominated by Confucianism and Buddhism and strive to learn from Western civilization in order to catch up and eventually surpass Western civilization.
