{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1409/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1409","id":"gutenberg_1409","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1409","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","East Asia"],"text":"Produced by Eric Hutton\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE SOUL OF THE FAR EAST\n\nBy Percival Lowell\n\n\nContents\n\n     Chapter 1. Individuality\n\n     Chapter 2. Family\n\n     Chapter 3. Adoption\n\n     Chapter 4. Language\n\n     Chapter 5. Nature and Art\n\n     Chapter 6. Art\n\n     Chapter 7. Religion\n\n     Chapter 8. Imagination\n\n\n\n\nChapter 1. Individuality.\n\nThe boyish belief that on the other side of our globe all things are\nof necessity upside down is startlingly brought back to the man when he\nfirst sets foot at Yokohama. If his initial glance does not, to be sure,\ndisclose the natives in the every-day feat of standing calmly on their\nheads, an attitude which his youthful imagination conceived to be a\nnecessary consequence of their geographical position, it does at least\nreveal them looking at the world as if from the standpoint of that\neccentric posture. For they seem to him to see everything topsy-turvy.\nWhether it be that their antipodal situation has affected their brains,\nor whether it is the mind of the observer himself that has hitherto been\nwrong in undertaking to rectify the inverted pictures presented by\nhis retina, the result, at all events, is undeniable. The world stands\nreversed, and, taking for granted his own uprightness, the stranger\nunhesitatingly imputes to them an obliquity of vision, a state of mind\noutwardly typified by the cat-like obliqueness of their eyes.\n\nIf the inversion be not precisely of the kind he expected, it is none\nthe less striking, and impressibly more real. If personal experience has\ndefinitely convinced him that the inhabitants of that under side of our\nplanet do not adhere to it head downwards, like flies on a ceiling,--his\nearly a priori deduction,--they still appear quite as antipodal,\nmentally considered. Intellectually, at least, their attitude sets\ngravity at defiance. For to the mind's eye their world is one huge,\ncomical antithesis of our own. What we regard intuitively in one way\nfrom our standpoint, they as intuitively observe in a diametrically\nopposite manner from theirs. To speak backwards, write backwards, read\nbackwards, is but the a b c of their contrariety. The inversion extends\ndeeper than mere modes of expression, down into the very matter of\nthought. Ideas of ours which we deemed innate find in them no home,\nwhile methods which strike us as preposterously unnatural appear to\nbe their birthright. From the standing of a wet umbrella on its handle\ninstead of its head to dry to the striking of a match away in place\nof toward one, there seems to be no action of our daily lives, however\ntrivial, but finds with them its appropriate reaction--equal but\nopposite. Indeed, to one anxious of conforming to the manners and\ncustoms of the country, the only road to right lies in following\nunswervingly that course which his inherited instincts assure him to be\nwrong.\n\nYet these people are human beings; with all their eccentricities they\nare men. Physically we cannot but be cognizant of the fact, nor mentally\nbut be conscious of it. Like us, indeed, and yet so unlike are they\nthat we seem, as we gaze at them, to be viewing our own humanity in\nsome mirth-provoking mirror of the mind,--a mirror that shows us our own\nfamiliar thoughts, but all turned wrong side out. Humor holds the glass,\nand we become the sport of our own reflections. But is it otherwise at\nhome? Do not our personal presentments mock each of us individually\nour lives long? Who but is the daily dupe of his dressing-glass, and\ncomplacently conceives himself to be a very different appearing person\nfrom what he is, forgetting that his right side has become his left, and\nvice versa? Yet who, when by chance he catches sight in like manner of\nthe face of a friend, can keep from smiling at the caricatures which the\nmirror's left-for-right reversal makes of the asymmetry of that\nfriend's features,--caricatures all the more grotesque for being utterly\nunsuspected by their innocent original? Perhaps, could we once see\nourselves as others see us, our surprise in the case of foreign peoples\nmight be less pronounced.\n\nRegarding, then, the Far Oriental as a man, and not simply as\na phenomenon, we discover in his peculiar point of view a new\nimportance,--the possibility of using it stereoptically. For his\nmind-photograph of the world can be placed side by side with ours, and\nthe two pictures combined will yield results beyond what either alone\ncould possibly have afforded. Thus harmonized, they will help us\nto realize humanity. Indeed it is only by such a combination of two\ndifferent aspects that we ever perceive substance and distinguish\nreality from illusion. What our two eyes make possible for material\nobjects, the earth's two hemispheres may enable us to do for mental\ntraits. Only the superficial never changes its expression; the\nappearance of the solid varies with the standpoint of the observer.\nIn dreamland alone does everything seem plain, and there all is\nunsubstantial.\n\nTo say that the Japanese are not a savage tribe is of course\nunnecessary; to repeat the remark, anything but superfluous, on the\nprinciple that what is a matter of common notoriety is very apt to\nprove a matter about which uncommonly little is known. At present we\ngo halfway in recognition of these people by bestowing upon them a\ndemi-diploma of mental development called semi-civilization, neglecting,\nhowever, to specify in what the fractional qualification consists.\nIf the suggestion of a second moiety, as of something directly\ncomplementary to them, were not indirectly complimentary to ourselves,\nthe expression might pass; but, as it is, the self-praise is rather too\nobvious to carry conviction. For Japan's claim to culture is not based\nsolely upon the exports with which she supplements our art, nor upon the\npaper, china, and bric-a-brac with which she adorns our rooms; any more\nthan Western science is adequately represented in Japan by our popular\nimports there of kerosene oil, matches, and beer. Only half civilized\nthe Far East presumably is, but it is so rather in an absolute than a\nrelative sense; in the sense of what might have been, not of what is. It\nis so as compared, not with us, but with the eventual possibilities of\nhumanity. As yet, neither system, Western nor Eastern, is perfect enough\nto serve in all things as standard for the other. The light of truth\nhas reached each hemisphere through the medium of its own mental\ncrystallization, and this has polarized it in opposite ways, so that now\nthe rays that are normal to the eyes of the one only produce darkness\nto those of the other. For the Japanese civilization in the sense of not\nbeing savagery is the equal of our own. It is not in the polish that the\nreal difference lies; it is in the substance polished. In politeness, in\ndelicacy, they have as a people no peers. Art has been their mistress,\nthough science has never been their master. Perhaps for this very reason\nthat art, not science, has been the Muse they courted, the result has\nbeen all the more widespread. For culture there is not the attainment\nof the few, but the common property of the people. If the peaks of\nintellect rise less eminent, the plateau of general elevation stands\nhigher. But little need be said to prove the civilization of a land\nwhere ordinary tea-house girls are models of refinement, and common\ncoolies, when not at work, play chess for pastime.\n\nIf Japanese ways look odd at first sight, they but look more odd on\ncloser acquaintance. In a land where, to allow one's understanding the\nfreer play of indoor life, one begins, not by taking off his hat, but by\nremoving his boots, he gets at the very threshold a hint that humanity\nis to be approached the wrong end to. When, after thus entering a\nhouse, he tries next to gain admittance to the mind of its occupant, the\nsuspicion becomes a certainty. He discovers that this people talk, so\nto speak, backwards; that before he can hope to comprehend them, or\nmake himself understood in return, he must learn to present his thoughts\narranged in inverse order from the one in which they naturally suggest\nthemselves to his mind. His sentences must all be turned inside out. He\nfinds himself lost in a labyrinth of language. The same seems to be true\nof the thoughts it embodies. The further he goes the more obscure the\nwhole process becomes, until, after long groping about for some means of\norienting himself, he lights at last upon the clue. This clue consists\nin \"the survival of the unfittest.\"\n\nIn the civilization of Japan we have presented to us a most interesting\ncase of partially arrested development; or, to speak esoterically,\nwe find ourselves placed face to face with a singular example of a\ncompleted race-life. For though from our standpoint the evolution of\nthese people seems suddenly to have come to an end in mid-career,\nlooked at more intimately it shows all the signs of having fully run its\ncourse. Development ceased, not because of outward obstruction, but from\npurely intrinsic inability to go on. The intellectual machine was not\nshattered; it simply ran down. To this fact the phenomenon owes its\npeculiar interest. For we behold here in the case of man the same\nspectacle that we see cosmically in the case of the moon, the spectacle\nof a world that has died of old age. No weak spot in their social\norganism destroyed them from within; no epidemic, in the shape of\nforeign hordes, fell upon them from without. For in spite of the fact\nthat China offers the unique example of a country that has simply lived\nto be conquered, mentally her masters have invariably become her pupils.\nHaving ousted her from her throne as ruler, they proceeded to sit at\nher feet as disciples. Thus they have rather helped than hindered her\ncivilization.\n\nWhatever portion of the Far East we examine we find its mental history\nto be the same story with variations. However unlike China, Korea, and\nJapan are in some respects, through the careers of all three we can\ntrace the same life-spirit. It is the career of the river Jordan rising\nlike any other stream from the springs among the mountains only to fall\nafter a brief existence into the Dead Sea. For their vital force\nhad spent itself more than a millennium ago. Already, then, their\ncivilization had in its deeper developments attained its stature, and\nhas simply been perfecting itself since. We may liken it to some stunted\ntree, that, finding itself prevented from growth, bastes the more\nluxuriantly to put forth flowers and fruit. For not the final but the\nmedial processes were skipped. In those superficial amenities with\nwhich we more particularly link our idea of civilization, these peoples\ncontinued to grow. Their refinement, if failing to reach our standard\nin certain respects, surpasses ours considering the bare barbaric\nbasis upon which it rests. For it is as true of the Japanese as of\nthe proverbial Russian, though in a more scientific sense, that if you\nscratch him you will find the ancestral Tartar. But it is no less true\nthat the descendants of this rude forefather have now taken on a polish\nof which their own exquisite lacquer gives but a faint reflection. The\nsurface was perfected after the substance was formed. Our word finish,\nwith its double meaning, expresses both the process and the result.\n\nThere entered, to heighten the bizarre effect, a spirit common in minds\nthat lack originality--the spirit of imitation. Though consequent enough\nupon a want of initiative, the results of this trait appear anything but\nnatural to people of a more progressive past. The proverbial collar and\npair of spurs look none the less odd to the stranger for being a mental\ninstead of a bodily habit. Something akin to such a case of unnatural\nselection has there taken place. The orderly procedure of natural\nevolution was disastrously supplemented by man. For the fact that in\nthe growth of their tree of knowledge the branches developed out of all\nproportion to the trunk is due to a practice of culture-grafting.\n\nFrom before the time when they began to leave records of their actions\nthe Japanese have been a nation of importers, not of merchandise, but of\nideas. They have invariably shown the most advanced free-trade spirit\nin preferring to take somebody else's ready-made articles rather than\nto try to produce any brand-new conceptions themselves. They continue\nto follow the same line of life. A hearty appreciation of the things of\nothers is still one of their most winning traits. What they took they\ngrafted bodily upon their ancestral tree, which in consequence came to\npresent a most unnaturally diversified appearance. For though not unlike\nother nations in wishing to borrow, if their zeal in the matter was\nslightly excessive, they were peculiar in that they never assimilated\nwhat they took. They simply inserted it upon the already existing\ngrowth. There it remained, and throve, and blossomed, nourished by that\nindigenous Japanese sap, taste. But like grafts generally, the foreign\nboughs were not much modified by their new life-blood, nor was the tree\nin its turn at all affected by them. Connected with it only as separable\nparts of its structure, the cuttings might have been lopped off again\nwithout influencing perceptibly the condition of the foster-parent stem.\nThe grafts in time grew to be great branches, but the trunk remained\nthrough it all the trunk of a sapling. In other words, the nation grew\nup to man's estate, keeping the mind of its childhood.\n\nWhat is thus true of the Japanese is true likewise of the Koreans and of\nthe Chinese. The three peoples, indeed, form so many links in one long\nchain of borrowing. China took from India, then Korea copied China, and\nlastly Japan imitated Korea. In this simple manner they successively\nbecame possessed of a civilization which originally was not the property\nof any one of them. In the eagerness they all evinced in purloining\nwhat was not theirs, and in the perfect content with which they then\nproceeded to enjoy what they had taken, they remind us forcibly of\nthat happy-go-lucky class in the community which prefers to live on\nquestionable loans rather than work itself for a living. Like those same\nindividuals, whatever interest the Far Eastern people may succeed in\nraising now, Nature will in the end make them pay dearly for their lack\nof principal.\n\nThe Far Eastern civilization resembles, in fact, more a mechanical\nmixture of social elements than a well differentiated chemical compound.\nFor in spite of the great variety of ingredients thrown into its\ncaldron of destiny, as no affinity existed between them, no combination\nresulted. The power to fuse was wanting. Capability to evolve anything\nis not one of the marked characteristics of the Far East. Indeed, the\ntendency to spontaneous variation, Nature's mode of making experiments,\nwould seem there to have been an enterprising faculty that was exhausted\nearly. Sleepy, no doubt, from having got up betimes with the dawn, these\ndwellers in the far lands of the morning began to look upon their day\nas already well spent before they had reached its noon. They grew old\nyoung, and have remained much the same age ever since. What they were\ncenturies ago, that at bottom they are to-day. Take away the European\ninfluence of the last twenty years, and each man might almost be his\nown great-grandfather. In race characteristics he is yet essentially the\nsame. The traits that distinguished these peoples in the past have been\ngradually extinguishing them ever since. Of these traits, stagnating\ninfluences upon their career, perhaps the most important is the great\nquality of impersonality.\n\nIf we take, through the earth's temperate zone, a belt of country\nwhose northern and southern edges are determined by certain limiting\nisotherms, not more than half the width of the zone apart, we shall find\nthat we have included in a relatively small extent of surface almost\nall the nations of note in the world, past or present. Now if we examine\nthis belt, and compare the different parts of it with one another, we\nshall be struck by a remarkable fact. The peoples inhabiting it grow\nsteadily more personal as we go west. So unmistakable is this gradation\nof spirit, that one is tempted to ascribe it to cosmic rather than\nto human causes. It is as marked as the change in color of the human\ncomplexion observable along any meridian, which ranges from black at\nthe equator to blonde toward the pole. In like manner, the sense of\nself grows more intense as we follow in the wake of the setting sun, and\nfades steadily as we advance into the dawn. America, Europe, the Levant,\nIndia, Japan, each is less personal than the one before. We stand at the\nnearer end of the scale, the Far Orientals at the other. If with us the\nI seems to be of the very essence of the soul, then the soul of the Far\nEast may be said to be Impersonality.\n\nCurious as this characteristic is as a fact, it is even more interesting\nas a factor. For what it betokens of these peoples in particular may\nsuggest much about man generally. It may mark a stride in theory, if a\nstandstill in practice. Possibly it may help us to some understanding\nof ourselves. Not that it promises much aid to vexed metaphysical\nquestions, but as a study in sociology it may not prove so vain.\n\nAnd for a thing which is always with us, its discussion may be said to\nbe peculiarly opportune just now. For it lies at the bottom of the most\npressing questions of the day. Of the two great problems that stare the\nWestern world in the face at the present moment, both turn to it for\nsolution. Agnosticism, the foreboding silence of those who think,\nsocialism, communism, and nihilism, the petulant cry of those who do\nnot, alike depend ultimately for the right to be upon the truth or the\nfalsity of the sense of self.\n\nFor if there be no such actual thing as individuality, if the feeling\nwe call by that name be naught but the transient illusion the Buddhists\nwould have us believe it, any faith founded upon it as basis vanishes as\ndoes the picture in a revolving kaleidoscope,--less enduring even than\nthe flitting phantasmagoria of a dream. If the ego be but the passing\nshadow of the material brain, at the disintegration of the gray matter\nwhat will become of us? Shall we simply lapse into an indistinguishable\npart of the vast universe that compasses us round? At the thought we\nseem to stand straining our gaze, on the shore of the great sea of\nknowledge, only to watch the fog roll in, and hide from our view even\nthose headlands of hope that, like beseeching hands, stretch out into\nthe deep.\n\nSo more materially. If individuality be a delusion of the mind, what\nmotive potent enough to excite endeavor in the breast of an ordinary\nmortal remains? Philosophers, indeed, might still work for the\nadvancement of mankind, but mankind itself would not continue long to\nlabor energetically for what should profit only the common weal. Take\naway the stimulus of individuality, and action is paralyzed at once.\nFor with most men the promptings of personal advantage only afford\nsufficient incentive to effort. Destroy this force, then any\nconsideration due it lapses, and socialism is not only justified, it\nis raised instantly into an axiom of life. The community, in that case,\nbecomes itself the unit, the indivisible atom of existence. Socialism,\nthen communism, then nihilism, follow in inevitable sequence. That even\nthe Far Oriental, with all his numbing impersonality, has not touched\nthis goal may at least suggest that individuality is a fact.\n\nBut first, what do we know about its existence ourselves?\n\nVery early in the course of every thoughtful childhood an event takes\nplace, by the side of which, to the child himself, all other events sink\ninto insignificance. It is not one that is recognized and chronicled\nby the world, for it is wholly unconnected with action. No one but the\nchild is aware of its occurrence, and he never speaks of it to others.\nYet to that child it marks an epoch. So intensely individual does it\nseem that the boy is afraid to avow it, while in reality so universal\nis it that probably no human being has escaped its influence. Though\nsubjective purely, it has more vividness than any external event;\nand though strictly intrinsic to life, it is more startling than any\naccident of fate or fortune. This experience of the boy's, at once so\nsingular and yet so general, is nothing less than the sudden revelation\nto him one day of the fact of his own personality.\n\nSomewhere about the time when sensation is giving place to sensitiveness\nas the great self-educator, and the knowledge gained by the five bodily\nsenses is being fused into the wisdom of that mental one we call common\nsense, the boy makes a discovery akin to the act of waking up. All at\nonce he becomes conscious of himself; and the consciousness has about\nit a touch of the uncanny. Hitherto he has been aware only of matter;\nhe now first realizes mind. Unwarned, unprepared, he is suddenly ushered\nbefore being, and stands awe-struck in the presence of--himself.\n\nIf the introduction to his own identity was startling, there is nothing\nreassuring in the feeling that this strange acquaintanceship must last.\nFor continue it does. It becomes an unsought intimacy he cannot shake\noff. Like to his own shadow he cannot escape it. To himself a man cannot\nbut be at home. For years this alter ego haunts him, for he imagines it\nan idiosyncrasy of his own, a morbid peculiarity he dare not confide\nto any one, for fear of being thought a fool. Not till long afterwards,\nwhen he has learned to live as a matter of course with his ever-present\nghost, does he discover that others have had like familiars themselves.\n\nSometimes this dawn of consciousness is preceded by a long twilight of\nsoul-awakening; but sometimes, upon more sensitive and subtler natures,\nthe light breaks with all the suddenness of a sunrise at the equator,\nrevealing to the mind's eye an unsuspected world of self within. But in\nwhatever way we may awake to it, the sense of personality, when first\nrealized, appears already, like the fabled Goddess of Wisdom, full grown\nin the brain. From the moment when we first remember ourselves we seem\nto be as old as we ever seem to others afterwards to become. We grow,\nindeed, in knowledge, in wisdom, in experience, as our years increase,\nbut deep down in our heart of hearts we are still essentially the same.\nTo be sure, people pay us more deference than they did, which suggests\na doubt at times whether we may not have changed; small boys of a\nsucceeding generation treat us with a respect that causes us inwardly to\nsmile, as we think how little we differ from them, if they but knew it.\nFor at bottom we are not conscious of change from that morning, long\nago, when first we realized ourselves. We feel just as young now as we\nfelt old then. We are but amused at the world's discrimination where we\ncan detect no difference.\n\nEvery human being has been thus \"twice born\": once as matter, once as\nmind. Nor is this second birth the birthright only of mankind. All the\nhigher animals probably, possibly even the lower too, have experienced\nsome such realization of individual identity. However that may be,\ncertainly to all races of men has come this revelation; only the degree\nin which they have felt its force has differed immensely. It is one\nthing to the apathetic, fatalistic Turk, and quite another matter to an\nenergetic, nervous American. Facts, fancies, faiths, all show how wide\nis the variance in feelings. With them no introspective [greek]cnzhi\nseauton overexcites the consciousness of self. But with us; as with\nthose of old possessed of devils, it comes to startle and stays to\ndistress. Too apt is it to prove an ever-present, undesirable double.\nToo often does it play the part of uninvited spectre at the feast,\nwhose presence no one save its unfortunate victim suspects. The haunting\nhorror of his own identity is to natures far less eccentric than Kenelm\nChillingly's only too common a curse. To this companionship, paradoxical\nthough it sound, is principally due the peculiar loneliness of\nchildhood. For nothing is so isolating as a persistent idea which one\ndares not confide.\n\nAnd yet,--stranger paradox still,--was there ever any one willing to\nexchange his personality for another's? Who can imagine foregoing his\nown self? Nay, do we not cling even to its outward appearance? Is there\na man so poor in all that man holds dear that he does not keenly resent\nbeing accidentally mistaken for his neighbor? Surely there must be\nsomething more than mirage in this deep-implanted, widespread instinct\nof human race.\n\nBut however strong the conviction now of one's individuality, is there\naught to assure him of its continuance beyond the confines of its\npresent life? Will it awake on death's morrow and know itself, or\nwill it, like the body that gave it lodgment, disintegrate again into\nindistinguishable spirit dust? Close upon the heels of the existing\nconsciousness of self treads the shadow-like doubt of its hereafter.\nWill analogy help to answer the grewsome riddle of the Sphinx? Are the\nlaws we have learned to be true for matter true also for mind? Matter we\nnow know is indestructible; yet the form of it with which we once were\nso fondly familiar vanishes never to return. Is a like fate to be the\nlot of the soul? That mind should be capable of annihilation is as\ninconceivable as that matter should cease to be. Surely the spirit we\nfeel existing round about us on every side now has been from ever, and\nwill be for ever to come. But that portion of it which we each know as\nself, is it not like to a drop of rain seen in its falling through the\nair? Indistinguishable the particle was in the cloud whence it came;\nindistinguishable it will become again in the ocean whither it is bound.\nIts personality is but its passing phase from a vast impersonal on the\none hand to an equally vast impersonal on the other. Thus seers preached\nin the past; so modern science is hinting to-day. With us the idea seems\nthe bitter fruit of material philosophy; by them it was looked upon as\nthe fairest flower of their faith. What is dreaded now as the impious\nsuggestion of the godless four thousand years ago was reverenced as a\nsacred tenet of religion.\n\nShorter even than his short threescore years and ten is that soul's life\nof which man is directly cognizant. Bounded by two seemingly impersonal\nstates is the personal consciousness of which he is made aware: the one\nthe infantile existence that precedes his boyish discovery, the other\nthe gloom that grows with years,--two twilights that fringe the two\nborders of his day. But with the Far Oriental, life is all twilight. For\nin Japan and China both states are found together. There, side by side\nwith the present unconsciousness of the babe exists the belief in a\ncoming unconsciousness for the man. So inseparably blended are the two\nthat the known truth of the one seems, for that very bond, to carry\nwith it the credentials of the other. Can it be that the personal,\nprogressive West is wrong, and the impersonal, impassive East right?\nSurely not. Is the other side of the world in advance of us in\nmind-development, even as it precedes us in the time of day; or just as\nour noon is its night, may it not be far in our rear? Is not its seeming\nwisdom rather the precociousness of what is destined never to go far?\n\nBrought suddenly upon such a civilization, after the blankness of a\nlong ocean voyage, one is reminded instinctively of the feelings of that\nbewildered individual who, after a dinner at which he had eventually\nceased to be himself, was by way of pleasantry left out overnight in a\ngraveyard, on their way home, by his humorously inclined companions; and\nwho, on awaking alone, in a still dubious condition, looked around\nhim in surprise, rubbed his eyes two or three times to no purpose, and\nfinally muttered in a tone of awe-struck conviction, \"Well, either I'm\nthe first to rise, or I'm a long way behind time!\"\n\nWhether their failure to follow the natural course of evolution results\nin bringing them in at the death just the same or not, these people are\nnow, at any rate, stationary not very far from the point at which we\nall set out. They are still in that childish state of development\nbefore self-consciousness has spoiled the sweet simplicity of nature. An\nimpersonal race seems never to have fully grown up.\n\nPartly for its own sake, partly for ours, this most distinctive feature\nof the Far East, its marked impersonality, is well worthy particular\nattention; for while it collaterally suggests pregnant thoughts about\nourselves, it directly underlies the deeper oddities of a civilization\nwhich is the modern eighth wonder of the world. We shall see this as we\nlook at what these people are, at what they were, and at what they hope\nto become; not historically, but psychologically, as one might perceive,\nwere he but wise enough, in an acorn, besides the nut itself, two oaks,\nthat one from which it fell, and that other which from it will rise.\nThese three states, which we may call its potential past, present, and\nfuture, may be observed and studied in three special outgrowths of a\nrace's character: in its language, in its every-day thoughts, and in its\nreligion. For in the language of a people we find embalmed the spirit\nof its past; in its every-day thoughts, be they of arts or sciences, is\nwrapped up its present life; in its religion lie enfolded its dreamings\nof a future. From out each of these three subjects in the Far East\nimpersonality stares us in the face. Upon this quality as a foundation\nrests the Far Oriental character. It is individually rather than\nnationally that I propose to scan it now. It is the action of a\nparticle in the wave of world-development I would watch, rather than\nthe propagation of the wave itself. Inferences about the movement of the\nwhole will follow of themselves a knowledge of the motion of its parts.\n\nBut before we attack the subject esoterically, let us look a moment at\nthe man as he appears in his relation to the community. Such a glance\nwill suggest the peculiar atmosphere of impersonality that pervades the\npeople.\n\nHowever lacking in cleverness, in merit, or in imagination a man may\nbe, there are in our Western world, if his existence there be so much as\nnoticed at all, three occasions on which he appears in print. His birth,\nhis marriage, and his death are all duly chronicled in type, perhaps as\nsufficiently typical of the general unimportance of his life. Mention of\none's birth, it is true, is an aristocratic privilege, confined to the\nworld of English society. In democratic America, no doubt because all\nmen there are supposed to be born free and equal, we ignore the first\nevent, and mention only the last two episodes, about which our national\nastuteness asserts no such effacing equality.\n\nAccepting our newspaper record as a fair enough summary of the biography\nof an average man, let us look at these three momentous occasions in the\ncareer of a Far Oriental.\n\n\n\nChapter 2. Family.\n\nIn the first place, then, the poor little Japanese baby is ushered into\nthis world in a sadly impersonal manner, for he is not even accorded the\ndistinction of a birthday. He is permitted instead only the much less\nspecial honor of a birth-year. Not that he begins his separate existence\notherwise than is the custom of mortals generally, at a definite instant\nof time, but that very little subsequent notice is ever taken of the\nfact. On the contrary, from the moment he makes his appearance he is\nspoken of as a year old, and this same age he continues to be considered\nin most simple ease of calculation, till the beginning of the next\ncalendar year. When that epoch of general rejoicing arrives, he is\ncredited with another year himself. So is everybody else. New Year's day\nis a common birthday for the community, a sort of impersonal anniversary\nfor his whole world. A like reckoning is followed in China and Korea.\nUpon the disadvantages of being considered from one's birth up at least\none year and possibly two older than one really is, it lies beyond our\npresent purpose to expatiate. It is quite evident that woman has had no\nvoice in the framing of such a chronology. One would hardly imagine\nthat man had either, so astronomic is the system. A communistic age\nis however but an unavoidable detail of the general scheme whose most\nsuggestive feature consists in the subordination of the actual birthday\nof the individual to the fictitious birthday of the community. For it is\nnot so much the want of commemoration shown the subject as the character\nof the commemoration which is significant. Some slight notice is indeed\npaid to birthdays during early childhood, but even then their observance\nis quite secondary in importance to that of the great impersonal\nanniversaries of the third day of the third moon and the fifth day of\nthe fifth moon. These two occasions celebrated the coming of humanity\ninto the world with an impersonality worthy of the French revolutionary\ncalendar. The first of them is called the festival of girls, and\ncommemorates the birth of girls generally, the advent of the universal\nfeminine, as one may say. The second is a corresponding anniversary for\nboys. Owing to its sex, the latter is the greater event of the two, and\nin consequence of its most conspicuous feature is styled the festival of\nfishes. The fishes are hollow paper images of the \"tai\" from four to six\nfeet in length, tied to the top of a long pole planted in the ground and\ntipped with a gilded ball. Holes in the paper at the mouth and the\ntail enable the wind to inflate the body so that it floats about\nhorizontally, swaying hither and thither, and tugging at the line after\nthe manner of a living thing. The fish are emblems of good luck, and are\nset up in the courtyard of every house where a son has been born during\nthe year. On this auspicious day Tokio is suddenly transformed into\neighty square miles of aquarium.\n\nFor any more personal purpose New Year's day eclipses all particular\nanniversaries. Then everybody congratulates everybody else upon\neverything in general, and incidentally upon being alive. Such\nsubstitution of an abstract for a concrete birthday, although\nexceedingly convenient for others, must at least conduce to\nself-forgetfulness on the part of its proper possessor, and tend\ninevitably to merge the identity of the individual in that of the\ncommunity.\n\nIt fares hardly better with the Far Oriental in the matter of marriage.\nAlthough he is, as we might think, the person most interested in the\nresult, he is permitted no say in the affair whatever. In fact, it\nis not his affair at all, but his father's. His hand is simply made a\ncat's-paw of. The matter is entirely a business transaction, entered\ninto by the parent and conducted through regular marriage brokers. In\nit he plays only the part of a marionette. His revenge for being thus\nbartered out of what might be the better half of his life, he takes\neventually on the next succeeding generation.\n\nHis death may be said to be the most important act of his whole life.\nFor then only can his personal existence be properly considered to\nbegin. By it he joins the great company of ancestors who are to these\npeople of almost more consequence than living folk, and of much more\nindividual distinction. Particularly is this the case in China and\nKorea, but the same respect, though in a somewhat less rigid form,\nis paid the dead in Japan. Then at last the individual receives that\nrecognition which was denied him in the flesh. In Japan a mortuary\ntablet is set up to him in the house and duly worshipped; on the\ncontinent the ancestors are given a dwelling of their own, and even\nmore devotedly reverenced. But in both places the cult is anything but\nfunereal. For the ancestral tombs are temples and pleasure pavilions at\nthe same time, consecrated not simply to rites and ceremonies, but to\nfamily gatherings and general jollification. And the fortunate defunct\nmust feel, if he is still half as sentient as his dutiful descendants\nsuppose, that his earthly life, like other approved comedies, has ended\nwell.\n\nImportant, however, as these critical points in his career may be\nreckoned by his relatives, they are scarcely calculated to prove equally\nepochal to the man himself. In a community where next to no note is\never taken of the anniversary of his birth, some doubt as to the special\nsignificance of that red-letter day may not unnaturally creep into\nhis own mind. While in regard to his death, although it may be highly\nflattering for him to know that he will certainly become somebody when\nhe shall have ceased, practically, to be anybody, such tardy recognition\nis scarcely timely enough to be properly appreciated. Human nature is so\nearth-tied, after all, that a post-mundane existence is very apt to seem\nimmaterial as well as be so.\n\nWith the old familiar landmarks of life obliterated in this wholesale\nmanner, it is to be doubted whether one of us, placed in the midst of\nsuch a civilization, would know himself. He certainly would derive but\nscanty satisfaction from the recognition if he did. Even Nirvana might\nseem a happy limbo by comparison. With a communal, not to say a cosmic,\nbirthday, and a conventional wife, he might well deem his separate\nexistence the shadow of a shade and embrace Buddhism from mere force of\ncircumstances.\n\nFurther investigation would not shake his opinion. For a far-oriental\ncareer is thoroughly in keeping with these, its typical turning-points.\nFrom one end of its course to the other it is painfully impersonal.\nIn its regular routine as in its more salient junctures, life presents\nitself to these races a totally different affair from what it seems to\nus. The cause lies in what is taken to be the basis of socio-biology, if\none may so express it.\n\nIn the Far East the social unit, the ultimate molecule of existence, is\nnot the individual, but the family.\n\nWe occidentals think we value family. We even parade our pretensions so\nprominently as sometimes to tread on other people's prejudices of a like\nnature. Yet we scarcely seem to appreciate the inheritance. For with a\nlogic which does us questionable credit, we are proud of our ancestors\nin direct proportion to their remoteness from ourselves, thus permitting\nDemocracy to revenge its insignificance by smiling at our self-imposed\nsatire. To esteem a man in inverse ratio to the amount of remarkable\nblood he has inherited is, to say the least, bathetic. Others, again,\nmake themselves objectionable by preferring their immediate relatives\nto all less connected companions, and cling to their cousins so closely\nthat affection often culminates in matrimony, nature's remonstrances\nnotwithstanding. But with all the pride or pleasure which we take in\nthe members of our particular clan, our satisfaction really springs from\nviewing them on an autocentric theory of the social system. In our own\neyes we are the star about which, as in Joseph's dream, our relatives\nrevolve and upon which they help to shed an added lustre. Our Ptolemaic\ntheory of society is necessitated by our tenacity to the personal\nstandpoint. This fixed idea of ours causes all else seemingly to\nrotate about it. Such an egoistic conception is quite foreign to\nour longitudinal antipodes. However much appearances may agree, the\nfundamental principles upon which family consideration is based are\nwidely different in the two hemispheres. For the far-eastern social\nuniverse turns on a patricentric pivot.\n\nUpon the conception of the family as the social and political unit\ndepends the whole constitution of China. The same theory somewhat\nmodified constitutes the life-principle of Korea, of Japan, and of their\nless advanced cousins who fill the vast centre of the Asiatic continent.\nFrom the emperor on his throne to the common coolie in his hovel it is\nthe idea of kinship that knits the entire body politic together. The\nEmpire is one great family; the family is a little empire.\n\nThe one developed out of the other. The patriarchal is, as is well\nknown, probably the oldest political system in the world. All nations\nmay be said to have experienced such a paternal government, but most\nnations outgrew it.\n\nNow the interesting fact about the yellow branch of the human race is,\nnot that they had so juvenile a constitution, but that they have it;\nthat it has persisted practically unchanged from prehistoric ages. It\nis certainly surprising in this kaleidoscopic world whose pattern is\nconstantly changing as time merges one combination of its elements\ninto another, that on the other side of the globe this set should have\nremained the same. Yet in spite of the lapse of years, in spite of\nthe altered conditions of existence, in spite of an immense advance in\ncivilization, such a primitive state of society has continued there to\nthe present day, in all its essentials what it was when as nomads the\nrace forefathers wandered peacefully or otherwise over the plains of\nCentral Asia. The principle helped them to expand; it has simply cramped\nthem ever since. For, instead of dissolving like other antiquated views,\nit has become, what it was bound to become if it continued to last,\ncrystallized into an institution. It had practically reached this\ncondition when it received a theoretical, not to say a theological\nrecognition which gave it mundane immortality. A couple of millenniums\nago Confucius consecrated filial duty by making it the basis of the\nChinese moral code. His hand was the finishing touch of fossilification.\nFor since the sage set his seal upon the system no one has so much as\ndreamt of changing it. The idea of confuting Confucius would be an\nact of impiety such as no Chinaman could possibly commit. Not that\nthe inadmissibility of argument is due really to the authority of the\nphilosopher, but that it lies ingrained in the character of the people.\nIndeed the genius of the one may be said to have consisted in divining\nthe genius of the other. Confucius formulated the prevailing practice,\nand in so doing helped to make it perpetual. He gave expression to the\nnational feeling, and like expressions, generally his, served to stamp\nthe idea all the more indelibly upon the national consciousness.\n\nIn this manner the family from a natural relation grew into a highly\nunnatural social anachronism. The loose ties of a roving life became\nfetters of a fixed conventionality. Bonds originally of mutual advantage\nhardened into restrictions by which the young were hopelessly tethered\nto the old. Midway in its course the race undertook to turn round and\nface backwards, as it journeyed on. Its subsequent advance could be\nnothing but slow.\n\nThe head of a family is so now in something of a corporeal sense. From\nhim emanate all its actions; to him are responsible all its parts. Any\nother member of it is as incapable of individual expression as is the\nhand, or the foot, or the eye of man. Indeed, Confucian doctors of\ndivinity might appropriately administer psychically to the egoistic\nthe rebuke of the Western physician to the too self-analytic youth who,\nfinding that, after eating, his digestion failed to give him what he\nconsidered its proper sensations, had come to consult the doctor as to\nhow it ought to feel. \"Feel! young man,\" he was answered, \"you ought\nnot to be aware that you have a digestion.\" So with them, a normally\nconstituted son knows not what it is to possess a spontaneity of his\nown. Indeed, this very word \"own,\" which so long ago in our own tongue\ntook to itself the symbol of possession, well exemplifies his dependent\nstate. China furnishes the most conspicuous instance of the want\nof individual rights. A Chinese son cannot properly be said to own\nanything. The title to the land he tills is vested absolutely in the\nfamily, of which he is an undivided thirtieth, or what-not. Even the\nadministration of the property is not his, but resides in the family,\nrepresented by its head. The outward symbols of ownership testify to the\nfact. The bourns that mark the boundaries of the fields bear the names\nof families, not of individuals. The family, as such, is the proprietor,\nand its lands are cultivated and enjoyed in common by all the\nconstituents of the clan. In the tenure of its real estate, the Chinese\nfamily much resembles the Russian Mir. But so far as his personal state\nis concerned, the Chinese son outslaves the Slav. For he lives at home,\nunder the immediate control of the paternal will--in the most complete\nof serfdoms, a filial one. Even existence becomes a communal affair.\nFrom the family mansion, or set of mansions, in which all its members\ndwell, to the family mausoleum, to which they will all eventually be\nborne, a man makes his life journey in strict company with his kin.\n\nA man's life is thus but an undivisible fraction of the family life. How\nessentially so will appear from the following slight sketch of it.\n\nTo begin at the beginning, his birth is a very important event--for the\nhousehold, at which no one fails to rejoice except the new-comer. He\ncries. The general joy, however, depends somewhat upon his sex. If the\nbaby chances to be a boy, everybody is immensely pleased; if a girl,\nthere is considerably less effusion shown. In the latter case the\nmore impulsive relatives are unmistakably sorry; the more philosophic\nevidently hope for better luck next time. Both kinds make very pretty\nspeeches, which not even the speakers believe, for in the babe lottery\nthe family is considered to have drawn a blank. A delight so engendered\nproves how little of the personal, even in prospective, attaches to its\nobject. The reason for the invidious distinction in the matter of sex\nlies of course in an inordinate desire for the perpetuation of the\nfamily line. The unfortunate infant is regarded merely in the light of\na possible progenitor. A boy is already potentially a father; whereas a\ngirl, if she marry at all, is bound to marry out of her own family into\nanother, and is relatively lost. The full force of the deprivation is,\nhowever, to some degree tempered by the almost infinite possibilities of\nadoption. Daughters are, therefore, not utterly unmitigable evils.\n\nFrom the privacy of the domestic circle, the infant's entrance into\npublic life is performed pick-a-back. Strapped securely to the shoulders\nof a slightly older sister, out he goes, consigned to the tender mercies\nof a being who is scarcely more than a baby herself. The diminutiveness\nof the nurse-perambulators is the most surprising part of the\nperformance. The tiniest of tots may be seen thus toddling round with\nburdens half their own size. Like the dot upon the little i, the baby's\nhead seems a natural part of their childish ego.\n\nAn economy of the kind in the matter of nurses is highly suggestive.\nThat it should be practicable thus to entrust one infant to another\nproves the precociousness of children. But this surprising maturity\nof the young implies by a law too well known to need explanation, the\nconsequent immaturity of the race. That which has less to grow up\nto, naturally grows up to its limit sooner. It may even be questioned\nwhether it does not do so with the more haste; on the same principle\nthat a runner who has less distance to travel not only accomplishes his\ncourse quicker, but moves with relatively greater speed, or as a small\nplanet grows old not simply sooner, but comparatively faster than a\nlarger one. Jupiter is still in his fiery youth, while the moon is\nsenile in decrepid old age, and yet his separate existence began\nlong before hers. Either hypothesis will explain the abnormally\nearly development of the Chinese race, and its subsequent career of\ninactivity. Meanwhile the youthful nurse, in blissful ignorance of\nthe evidence which her present precocity affords against her future\npossibilities, pursues her sports with intermittent attention to her\ncharge, whose poor little head lolls about, now on one side and now\non the other, in a most distressingly loose manner, an uninterested\nspectator of the proceedings.\n\nAs soon as the babe gets a trifle bigger he ceases to be ministered\nto and begins his long course of ministering to others. His home life\nconsists of attentive subordination. The relation his obedience bears\nto that of children elsewhere is paralleled perhaps sufficiently by\nthe comparative importance attached to precepts on the subject in the\nrespective moral codes. The commandment \"honor thy father\" forms a tithe\nof the Mosaic law, while the same injunction constitutes at least one\nhalf of the Confucian precepts. To the Chinese child all the parental\ncommands are not simply law to the letter, they are to be anticipated\nin the spirit. To do what he is told is but the merest fraction of his\nduty; theoretically his only thought is how to serve his sire. The pious\nAeneas escaping from Troy exemplifies his conduct when it comes to\na question of domestic precedence,--whose first care, it will be\nremembered, was for his father, his next for his son, and his last for\nhis wife. He lost his wife, it may be noted in passing. Filial piety\nis the greatest of Chinese virtues. Indeed, an undutiful son is\na monstrosity, a case of moral deformity. It could now hardly be\notherwise. For a father sums up in propria persona a whole pedigree of\npatriarchs whose superimposed weight of authority is practically divine.\nThis condition of servitude is never outgrown by the individual, as it\nhas never been outgrown by the race.\n\nOur boy now begins to go to school; to a day school, it need hardly be\nspecified, for a boarding school would be entirely out of keeping with\nthe family life. Here, he is given the \"Trimetrical Classic\" to start\non, that he may learn the characters by heart, picking up incidentally\nwhat ideas he may. This book is followed by the \"Century of Surnames,\" a\ncatalogue of all the clan names in China, studied like the last for the\nsake of the characters, although the suggestion of the importance of the\nfamily contained in it is probably not lost upon his youthful mind. Next\ncomes the \"Thousand Character Classic,\" a wonderful epic as a feat of\nskill, for of the thousand characters which it contains not a single\none is repeated, an absence of tautology not properly appreciated by the\nenforced reader. Reminiscences of our own school days vividly depict the\nconsequent disgust, instead of admiration, of the boy. Three more books\nsucceed these first volumes, differing from one another in form, but\nin substance singularly alike, treating, as they all do, of history\nand ethics combined. For tales and morals are inseparably associated by\npious antiquity. Indeed, the past would seem to have lived with special\nreference to the edification of the future. Chinamen were abnormally\nvirtuous in those golden days, barring the few unfortunates whom fate\nneeded as warning examples of depravity for succeeding ages. Except\nfor the fact that instruction as to a future life forms no part of\nthe curriculum, a far-eastern education may be said to consist of\nSunday-school every day in the week. For no occasion is lost by the\nerudite authors, even in the most worldly portions of their work,\nfor preaching a slight homily on the subject in hand. The dictum of\nDionysius of Halicarnassus that \"history is philosophy teaching by\nexample\" would seem there to have become modified into \"history is\nfiliosophy teaching by example.\" For in the instructive anecdotes every\nother form of merit is depicted as second to that of being a dutiful\nson. To the practice of that supreme virtue all other considerations are\nsacrificed. The student's aim is thus kept single. At every turn of the\nleaves, paragons of filial piety shame the youthful reader to the pitch\nof emulation by the epitaphic records of their deeds. Portraits of the\npast, possibly colored, present that estimable trait in so exalted\na type that to any less filial a people they would simply deter\ncompetition. Yet the boy implicitly believes and no doubt resolves to\nrival what he reads. A specimen or two will amply suggest the rest. In\none tale the hero is held up to the unqualified admiration of posterity\nfor having starved to death his son, in an extreme case of family\ndestitution, for the sake of providing food enough for his aged father.\nIn another he unhesitatingly divorces his wife for having dared to poke\nfun, in the shape of bodkins, at some wooden effigies of his parents\nwhich he had had set up in the house for daily devotional contemplation.\nFinally another paragon actually sells himself in perpetuity as a slave\nthat he may thus procure the wherewithal to bury with due honor his\nanything but worthy progenitor, who had first cheated his neighbors and\nthen squandered his ill-gotten gains in riotous living. Of these tales,\nas of certain questionable novels in a slightly different line, the\neventual moral is considered quite competent to redeem the general\nimmorality of the plot.\n\nAlong such a curriculum the youthful Chinaman is made to run. A very\nsimilar system prevails in Japan, the difference between the two\nconsisting in quantity rather than quality. The books in the two cases\nare much the same, and the amount read differs surprisingly little when\nwe consider that in the one case it is his own classics the student is\nreading, in the other the Chinaman's.\n\nIf he belong to the middle class, as soon as his schooling is over he is\nset to learn his father's trade. To undertake to learn any trade but his\nfather's would strike the family as simply preposterous. Why should\nhe adopt another line of business? And, if he did, what other business\nshould he adopt? Is his father's occupation not already there, a part\nof the existing order of things; and is he not the son of his father and\nheir therefore of the paternal skill? Not that such inherited aptness is\nrecognized scientifically; it is simply taken for granted instinctively.\nIt is but a halfhearted intuition, however, for the possibility of an\ninheritance from the mother's side is as out of the question as if her\nseverance from her own family had an ex post facto effect. As for\nhis individual predilection in the matter, nature has considerately\nconformed to custom by giving him none. He becomes a cabinet-maker,\nfor instance, because his ancestors always have been cabinet-makers. He\ninherits the family business as a necessary part of the family name. He\nis born to his trade, not naturally selected because of his fitness for\nit. But he usually is amply qualified for the position, for generations\nof practice, if only on one side of the house, accumulate a vast deal\nof technical skill. The result of this system of clan guilds in all\nbranches of industry is sufficiently noticeable. The almost infinite\nsuperiority of Japanese artisans over their European fellow-craftsmen\nis world-known. On the other hand the tendency of the occupation in the\nabstract to swallow up the individual in the concrete is as evident to\ntheory as it is patent in practice. Eventually the man is lost in the\nmanner. The very names of trades express the fact. The Japanese word for\ncabinet-maker, for example, means literally cutting-thing-house, and\nis now applied as distinctively to the man as to his shop. Nominally as\nwell as practically the youthful Japanese artisan makes his introduction\nto the world, much after the manner of the hero of Lecocq's comic opera,\nthe son of the house of Marasquin et Cie.\n\nIf instead of belonging to the lower middle class our typical youth be\nborn of bluer blood, or if he be filled with the same desires as if he\nwere so descended, he becomes a student. Having failed to discover in\nthe school-room the futility of his country's self-vaunted learning, he\nproceeds to devote his life to its pursuit. With an application which\nis eminently praiseworthy, even if its object be not, he sets to work to\nsteep himself in the classics till he can perceive no merit in anything\nelse. As might be suspected, he ends by discovering in the sayings\nof the past more meaning than the simple past ever dreamed of putting\nthere. He becomes more Confucian than Confucius. Indeed, it is fortunate\nfor the reputation of the sage that he cannot return to earth, for he\nmight disagree to his detriment with his own commentators.\n\nSuch is the state of things in China and Korea. Learning, however,\nis not dependent solely on individual interest for its wonderfully\nflourishing condition in the Middle Kingdom, for the government abets\nthe practice to its utmost. It is itself the supreme sanction, for its\nposts are the prizes of proficiency. Through the study of the classics\nlies the only entrance to political power. To become a mandarin one must\nhave passed a series of competitive examinations on these very subjects,\nand competition in this impersonal field is most keen. For while popular\nenthusiasm for philosophy for philosophy's sake might, among any people,\neventually show symptoms of fatigue, it is not likely to flag where the\noutcome of it is so substantial. Erudition carries there all earthly\nemoluments in its train. For the man who can write the most scholastic\nessay on the classics is forthwith permitted to amass much honor and\nmore wealth by wronging his less accomplished fellow-citizens. China\nis a student's paradise where the possession of learning is instantly\nconvertible into unlimited pelf.\n\nIn Japan the study of the classics was never pursued professionally.\nIt was, however, prosecuted with much zeal en amateur. The Chinese\nbureaucratic system has been wanting. For in spite of her students,\nuntil within thirty years Japan slumbered still in the Knight-time of\nthe Middle Ages, and so long as a man carried about with him continually\ntwo beautiful swords he felt it incumbent upon him to use them. The\nhappy days of knight-errantry have passed. These same cavaliers\nof Samurai are now thankful to police the streets in spectacles\nnecessitated by the too diligent study of German text, and arrest chance\ndisturbers of the public peace for a miserably small salary per month.\n\nOur youth has now reached the flowering season of life, that brief\nMay time when the whole world takes on the rose-tint, and when by all\ndramatic laws he ought to fall in love. He does nothing of the kind.\nSad to say, he is a stranger to the feeling. Love, as we understand the\nword, is a thing unknown to the Far East; fortunately, indeed, for the\npossession there of the tender passion would be worse than useless. Its\nindulgence would work no end of disturbance to the community at large,\nbeside entailing much misery upon its individual victim. Its exercise\nwould probably be classed with kleptomania and other like excesses of\npurely personal consideration. The community could never permit the\npractice, for it strikes at the very root of their whole social system.\n\nThe immense loss in happiness to these people in consequence of the\nomission by the too parsimonious Fates of that thread, which, with us,\nspins the whole of woman's web of life, and at least weaves the warp of\nman's, is but incidental to the present subject; the effect of the loss\nupon the individuality of the person himself is what concerns us now.\n\nIf there is one moment in a man's life when his interest for the world\nat large pales before the engrossing character of his own emotions, it\nis assuredly when that man first falls in love. Then, if never before,\nthe world within excludes the world without. For of all our human\npassions none is so isolating as the tenderest. To shut that one other\nbeing in, we must of necessity shut all the rest of mankind out; and we\ndo so with a reckless trust in our own self-sufficiency which has about\nit a touch of the sublime. The other millions are as though they were\nnot, and we two are alone in the earth, which suddenly seems to have\ngrown unprecedentedly beautiful. Indeed, it only needs such judicious\ndepopulation to make of any spot an Eden. Perhaps the early Jewish\nmyth-makers had some such thought in mind when they wrote their idyl of\nthe cosmogony. The human traits are true to-day. Then at last our souls\nthrow aside their conventional wrappings to stand revealed as they\nreally are. Certain of comprehension, the thoughts we have never dared\nbreathe to any one before, find a tongue for her who seems fore-destined\nto understand. The long-closed floodgates of feeling are thrown wide,\nand our personality, pent up from the time of its inception for very\nmistrust, sweeps forth in one uncontrollable rush. For then the most\nreticent becomes confiding; the most self-contained expands. Then every\ndetail of our past lives assumes an importance which even we had not\ndivined. To her we tell them all,--our boyish beliefs, our youthful\nfancies, the foolish with the fine, the witty with the wise, the little\nwith the great. Nothing then seems quite unworthy, as nothing seems\nquite worthy enough. Flowers and weeds that we plucked upon our pathway,\nwe heap them in her lap, certain that even the poorest will not be\ntossed aside. Small wonder that we bring as many as we may when she\nbends her head so lovingly to each.\n\nAs our past rises in reminiscence with all its oldtime reality, no less\nclearly does our future stand out to us in mirage. What we would be\nseems as realizable as what we were. Seen by another beside ourselves,\nour castles in the air take on something of the substance of\nstereoscopic sight. Our airiest fancies seem solid facts for their\nreality to her, and gilded by lovelight, they glitter and sparkle like\na true palace of the East. For once all is possible; nothing lies beyond\nour reach. And as we talk, and she listens, we two seem to be floating\noff into an empyrean of our own like the summer clouds above our heads,\nas they sail dreamily on into the far-away depths of the unfathomable\nsky.\n\nIt would be more than mortal not to believe in ourselves when another\nbelieves so absolutely in us. Our most secret thoughts are no longer\nthings to be ashamed of, for she has sanctioned them. Whatever doubt may\nhave shadowed us as to our own imaginings disappears before the smile\nof her appreciation. That her appreciation may be prejudiced is not a\npossibility we think of then. She understands us, or seems to do so to\nour own better understanding of ourselves. Happy the man who is thus\nunderstood! Happy even he who imagines that he is, because of her eager\nwish to comprehend; fortunate, indeed, if in this one respect he never\ncomes to see too clearly.\n\nNo such blissful infatuation falls to the lot of the Far Oriental.\nHe never is the dupe of his own desire, the willing victim of his\nself-illusion. He is never tempted to reveal himself, and by thus\nrevealing, realize. No loving appreciation urges him on toward the\nattainment of his own ideal. That incitement to be what he would seem to\nbe, to become what she deems becoming, he fails to feel. Custom has so\nfar fettered fancy that even the wish to communicate has vanished. He\nhas now nothing to tell; she needs no ear to hear. For she is not his\nlove; she is only his wife,--what is left of a romance when the romance\nis left out. Worse still, she never was anything else. He has not so\nmuch as a memory of her, for he did not marry her for love; he may not\nlove of his own accord, nor for the matter of that does he wish to do\nso. If by some mischance he should so far forget to forget himself, it\nwere much better for him had he not done so, for the choice of a bride\nis not his, nor of a bridegroom hers. Marriage to a Far Oriental is\nthe most important mercantile transaction of his whole life. It is,\ntherefore, far too weighty a matter to be entrusted to his youthful\nindiscretion; for although the person herself is of lamentably little\naccount in the bargain, the character of her worldly circumstances is\nmost material to it. So she is contracted for with the same care one\nwould exercise in the choice of any staple business commodity. The\nparticular sample is not vital to the trade, but the grade of goods is.\nShe is selected much as the bride of the Vicar of Wakefield chose her\nwedding-gown, only that the one was at least cut to suit, while the\nother is not. It is certainly easier, if less fitting, to get a wife as\nsome people do clothes, not to their own order, but ready made; all the\nmore reason when the bargain is for one's son, not one's self. So the\nFar East, which looks at the thing from a strictly paternal standpoint\nand ignores such trifles as personal preferences, takes its boy to the\nbroker's and fits him out. That the object of such parental care does\nnot end by murdering his unfortunate spouse or making way with himself\nsuggests how dead already is that individuality which we deem to be of\nthe very essence of the thing.\n\nMarriage is thus a species of investment contracted by the existing\nfamily for the sake of the prospective one, the actual participants\nbeing only lay figures in the affair. Sometimes the father decides the\nmatter himself; sometimes he or the relative who stands in loco parentis\ncalls for a plebiscit on the subject; for such an extension of the\nsuffrage has gradually crept even into patriarchal institutions. The\nfamily then assemble, sit in solemn conclave on the question, and\ndecide it by vote. Of course the interested parties are not asked their\nopinion, as it might be prejudiced. The result of the conference must\nbe highly gratifying. To have one's wife chosen for one by vote of one's\nrelatives cannot but be satisfactory--to the electors. The outcome of\nthis ballot, like that of universal suffrage elsewhere, is at the best\nunobjectionable mediocrity. Somehow such a result does not seem quite\nto fulfil one's ideal of a wife. It is true that the upper classes\nof impersonal France practise this method of marital selection, their\nconseils de famille furnishing in some sort a parallel. But, as is well\nknown, matrimony among these same upper classes is largely form devoid\nof substance. It begins impressively with a dual ceremony, the civil\ncontract, which amounts to a contract of civility between the parties,\nand a religious rite to render the same perpetual, and there it is too\napt to end.\n\nSo much for the immediate influence on the man; the eventual effect on\nthe race remains to be considered. Now, if the first result be anything,\nthe second must in the end be everything. For however trifling it be in\nthe individual instance, it goes on accumulating with each successive\ngeneration, like compound interest. The choosing of a wife by family\nsuffrage is not simply an exponent of the impersonal state of things, it\nis a power toward bringing such a state of things about. A hermit seldom\ndevelops to his full possibilities, and the domestic variety is no\nexception to the rule. A man who is linked to some one that toward him\nremains a cipher lacks surroundings inciting to psychological growth,\nnor is he more favorably circumstanced because all his ancestors have\nbeen similarly circumscribed.\n\nAs if to make assurance doubly sure, natural selection here steps in\nto further the process. To prove this with all the rigidity of\ndemonstration desirable is in the present state of erotics beyond our\npower. Until our family trees give us something more than mere skeletons\nof dead branches, we must perforce continue ignorant of the science\nof grafts. For the nonce we must be content to generalize from our own\npremises, only rising above them sufficiently to get a bird's-eye view\nof our neighbor's estates. Such a survey has at least one advantage: the\nwhole field of view appears perfectly plain.\n\nSurveying the subject, then, from this ego-altruistic position, we can\nperceive why matrimony, as we practise it, should result in increasing\nthe personality of our race: for the reason namely that psychical\nsimilarity determines the selection. At first sight, indeed, such\na natural affinity would seem to have little or nothing to do with\nmarriage. As far as outsiders are capable of judging, unlikes appear to\nfancy one another quite as gratuitously as do likes. Connubial couples\nare often anything but twin souls. Yet our own dual use of the word\n\"like\" bears historic witness to the contrary. For in this expression\nwe have a record from early Gothic times that men liked others for being\nlike themselves. Since then, our feelings have not changed materially,\nalthough our mode of showing them is slightly less intense. In those\nsimple days stranger and enemy were synonymous terms, and their\nobjects were received in a corresponding spirit. In our present refined\ncivilization we hurl epithets instead of spears, and content ourselves\nwith branding as heterodox the opinions of another which do not happen\nto coincide with our own. The instinct of self-development naturally\nbegets this self-sided view. We insensibly find those persons congenial\nwhose ideas resemble ours, and gravitate to them, as leaves on a pond do\nto one another, nearer and nearer till they touch. Is it likely, then,\nthat in the most important case of all the rule should suddenly cease\nto hold? Is it to be presumed that even Socrates chose Xantippe for her\nremarkable contrariety to himself?\n\nMere physical attraction is another matter. Corporeally considered, men\nnot infrequently fall in love with their opposites, the phenomenally\ntall with the painfully short, the unnecessarily stout with the\ndistressingly slender. But even such inartistic juxtapositions are much\nless common than we are apt at times to think. For it must never be\nforgotten that the exceptional character of the phenomena renders them\nconspicuous, the customary more consorted combinations failing to excite\nattention.\n\nBesides, there exists a reason for physical incongruity which does not\nhold psychically. Nature sanctions the one while she discountenances the\nother. Instead of the forethought she once bestowed upon the body, it\nreceives at her hands now but the scantiest attention. Its development\nhas ceased to be an object with her. For some time past almost all her\ncare has been devoted to the evolution of the soul. The consequence is\nthat physically man is much less specialized than many other animals.\nIn other words, he is bodily less advanced in the race for competitive\nextermination. He belongs to an antiquated, inefficient type of mammal.\nHis organism is still of the jack-of-all-trades pattern, such as\nprevailed generally in the more youthful stages of organic life--one not\nspecially suited to any particular pursuit. Were it not for his cerebral\nconvolutions he could not compete for an instant in the struggle for\nexistence, and even the monkey would reign in his stead. But brain\nis more effective than biceps, and a being who can kill his opponent\nfarther off than he can see him evidently needs no great excellence of\nbody to survive his foe.\n\nThe field of competition has thus been transferred from matter to mind,\nbut the fight has lost none of its keenness in consequence. With the\nsame zeal with which advantageous anatomical variations were seized upon\nand perpetuated, psychical ones are now grasped and rendered hereditary.\nNow if opposites were to fancy and wed one another, such fortunate\nimprovements would soon be lost. They would be scattered over the\ncommunity at large even it they escaped entire neutralization. To\nprevent so disastrous a result nature implants a desire for resemblance,\nwhich desire man instinctively acts upon.\n\nComplete compatibility of temperament is of course a thing not to be\nexpected nor indeed to be desired, since it would defeat its own end\nby allowing no room for variation. A fairly broad basis of agreement,\nhowever, exists even when least suspected. This common ground of content\nconsists of those qualities held to be most essential by the individuals\nconcerned, although not necessarily so appearing to other people.\nSometimes, indeed, these qualities are still in the larvae state of\ndesires. They are none the less potent upon the man's personality on\nthat account, for the wish is always father to its own fulfilment.\n\nThe want of conjugal resemblance not only works mediately on the\nchild, it works mutually on the parents; for companionship, as is well\nrecognized, tends to similarity. Now companionship is the last thing to\nbe looked for in a far-eastern couple. Where custom requires a wife to\nfollow dutifully in the wake of her husband, whenever the two go out\ntogether, there is small opportunity for intercourse by the way, even\nwere there the slightest inclination to it, which there is not.\nThe appearance of the pair on an excursion is a walking satire on\nsociability, for the comicality of the connection is quite unperceived\nby the performers. In the privacy of the domestic circle the separation,\nif less humorous, is no less complete. Each lives in a world of his own,\nlargely separate in fact in China and Korea, and none the less in fancy\nin Japan. On the continent a friend of the husband would see little or\nnothing of the wife, and even in Japan he would meet her much as we meet\nan upper servant in a friend's house. Such a semi-attached relationship\ndoes not conduce to much mutual understanding.\n\nThe remainder of our hero's uneventful existence calls for no particular\ncomment. As soon as he has children borne him he is raised ipso facto\nfrom the position of a common soldier to that of a subordinate officer\nin the family ranks. But his opportunities for the expression of\nindividuality are not one whit increased. He has simply advanced a peg\nin a regular hierarchy of subjection. From being looked after himself\nhe proceeds to look after others. Such is the extent of the change.\nEven should he chance to be the eldest son of the eldest son, and\nthus eventually end by becoming the head of the family, he cannot\nconsistently consider himself. There is absolutely no place in his\nsocial cosmos for so particular a thing as the ego.\n\nWith a certain grim humor suggestive of metaphysics, it may be said of\nhis whole life that it is nothing but a relative affair after all.\n\n\n\nChapter 3. Adoption.\n\nBut one may go a step farther in this matter of the family, and by so\ndoing fare still worse with respect to individuality. There are certain\ncustoms in vogue among these peoples which would seem to indicate that\neven so generic a thing as the family is too personal to serve them for\nultimate social atom, and that in fact it is only the idea of the family\nthat is really important, a case of abstraction of an abstract. These\nsuggestive customs are the far-eastern practices of adoption and\nabdication.\n\nAdoption, with us, is a kind of domestic luxury, akin to the keeping\nof any other pets, such as lap-dogs and canaries. It is a species of\nself-indulgence which those who can afford it give themselves when\nfortune has proved unpropitious, an artificial method of counteracting\nthe inequalities of fate. That such is the plain unglamoured view of the\nprocedure is shown by the age at which the object is adopted. Usually\nthe future son or daughter enters the adoptive household as an infant,\nintentionally so on the part of the would-be parents. His ignorance of\na previous relationship largely increases his relative value; for the\npossibility of his making comparisons in his own mind between a former\nstate of existence and the present one unfavorable to the latter is\nnot pleasant for the adopters to contemplate. He is therefore acquired\nyoung. The amusement derived from his company is thus seen to be\ndistinctly paramount to all other considerations. No one cares so\nheartily to own a dog which has been the property of another; a fortiori\nof a child. It is clearly, then, not as a necessity that the babe is\nadopted. If such were the case, if like the ancient Romans all a man\nwanted was the continuance of the family line, he would naturally wait\nuntil the last practicable moment; for he would thus save both care and\nexpense. In the Far East adoption is quite a different affair. There\nit is a genealogical necessity--like having a father or mother. It is,\nindeed, of almost more importance. For the great desideratum to these\npeoples is not ancestors but descendants. Pedigrees in the land of\nthe universal opposite are not matters of bequest but of posthumous\nreversion. A man is not beholden to the past, he looks forward to the\nfuture for inherited honors. No fame attaches to him for having had an\nillustrious grandfather. On the contrary, it is the illustrious grandson\nwho reflects some of his own greatness back upon his grandfather. If\na man therefore fail to attain eminence himself, he always has another\nchance in his descendants; for he will of necessity be ennobled through\nthe merits of those who succeed him. Such is the immemorial law of the\nland. Fame is retroactive. This admirable system has only one objection:\nit is posthumous in its effect. An ambitious man who unfortunately lacks\nability himself has to wait too long for vicarious recognition. The\nobjection is like that incident to the making of a country seat out of\na treeless plain by planting the same with saplings. About the time the\ntrees begin to be worth having the proprietary landscape-gardener dies\nof old age. However, as custom permits a Far Oriental no ancestral\ngrowth of timber, he is obliged to lay the seeds of his own family\ntrees. Natural offspring are on the whole easier to get, and more\nsatisfactory when got. Hence the haste with which these peoples rush\ninto matrimony. If in despite of his precipitation fate perversely\nrefuse to grant him children, he must endeavor to make good the omission\nby artificial means. He proceeds to adopt somebody. True to instinct, he\nchooses from preference a collateral relative. In some far-eastern lands\nhe must so restrict himself by law. In Korea, for instance, he can only\nadopt an agnate and one of a lower generation than his own. But in\nJapan his choice is not so limited. In so praiseworthy an act as the\nperpetuation of his unimportant family line, it is deemed unwise in that\nprogressive land to hinder him from unconsciously bettering it by the\nway. He is consequently permitted to adopt anybody. As people are by no\nmeans averse to being adopted, the power to adopt whom he will gives him\nmore voice in the matter of his unnatural offspring than he ever had in\nthe selection of a more natural one.\n\nThe adopted changes his name, of course, to take that of the family he\nenters. As he is very frequently grown up and extensively known at the\ntime the adoption takes place, his change of cognomen occasions at first\nsome slight confusion among his acquaintance. This would be no worse,\nhowever, than the change with us from the maid to the matron, and\nintercourse would soon proceed smoothly again if people would only rest\ncontent with one such domestic migration. But they do not. The fatal\nfacility of the process tempts them to repeat it. The result is\nbewildering: a people as nomadic now in the property of their persons as\ntheir forefathers were in their real estate. A man adopts another to-day\nto unadopt him to-morrow and replace him by somebody else the day after.\nSo profoundly unimportant to them is their social identity, that they\nbandy it about with almost farcical freedom. Perhaps it is fitting\nthat there should be some slight preparation in this world for a future\ntransmigration of souls. Still one fails to conceive that the practice\ncan be devoid of disadvantages even to its beneficiaries. To foreigners\nit proves disastrously perplexing. For if you chance upon a man whom you\nhave not met for some time, you can never be quite sure how to accost\nhim. If you begin, \"Well met, Green, how goes it?\" as likely as not he\nreplies, \"Finely. But I am no longer Green; I have become Brown. I was\nadopted last month by my maternal grandfather.\" You of course apologize\nfor your unfortunate mistake, carefully note his change of hue for a\nfuture occasion, and behold, on meeting him the next time you find he\nhas turned Black. Such a chameleon-like cognomen is very unsettling to\nyour idea of his identity, and can hardly prove reassuring to his own.\nThe only persons who reap any benefit from the doubt are those, with us\nunhappy, individuals who possess the futile faculty of remembering faces\nwithout recalling their accompanying names.\n\nGirls, as a rule, are not adopted, being valueless genealogically. A\nniece or grandniece to whom one has taken a great fancy might of course\nbe adopted there as elsewhere, but it would be distinctly out of the\nevery-day run, as she could never be included in the household on strict\nbusiness principles.\n\nThe practice of adopting is not confined to childless couples. Others\nmay find themselves in quite as unfortunate a predicament. A man may\nbe the father of a large and thriving family and yet be as destitute\npatriarchally as if he had not a child to his name. His offspring may\nbe of the wrong sex; they may all be girls. In this untoward event\nthe father has something more on his hands than merely a houseful of\ndaughters to dispose of. In addition to securing sons-in-law, he must,\nunless he would have his ancestral line become extinct, provide\nhimself with a son. The simplest procedure in such a case is to combine\nrelationships in a single individual, and the most self-evident person\nto select for the dual capacity is the husband of the eldest daughter.\nThis is the course pursued. Some worthy young man is secured as spouse\nfor the senior sister; he is at the same time formally taken in as a son\nby the family whose cognomen he assumes, and eventually becomes the head\nof the house. Strange to say, this vista of gradually unfolding honors\ndoes not seem to prove inviting. Perhaps the new-comer objects to\nmarrying the whole family, a prejudice not without parallel elsewhere.\nCertainly the opportunity is not appreciated. Indeed, to \"go out as a\nson-in-law,\" as the Japanese idiom hath it, is considered demeaning\nto the matrimonial domestic. Like other household help he wears too\npatently the badge of servitude. \"If you have three koku of rice to your\nname, don't do it,\" is the advice of the local proverb--a proverb whose\nwarning against marrying for money is the more suggestive for being\nlaunched in a land where marrying for love is beyond the pale of\nrespectability. To barter one's name in this mercenary manner is looked\nupon as derogatory to one's self-respect, although, as we have seen, to\npart with it for any less direct remuneration is not attended with the\nslightest loss of personal prestige. As practically the unfortunate had\nnone to lose in either event, it would seem to be a case of taking away\nfrom a man that which he hath not. So contumacious a thing is custom.\nIt is indeed lucky that popular prejudice interposes some limit to this\nfictitious method of acquiring children. A trifling predilection for the\nreal thing in sonships is absolutely vital, even to the continuance of\nthe artificial variety. For if one generation ever went in exclusively\nfor adoption, there would be no subsequent generation to adopt.\n\nAs it to give the finishing touch to so conventional a system of\nsociety, a man can leave it under certain circumstances with even\ngreater ease than he entered it. He can become as good as dead without\nthe necessity of making way with himself. Theoretically, he can cease to\nlive while still practically existing; for it is always open to the head\nof a family to abdicate.\n\nThe word abdicate has to our ears a certain regal sound. We\ninstinctively associate the act with a king. Even the more democratic\nexpression resign suggests at once an office of public or quasi public\ncharacter. To talk of abdicating one's private relationships sounds\nabsurd; one might as well talk of electing his parents, it would seem to\nus. Such misunderstanding of far-eastern social possibilities comes from\nour having indulged in digressions from our more simple nomadic habits.\nIf in imagination we will return to our ancestral muttons and the then\nexisting order of things, the idea will not strike us as so strange; for\nin those early bucolic days every father was a king. Family economics\nwere the only political questions in existence then. The clan was the\nunit. Domestic disputes were state disturbances, and clan-claims the\nonly kind of international quarrels. The patriarch was both father to\nhis people and king.\n\nAs time widened the family circle it eventually reached a point where\ncohesion ceased to be possible. The centrifugal tendency could no\nlonger be controlled by the centripetal force. It split up into separate\nbodies, each of them a family by itself. In their turn these again\ndivided, and so the process went on. This principle has worked\nuniversally, the only difference in its action among different races\nbeing the greater or less degree of the evolving motion. With us the\nsocial system has been turning more and more rapidly with time. In the\nFar East its force, instead of increasing, would seem to have decreased,\nenabling the nebula of its original condition to keep together as a\nsingle mass, so that to-day a whole nation, resembling a nebula indeed\nin homogeneity, is swayed by a single patriarchal principle. Here, on\nthe contrary, so rapid has the motion become that even brethren find\nthemselves scattered to the four winds.\n\nAn Occidental father and an Oriental head of a family are no longer\nreally correlative terms. The latter more closely resembles a king\nin his duties, responsibilities, and functions generally. Now, in the\nMiddle Ages in Europe, when a king grew tired of affairs of state, he\nabdicated. So in the Far East, when the head of a family has had enough\nof active life, he abdicates, and his eldest son reigns in his stead.\n\nFrom that moment he ceases to belong to the body politic in any active\nsense. Not that he is no longer a member of society nor unamenable to\nits general laws, but that he has become a respectable declasse, as it\nwere. He has entered, so to speak, the social nirvana, a not unfitting\nfirst step, as he regards it, toward entering the eventual nirvana\nbeyond. Such abdication now takes place without particular cause. After\na certain time of life, and long before a man grows old, it is the\nfashion thus to make one's bow.\n\n\n\nChapter 4. Language.\n\nA man's personal equation, as astronomers call the effect of his\nindividuality, is kin, for all its complexity, to those simple\nalgebraical problems which so puzzled us at school. To solve either we\nmust begin by knowing the values of the constants that enter into its\nexpression. Upon the a b c's of the one, as upon those of the other,\ndepend the possibilities of the individual x.\n\nNow the constants in any man's equation are the qualities that he has\ninherited from the past. What a man does follows from what he is, which\nin turn is mostly dependent upon what his ancestors have been; and\nof all the links in the long chain of mind-evolution, few are more\nimportant and more suggestive than language. Actions may at the moment\nspeak louder than words, but methods of expression have as tell-tale a\ntongue for bygone times as ways of doing things.\n\nIf it should ever fall to my lot to have to settle that exceedingly\nvexed Eastern question,--not the emancipation of ancient Greece from the\nbondage of the modern Turk, but the emancipation of the modern college\nstudent from the bond of ancient Greek,--I should propose, as a solution\nof the dilemma, the addition of a course in Japanese to the college list\nof required studies. It might look, I admit, like begging the question\nfor the sake of giving its answer, but the answer, I think, would\njustify itself.\n\nIt is from no desire to parade a fresh hobby-horse upon the university\ncurriculum that I offer the suggestion, but because I believe that a\nstudy of the Japanese language would prove the most valuable of ponies\nin the academic pursuit of philology. In the matter of literature,\nindeed, we should not be adding very much to our existing store, but we\nshould gain an insight into the genesis of speech that would put us\nat least one step nearer to being present at the beginnings of human\nconversation. As it is now, our linguistic learning is with most of us\nlimited to a knowledge of Aryan tongues, and in consequence we not only\nfall into the mistake of thinking our way the only way, which is bad\nenough, but, what is far worse, by not perceiving the other possible\npaths we quite fail to appreciate the advantages or disadvantages of\nfollowing our own. We are the blind votaries of a species of ancestral\nlanguage-worship, which, with all its erudition, tends to narrow our\nlinguistic scope. A study of Japanese would free us from the fetters of\nany such family infatuation. The inviolable rules and regulations of our\nmother-tongue would be found to be of relative application only. For we\nshould discover that speech is a much less categorical matter than\nwe had been led to suppose. We should actually come to doubt\nthe fundamental necessity of some of our most sacred grammatical\nconstructions; and even our reverenced Latin grammars would lose that\nair of awful absoluteness which so impressed us in boyhood.\n\nAn encouraging estimate of a certain missionary puts the amount of\nstudy needed by the Western student for the learning of Japanese as\nsufficient, if expended nearer home, to equip him with any three modern\nEuropean languages. It is certainly true that a completely strange\nvocabulary, an utter inversion of grammar, and an elaborate system of\nhonorifics combine to render its acquisition anything but easy. In its\nfundamental principles, however, it is alluringly simple.\n\nIn the first place, the Japanese language is pleasingly destitute of\npersonal pronouns. Not only is the obnoxious \"I\" conspicuous only by\nits absence; the objectionable antagonistic \"you\" is also entirely\nsuppressed, while the intrusive \"he\" is evidently too much of a third\nperson to be wanted. Such invidious distinctions of identity apparently\nnever thrust their presence upon the simple early Tartar minds. I,\nyou, and he, not being differences due to nature, demanded, to their\nthinking, no recognition of man.\n\nThere is about this vagueness of expression a freedom not without its\ncharm. It is certainly delightful to be able to speak of yourself as if\nyou were somebody else, choosing mentally for the occasion any one\nyou may happen to fancy, or, it you prefer, the possibility of soaring\nboldly forth into the realms of the unconditioned.\n\nTo us, at first sight, however, such a lack of specification appears\nwofully incompatible with any intelligible transmission of ideas. So\ncommunistic a want of discrimination between the meum and the tuum--to\nsay nothing of the claims of a possible third party--would seem to be\nas fatal to the interchange of thoughts as it proves destructive to the\ntrafficking in commodities. Such, nevertheless, is not the result. On\nthe contrary, Japanese is as easy and as certain of comprehension as is\nEnglish. On ninety occasions out of a hundred, the context at once makes\nclear the person meant.\n\nIn the very few really ambiguous cases, or those in which, for the sake\nof emphasis, a pronoun is wanted, certain consecrated expressions are\nintroduced for the purpose. For eventually the more complex social\nrelations of increasing civilization compelled some sort of distant\nrecognition. Accordingly, compromises with objectionable personality\nwere effected by circumlocutions promoted to a pronoun's office,\nbecoming thus pro-pronouns, as it were. Very noncommittal expressions\nthey are, most of them, such as: \"the augustness,\" meaning you; \"that\nhonorable side,\" or \"that corner,\" denoting some third person, the exact\nterm employed in any given instance scrupulously betokening the relative\nrespect in which the individual spoken of is held; while with a candor,\nan indefiniteness, or a humility worthy so polite a people, the I is\nknown as \"selfishness,\" or \"a certain person,\" or \"the clumsy one.\"\n\nPronominal adjectives are manufactured in the same way. \"The stupid\nfather,\" \"the awkward son,\" \"the broken-down firm,\" are \"mine.\" Were\nthey \"yours,\" they would instantly become \"the august, venerable\nfather,\" \"the honorable son,\" \"the exalted firm.\" [1]\n\nEven these lame substitutes for pronouns are paraded as sparingly as\npossible. To the Western student, who brings to the subject a brain\nthrobbing with personality, hunting in a Japanese sentence for personal\nreferences is dishearteningly like \"searching in the dark for a black\nhat which is n't there;\" for the brevet pronouns are commonly not on\nduty. To employ them with the reckless prodigality that characterizes\nour conversation would strike the Tartar mind like interspersing his\ntalk with unmeaning italics. He would regard such discourse much as we\ndo those effusive epistles of a certain type of young woman to her\nmost intimate girl friends, in which every other word is emphatically\nunderlined.\n\nFor the most part, the absolutely necessary personal references are\nintroduced by honorifics; that is, by honorary or humble expressions.\nSuch is a portion of the latter's duty. They do a great deal of\nunnecessary work besides.\n\nThese honorifics are, taken as a whole, one of the most interesting\npeculiarities of Japanese, as also of Korean, just as, taken in detail,\nthey are one of its most dangerous pitfalls. For silence is indeed\ngolden compared with the chagrin of discovering that a speech which you\nhad meant for a compliment was, in fact, an insult, or the vexation of\nlearning that you have been industriously treating your servant with the\ndeference due a superior,--two catastrophes sure to follow the attempts\nof even the most cautious of beginners. The language is so thoroughly\nimbued with the honorific spirit that the exposure of truth in all its\nnaked simplicity is highly improper. Every idea requires to be more or\nless clothed in courtesy before it is presentable; and the garb demanded\nby etiquette is complex beyond conception. To begin with, there are\ncertain preliminary particles which are simply honorific, serving no\nother purpose whatsoever. In addition to these there are for every\naction a small infinity of verbs, each sacred to a different degree\nof respect. For instance, to our verb \"to give\" corresponds a complete\nsocial scale of Japanese verbs, each conveying the idea a shade more\npolitely than its predecessor; only the very lowest meaning anything\nso plebeian as simply \"to give.\" Sets of laudatory or depreciatory\nadjectives are employed in the same way. Lastly, the word for \"is,\"\nwhich strictly means \"exists,\" expresses this existence under three\ndifferent forms,--in a matter-of-fact, a flowing, or an inflated style;\nthe solid, liquid, and gaseous states of conversation, so to speak, to\nsuit the person addressed. But three forms being far too few for the\nneeds of so elaborate a politeness, these are supplemented by many\ninterpolated grades.\n\nTerms of respect are applied not only to those mortals who are held in\nestimation higher than their fellows, but to all men indiscriminately as\nwell. The grammatical attitude of the individual toward the speaker is\nof as much importance as his social standing, I being beneath contempt,\nand you above criticism.\n\nHonorifics are used not only on all possible occasions for courtesy, but\nat times, it would seem, upon impossible ones; for in some instances the\nmost subtle diagnosis fails to reveal in them a relevancy to anybody.\nThat the commonest objects should bear titles because of their\nconnection with some particular person is comprehensible, but what\nexcuse can be made for a phrase like the following, \"It respectfully\ndoes that the august seat exists,\" all of which simply means \"is,\" and\nmay be applied to anything, being the common word--in Japanese it is all\none word now--for that apparently simple idea. It would seem a sad\nwaste of valuable material. The real reason why so much distinguished\nconsideration is shown the article in question lies in the fact that\nit is treated as existing with reference to the person addressed, and\ntherefore becomes ipso facto august.\n\nHere is a still subtler example. You are, we will suppose, at a\ntea-house, and you wish for sugar. The following almost stereotyped\nconversation is pretty sure to take place. I translate it literally,\nsimply prefacing that every tea-house girl, usually in the first\nblush of youth, is generically addressed as \"elder sister,\"--another\nhonorific, at least so considered in Japan.\n\n You clap your hands.  (Enter tea-house maiden.)\n\n You.  Hai, elder sister, augustly exists there sugar?\n\n The T. H. M.  The honorable sugar, augustly is it?\n\n You.  So, augustly.\n\n The T. H. M. He (indescribable expression of assent).\n (Exit tea-house maiden to fetch the sugar.)\n\nNow, the \"augustlies\" go almost without saying, but why is the sugar\nhonorable? Simply because it is eventually going to be offered to you.\nBut she would have spoken of it by precisely the same respectful title,\nif she had been obliged to inform you that there was none, in which case\nit never could have become yours. Such is politeness. We may note,\nin passing, that all her remarks and all yours, barring your initial\nquestion, meant absolutely nothing. She understood you perfectly from\nthe first, and you knew she did; but then, if all of us were to say only\nwhat were necessary, the delightful art of conversation would soon be\nnothing but a science.\n\nThe average Far Oriental, indeed, talks as much to no purpose as his\nWestern cousin, only in his chit-chat politeness replaces personalities.\nWith him, self is suppressed, and an ever-present regard for others is\nsubstituted in its stead.\n\nA lack of personality is, as we have seen, the occasion of this\ncourtesy; it is also its cause.\n\nThat politeness should be one of the most marked results of\nimpersonality may appear surprising, yet a slight examination will show\nit to be a fact. Looked at a posteriori, we find that where the one\ntrait exists the other is most developed, while an absence of the second\nseems to prevent the full growth of the first. This is true both in\ngeneral and in detail. Courtesy increases, as we travel eastward round\nthe world, coincidently with a decrease in the sense of self. Asia is\nmore courteous than Europe, Europe than America. Particular races show\nthe same concomitance of characteristics. France, the most impersonal\nnation of Europe, is at the same time the most polite.\n\nConsidered a priori, the connection between the two is not far to seek.\nImpersonality, by lessening the interest in one's self, induces one\nto take an interest in others. Introspection tends to make of man a\nsolitary animal, the absence of it a social one. The more impersonal\nthe people, the more will the community supplant the individual in the\npopular estimation. The type becomes the interesting thing to man, as\nit always is to nature. Then, as the social desires develop, politeness,\nbeing the means to their enjoyment, develops also.\n\nA second omission in Japanese etymology is that of gender. That words\nshould be credited with sex is a verbal anthropomorphism that would seem\nto a Japanese exquisitely grotesque, if so be that it did not strike him\nas actually immodest. For the absence of gender is simply symptomatic\nof a much more vital failing, a disregard of sex. Originally, as their\nlanguage bears witness, the Japanese showed a childish reluctance\nto recognizing sex at all. Usually a single sexless term was held\nsufficient for a given species, and did duty collectively for both\nsexes. Only where a consideration of sex thrust itself upon them, beyond\nthe possibility of evasion, did they employ for the male and the female\ndistinctive expressions. The more intimate the relation of the object\nto man, the more imperative the discriminating name. Hence human beings\npossessed a fair number of such special appellatives; for a man is\na palpably different sort of person from his grandmother, and a\nmother-in-law from a wife. But it is noteworthy that the artificial\naffinities of society were as carefully differentiated as the\ndistinctions due to sex, while ancestral relationships were deemed more\nimportant than either.\n\nAnimals, though treated individually most humanely, are vouchsafed but\nscant recognition on the score of sex. With them, both sexes share one\ncommon name, and commonly, indeed, this answers quite well enough. In\nthose few instances where sex enters into the question in a manner not\nto be ignored, particles denoting \"male\" or \"female\" are prefixed to the\ngeneral term. How comparatively rare is the need of such specification\ncan be seen from the way in which, with us, in many species, the name of\none sex alone does duty indifferently for both. That of the male is the\none usually selected, as in the case of the dog or horse. If, however,\nit be the female with which man has most to do, she is allowed to bestow\nher name upon her male partner. Examples of the latter description occur\nin the use of \"cows\" for \"cattle,\" and \"hens\" for \"fowls.\" A Japanese\ncan say only \"fowl,\" defined, if absolutely necessary, as \"he-fowl\" or\n\"she-fowl.\"\n\nNow such a slighting of one of the most potent springs of human action,\nsex, with all that the idea involves, is not due to a pronounced\nmisogynism on the part of these people, but to a much more effective\nneglect, a great underlying impersonality. Indifference to woman is\nbut included in a much more general indifference to mankind. The fact\nbecomes all the more evident when we descend from sex to gender. That\nFather Ocean does not, in their verbal imagery, embrace Mother Earth,\nwith that subtle suggestion of humanity which in Aryan speech the gender\nof the nouns hints without expressing, is not due to any lack of poesy\nin the Far Oriental speaker, but to the essential impersonality of\nhis mind, embodied now in the very character of the words he uses. A\nJapanese noun is a crystallized concept, handed down unchanged from\nthe childhood of the Japanese race. So primitive a conception does it\nrepresent that it is neither a total nor a partial symbol, but rather\nthe outcome of a first vague generality. The word \"man,\" for instance,\nmeans to them not one man, still less mankind, but that indefinite\nidea which struggles for embodiment in the utterance of the infant. It\nrepresents not a person, but a thing, a material fact quite innocent\nof gender. This early state of semi-consciousness the Japanese never\noutgrew. The world continued to present itself to their minds as a\ncollection of things. Nor did their subsequent Chinese education change\ntheir view. Buddhism simply infused all things with the one universal\nspirit.\n\nAs to inanimate objects, the idea of supposing sex where there is not\neven life is altogether too fanciful a notion for the Far Eastern mind.\n\nImpersonality first fashioned the nouns, and then the nouns, by their\nvery impersonality, helped keep impersonal the thought and fettered\nfancy. All those temptings to poesy which to the Aryan imagination lie\nlatent in the sex with which his forefathers humanized their words,\nnever stir the Tartar nor the Chinese soul. They feel the poetry\nof nature as much as, indeed much more than, we; but it is a poetry\nunassociated with man. And this, too, curiously enough, in spite of the\nfact that to explain the cosmos the Chinamen invented, or perhaps only\nadapted, a singularly sexual philosophy. For possibly, like some other\nportions of their intellectual wealth, they stole it from India. The\nChinese conception of the origin of the world is based on the idea of\nsex. According to their notions the earth was begotten. It is true\nthat with them the cosmos started in an abstract something, which\nself-produced two great principles; but this pair once obtained, matters\nproceeded after the analogy of mankind. The two principles at work were\nthemselves abstract enough to have satisfied the most unimpassioned of\nphilosophers. They were simply a positive essence and a negative one,\ncorrelated to sunshine and shadow, but also correlated to male and\nfemale forces. Through their mutual action were born the earth and the\nair and the water; from these, in turn, was begotten man. The cosmical\nmodus operandi was not creative nor evolutionary, but sexual. The whole\nscheme suggests an attempt to wed abstract philosophy with primitive\nconcrete mythology.\n\nThe same sexuality distinguishes the Japanese demonology. Here the\nphysical replaces the philosophical; instead of principles we find\nallegorical personages, but they show just the same pleasing propensity\nto appear in pairs.\n\nThis attributing of sexes to the cosmos is not in the least incompatible\nwith an uninterested disregard of sex where it really exists. It is\none thing to admit the fact as a general law of the universe, and quite\nanother to dwell upon it as an important factor in every-day affairs.\n\nHow slight is the Tartar tendency to personification can be seen from\na glance at these same Japanese gods. They are a combination of defunct\nancestors and deified natural phenomena. The evolving of the first half\nrequired little imagination, for fate furnished the material ready made;\nwhile in conjuring up the second moiety, the spirit-evokers showed even\nless originality. Their results were neither winsome nor sublime. The\ngods whom they created they invested with very ordinary humanity,\nthe usual endowment of aboriginal deity, together with the customary\nsuperhuman strength. If these demigods differed from others of their\nclass, it was only in being more commonplace, and in not meddling much\nwith man. Even such personification of natural forces, simple enough\nto be self-suggested, quickly disappeared. The various awe-compelling\nphenomena soon ceased to have any connection with the anthropomorphic\nnoumena they had begotten. For instance, the sun-goddess, we are\ninformed, was one day lured out of a cavern, where she was sulking in\nconsequence of the provoking behavior of her younger brother, by her\ncuriosity at the sight of her own face in a mirror, ingeniously placed\nbefore the entrance for the purpose. But no Japanese would dream now of\ncasting any such reflections, however flattering, upon the face of the\norb of day. The sun has become not only quite sexless to him, but\nas devoid of personality as it is to any Western materialist. Lesser\ndeities suffered a like unsubstantial transformation. The thunder-god,\nwith his belt of drums, upon which he beats a devil's tattoo until he\nis black in the face, is no longer even indirectly associated with the\nstorm. As for dryads and nymphs, the beautiful creatures never inhabited\nEastern Asia. Anthropoid foxes and raccoons, wholly lacking in those\nengaging qualities that beget love, and through love remembrance, take\ntheir place. Even Benten, the naturalized Venus, who, like her Hellenic\nsister, is said to have risen from the sea, is a person quite incapable\nof inspiring a reckless infatuation.\n\nUtterly unlike was this pantheon to the pantheon of the Greeks, the\npersonifying tendency of whose Aryan mind was forever peopling nature\nwith half-human inhabitants. Under its quickening fancy the very clods\ngrew sentient. Dumb earth awoke at the call of its desire, and the\nbeings its own poesy had begotten made merry companionship for man. Then\na change crept over the face of things. Faith began to flicker, for want\nof facts to feed its flame. Little by little the fires of devotion burnt\nthemselves out. At last great Pan died. The body of the old belief\nwas consumed. But though it perished, its ashes preserved its form, an\nunsubstantial presentment of the past, to crumble in a twinkling at\nthe touch of science, but keeping yet to the poet's eye the lifelike\nsemblance of what once had been. The dead gods still live in our\nlanguage and our art. Even to-day the earth about us seems semiconscious\nto the soul, for the memories they have left.\n\nBut with the Far Oriental the exorcising feeling was fear. He never fell\nin love with his own mythological creations, and so he never embalmed\ntheir memories. They were to him but explanations of facts, and had no\nclaims upon his fancy. His ideal world remained as utterly impersonal as\nif it had never been born.\n\nThe same impersonality reappears in the matter of number. Grammatically,\nnumber with them is unrecognized. There exist no such things as plural\nforms. This singularity would be only too welcome to the foreign\nstudent, were it not that in avoiding the frying-pan the Tartars fell\ninto the fire. For what they invented in place of a plural was quite\nas difficult to memorize, and even more cumbrous to express. Instead\nof inflecting the noun and then prefixing a number, they keep the noun\nunchanged and add two numerals; thus at times actually employing more\nwords to express the objects than there are objects to express. One\nof these numerals is a simple number; the other is what is known as an\nauxiliary numeral, a word as singular in form as in function. Thus, for\ninstance, \"two men\" become amplified verbally into \"man two individual,\"\nor, as the Chinaman puts it, in pidgin English, \"two piecey man.\" For in\nthis respect Chinese resembles Japanese, though in very little else,\nand pidgin English is nothing but the literal translation of the\nChinese idiom into Anglo-Saxon words. The necessity for such elaborate\nqualification arises from the excessive simplicity of the Japanese\nnouns. As we have seen, the noun is so indefinite a generality that\nsimply to multiply it by a number cannot possibly produce any definite\nresult. No exact counterpart of these nouns exists in English, but\nsome idea of the impossibility of the process may be got from our\nword \"cattle,\" which, prolific though it may prove in fact, remains\nobstinately incapable of verbal multiplication. All Japanese nouns being\nof this indefinite description, all require auxiliary numerals. But\nas each one has its own appropriate numeral, about which a mistake is\nunpardonable, it takes some little study merely to master the etiquette\nof these handles to the names of things.\n\nNouns are not inflected, their cases being expressed by postpositions,\nwhich, as the name implies, follow, in becoming Japanese inversion,\ninstead of preceding the word they affect. To make up, nevertheless, for\nany lack of perplexity due to an absence of inflections, adjectives, en\nrevanche, are most elaborately conjugated. Their protean shapes are as\nlong as they are numerous, representing not only times, but conditions.\nThere are, for instance, the root form, the adverbial form, the\nindefinite form, the attributive form, and the conclusive form, the two\nlast being conjugated through all the various voices, moods, and tenses,\nto say nothing of all the potential forms. As one change is superposed\non another, the adjective ends by becoming three or four times its\noriginal length. The fact is, the adjective is either adjective, adverb,\nor verb, according to occasion. In the root form it also helps to make\nnouns; so that it is even more generally useful than as a journalistic\nepithet with us. As a verb, it does duty as predicate and copula\ncombined. For such an unnecessary part of speech as a real copula does\nnot exist in Japanese. In spite of the shock to the prejudices of the\nold school of logicians, it must be confessed that the Tartars get on\nvery well without any such couplings to their trains of thought. But\nthen we should remember that in their sentences the cart is always put\nbefore the horse, and so needs only to be pushed, not pulled along.\n\nThe want of a copula is another instance of the primitive character of\nthe tongue. It has its counterpart in our own baby-talk, where a quality\nis predicated of a thing simply by placing the adjective in apposition\nwith the noun.\n\nThat the Japanese word which is commonly translated \"is\" is in no sense\na copula, but an ordinary intransitive verb, referring to a natural\nstate, and not to a logical condition, is evident in two ways. In\nthe first place, it is never used to predicate a quality directly. A\nJapanese does not say, \"The scenery is fine,\" but simply, \"Scenery,\nfine.\" Secondly, wherever this verb is indirectly employed in such a\nmanner, it is followed, not by an adjective, but by an adverb. Not \"She\nis beautiful,\" but \"She exists beautifully,\" would be the Japanese way of\nexpressing his admiration. What looks at first, therefore, like a copula\nturns out to be merely an impersonal intransitive verb.\n\nA negative noun is, of course, an impossibility in any language, just\nas a negative substantive, another name for the same thing, is a direct\ncontradiction in terms. No matter how negative the idea to be given, it\nmust be conveyed by a positive expression. Even a void is grammatically\nquite full of meaning, although unhappily empty in fact. So much is\ncommon to all tongues, but Japanese carries its positivism yet further.\nNot only has it no negative nouns, it has not even any negative pronouns\nnor pronominal adjectives,--those convenient keepers of places for\nthe absent. \"None\" and \"nothing\" are unknown words in its vocabulary,\nbecause the ideas they represent are not founded on observed facts,\nbut upon metaphysical abstractions. Such terms are human-born, not\nearth-begotten concepts, and so to the Far Oriental, who looks at things\nfrom the point of view of nature, not of man, negation takes another\nform. Usually it is introduced by the verbs, because the verbs, for the\nmost part, relate to human actions, and it is man, not nature, who is\nresponsible for the omission in question. After all, it does seem more\nfitting to say, \"I am ignorant of everything,\" than \"I know nothing.\" It\nis indeed you who are wanting, not the thing.\n\nThe question of verbs leads us to another matter bearing on the subject\nof impersonality; namely, the arrangement of the words in a Japanese\nsentence. The Tartar mode of grammatical construction is very nearly\nthe inverse of our own. The fundamental rule of Japanese syntax is, that\nqualifying words precede the words they qualify; that is, an idea is\nelaborately modified before it is so much as expressed. This practice\nplaces the hearer at some awkward preliminary disadvantage, inasmuch as\nthe story is nearly over before he has any notion what it is all about;\nbut really it puts the speaker to much more trouble, for he is obliged\nto fashion his whole sentence complete in his brain before he starts\nto speak. This is largely in consequence of two omissions in Tartar\netymology. There are in Japanese no relative pronouns and no temporal\nconjunctions; conjunctions, that is, for connecting consecutive events.\nThe want of these words precludes the admission of afterthoughts.\nPostscripts in speech are impossible. The functions of relatives are\nperformed by position, explanatory or continuative clauses being made\nto precede directly the word they affect. Ludicrous anachronisms, not\nunlike those experienced by Alice in her looking-glass journey, are\noccasioned by this practice. For example, \"The merry monarch who ended\nby falling a victim to profound melancholia\" becomes \"To profound\nmelancholia a victim by falling ended merry monarch,\" and\nthe sympathetic hearer weeps first and laughs afterward, when\nchronologically he should be doing precisely the opposite.\n\nA like inversion of the natural order of things results from the absence\nof temporal conjunctions. In Japanese, though nouns can be added,\nactions cannot; you can say \"hat and coat,\" but not \"dressed and came.\"\nConjunctions are used only for space, never for time. Objects that\nexist together can be joined in speech, but it is not allowable thus\nto connect consecutive events. \"Having dressed, came\" is the Japanese\nidiom. To speak otherwise would be to violate the unities. For a\nJapanese sentence is a single rounded whole, not a bunch of facts\nloosely tied together. It is as much a unit in its composition as\na novel or a drama is with us. Such artistic periods, however, are\nanything but convenient. In their nicely contrived involution they\nstrikingly resemble those curious nests of Chinese boxes, where\nentire shells lie closely packed one within another,--a very marvel\nof ingenious and perfectly unnecessary construction. One must be\nantipodally comprehensive to entertain the idea; as it is, the idea\nentertains us.\n\nOn the same general plan, the nouns precede the verbs in the sentence,\nand are in every way the more important parts of speech. The consequence\nis that in ordinary conversation the verbs come so late in the day that\nthey not infrequently get left out altogether. For the Japanese are much\ngiven to docking their phrases, a custom the Germans might do well to\nadopt. Now, nouns denote facts, while verbs express action, and action,\nas considered in human speech, is mostly of human origin. In this\nprecedence accorded the impersonal element in language over the\npersonal, we observe again the comparative importance assigned the two.\nIn Japanese estimation, the first place belongs to nature, the second\nonly to man.\n\nAs if to mark beyond a doubt the insignificance of the part man plays\nin their thought, sentences are usually subjectless. Although it is a\ncommon practice to begin a phrase with the central word of the idea,\nisolated from what follows by the emphasizing particle \"wa\" (which\nmeans \"as to,\" the French \"quant a\"), the word thus singled out for\ndistinction is far more likely to be the object of the sentence than\nits subject. The habit is analogous to the use of our phrase \"speaking\nof,\"--that is, simply an emphatic mode of introducing a fresh thought;\nonly that with them, the practice being the rule and not the exception,\nno correspondingly abrupt effect is produced by it. Ousted thus from\nthe post of honor, the subject is not even permitted the second place.\nIndeed, it usually fails to put in an appearance anywhere. You may\nsearch through sentence after sentence without meeting with the\nslightest suggestion of such a thing. When so unusual an anomaly as a\nmotive cause is directly adduced, it owes its mention, not to the fact\nof being the subject, but because for other reasons it happens to be the\nimportant word of the thought. The truth is, the Japanese conception of\nevents is only very vaguely subjective. An action is looked upon more\nas happening than as being performed, as impersonally rather than\npersonally produced. The idea is due, however, to anything but\nphilosophic profundity. It springs from the most superficial of childish\nconceptions. For the Japanese mind is quite the reverse of abstract. Its\nconsideration of things is concrete to a primitive degree. The language\nreflects the fact. The few abstract ideas these people now possess are\nnot represented, for the most part, by pure Japanese, but by imported\nChinese expressions. The islanders got such general notions from their\nforeign education, and they imported idea and word at the same time.\n\nSumming up, as it were, in propria persona the impersonality of Japanese\nspeech, the word for \"man,\" \"hito,\" is identical with, and probably\noriginally the same word as \"hito,\" the numeral \"one;\" a noun and a\nnumeral, from which Aryan languages have coined the only impersonal\npronoun they possess. On the one hand, we have the German \"mann;\" on\nthe other, the French \"on\". While as if to give the official seal to\nthe oneness of man with the universe, the word mono, thing, is applied,\nwithout the faintest implication of insult, to men.\n\nSuch, then, is the mould into which, as children, these people learn\nto cast their thought. What an influence it must exert upon their\nsubsequent views of life we have but to ask of our own memories to know.\nWith each one of us, if we are to advance beyond the steps of the last\ngeneration, there comes a time when our growing ideas refuse any longer\nto fit the childish grooves in which we were taught to let them run. How\ngreat the wrench is when this supreme moment arrives we have all felt\ntoo keenly ever to forget. We hesitate, we delay, to abandon the beliefs\nwhich, dating from the dawn of our being, seem to us even as a part of\nour very selves. From the religion of our mother to the birth of our\nboyish first love, all our early associations send down roots so deep\nthat long after our minds have outgrown them our hearts refuse to give\nthem up. Even when reason conquers at last, sentiment still throbs at\nthe voids they necessarily have left.\n\nIn the Far East, this fondness for the old is further consecrated by\nreligion. The worship of ancestors sets its seal upon the traditions of\nthe past, to break which were impious as well as sad. The golden age,\nthat time when each man himself was young, has lingered on in the\nlands where it is always morning, and where man has never passed to\nhis prosaic noon. Befitting the place is the mind we find there. As its\nlanguage so clearly shows, it still is in that early impersonal state\nto which we all awake first before we become aware of that something we\nlater know so well as self.\n\nParticularly potent with these people is their language, for a reason\nthat also lends it additional interest to us,--because it is their own.\nAmong the mass of foreign thought the Japanese imitativeness has caused\nthe nation to adopt, here is one thing which is indigenous. Half of the\npresent speech, it is true, is of Chinese importation, but conservatism\nhas kept the other half pure. From what it reveals we can see how each\nman starts to-day with the same impersonal outlook upon life the race\nhad reached centuries ago, and which it has since kept unchanged. The\nman's mind has done likewise.\n\n\n[1] Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain: The Japanese Language.\n\n\n\nChapter 5. Nature and Art.\n\nWe have seen how impersonal is the form which Far Eastern thought\nassumes when it crystallizes into words. Let us turn now to a\nconsideration of the thoughts themselves before they are thus\nstereotyped for transmission to others, and scan them as they find\nexpression unconsciously in the man's doings, or seek it consciously in\nhis deeds.\n\nTo the Far Oriental there is one subject which so permeates and pervades\nhis whole being as to be to him, not so much a conscious matter of\nthought as an unconscious mode of thinking. For it is a thing which\nshapes all his thoughts instead of constituting the substance of one\nparticular set of them. That subject is art. To it he is born as to\na birthright. Artistic perception is with him an instinct to which he\nintuitively conforms, and for which he inherits the skill of countless\ngenerations. From the tips of his fingers to the tips of his toes, in\nwhose use he is surprisingly proficient, he is the artist all over.\nAdmirable, however, as is his manual dexterity, his mental altitude\nis still more to be admired; for it is artistic to perfection. His\nperception of beauty is as keen as his comprehension of the cosmos is\ncrude; for while with science he has not even a speaking acquaintance,\nwith art he is on terms of the most affectionate intimacy.\n\nTo the whole Far Eastern world science is a stranger. Such nescience is\npatent even in matters seemingly scientific. For although the Chinese\ncivilization, even in the so-called modern inventions, was already old\nwhile ours lay still in the cradle, it was to no scientific spirit that\nits discoveries were due. Notwithstanding the fact that Cathay was the\nhappy possessor of gunpowder, movable type, and the compass before\nsuch things were dreamt of in Europe, she owed them to no knowledge of\nphysics, chemistry, or mechanics. It was as arts, not as sciences, they\nwere invented. And it speaks volumes for her civilization that she burnt\nher powder for fireworks, not for firearms. To the West alone belongs\nthe credit of manufacturing that article for the sake of killing people\ninstead of merely killing time.\n\nThe scientific is not the Far Oriental point of view. To wish to know\nthe reasons of things, that irrepressible yearning of the Western\nspirit, is no characteristic of the Chinaman's mind, nor is it a Tartar\ntrait. Metaphysics, a species of speculation that has usually proved\npeculiarly attractive to mankind, probably from its not requiring any\nscientific capital whatever, would seem the most likely place to seek\nit. But upon such matters he has expended no imagination of his own,\nhaving quietly taken on trust from India what he now professes. As for\nscience proper, it has reached at his hands only the quasimorphologic\nstage; that is, it consists of catalogues concocted according to the\ningenuity of the individual and resembles the real thing about as much\nas a haphazard arrangement of human bones might be expected to resemble\na man. Not only is the spirit of the subject left out altogether,\nbut the mere outward semblance is misleading. For pseudo-scientific\ncollections of facts which never rise to be classifications of phenomena\nforms to his idea the acme of erudition. His mathematics, for example,\nconsists of a set of empiric rules, of which no explanation is ever\nvouchsafed the taught for the simple reason that it is quite unknown to\nthe teacher. It is not even easy to decide how much of what there is\nis Jesuitical. Of more recent sciences he has still less notion,\nparticularly of the natural ones. Physics, chemistry, geology, and the\nlike are matters that have never entered his head. Even in studies more\nimmediately connected with obvious everyday life, such as language,\nhistory, customs, it is truly remarkable how little he possesses the\npower of generalization and inference. His elaborate lists of facts are\nimposing typographically, but are not even formally important, while his\nreasoning about them is as exquisite a bit of scientific satire as could\nwell be imagined.\n\nBut with the arts it is quite another matter. While you will search in\nvain, in his civilization, for explanations of even the most simple\nof nature's laws, you will meet at every turn with devices for the\nbeautifying of life, which may stand not unworthily beside the products\nof nature's own skill. Whatever these people fashion, from the toy of\nan hour to the triumphs of all time, is touched by a taste unknown\nelsewhere. To stroll down the Broadway of Tokio of an evening is a\nliberal education in everyday art. As you enter it there opens out in\nfront of you a fairy-like vista of illumination. Two long lines of gayly\nlighted shops, stretching off into the distance, look out across two\nequally endless rows of torch-lit booths, the decorous yellow gleam\nof the one contrasting strangely with the demoniacal red flare of the\nother. This perspective of pleasure fulfils its promise. As your feet\nfollow your eyes you find yourself in a veritable shoppers' paradise,\nthe galaxy of twinkle resolving into worlds of delight. Nor do you long\nremain a mere spectator; for the shops open their arms to you. No\ncold glass reveals their charms only to shut you off. Their wares lie\ninvitingly exposed to the public, seeming to you already half your own.\nAt the very first you come to you stop involuntarily, lost in admiration\nover what you take to be bric-a-brac. It is only afterwards you learn\nthat the object of your ecstasy was the commonest of kitchen crockery.\nNext door you halt again, this time in front of some leathern\npocket-books, stamped with designs in color to tempt you instantly to\nempty your wallet for more new ones than you will ever have the means to\nfill. If you do succeed in tearing yourself away purse-whole, it is\nonly to fall a victim to some painted fans of so exquisite a make and\ndecoration that escape short of possession is impossible. Opposed as\nstubbornly as you may be to idle purchase at home, here you will find\nyourself the prey of an acute case of shopping fever before you know it.\nNor will it be much consolation subsequently to discover that you have\nsquandered your patrimony upon the most ordinary articles of every-day\nuse. If in despair you turn for refuge to the booths, you will but\nhave delivered yourself into the embrace of still more irresistible\nfascinations. For the nocturnal squatters are there for the express\npurpose of catching the susceptible. The shops were modestly attractive\nfrom their nature, but the booths deliberately make eyes at you, and\nwith telling effect. The very atmosphere is bewitching. The lurid\nsmurkiness of the torches lends an appropriate weirdness to the figure\nof the uncouthly clad pedlar who, with the politeness of the arch-fiend\nhimself, displays to an eager group the fatal fascinations of some new\nconceit. Here the latest thing in inventions, a gutta-percha rat, which,\nfor reasons best known to the vender, scampers about squeaking with a\nmimicry to shame the original, holds an admiring crowd spellbound with\nmingled trepidation and delight. There a native zoetrope, indefatigable\nround of pleasure, whose top fashioned after the type of a turbine wheel\nenables a candle at the centre ingeniously to supply both illumination\nand motive power at the same time, affords to as many as can find room\non its circumference a peep at the composite antics of a consecutively\npictured monkey in the act of jumping a box. Beyond this \"wheel of life\"\nlies spread out on a mat a most happy family of curios, the whole of\nwhich you are quite prepared to purchase en bloc. While a little farther\non stands a flower show which seems to be coyly beckoning to you as the\nblossoms nod their heads to an imperceptible breeze. So one attraction\nfairly jostles its neighbor for recognition from the gay thousands that\nlike yourself stroll past in holiday delight. Chattering children in\nbrilliant colors, voluble women and talkative men in quieter but no less\npicturesque costumes, stream on in kaleidoscopic continuity. And you,\ncarried along by the current, wander thus for miles with the tide of\npleasure-seekers, till, late at night, when at last you turn reluctantly\nhomeward, you feel as one does when wakened from some too delightful\ndream.\n\nOr instead of night, suppose it day and the place a temple. With those\nwho are entering you enter too through the outer gateway into the\ncourtyard. At the farther end rises a building the like of which for\nrichness of effect you have probably never beheld or even imagined. In\nfront of you a flight of white stone steps leads up to a terrace\nwhose parapet, also of stone, is diapered for half its height and open\nlatticework the rest. This piazza gives entrance to a building or set\nof buildings whose every detail challenges the eye. Twelve pillars of\nsnow-white wood sheathed in part with bronze, arranged in four rows,\nmake, as it were, the bones of the structure. The space between the\ncentre columns lies open. The other triplets are webbed in the middle\nand connected, on the sides and front, by grilles of wood and bronze\nforming on the outside a couple of embrasures on either hand the\nentrance in which stand the guardian Nio, two colossal demons, Gog\nand Magog. Instead of capitals, a frieze bristling with Chinese lions\nprotects the top of the pillars. Above this in place of entablature\nrises tier upon tier of decoration, each tier projecting beyond the one\nbeneath, and the topmost of all terminating in a balcony which encircles\nthe whole second story. The parapet of this balcony is one mass of\nornament, and its cornice another row of lions, brown instead of white.\nThe second story is no less crowded with carving. Twelve pillars make\nits ribs, the spaces between being filled with elaborate woodwork, while\non top rest more friezes, more cornices, clustered with excrescences of\nall colors and kinds, and guarded by lions innumerable. To begin to tell\nthe details of so multi-faceted a gem were artistically impossible. It\nis a jewel of a thousand rays, yet whose beauties blend into one as the\nprismatic tints combine to white. And then, after the first dazzle of\nadmiration, when the spirit of curiosity urges you to penetrate the\ncentre aisle, lo and behold it is but a gate! The dupe of unexpected\nsplendor, you have been paying court to the means of approach. It is\nonly a portal after all. For as you pass through, you catch a glimpse\nof a building beyond more gorgeous still. Like in general to the first,\nunlike it in detail, resembling it only as the mistress may the maid.\nBut who shall convince of charm by enumerating the features of a face!\nFrom the tiles of its terrace to the encrusted gables that drape it as\nwith some rich bejewelled mantle falling about it in the most graceful\nof folds, it is the very eastern princess of a building standing in the\nmajesty of her court to give you audience.\n\nA pebbly path, a low flight of stone steps, a pause to leave your shoes\nwithout the sill, and you tread in the twilight of reverence upon the\nmoss-like mats within. The richness of its outer ornament, so impressive\nat first, is, you discover, but prelude to the lavish luxury of its\ninterior. Lacquer, bronze, pigments, deck its ceiling and its sides\nin such profusion that it seems to you as if art had expanded, in the\ncongenial atmosphere, into a tropical luxuriance of decoration, and grew\nhere as naturally on temples as in the jungle creepers do on trees. Yet\nall is but setting to what the place contains; objects of bigotry and\nvirtue that appeal to the artistic as much as to the religious instincts\nof the devout. More sacred still are the things treasured in the sanctum\nof the priests. There you will find gems of art for whose sake only\nthe most abnormal impersonality can prevent you from breaking the\ntenth commandment. Of the value set upon them you can form a distant\napproximation from the exceeding richness and the amazing number of the\nsilk cloths and lacquered boxes in which they are so religiously kept.\nAs you gaze thus, amid the soul-satisfying repose of the spot, at some\nmasterpiece from the brush of Motonobu, you find yourself wondering, in\na fanciful sort of way, whether Buddhist contemplation is not after all\nonly another name for the contemplation of the beautiful, since devotees\nto the one are ex officio such votaries of the other.\n\nDissimilar as are these two glimpses of Japanese existence, in one point\nthe bustling street and the hushed temple are alike,--in the nameless\ngrace that beautifies both.\n\nThis spirit is even more remarkable for its all-pervasiveness than\nfor its inherent excellence. Both objectively and subjectively its\ncatholicity is remarkable. It imbues everything, and affects everybody.\nSo universally is it applied to the daily affairs of life that there may\nbe said to be no mechanical arts in Japan simply because all such\nhave been raised to the position of fine arts. The lowest artisan is\nessentially an artist. Modern French nomenclature on the subject, in\nspite of the satire to which the more prosaic Anglo-Saxon has subjected\nit, is peculiarly applicable there. To call a Japanese cook, for\ninstance, an artist would be but the barest acknowledgment of fact, for\nJapanese food is far more beautiful to look at than agreeable to eat;\nwhile Tokio tailors are certainly masters of drapery, if they are\nsublimely oblivious to the natural modelings of the male or female form.\n\nOn the other hand, art is sown, like the use of tobacco, broadcast among\nthe people. It is the birthright of the Far East, the talent it never\nhides. Throughout the length and breadth of the land, and from the\nhighest prince to the humblest peasant, art reigns supreme.\n\nNow such a prevalence of artistic feeling implies of itself\nimpersonality in the people. At first sight it might seem as if science\ndid the same, and that in this respect the one hemisphere offset the\nother, and that consequently both should be equally impersonal. But in\nthe first place, our masses are not imbued with the scientific spirit,\nas theirs are with artistic sensibility. Who would expect of a mason\nan impersonal interest in the principles of the arch, or of a plumber\na non-financial devotion to hydraulics? Certainly one would be wrong in\ncrediting the masses in general or European waiters in particular with\nmuch abstract love of mathematics, for example. In the second place,\nthere is an essential difference in the attitude of the two subjects\nupon personality. Emotionally, science appeals to nobody, art to\neverybody. Now the emotions constitute the larger part of that complex\nbundle of ideas which we know as self. A thought which is not tinged to\nsome extent with feeling is not only not personal; properly speaking, it\nis not even distinctively human, but cosmical. In its lofty superiority\nto man, science is unpersonal rather than impersonal. Art, on the other\nhand, is a familiar spirit. Through the windows of the senses she finds\nher way into the very soul of man, and makes for herself a home there.\nBut it is to his humanity, not to his individuality, that she whispers,\nfor she speaks in that universal tongue which all can understand.\n\nExamples are not wanting to substantiate theory. It is no mere\ncoincidence that the two most impersonal nations of Europe and Asia\nrespectively, the French and the Japanese, are at the same time the most\nartistic. Even politeness, which, as we have seen, distinguishes both,\nis itself but a form of art,--the social art of living agreeably with\none's fellows.\n\nThis impersonality comes out with all the more prominence when we pass\nfrom the consideration of art in itself to the spirit which actuates\nthat art, and especially when we compare their spirit with our own.\nThe mainsprings of Far Eastern art may be said to be three: Nature,\nReligion, and Humor. Incongruous collection that they are, all\nthree witness to the same trait. For the first typifies concrete\nimpersonality, the second abstract impersonality, while the province of\nthe last is to ridicule personality generally. Of the trio the first is\naltogether the most important. Indeed, to a Far Oriental, so fundamental\na part of himself is his love of Nature that before we view its mirrored\nimage it will be well to look the emotion itself in the face. The Far\nOriental lives in a long day-dream of beauty. He muses rather than\nreasons, and all musing, so the word itself confesses, springs from\nthe inspiration of a Muse. But this Muse appears not to him, as to the\nGreeks, after the fashion of a woman, nor even more prosaically after\nthe likeness of a man. Unnatural though it seem to us, his inspiration\nseeks no human symbol. His Muse is not kin to mankind. She is too\nimpersonal for any personification, for she is Nature.\n\nThat poet whose name carries with it a certain presumption of\ninfallibility has told us that \"the proper study of mankind is man;\" and\nif material advancement in consequence be any criterion of the fitness\nof a particular mental pursuit, events have assuredly justified the\nsaying. Indeed, the Levant has helped antithetically to preach the same\nlesson, in showing us by its own fatal example that the improper\nstudy of mankind is woman, and that they who but follow the fair will\ninevitably degenerate.\n\nThe Far Oriental knows nothing of either study, and cares less. The\ndelight of self-exploration, or the possibly even greater delight of\nlosing one's self in trying to fathom femininity, is a sensation equally\nforeign to his temperament. Neither the remarkable persistence of one's\nown characteristics, not infrequently matter of deep regret to their\npossessor, nor the charmingly unaccountable variability of the fairer\nsex, at times quite as annoying, is a phenomenon sufficient to stir his\ncuriosity. Accepting, as he does, the existing state of things more as\na material fact than as a phase in a gradual process of development, he\nregards humanity as but a small part of the great natural world, instead\nof considering it the crowning glory of the whole. He recognizes man\nmerely as a fraction of the universe,--one might almost say as a vulgar\nfraction of it, considering the low regard in which he is held,--and\naccords him his proportionate share of attention, and no more.\n\nIn his thought, nature is not accessory to man. Worthy M. Perichon, of\nprosaic, not to say philistinic fame, had, as we remember, his travels\nimmortalized in a painting where a colossal Perichon in front almost\ncompletely eclipsed a tiny Mont Blanc behind. A Far Oriental\nthinks poetry, which may possibly account for the fact that in his\nmind-pictures the relative importance of man and mountain stands\nreversed. \"The matchless Fuji,\" first of motifs in his art, admits no\npilgrim as its peer.\n\nNor is it to woman that turn his thoughts. Mother Earth is fairer, in\nhis eyes, than are any of her daughters. To her is given the heart that\nshould be theirs. The Far Eastern love of Nature amounts almost to a\npassion. To the study of her ever varying moods her Japanese admirer\nbrings an impersonal adoration that combines oddly the aestheticism of\na poet with the asceticism of a recluse. Not that he worships in secret,\nhowever. His passion is too genuine either to find disguise or seek\ndisplay. With us, unfortunately, the love of Nature is apt to be\nconsidered a mental extravagance peculiar to poets, excusable in exact\nratio to the ability to give it expression. For an ordinary mortal to\nfeel a fondness for Mother Earth is a kind of folly, to be carefully\nconcealed from his fellows. A sort of shamefacedness prevents him from\navowing it, as a boy at boarding-school hides his homesickness, or a lad\nhis love. He shrinks from appearing less pachydermatous than the rest.\nOr else he flies to the other extreme, and affects the odd; pretends,\nposes, parades, and at last succeeds half in duping himself, half in\ndeceiving other people. But with Far Orientals the case is different.\nTheir love has all the unostentatious assurance of what has received the\nsanction of public opinion. Nor is it still at that doubtful, hesitating\nstage when, by the instrumentality of a third, its soul-harmony can\nsuddenly be changed from the jubilant major key into the despairing\nminor. No trace of sadness tinges his delight. He has long since passed\nthis melancholy phase of erotic misery, if so be that the course of his\ntrue love did not always run smooth, and is now well on in matrimonial\nbliss. The very look of the land is enough to betray the fact. In Japan\nthe landscape has an air of domesticity about it, patent even to the\nmost casual observer. Wherever the Japanese has come in contact with\nthe country he has made her unmistakably his own. He has touched her to\ncaress, not injure, and it seems as if Nature accepted his fondness as\na matter of course, and yielded him a wifely submission in return.\nHis garden is more human, even, than his house. Not only is everything\nexquisitely in keeping with man, but natural features are actually\nchanged, plastic to the imprint of their lord and master's mind. Bushes,\nshrubs, trees, forget to follow their original intent, and grow as he\nwills them to; now expanding in wanton luxuriance, now contracting into\ndwarf designs of their former selves, all to obey his caprice and please\nhis eye. Even stubborn rocks lose their wildness, and come to seem a\npart of the almost sentient life around them. If the description of such\ndutifulness seems fanciful, the thing itself surpasses all supposition.\nHedges and shrubbery, clipped into the most fantastic shapes, accept the\nsuggestion of the pruning-knife as if man's wishes were their own whims.\nManikin maples, Tom Thumb trees, a foot high and thirty years old, with\nall the gnarls and knots and knuckles of their fellows of the forest,\ngrow in his parterres, their native vitality not a whit diminished. And\nthey are not regarded as monstrosities but only as the most natural of\nartificialities; for they are a part of a horticultural whole. To walk\ninto a Japanese garden is like wandering of a sudden into one of those\nstrange worlds we see reflected in the polished surface of a concave\nmirror, where all but the observer himself is transformed into a\nfantastic miniature of the reality. In that quaint fairyland diminutive\nrivers flow gracefully under tiny trees, past mole-hill mountains,\ntill they fall at last into lilliputian lakes, almost smothered for the\nflowers that grow upon their banks; while in the extreme distance of a\ncouple of rods the cone of a Fuji ten feet high looks approvingly down\nupon a scene which would be nationally incomplete without it.\n\nBut besides the delights of domesticity which the Japanese enjoys daily\nin Nature's company, he has his acces de tendresse, too. When he feels\nthus specially stirred, he invites a chosen few of his friends, equally\ninfatuated, and together they repair to some spot noted for its scenery.\nIt may be a waterfall, or some dreamy pond overhung by trees, or the\ndistant glimpse of a mountain peak framed in picture-wise between the\nnearer hills; or, at their appropriate seasons, the blossoming of\nthe many tree flowers, which in eastern Asia are beautiful beyond\ndescription. For he appreciates not only places, but times. One spot is\nto be seen at sunrise, another by moonlight; one to be visited in the\nspring-time, another in the fall. But wherever or whenever it be, a\ntea-house, placed to command the best view of the sight, stands ready to\nreceive him. For nature's beauties are too well recognized to remain\nthe exclusive property of the first chance lover. People flock to view\nnature as we do to see a play, and privacy is as impossible as it is\nunsought. Indeed, the aversion to publicity is simply a result of the\nsense of self, and therefore necessarily not a feature of so\nimpersonal a civilization. Aesthetic guidebooks are written for\nthe nature-enamoured, descriptive of these views which the Japanese\ntranslator quaintly calls \"Sceneries,\" and which visitors come not only\nfrom near but from far to gaze upon. In front of the tea-house proper\nare rows of summer pavilions, in one of which the party make themselves\nat home, while gentle little tea-house girls toddle forth to serve them\nthe invariable preliminary tea and confections. Each man then produces\nfrom up his sleeve, or from out his girdle, paper, ink, and brush, and\nproceeds to compose a poem on the beauty of the spot and the feelings\nit calls up, which he subsequently reads to his admiring companions.\nHot sake is next served, which is to them what beer is to a German or\nabsinthe to a blouse; and there they sit, sip, and poetize, passing\ntheir couplets, as they do their cups, in honor to one another. At\nlast, after drinking in an hour or two of scenery and sake combined, the\nsymposium of poets breaks up.\n\nSometimes, instead of a company of friends, a man will take his family,\nwife, babies, and all, on such an outing, but the details of his holiday\nare much the same as before. For the scenery is still the centre of\nattraction, and in the attendant creature comforts Far Eastern etiquette\npermits an equal enjoyment to man, woman, and child.\n\nThis love of nature is quite irrespective of social condition. All\nclasses feel its force, and freely indulge the feeling. Poor as well as\nrich, low as well as high, contrive to gratify their poetic instincts\nfor natural scenery. As for flowers, especially tree flowers, or\nthose of the larger plants, like the lotus or the iris, the Japanese\nappreciation of their beauty is as phenomenal as is that beauty itself.\nThose who can afford the luxury possess the shrubs in private; those who\ncannot, feast their eyes on the public specimens. From a sprig in a vase\nto a park planted on purpose, there is no part of them too small or\ntoo great to be excluded from Far Oriental affection. And of the two\n\"drawing-rooms\" of the Mikado held every year, in April and November,\nboth are garden-parties: the one given at the time and with the title of\n\"the cherry blossoms,\" and the other of \"the chrysanthemum.\"\n\nThese same tree flowers deserve more than a passing notice, not simply\nbecause of their amazing beauty, which would arrest attention anywhere,\nbut for the national attitude toward them. For no better example of the\nJapanese passion for nature could well be cited. If the anniversaries\nof people are slightingly treated in the land of the sunrise, the same\ncannot be said of plants. The yearly birthdays of the vegetable world\nare observed with more than botanic enthusiasm. The regard in which\nthey are held is truly emotional, and it not actually individual in\nits object, at least personal to the species. Each kind of tree as its\nseason brings it into flower is made the occasion of a festival. For the\nbeauty of the blossoming receives the tribute of a national admiration.\nFrom peers to populace mankind turns out to witness it. Nor are these\noccasions few. Spring in the Far East is one long chain of flower fetes,\nand as spring begins by the end of January and lasts till the middle of\nJune, opportunities for appreciating each in turn are not half spoiled\nby a common contemporaneousness. People have not only occasion but time\nto admire. Indeed, spring itself is suitably respected by being dated\nconformably to fact. Far Orientals begin their year when Nature begins\nhers, instead of starting anachronously as we do in the very middle of\nthe dead season, much as our colleges hold their commencements, on the\nlast in place at on the first day of the academic term. So previous\nhas the haste of Western civilization become. The result is that our\nrejoicing partakes of the incongruity of humor. The new year exists only\nin name. In the Far East, on the other band, the calendar is made to fit\nthe time. Men begin to reckon their year some three weeks later than the\nWestern world, just as the plum-tree opens its pink white petals, as it\nwere, in rosy reflection of the snow that lies yet upon the ground.\nBut the coldness of the weather does not in the least deter people from\nthronging the spot in which the trees grow, where they spend hours in\nadmiration, and end by pinning appropriate poems on the twigs for later\ncomers to peruse. Fleeting as the flowers are in fact, they live forever\nin fancy. For they constitute one of the commonest motifs of both\npainting and poetry. A branch just breaking into bloom seen against the\nsunrise sky, or a bough bending its blossoms to the bosom of a stream,\nis subject enough for their greatest masters, who thus wed, as it\nwere, two arts in one,--the spirit of poesy with pictorial form. This\nplum-tree is but a blossom. Precocious harbinger of a host of flowers,\nits gay heralding over, it vanishes not to be recalled, for it bears no\nedible fruit.\n\nThe next event in the series might fairly be called phenomenal. Early in\nApril takes place what is perhaps as superb a sight as anything in this\nworld, the blossoming of the cherry-trees. Indeed, it is not easy to do\nthe thing justice in description. If the plum invited admiration, the\ncherry commands it; for to see the sakura in flower for the first time\nis to experience a new sensation. Familiar as a man may be with cherry\nblossoms at home, the sight there bursts upon him with the dazzling\neffect of a revelation. Such is the profusion of flowers that the tree\nseems to have turned into a living mass of rosy light. No leaves break\nthe brilliance. The snowy-pink petals drape the branches entirely, yet\nso delicately, one deems it all a veil donned for the tree's nuptials\nwith the spring. For nothing could more completely personify the spirit\nof the spring-time. You can almost fancy it some dryad decked for her\nbridal, in maidenly day-dreaming too lovely to last. For like the plum\nthe cherry fails in its fruit to fulfil the promise of its flower.\n\nIt would be strange indeed if so much beauty received no recognition,\nbut it is even more strange that recognition should be so complete and\nso universal as it is. Appreciation is not confined to the cultivated\nfew; it is shown quite as enthusiastically by the masses. The popularity\nof the plants is all-embracing. The common people are as sensitive to\ntheir beauty as are the upper classes. Private gratification, roseate\nas it is, pales beside the public delight. Indeed, not content with what\nrevelation Nature makes of herself of her own accord, man has multiplied\nher manifestations. Spots suitable to their growth have been peopled by\nhim with trees. Sometimes they stand in groups like star-clusters, as in\nOji, crowning a hill; sometimes, as at Mukojima, they line an avenue\nfor miles, dividing the blue river on the one hand from the blue-green\nrice-fields on the other,--a floral milky way of light. But wherever the\ntrees may be, there at their flowering season are to be found throngs\nof admirers. For in crowds people go out to see the sight, multitudes\nstreaming incessantly to and fro beneath their blossoms as the time of\nday determines the turn of the human tide. To the Occidental stranger\nsuch a gathering suggests some social loadstone; but none exists. In the\ncherry-trees alone lies the attraction.\n\nFor one week out of the fifty-two the cherry-tree stands thus glorified,\na vision of beauty prolonged somewhat by the want of synchronousness\nof the different kinds. Then the petals fall. What was a nuptial veil\nbecomes a winding-sheet, covering the sod as with winter's winding-sheet\nof snow, destined itself to disappear, and the tree is nothing but a\ncommon cherry-tree once more.\n\nBut flowers are by no means over because the cherry blossoms are past. A\nbrief space, and the same crowds that flocked to the cherry turn to the\nwistaria. Gardens are devoted to the plants, and the populace greatly\ngiven to the gardens. There they go to sit and gaze at the grape-like\nclusters of pale purple flowers that hang more than a cubit long over\nthe wooden trellis, and grow daily down toward their own reflections in\nthe pond beneath, vying with one another in Narcissus-like endeavor.\nAnd the people, as they sip their tea on the veranda opposite, behold a\ndoubled delight, the flower itself and its mirrored image stretching to\nkiss.\n\nAfter the wistaria comes the tree-peony, and then the iris, with its\ntrefoil flowers broader than a man may span, and at all colors under the\nsky. To one who has seen the great Japanese fleur-de-lis, France looks\nludicrously infelicitous in her choice of emblem.\n\nBut the list grows too long, limited as it is only by its own annual\nrepetition. We have as yet reached but the first week in June; the\nsummer and autumn are still to come, the first bringing the lotus for\nits crown, and the second the chrysanthemum. And lazily grand the lotus\nis, itself the embodiment of the spirit of the drowsy August air, the\nvery essence of Buddha-like repose. The castle moats are its special\ndomain, which in this its flowering season it wrests wholly from their\nmore proper occupant--the water. A dense growth of leather-like leaves,\nabove which rise in majestic isolation the solitary flowers, encircles\nthe outer rampart, shutting the castle in as it might be the palace of\nthe Sleeping Beauty. In the delightful dreaminess that creeps over one\nas he stands thus before some old daimyo's former abode in the heart of\nJapan, he forgets all his metaphysical difficulties about Nirvana, for\nhe fancies he has found it, one long Lotus afternoon.\n\nAnd then last, but in some sort first, since it has been taken for the\nimperial insignia, comes the chrysanthemum. The symmetry of its shape\nwell fits it to symbolize the completeness of perfection which the\nMikado, the son of heaven, mundanely represents. It typifies, too, the\nfullness of the year; for it marks, as it were, the golden wedding of\nthe spring, the reminiscence in November of the nuptials of the May. Its\nown color, however, is not confined to gold. It may be of almost any\nhue and within the general limits of a circle of any form. Now it is a\nchariot wheel with petals for spokes; now a ball of fire with lambent\ntongues of flame; while another kind seems the button of some natural\nlegion of honor, and still another a pin-wheel in Nature's own\nday-fireworks.\n\nAdmired as a thing of beauty for its own sake, it is also used merely\nas a material for artistic effects; for among the quaintest of such\nconceits are the Japanese Jarley chrysanthemum works. Every November in\nthe florists' gardens that share the temple grounds at Asakusa may be\nseen groups of historical and mythological figures composed entirely\nof chrysanthemum flowers. These effigies are quite worthy of comparison\nwith their London cousins, being sufficiently life-like to terrify\nchildren and startle anybody. To come suddenly, on turning a\ncorner, upon a colossal warrior, deterrently uncouth and frightfully\nbattle-clad, in the act of dispatching a fallen foe, is a sensation\nnot instantly dispelled by the fact that he is made of flowers. The\npractice, at least, bears witness to an artistic ingenuity of no mean\nmerit, and to a horticulture ably carried on, if somewhat eccentrically\napplied.\n\nFrom the passing of the chrysanthemum dates the dead season. But it is\nsuitably short-lived. Sometimes as early as November, the plum-tree is\nalready blossoming again.\n\nEven from so imperfectly gathered a garland it will be seen that the\nJapanese do not lack for opportunities to admire, nor do they turn\ncoldly away from what they are given. Indeed, they may be said to live\nin a chronic state of flower-fever; but in spite of the vast amount of\nadmiration which they bestow on plants, it is not so much the quantity\nof that admiration as the quality of it which is remarkable. The intense\nappreciation shown the subject by the Far Oriental is something whose\nvery character seems strange to us, and when in addition we consider\nthat it permeates the entire people from the commonest coolie to the\nmost aesthetic courtier, it becomes to our comprehension a state of\nthings little short of inexplicable. To call it artistic sensibility is\nto use too limited a term, for it pervades the entire people; rather\nis it a sixth sense of a natural, because national description; for the\ntrait differs from our corresponding feeling in degree, and especially\nin universality enough to merit the distinction. Their care for tree\nflowers is not confined to a cultivation, it is a cult. It approaches\nto a sort of natural nature-worship, an adoration in which nothing is\npersonified. For the emotion aroused in the Far Oriental is just\nas truly an emotion as it was to the Greek; but whereas the Greek\npersonified its object, the Japanese admires that object for what it is.\nTo think of the cherry-tree, for instance, as a woman, would be to his\nmind a conception transcending even the limits of the ludicrous.\n\n\n\nChapter 6. Art.\n\nThat nature, not man, is their beau ideal, the source of inspiration\nto them, is evident again on looking at their art. The same spirit that\nmakes of them such wonderful landscape gardeners and such wonder-full\nlandscape gazers shows itself unmistakably in their paintings.\n\nThe current impression that Japanese pictorial ambition, and consequent\nskill, is confined to the representation of birds and flowers, though\nentirely erroneous as it stands, has a grain of truth behind it. This\nidea is due to the attitude of the foreign observers, and was in fact a\ntribute to Japanese technique rather than an appreciation of Far Eastern\nartistic feeling. The truth is, the foreigners brought to the subject\ntheir own Western criteria of merit, and judged everything by these\nstandards. Such works naturally commended themselves most as had least\noccasion to deviate from their canons. The simplest pictures, therefore,\nwere pronounced the best. Paintings of birds and flowers were thus\nadmitted to be fine, because their realism spoke for itself. Of the\nexquisite poetic feeling of their landscape paintings the foreign\ncritics were not at first conscious, because it was not expressed in\nterms with which they were familiar.\n\nBut first impressions, here as elsewhere, are valuable. One is very apt\nto turn to them again from the reasoning of his second thoughts. Flora\nand fauna are a conspicuous feature of Far Asiatic art, because they\nenter as details of the subject-matter of the artist's thoughts and\nday-dreams. These birds and flowers are his sujets de genre. Where we\nshould select a phase of human life for effective isolation, they choose\ninstead a bit of nature. A spray of grass or a twig of cherry-blossoms\nis motif enough for them. To their thought its beauty is amply\nsuggestive. For to the Far Oriental all nature is sympathetically\nsentient. His admiration, instead of being centred on man, embraces the\nuniverse. His art reflects it.\n\nLeaving out of consideration, for the moment, minor though still\nimportant distinctions in tone, treatment, and technique, the great\nfundamental difference between Western and Far Eastern art lies in its\nattitude toward humanity.\n\nWith us, from the time of the Greeks to the present day, man has been\nthe cynosure of artistic eyes; with them he has never been vouchsafed\nmore than a casual, not to say a cursory glance, even woman failing\nto rivet his attention. One of our own writers has said that, without\npassing the bounds of due respect, a man is permitted two looks at\nany woman he may meet, one to recognize, one to admire. A Japanese\nordinarily never dreams of taking but one,--if indeed he goes so far as\nthat,--the first. It is the omitting to take that second look that has\nleft him what he is. Not that Fortune has been unpropitious; only blind.\nFate has offered him opportunity enough; too much, perhaps. For in Japan\nthe exposure of the female form is without a parallel in latitude. Never\nnude, it is frequently naked. The result artistically is much the same,\nthough the cause be different. For it is a fatal mistake to suppose the\nJapanese an immodest people. According to their own standards, they are\nexceedingly modest. No respectable Japanese woman would, for instance,\never for a moment turn out her toes in walking. It is considered\nimmodest to do so. Their code is, however, not so whimsical as this bit\nof etiquette might suggest. The intent is with them the touchstone of\npropriety. In their eyes a state of nature is not a state of indecency.\nWhatever exposure is required for convenience is right; whatever\nunnecessary, wrong. Such an Eden-like condition of society would seem to\nbe the very spot for a something like the modern French school of art to\nhave developed in. And yet it is just that study of the nude which has\nfrom immemorial antiquity been entirely neglected in the Far East. An\nancient Greek, to say nothing of a modern Parisian, would have shocked a\nJapanese. Yet we are shocked by them. We are astounded at the sights we\nsee in their country villages, while they in their turn marvel at the\nexhibitions they witness in our city theatres. At their watering-places\nthe two sexes bathe promiscuously together in all the simplicity\nof nature; but for a Japanese woman to appear on the stage in any\ncharacter, however proper, would be deemed indecent. The difference\nbetween the two hemispheres may be said to consist in an artless liberty\non the one hand, and artistic license on the other. Their unwritten code\nof propriety on the subject seems to be, \"You must see, but you may not\nobserve.\"\n\nThese people live more in accordance with their code of propriety\nthan we do with ours. All classes alike conform to it. The adjective\n\"respectable,\" used above as a distinction in speaking of woman, was in\nreality superfluous, for all women there, as far as appearance goes, are\nrespectable. Even the most abandoned creature does not betray her status\nby her behavior. The reason of this uniformity and its psychological\nimportance I shall discuss later.\n\nThis form of modesty, a sort of want of modesty of form, has no\nconnection whatever with sex. It applies with equal force to the\nmale figure, which is even more exposed than the female, and offers\nanatomical suggestions invaluable alike to the artistic and medical\nprofessions,--suggestions that are equally ignored by both. The coolies\nare frequently possessed of physiques which would have delighted Michael\nAngelo; and as for the phenomenal corpulency of the wrestlers, it would\nhave made of the place a very paradise for Rubens. In regard to the\ndoctors,--for to call them surgeons would be to give a name to what does\nnot exist,--a lack of scientific zeal has been the cause of their not\ninvestigating what tempts too seductively, we should imagine, to be\nignored. Acupuncture, or the practice of sticking long pins into any\npart of the patient's body that may happen to be paining him, pretty\nmuch irrespective of anatomical position, is the nearest approach to\nsurgery of which they are guilty, and proclaims of itself the in corpore\nvili character of the thing operated upon.\n\nNor does the painter owe anything to science. He represents humanity\nsimply as he sees it in its every-day costume; and it betokens the\nhighest powers of generalized observation that he produces the results\nhe does. In his drawings, man is shown, not as he might look in the\nprimitive, or privitive, simplicity of his ancestral Garden of Eden, but\nas he does look in the ordinary wear and tear of his present garments.\nCivilization has furnished him with clothes, and he prefers, when he has\nhis picture taken, to keep them on.\n\nIn dealing with man, the Far Oriental artist is emphatically a realist;\nit is when he turns to nature that he becomes ideal. But by ideal is not\nmeant here conventional. That term of reproach is a misnomer, founded\nupon a mistake. His idealism is simply the outcome of his love, which,\nlike all human love, transfigures its object. The Far Oriental has\nplenty of this, which, if sometimes a delusion, seems also second\nsight, but it is peculiarly impersonal. His color-blindness to the warm,\nblood-red end of the spectrum of life in no wise affects his perception\nof the colder beauty of the great blues and greens of nature. To their\npoetry he is ever sensitive. His appreciation of them is something\nphenomenal, and his power of presentation worthy his appreciation.\n\nA Japanese painting is a poem rather than a picture. It portrays an\nemotion called up by a scene, and not the scene itself in all its\nelaborate complexity. It undertakes to give only so much of it as is\nvital to that particular feeling, and intentionally omits all irrelevant\ndetails. It is the expression caught from a glimpse of the soul of\nnature by the soul of man; the mirror of a mood, passing, perhaps, in\nfact, but perpetuated thus to fancy. Being an emotion, its intensity\nis directly proportional to the singleness with which it possesses the\nthoughts. The Far Oriental fully realizes the power of simplicity. This\nprinciple is his fundamental canon of pictorial art. To understand his\npaintings, it is from this standpoint they must be regarded; not as\nsoulless photographs of scenery, but as poetic presentations of the\nspirit of the scenes. The very charter of painting depends upon its\nnot giving us charts. And if with us a long poem be a contradiction in\nterms, a full picture is with them as self-condemnatory a production.\nFrom the contemplation of such works of art as we call finished, one is\napt, after he has once appreciated Far Eastern taste, to rise with an\nunpleasant feeling of satiety, as if he has eaten too much at the feast.\n\nTheir paintings, by comparison, we call sketches. Is not our would-be\nslight unwittingly the reverse? Is not a sketch, after all, fuller of\nmeaning, to one who knows how to read it, than a finished affair, which\nis very apt to end with itself, barren of fruit? Does not one's own\nimagination elude one's power to portray it? Is it not forever flitting\nwill-o'-the-wisp-like ahead of us just beyond exact definition? For\nthe soul of art lies in what art can suggest, and nothing is half so\nsuggestive as the half expressed, not even a double entente. To hint\na great deal by displaying a little is more vital to effect than the\ncleverest representation of the whole. The art of partially revealing\nis more telling, even, than the ars celare artem. Who has not suspected\nthrough a veil a fairer face than veil ever hid? Who has not been\ndelightedly duped by the semi-disclosures of a dress? The principle\nis just as true in any one branch of art as it is of the attempted\ndevelopments by one of the suggestions of another. Yet who but has thus\nfelt its force? Who has not had a shock of day-dream desecration on\nchancing upon an illustrated edition of some book whose story he had\nlain to heart? Portraits of people, pictures of places, he does not\nknow, and yet which purport to be his! And I venture to believe that to\nmore than one of us the exquisite pathos of the Bride of Lammermoor is\ngone when Lucia warbles her woes, be it never so entrancingly, to an\nadmiring house. It almost seems as if the garish publicity of using her\nname for operatic title were a special intervention of the Muse, that we\nmight the less connect song with story,--two sensations that, like two\nlights, destroy one another by mutual interference.\n\nAgainst this preference shown the sketch it may be urged that to\nappreciate such suggestions presupposes as much art in the public as in\nthe painter. But the ability to appreciate a thing when expressed is but\nhalf that necessary to express it. Some understanding must exist in\nthe observer for any work to be intelligible. It is only a question of\ndegree. The greater the art-sense in the person addressed, the more had\nbetter be left to it. Now in Japan the public is singularly artistic.\nIn fact, the artistic appreciation of the masses there is something\nastonishing to us, accustomed to our immense intellectual differences\nbetween man and man. Sketches are thus peculiarly fitting to such a\nland.\n\nBesides, there is a quiet modesty about the sketch which is itself\ntaking. To attempt the complete even in a fractional bit of the cosmos,\nlike a picture, has in it a difficulty akin to the logical one\nof proving a universal negative. The possibilities of failure are\nenormously increased, and failure is less forgiven for the assumption.\nArt might perhaps not unwisely follow the example of science in such\nmatters where an exhaustive work, which takes the better part of a\nlifetime to produce, is invariably entitled by its erudite author an\nElementary Treatise on the subject in hand.\n\nTo aid the effect due to simplicity of conception steps in the Far\nOriental's wonderful technique. His brush-strokes are very few in\nnumber, but each one tells. They are laid on with a touch which is\nlittle short of marvelous, and requires heredity to explain its skill.\nFor in his method there is no emending, no super-position, no change\npossible. What he does is done once and for all. The force of it\ngrows on you as you gaze. Each stroke expresses surprisingly much, and\nsuggests more. Even omissions are made significant. In his painting it\nis visibly true that objects can be rendered conspicuous by their very\nabsence. You are quite sure you see what on scrutiny you discover to\nbe only the illusion of inevitable inference. The Far Oriental artist\nunderstands the power of suggestion well; for imagination always fills\nin the picture better than the brush, however perfect be its skill.\n\nEven the neglect of certain general principles which we consider vital\nto effect, such as the absence of shadows and the lack of perspective,\nproves not to be of the importance we imagine. We discover in these\npaintings how immaterial, artistically, was Peter Schlimmel's sad loss,\nand how perfectly possible it is to make bits of discontinuous distance\ntake the place effectively of continuous space.\n\nFar Eastern pictures are epigrams rather than descriptions. They present\na bit of nature with the terseness of a maxim of La Rochefoucault, and\nthey delight as aphorisms do by their insight and the happy conciseness\nof its expression. Few aphorisms are absolutely true, but then boldness\nmore than makes up for what they lack in verity. So complex a subject is\nlife that to state a truth with all its accompanying limitations is to\nweaken it at once. Exceptions, while demonstrating the rule, do not tend\nto emphasize it. And though the whole truth is essential to science,\nsuch exhaustiveness is by no means a canon of art.\n\nParallels are not wanting at home. What they do with space in their\npaintings do we not with time in the case of our comedies, those acted\npictures of life? Should we not refuse to tolerate a play that insisted\non furnishing us with a full perspective of its characters' past? And\nyet of the two, it is far perferable, artistically, to be given too much\nin sequence than too much at once. The Chinese, who put much less into\na painting than what we deem indispensable, delight in dramas that last\nsix weeks.\n\nTo give a concluding touch of life to my necessarily skeleton-like\ngeneralities, memory pictures me a certain painting of Okio's which I\nfell in love with at first sight. It is of a sunrise on the coast of\nJapan. A long line of surf is seen tumbling in to you from out a bank\nof mist, just piercing which shows the blood-red disk of the rising sun,\nwhile over the narrow strip of breaking rollers three cranes are slowly\nsailing north. And that is all you see. You do not see the shore; you do\nnot see the main; you are looking but at the border-land of that great\nunknown, the heaving ocean still slumbering beneath its chilly coverlid\nof mist, out of which come the breakers, and the sun, and the cranes.\n\nSo much for the more serious side of Japanese fancy; a look at the\nlighter leads to the same conclusion.\n\nHand in hand with his keen poetic sensibility goes a vivid sense of\nhumor,--two traits that commonly, indeed, are found Maying together over\nthe meadows of imagination. For, as it might be put,\n\n  \"The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers\n   Is also the first to be touched by the fun.\"\n\nThe Far Oriental well exemplifies this fact. His art, wherever fun is\npossible, fairly bubbles over with laughter. From the oldest masters\ndown to Hokusai, it is constantly welling up in the drollest conceits.\nIt is of all descriptions, too. Now it lurks in merry ambush, like the\nfaint suggestion of a smile on an otherwise serious face, so subtile\nthat the observer is left wondering whether the artist could have meant\nwhat seems more like one's own ingenious discovery; now it breaks out\ninto the broadest of grins, absurd juxtapositions of singularly happy\nincongruities. For Hokusai's caricatures and Hendschel's sketches might\nbe twins. If there is a difference, it lies not so much in the artist's\nwork as in the greater generality of its appreciation. Humor flits\neasily there at the sea-level of the multitude. For the Japanese\ntemperament is ever on the verge of a smile which breaks out with\ncatching naivete at the first provocation. The language abounds in puns\nwhich are not suffered to lie idle, and even poetry often hinges on\ncertain consecrated plays on words. From the very constitution of the\npeople there is of course nothing selfish in the national enjoyment. A\nman is quite as ready to laugh at his own expense as at his neighbor's,\na courtesy which his neighbor cordially returns.\n\nNow the ludicrous is essentially human in its application. The principle\nof the synthesis of contradictories, popularly known by the name of\nhumor, is necessarily limited in its field to man. For whether it have\nto do wholly with actions, or partly with the words that express them,\nwhether it be presented in the shape of a pun or a pleasantry, it is in\nincongruous contrasts that its virtue lies. It is the unexpected that\nprovokes the smile. Now no such incongruity exists in nature; man enjoys\na monopoly of the power of making himself ridiculous. So pleasant is\npleasantry that we do indeed cultivate it beyond its proper pale. But\nit is only by personifying Nature, and gratuitously attributing to her\nerrors of which she is incapable, that we can make fun of her; as, for\ninstance, when we hold the weather up to ridicule by way of impotent\nrevenge. But satires upon the clown-like character of our climate,\nwhich, after the lamest sort of a spring, somehow manages a capital\nfall, would in the Far East be as out of keeping with fancy as with\nfact. To a Japanese, who never personifies anything, such innocent irony\nis unmeaning. Besides, it would be also untrue. For his May carries no\nsuggestion of unfulfilment in its name.\n\nThose Far Eastern paintings which have to do with man fall for the\nmost part under one of two heads, the facetious and the historical. The\nlatter implies no particularly intimate concern for man in himself, for\nthe past has very little personality for the present. As for the former,\nits attention is, if anything, derogatory to him, for we are always shy\nof making fun of what we feel to be too closely a part of ourselves.\nBut impersonality has prevented the Far Oriental from having much amour\npropre. He has no particular aversion to caricaturing himself. Few\nEuropeans, perhaps, would have cared to perpetrate a self-portrait\nlike one painted by the potter Kinsei, which was sold me one day as an\namusing tour de force by a facetious picture-dealer. It is a composite\npicture of a new kind, a Japanese variety of type face. The great\npotter, who was also apparently no mean painter, has combined three\naspects of himself in a single representation. At first sight the\nportrait appears to be simply a full front view of a somewhat moon-faced\ncitizen; but as you continue to gaze, it suddenly dawns on you that\nthere are two other individuals, one on either side, hob-nobbing in\nprofile with the first, the lines of the features being ingeniously made\nto do double duty; and when this aspect of the thing has once struck\nyou, you cannot look at the picture without seeing all three citizens\nsimultaneously. The result is doubtless more effective as a composition\nthan flattering as a likeness.\n\nFar Eastern sculpture, by its secondary importance among Far Eastern\narts, witnesses again to the secondary importance assigned to man at our\nmental antipodes. In this art, owing to its necessary limitations, the\nrepresentation of nature in its broader sense is impossible. For in the\nfirst place, whatever the subject, it must be such as it is possible\nto present in one continuous piece; disconnected adjuncts, as, for\ninstance, a flock of birds flying, which might be introduced with great\neffect in painting, being here practically beyond the artist's reach.\nSecondly, the material being of uniform appearance, as a rule, color,\nor even shading, vital points in landscape portrayal, is out of the\nquestion, unless the piece were subsequently painted, as in Grecian\nsculptures, a custom which is not practised in China or Japan. Lastly,\nanother fact fatal to the representation of landscape is the size. The\nreduced scale of the reproduction suggests falsity at once, a falsity\nwhose belittlement the mind can neither forget nor forgive. Plain\nsculpture is therefore practically limited to statuary, either of men or\nanimals. The result is that in their art, where landscape counts for\nso much, sculpture plays a very minor part. In what little there is,\nNature's place is taken by Buddha. For there are two classes of statues,\ndivided the one from the other by that step which separates the sublime\nfrom the ridiculous, namely, the colossal and the diminutive. There is\nno happy human mean. Of the first kind are the beautiful bronze\nfigures of the Buddha, like the Kamakura Buddha, fifty feet high and\nninety-seven feet round, in whose face all that is grand and noble lies\nsleeping, the living representation of Nirvana; and of the second, those\nodd little ornaments known as netsuke, comical carvings for the most\npart, grotesque figures of men and monkeys, saints and sinners, gods and\ndevils. Appealing bits of ivory, bone, or wood they are, in which the\ndumb animals are as speaking likenesses as their human fellows.\n\nThe other arts show the same motif in their decorations. Pottery and\nlacquer alike witness the respective positions assigned to the serious\nand the comic in Far Eastern feeling.\n\nThe Far Oriental makes fun of man and makes love to Nature; and it\nalmost seems as if Nature heard his silent prayer, and smiled upon him\nin acceptance; as if the love-light lent her face the added beauty\nthat it lends the maid's. For nowhere in this world, probably, is\nshe lovelier than in Japan: a climate of long, happy means and short\nextremes, months of spring and months of autumn, with but a few weeks\nof winter in between; a land of flowers, where the lotus and the cherry,\nthe plum and wistaria, grow wantonly side by side; a land where\nthe bamboo embosoms the maple, where the pine at last has found its\npalm-tree, and the tropic and the temperate zones forget their separate\nidentity in one long self-obliterating kiss.\n\n\n\nChapter 7. Religion.\n\nIn regard to their religion, nations, like individuals, seem singularly\naverse to practising what they have preached. Whether it be that his\nself-constructed idols prove to the maker too suggestive of his own\nintellectual chisel to deceive him for long, or whether sacred soil,\nlike less hallowed ground, becomes after a time incapable of responding\nto repeated sowings of the same seed, certain it is that in spiritual\nmatters most peoples have grown out of conceit with their own\nconceptions. An individual may cling with a certain sentiment to the\nreligion of his mother, but nations have shown anything but a foolish\nfondness for the sacred superstitions of their great-grandfathers. To\nthe charm of creation succeeds invariably the bitter-sweet after-taste\nof criticism, and man would not be the progressive animal he is if he\nlong remained in love with his own productions.\n\nWhat his future will be is too engrossing a subject, and one too deeply\nshrouded in mystery, not to be constantly pictured anew. No wonder that\nthe consideration at that country toward which mankind is ever being\nhastened should prove as absorbing to fancy as contemplated earthly\njourneys proverbially are. Few people but have laid out skeleton tours\nthrough its ideal regions, and perhaps, as in the mapping beforehand of\nmerely mundane travels, one element of attraction has always consisted\nin the possible revision of one's routes.\n\nBesides, there is a fascination about the foreign merely because it is\nsuch. Distance lends enchantment to the views of others, and never\nmore so than when those views are religious visions. An enthusiast has\ncertainly a greater chance of being taken for a god among a people who\ndo not know him intimately as a man. So with his doctrines. The imported\nis apt to seem more important than the home-made; as the far-off\nbewitches more easily than the near. But just as castles in the air do\nnot commonly become the property of their builders, so mansions in the\nskies almost as frequently have failed of direct inheritance. Rather\nstrikingly has this proved the case with what are to-day the two most\npowerful religions of the world,--Buddhism and Christianity. Neither is\nnow the belief of its founder's people. What was Aryan-born has become\nTuranian-bred, and what was Semitic by conception is at present Aryan by\nadoption. The possibilities of another's hereafter look so much rosier\nthan the limitations of one's own present!\n\nFew pastimes are more delightful than tossing pebbles into some still,\ndark pool, and watching the ripples that rise responsive, as they run in\never widening circles to the shore. Most of us have felt its fascination\nsecond only to that of the dotted spiral of the skipping-stone, a\nfascination not outgrown with years. There is something singularly\nattractive in the subtle force that for a moment sways each particle\nonly to pass on to the next, a motion mysterious in its immateriality.\nSome such pleasure must be theirs who have thrown their thoughts into\nthe hearts of men, and seen them spread in waves of feeling, whose\nsphere time widens through the world. For like the mobile water is the\nmind of man,--quick to catch emotions, quick to transmit them. Of all\nwaves of feeling, this is not the least true of religious ones, that,\nstarting from their birthplace, pass out to stir others, who have but\nhumanity in common with those who professed them first. Like the ripples\nin the pool, they leave their initial converts to sink back again into\ncomparative quiescence, as they advance to throw into sudden tremors\nhordes of outer barbarians. In both of the great religions in question\nthis wave propagation has been most marked, only the direction it\ntook differed. Christianity went westward; Buddhism travelled east.\nProselytes in Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy find counterparts in\nEastern India, Burmah, and Thibet. Eventually the taught surpassed their\nteachers both in zeal and numbers. Jerusalem and Benares at last gave\nplace to Rome and Lassa as sacerdotal centres. Still the movement\njourneyed on. Popes and Lhamas remained where their predecessors\nhad founded sees, but the tide of belief surged past them in its\nirresistible advance. Farther yet from where each faith began are to\nbe found to-day the greater part of its adherents. The home that the\nWestern hemisphere seems to promise to the one, the extreme Orient\naffords the other. As Roman Catholicism now looks to America for its\nstrength, so Buddhism to-day finds its worshippers chiefly in China and\nJapan.\n\nBut though the Japanese may be said to be all Buddhists, Buddhist is by\nno means all that they are. At the time of their adoption of the great\nIndian faith, the Japanese were already in possession of a system of\nsuperstition which has held its own to this day. In fact, as the state\nreligion of the land, it has just experienced a revival, a\nregalvanizing of its old-time energy, at the hands of some of the native\narchaeologists. Its sacred mirror, held up to Nature, has been burnished\nanew. Formerly this body of belief was the national faith, the Mikado,\nthe direct descendant of the early gods, being its head on earth. His\nreinstatement to temporal power formed a very fitting first step toward\nreinvesting the cult with its former prestige; a curious instance,\nindeed, of a religious revival due to archaeological, not to religious\nzeal.\n\nThis cult is the mythological inheritance of the whole eastern seaboard\nof Asia, from Siam to Kamtchatka. In Japan it is called Shintoism. The\nword \"Shinto\" means literally \"the way of the gods,\" and the letter\nof its name is a true exponent of the spirit of the belief. For its\nscriptures are rather an itinerary of the gods' lives than a guide to\nthat road by which man himself may attain to immortality. Thus with a\ncertain fitness pilgrimages are its most noticeable rites. One cannot\njourney anywhere in the heart of Japan without meeting multitudes of\nthese pilgrims, with their neat white leggings and their mushroom-like\nhats, nor rest at night at any inn that is not hung with countless\nlittle banners of the pilgrim associations, of which they all are\nmembers. Being a pilgrim there is equivalent to being a tourist here,\nonly that to the excitement of doing the country is added a sustaining\nsense of the meritoriousness of the deed. Oftener than not the objective\npoint of the devout is the summit of some noted mountain. For peaks\nare peculiarly sacred spots in the Shinto faith. The fact is perhaps an\nexpression of man's instinctive desire to rise, as if the bodily act\nin some wise betokened the mental action. The shrine in so exalted\na position is of the simplest: a rude hut, with or without the only\ndistinctive emblems of the cult, a mirror typical of the god and the\npendent gohei, or zigzag strips of paper, permanent votive offerings\nof man. As for the belief itself, it is but the deification of those\nnatural elements which aboriginal man instinctively wonders at or fears,\nthe sun, the moon, the thunder, the lightning, and the wind; all, in\nshort, that he sees, hears, and feels, yet cannot comprehend. He clothes\nhis terrors with forms which resemble the human, because he can conceive\nof nothing else that could cause the unexpected. But the awful shapes he\nconjures up have naught in common with himself. They are far too fearful\nto be followed. Their way is the \"highway of the gods,\" but no Jacob's\nladder for wayward man.\n\nIn this externality to the human lies the reason that Shintoism and\nBuddhism can agree so well, and can both join with Confucianism in\nhelping to form that happy family of faith which is so singular a\nfeature of Far Eastern religious capability. It is not simply that the\ntwo contrive to live peaceably together; they are actually both of them\nimplicitly believed by the same individual. Millions of Japanese\nare good Buddhists and good Shintoists at the same time. That such a\ncombination should be possible is due to the essential difference in the\ncharacter of the two beliefs. The one is extrinsic, the other intrinsic,\nin its relations to the human soul. Shintoism tells man but little about\nhimself and his hereafter; Buddhism, little but about himself and\nwhat he may become. In examining Far Eastern religion, therefore, for\npersonality, or the reverse, we may dismiss Shintoism as having no\nparticular bearing upon the subject. The only effect it has is indirect\nin furthering the natural propensity of these people to an adoration of\nnature.\n\nIn Korea and in China, again, Confucianism is the great moral law, as by\nreflection it is to a certain extent in Japan. But that in its turn\nmay be omitted in the present argument; inasmuch as Confucius taught\nconfessedly and designedly only a system of morals, and religiously\nabstained from pronouncing any opinion whatever upon the character or\nthe career of the human soul.\n\nTaouism, the third great religion of China, resembles Shintoism to this\nextent, that it is a body of superstition, and not a form of philosophy.\nIt undertakes to provide nostrums for spiritual ills, but is dumb as to\nthe constitution of the soul for which it professes to prescribe.\nIts pills are to be swallowed unquestioningly by the patient, and are\nwarranted to cure; and owing to the two great human frailties, fear\nand credulity, its practice is very large. Possessing, however, no\nphilosophic diploma, it is without the pale of the present discussion.\n\nThe demon-worship of Korea is a mild form of the same thing with the\nhierarchy left out, every man there being his own spiritual adviser.\nAn ordinary Korean is born with an innate belief in malevolent spirits,\nwhom he accordingly propitiates from time to time. One of nobler birth\npropitiates only the spirits of his own ancestors.\n\nWe come, then, by a process of elimination to a consideration of\nBuddhism, the great philosophic faith of the whole Far East.\n\nNot uncommonly in the courtyard of a Japanese temple, in the solemn\nhalf-light of the sombre firs, there stands a large stone basin, cut\nfrom a single block, and filled to the brim with water. The trees, the\nbasin, and a few stone lanterns--so called from their form, and not\ntheir function, for they have votive pebbles where we should look for\nwicks--are the sole occupants of the place. Sheltered from the\nwind, withdrawn from sound, and only piously approached by man, this\nantechamber of the god seems the very abode of silence and rest. It\nmight be Nirvana itself, human entrance to an immortality like the god's\nwithin, so peaceful, so pervasive is its calm; and in its midst is the\nmoss-covered monolith, holding in its embrace the little imprisoned pool\nof water. So still is the spot and so clear the liquid that you know the\none only as the reflection of the other. Mirrored in its glassy surface\nappears everything around it. As you peer in, far down you see a tiny\nbit of sky, as deep as the blue is high above, across which slowly sail\nthe passing clouds; then nearer stand the trees, arching overhead, as if\nbending to catch glimpses of themselves in that other world below; and\nthen, nearer yet--yourself.\n\nEmblem of the spirit of man is this little pool to Far Oriental eyes.\nSubtile as the soul is the incomprehensible water; so responsive to\nlight that it remains itself invisible; so clear that it seems illusion!\nThough portrayer so perfect of forms about it, all we know of the thing\nitself is that it is. Through none of the five senses do we perceive it.\nNeither sight, nor hearing, nor taste, nor smell, nor touch can tell us\nit exists; we feel it to be by the muscular sense alone, that blind and\ndumb analogue for the body of what consciousness is for the soul. Only\nwhen disturbed, troubled, does the water itself become visible, and then\nit is but the surface that we see. So to the Far Oriental this still\nlittle lake typifies the soul, the eventual purification of his own; a\nsomething lost in reflection, self-effaced, only the alter ego of the\nouter world.\n\nFor contemplation, not action, is the Far Oriental's ideal of life. The\nrepose of self-adjustment like that to which our whole solar system\nis slowly tending as its death,--this to him appears, though from no\nscientific deduction, the end of all existence. So he sits and ponders,\nabstractly, vaguely, upon everything in general,--synonym, alas, to\nman's finite mind, for nothing in particular,--till even the sense\nof self seems to vanish, and through the mist-like portal of\nunconsciousness he floats out into the vast indistinguishable sameness\nof Nirvana's sea.\n\nAt first sight Buddhism is much more like Christianity than those of us\nwho stay at home and speculate upon it commonly appreciate. As a system\nof philosophy it sounds exceedingly foreign, but it looks unexpectedly\nfamiliar as a faith. Indeed, the one religion might well pass for the\ncounterfeit presentment of the other. The resemblance so struck the\nearly Catholic missionaries that they felt obliged to explain the\nremarkable similarity between the two. With them ingenuous surprise\ninstantly begot ingenious sophistry. Externally, the likeness was so\nexact that at first they could not bring themselves to believe that the\nBuddhist ceremonials had not been filched bodily from the practices of\nthe true faith. Finding, however, that no known human agency had acted\nin the matter, they bethought them of introducing, to account for\nthings, a deus ex machina in the shape of the devil. They were so\npleased with this solution of the difficulty that they imparted it\nat once with much pride to the natives. You have indeed got, they\ngraciously if somewhat gratuitously informed them, the outward semblance\nof the true faith, but you are in fact the miserable victims of an\nimpious fraud. Satan has stolen the insignia of divinity, and is now\nmasquerading before you as the deity; your god is really our devil,--a\nrecognition of antipodal inversion truly worthy the Jesuitical mind!\n\nPerhaps it is not matter for great surprise that they converted but few\nof their hearers. The suggestion was hardly so diplomatic as might have\nbeen expected from so generally astute a body; for it could not make\nmuch difference what the all-presiding deity was called, if his actions\nwere the same, since his motives were beyond human observation. Besides,\nthe bare idea of a foreign bogus was not very terrifying. The Chinese\npossessed too many familiar devils of their own. But there was another\nand a much deeper reason, which we shall come to later, why Christianity\nmade but little headway in the Far East.\n\nBut it is by no means in externals only that the two religions are\nalike. If the first glance at them awakens that peculiar sensation which\nmost of us have felt at some time or other, a sense of having seen all\nthis before, further scrutiny reveals a deeper agreement than merely in\nappearances.\n\nIn passing from the surface into the substance, it may be mentioned\nincidentally that the codes of morality of the two are about on a level.\nI say incidentally, for so far as its practice, certainly, is concerned,\nit not its preaching, morality has no more intimate connection with\nreligion than it has with art or politics. If we doubt this, we have but\nto examine the facts. Are the most religious peoples the most moral? It\nneeds no prolonged investigation to convince us that they are not. If\nproof of the want of a bond were required, the matter of truth-telling\nmight be adduced in point. As this is a subject upon which a slight\nmisconception exists in the minds of some evangelically persuaded\npersons, and because, what is more generally relevant, the presence of\nthis quality, honesty in word and deed, has more than almost any other\none characteristic helped to put us in the van of the world's advance\nto-day, it may not unfittingly be cited here.\n\nThe argument in the case may be put thus. Have specially religious races\nbeen proportionally truth-telling ones? If not, has there been any\nother cause at work in the development of mankind tending to increase\nveracity? The answer to the first question has all the simplicity of\na plain negative. No such pleasing concomitance of characteristics\nis observable to-day, or has been presented in the past. Permitting,\nhowever, the dead past to bury its shortcomings in oblivion, let us look\nat the world as we find it. We observe, then, that the religious spirit\nis quite as strong in Asia as it is in Europe; if anything, that at the\npresent time it is rather stronger. The average Brahman, Mahometan,\nor Buddhist is quite as devout as the ordinary Roman Catholic or\nPresbyterian. If he is somewhat less given to propagandism, he is not\na whit less regardful of his own salvation. Yet throughout the Orient\ntruth is a thing unknown, lies of courtesy being de rigueur and lies\nof convenience de raison; while with us, fortunately, mendacity is\ngenerally discredited. But we need not travel so far for proof. The same\nis evident in less antipodal relations. Have the least religious nations\nof Europe been any less truthful than the most bigoted? Was fanatic\nSpain remarkable for veracity? Was Loyola a gentleman whose assertions\ncarried conviction other than to the stake? Were the eminently mundane\nburghers whom he persecuted noted for a pious superiority to fact? Or,\nto narrow the field still further, and scan the circle of one's own\nacquaintance, are the most believing individuals among them worthy of\nthe most belief? Assuredly not.\n\nWe come, then, to the second point. Has there been any influence at work\nto differentiate us in this respect from Far Orientals? There has. Two\nseparate causes, in fact, have conduced to the same result. The one is\nthe development of physical science; the other, the extension of trade.\nThe sole object of science being to discover truth, truth-telling is a\nnecessity of its existence. Professionally, scientists are obliged to be\ntruthful. Aliter of a Jesuit.\n\nSo long as science was of the closet, its influence upon mankind\ngenerally was indirect and slight; but so soon as it proceeded to stalk\ninto the street and earn its own living, its veracious character began\nto tell. When out of its theories sprang inventions and discoveries that\nrevolutionized every-day affairs and changed the very face of things,\nsociety insensibly caught its spirit. Man awoke to the inestimable value\nof exactness. From scientists proper, the spirit filtered down through\nevery stratum of education, till to-day the average man is born exact to\na degree which his forefathers never dreamed of becoming. To-day, as\na rule, the more intelligent the individual, the more truthful he is,\nbecause the more innately exact in thought, and thence in word and\naction. With us, to lie is a sign of a want of cleverness, not of an\nexcess of it.\n\nThe second cause, the extension of trade, has inculcated the same regard\nfor veracity through the pocket. For with the increase of business\ntransactions in both time and space, the telling of the truth has become\na financial necessity. Without it, trade would come to a standstill at\nonce. Our whole mercantile system, a modern piece of mechanism unknown\nto the East till we imported it thither, turns on an implicit belief\nin the word of one's neighbor. Our legal safeguards would snap like\nred tape were the great bond of mutual trust once broken. Western\ncivilization has to be truthful, or perish.\n\nAnd now for the spirits of the two beliefs.\n\nThe soul of any religion realizes in one respect the Brahman idea of the\nindividual soul of man, namely, that it exists much after the manner of\nan onion, in many concentric envelopes. Man, they tell us, is composed\nnot of a single body simply, but of several layers of body, each shell\nas it were respectively inclosing another. The outermost is the merely\nmaterial body, of which we are so directly cognizant. This encases a\nsecond, more spiritual, but yet not wholly free from earthly affinities.\nThis contains another, still more refined; till finally, inside of all\nis that immaterial something which they conceive to constitute the\nsoul. This eventual residuum exemplifies the Franciscan notion of pure\nsubstance, for it is a thing delightfully devoid of any attributes\nwhatever.\n\nWe may, perhaps, not be aware of the existence of such an elaborate\nset of encasings to our own heart of hearts, nor of a something so\nvery indefinite within, but the most casual glance at any religion will\nreveal its truth as regards the soul of a belief. We recognize the fact\noutwardly in the buildings erected to celebrate its worship. Not among\nthe Jews alone was the holy of holies kept veiled, to temper the divine\nradiance to man's benighted understanding. Nor is the chancel-rail of\nChristianity the sole survivor of the more exclusive barriers of olden\ntimes, even in the Western world. In the Far East, where difficulty of\naccess is deemed indispensable to dignity, the material approaches\nare still manifold and imposing. Court within court, building after\nbuilding, isolate the shrine itself from the profane familiarity of\nthe passers-by. But though the material encasings vary in number and\nin exclusiveness, according to the temperament of the particular\nrace concerned, the mental envelopes exist, and must exist, in both\nhemispheres alike, so long as society resembles the crust of the earth\non which it dwells,--a crust composed of strata that grow denser as one\ndescends. What is clear to those on top seems obscure to those below;\nwhat are weighty arguments to the second have no force at all upon\nthe first. There must necessarily be grades of elevation in individual\nbeliefs, suited to the needs and cravings of each individual soul. A\ncreed that fills the shallow with satisfaction leaves but an aching\nvoid in the deep. It is not of the slightest consequence how the belief\nstarts; differentiated it is bound to become. The higher minds alone\ncan rest content with abstract imaginings; the lower must have concrete\nrealities on which to pin their faith. With them, inevitably, ideals\ndegenerate into idols. In all religions this unavoidable debasement has\ntaken place. The Roman Catholic who prays to a wooden image of Christ\nis not one whit less idolatrous than the Buddhist who worships a bronze\nstatue of Amida Butzu. All that the common people are capable of seeing\nis the soul-envelope, for the soul itself they are unable to appreciate.\nSpiritually they are undiscerning, because imaginatively they are blind.\n\nNow the grosser soul-envelopes of the two great European and Asiatic\nfaiths, though differing in detail, are in general parallel in\nstructure. Each boasts its full complement of saints, whose congruent\ncatalogues are equally wearisome in length. Each tells its circle of\nbeads to help it keep count of similarly endless prayers. For in both,\nin the popular estimation, quantity is more effective to salvation\nthan quality. In both the believer practically pictures his heaven for\nhimself, while in each his hell, with a vividness that does like credit\nto its religious imagination, is painted for him by those of the cult\nwho are themselves confident of escaping it. Into the lap of each mother\nchurch the pious believer drops his little votive offering with the same\naffectionate zeal, and in Asia, as in Europe, the mites of the many make\nthe might of the mass.\n\nBut behind all this is the religion of the few,--of those to whom\nsensuous forms cannot suffice to represent super-sensuous cravings;\nwhose god is something more than an anthropomorphic creation; to whom\nworship means not the cramping of the body, but the expansion of the\nsoul.\n\nThe rays of the truth, like the rays of the sun, which universally seems\nto have been man's first adoration, have two properties equally inherent\nin their essence, warmth and light. And as for the life of all things\non this globe both attributes of sunshine are necessary, so to the\ndevelopment of that something which constitutes the ego both qualities\nof the truth are vital. We sometimes speak of character as if it were\na thing wholly apart from mind; but, in fact, the two things are so\ninterwoven that to perceive the right course is the strongest possible\nof incentives to pursue it. In the end the two are one. Now, while\nclearness of head is all-important, kindness of heart is none the less\nso. The first, perhaps, is more needed in our communings with ourselves,\nthe second in our commerce with others. For, dark and dense bodies\nthat we are, we can radiate affection much more effectively than we can\nreflect views.\n\nThat Christianity is a religion of love needs no mention; that Buddhism\nis equally such is perhaps not so generally appreciated. But just as the\ngospel of the disciple who loved and was loved the most begins its story\nby telling us of the Light that came into the world, so none the less\nsurely could the Light of Asia but be also its warmth. Half of the\nteachings of Buddhism are spent in inculcating charity. Not only to men\nis man enjoined to show kindliness, but to all other animals as well.\nThe people practise what their scriptures preach. The effect indirectly\non the condition of the brutes is almost as marked as its more direct\neffect on the character of mankind. In heart, at least, Buddhism and\nChristianity are very close.\n\nBut here the two paths to a something beyond an earthly life diverge. Up\nto this point the two religions are alike, but from this point on they\nare so utterly unlike that the very similarity of all that went before\nonly suffices to make of the second the weird, life-counterfeiting\nshadow of the first. As in a silhouette, externally the contours are all\nthere, but within is one vast blank. In relation to one's neighbor the\ntwo beliefs are kin, but as regards one's self, as far apart as the West\nis from the East. For here, at this idea of self, we are suddenly aware\nof standing on the brink of a fathomless abyss, gazing giddily down into\nthat great gulf which divides Buddhism from Christianity. We cannot see\nthe bottom. It is a separation more profound than death; it seems to\nnecessitate annihilation. To cross it we must bury in its depths all we\nknow as ourselves.\n\nChristianity is a personal religion; Buddhism, an impersonal one. In\nthis fundamental difference lies the world-wide opposition of the two\nbeliefs. Christianity tells us to purify ourselves that we may enjoy\ncountless aeons of that bettered self hereafter; Buddhism would have us\npurify ourselves that we may lose all sense of self for evermore.\n\nFor all that it preaches the essential vileness of the natural man,\nChristianity is a gospel of optimism. While it affirms that at present\nyou are bad, it also affirms that this depravity is no intrinsic part\nof yourself. It unquestioningly asserts that it is something foreign\nto your true being. It even believes that in a more or less spiritual\nmanner your very body will survive. It essentially clings to the ego.\nWhat it inculcates is really present endeavor sanctioned by the prospect\nof future bliss. It tacitly takes for granted the desirability\nof personal existence, and promises the certainty of personal\nimmortality,--a terror to evildoers, and a sustaining sense of coming\nunalloyed happiness to the good. Through and through its teachings runs\nthe feeling of the fullness of life, that desire which will not die,\nthat wish of the soul which beats its wings against its earthly casement\nin its longing for expansion beyond the narrow confines of threescore\nyears and ten.\n\nBuddhism, on the contrary, is the cri du coeur of pessimism. This life,\nit says, is but a chain of sorrows. To multiply days is only to multiply\nevil. These desires that urge us on are really cause of all our woe. We\nthink they are ourselves. We are mistaken. They are all illusion, and\nwe are victims of a mirage. This personality, this sense of self, is\na cruel deception and a snare. Realize once the true soul behind it,\ndevoid of attributes, therefore without this capacity for suffering, an\nindivisible part of the great impersonal soul of nature: then, and\nthen only, will you have found happiness in the blissful quiescence of\nNirvana.\n\nWith a certain poetic fitness, misery and impersonality were both\npresent in the occasion that gave the belief birth. Many have turned\nto the consolations of religion by reason of their own wretchedness;\nGautama sought its help touched by the woes of others whom, in his own\nhappy life journey, he chanced one day to come across. Shocked by the\nsight of human disease, old age, and death, sad facts to which hitherto\nhe had been sedulously kept a stranger, he renounced the world that he\nmight find for it an escape from its ills. But bliss, as he conceived\nit, lay not in wanting to be something he was not, but in actual want of\nbeing. His quest for mankind was immunity from suffering, not the active\nenjoyment of life. In this negative way of looking at happiness,\nhe acted in strict conformity with the spirit of his world. For the\ndoctrine of pessimism had already been preached. It underlay the whole\nBrahman philosophy, and everybody believed it implicitly. Already the\nEast looked at this life as an evil, and had affirmed for the individual\nspirit extinction to be happier than existence. The wish for an end\nto the ego, the hope to be eventually nothing, Gautama accepted for a\ntruism as undeniably as the Brahmans did. What he pronounced false was\nthe Brahman prospectus of the way to reach this desirable impersonal\nstate. Their road, be said, could not possibly land the traveller where\nit professed, since it began wrong, and ended nowhere. The way, he\nasserted, is within a man. He has but to realize the truth, and from\nthat moment he will see his goal and the road that leads there. There\nis no panacea for human ills, of external application. The Brahman\nhomoeopathic treatment of sin is folly. The slaughtering of men and\nbulls cannot possibly bring life to the soul. To mortify the body for\nthe sins of the flesh is palpably futile, for in desire alone lies all\nthe ill. Quench the desire, and the deeds will die of inanition. Man\nhimself is sole cause of his own misery. Get rid, then, said the Buddha,\nof these passions, these strivings for the sake of self, that hold the\ntrue soul a prisoner. They have to do with things which we know are\ntransitory: how can they be immortal themselves? We recognize them as\nsubject to our will; they are, then, not the I.\n\nAs a man, he taught, becomes conscious that he himself is something\ndistinct from his body, so, if he reflect and ponder, he will come to\nsee that in like manner his appetites, ambitions, hopes, are really\nextrinsic to the spirit proper. Neither heart nor head is truly the man,\nfor he is conscious of something that stands behind both. Behind desire,\nbehind even the will, lies the soul, the same for all men, one with the\nsoul of the universe. When he has once realized this eternal truth,\nthe man has entered Nirvana. For Nirvana is not an absorption of the\nindividual soul into the soul of all things, since the one has always\nbeen a part of the other. Still less is it utter annihilation. It is\nsimply the recognition of the eternal oneness of the two, back through\nan everlasting past on through an everlasting future.\n\nSuch is the belief which the Japanese adopted, and which they profess\nto-day. Such to them is to be the dawn of death's to-morrow; a blessed\nimpersonal immortality, in which all sense of self, illusion that it\nis, shall itself have ceased to be; a long dreamless sleep, a beatified\nrest, which no awakening shall ever disturb.\n\nAmong such a people personal Christianity converts but few. They accept\nour material civilization, but they reject our creeds. To preach a\nprolongation of life appears to them like preaching an extension of\nsorrow. At most, Christianity succeeds only in making them doubters of\nwhat lies beyond this life. But though professing agnosticism while they\nlive, they turn, when the shadows of death's night come on, to the bosom\nof that faith which teaches that, whatever may have been one's earthly\nshare of happiness, \"'tis something better not to be.\"\n\nStrange it seems at first that those who have looked so long to the\nrising sun for inspiration should be they who live only in a sort of\nlethargy of life, while those who for so many centuries have turned\ntheir faces steadily to the fading glory of the sunset should be the\nones who have embodied the spirit of progress of the world. Perhaps the\nlight, by its very rising, checks the desire to pursue; in its setting\nit lures one on to follow.\n\nThough this religion of impersonality is not their child, it is their\nchoice. They embraced it with the rest that India taught them, centuries\nago. But though just as eager to learn of us now as of India then,\nChristianity fails to commend itself. This is not due to the fact that\nthe Buddhist missionaries came by invitation, and ours do not. Nor is it\ndue to any want of personal character in these latter, but simply to an\nexcess of it in their doctrines.\n\nFor to-day the Far East is even more impersonal in its religion than are\nthose from whom that religion originally came. India has returned again\nto its worship of Brahma, which, though impersonal enough, is less so\nthan is the gospel of Gautama. For it is passively instead of actively\nimpersonal.\n\nBuddhism bears to Brahmanism something like the relation that\nProtestantism does to Roman Catholicism. Both bishops and Brahmans\nundertake to save all who shall blindly commit themselves to\nprofessional guidance, while Buddhists and Protestants alike believe\nthat a man's salvation must be brought about by the action of the man\nhimself. The result is, that in the matter of individuality the two\nreformed beliefs are further apart than those against which they\nseverally protested. For by the change the personal became more\npersonal, and the impersonal more impersonal than before. The\nProtestant, from having tamely allowed himself to be led, began to take\na lively interest in his own self-improvement; while the Buddhist,\nfrom a former apathetic acquiescence in the doctrine of the universally\nillusive, set to work energetically towards self-extinction. Curious\nlabor for a mind, that of devoting all its strength to the thinking\nitself out of existence! Not content with being born impersonal, a Far\nOriental is constantly striving to make himself more so.\n\nWe have seen, then, how in trying to understand these peoples we\nare brought face to face with impersonality in each of those three\nexpressions of the human soul, speech, thought, yearning. We have looked\nat them first from a social standpoint. We have seen how singularly\nlittle regard is paid the individual from his birth to his death. How\nhe lives his life long the slave of patriarchal customs of so puerile\na tendency as to be practically impossible to a people really grown up.\nHow he practises a wholesale system of adoption sufficient of itself to\ndestroy any surviving regard for the ego his other relations might\nhave left. How in his daily life he gives the minimum of thought to\nthe bettering himself in any worldly sense, and the maximum of polite\nconsideration to his neighbor. How, in short, he acts toward himself as\nmuch as possible as if he were another, and to that other as if he\nwere himself. Then, not content with standing stranger like upon the\nthreshold, we have sought to see the soul of their civilization in its\nintrinsic manifestations. We have pushed our inquiry, as it were,\none step nearer its home. And the same trait that was apparent\nsociologically has been exposed in this our antipodal phase of psychical\nresearch. We have seen how impersonal is his language, the principal\nmedium of communication between one soul and another; how impersonal\nare the communings of his soul with itself. How the man turns to\nnature instead of to his fellowman in silent sympathy. And how, when he\nspeculates upon his coming castles in the air, his most roseate desire\nis to be but an indistinguishable particle of the sunset clouds and\nvanish invisible as they into the starry stillness of all-embracing\nspace.\n\nNow what does this strange impersonality betoken? Why are these peoples\nso different from us in this most fundamental of considerations to\nany people, the consideration of themselves? The answer leads to some\ninteresting conclusions.\n\n\n\nChapter 8. Imagination.\n\nIf, as is the case with the moon, the earth, as she travelled round\nher orbit turned always the same face inward, we might expect to find,\nbetween the thoughts of that hemisphere which looked continually to the\nsun, and those of the other peering eternally out at the stars,\nsome such difference as actually exists between ourselves and our\nlongitudinal antipodes. For our conception of the cosmos is of a\nsunlit world throbbing with life, while their Nirvana finds not unfit\nexpression in the still, cold, fathomless awe of the midnight sky. That\nwe cannot thus directly account for the difference in local coloring\nserves but to make that difference of more human interest. The\ndissimilarity between the Western and the Far Eastern attitude of mind\nhas in it something beyond the effect of environment. For it points to\nthe importance of the part which the principle of individuality plays\nin the great drama daily enacting before our eyes, and which we know as\nevolution. It shows, as I shall hope to prove, that individuality bears\nthe same relation to the development of mind that the differentiation\nof species does to the evolution of organic life: that the degree of\nindividualization of a people is the self-recorded measure of its place\nin the great march of mind.\n\nAll life, whether organic or inorganic, consists, as we know, in\na change from a state of simple homogeneity to one of complex\nheterogeneity. The process is apparently the same in a nebula or a\nbrachiopod, although much more intricate in the latter. The immediate\nforce which works this change, the life principle of things, is, in the\ncase of organic beings, a subtle something which we call spontaneous\nvariation. What this mysterious impulse may be is beyond our present\npowers of recognition. As yet, the ultimates of all things lie hidden\nin the womb of the vast unknown. But just as in the case of a man we can\ntell what organs are vital, though we are ignorant what the vital spark\nmay be, so in our great cosmical laws we can say in what their power\nresides, though we know not really what they are. Whether mind be but a\nsublimated form of matter, or, what amounts to the same thing, matter\na menial kind of mind, or whether, which seems less likely, it be a\nsomething incomparable with substance, of one thing we are sure, the\nsame laws of heredity govern both. In each a like chain of continuity\nleads from the present to the dim past, a connecting clue which we can\nfollow backward in imagination. Now what spontaneous variation is to the\nmaterial organism, imagination, apparently, is to the mental one. Just\nas spontaneous variation is constantly pushing the animal or the plant\nto push out, as a vine its tendrils, in all directions, while natural\nconditions are as constantly exercising over it a sort of unconscious\npruning power, so imagination is ever at work urging man's mind out and\non, while the sentiment of the community, commonly called common sense,\nwhich simply means the point already reached by the average, is as\nsteadily tending to keep it at its own level. The environment helps, in\nthe one case as in the other, to the shaping of the development. Purely\nphysical in the first, it is both physical and psychical in the\nsecond, the two reacting on each other. But in either case it is only a\nconstraining condition, not the divine impulse itself. Precisely, then,\nas in the organism, this subtle spirit checked in one direction finds\na way to advance in another, and produces in consequence among an\noriginally similar set of bodies a gradual separation into species\nwhich grow wider with time, so in brain evolution a like force for like\nreasons tends inevitably to an ever-increasing individualization.\n\nNow what evidence have we that this analogy holds? Let us look at the\nfacts, first as they present themselves subjectively.\n\nThe instinct of self-preservation, that guardian angel so persistent to\nappear when needed, owes its summons to another instinct no less strong,\nwhich we may call the instinct of individuality; for with the same\ninnate tenacity with which we severally cling to life do we hold to\nthe idea of our own identity. It is not for the philosophic desire of\npreserving a very small fraction of humanity at large that we take such\npains to avoid destruction; it is that we insensibly regard death as\nthreatening to the continuance of the ego, in spite of the theories of\na future life which we have so elaborately developed. Indeed, the\npsychical shrinking is really the quintessence of the physical fear. We\ncleave to the abstract idea closer even than to its concrete embodiment.\nSooner would we forego this earthly existence than surrender that\nsomething we know as self. For sufficient cause we can imagine courting\ndeath; we cannot conceive of so much as exchanging our individuality for\nanother's, still less of abandoning it altogether; for gradually a man,\nas he grows older, comes to regard his body as, after all, separable\nfrom himself. It is the soul's covering, rendered indispensable by the\nclimatic conditions of our present existence, one without which we\ncould no longer continue to live here. To forego it does not necessarily\nnegative, so far as we yet know, the possibility of living elsewhere.\nSome more congenial tropic may be the wandering spirit's fate. But to\npart with the sense of self seems to be like taking an eternal farewell\nof the soul. The Western mind shrinks before the bare idea of such a\nthought.\n\nThe clinging to one's own identity, then, is now an instinct, whatever\nit may originally have been. It is a something we inherited from our\nancestors and which we shall transmit more or less modified to our\ndescendants. How far back this consciousness has been felt passes\nthe possibilities of history to determine, since the recording of it\nnecessarily followed the fact. All we know is that its mention is coeval\nwith chronicle, and its origin lost in allegory. The Bible, one of the\noldest written records in the world, begins with a bit of mythology of\na very significant kind. When the Jews undertook to trace back their\nfamily tree to an idyllic garden of Eden, they mentioned as growing\nthere beside the tree of life, another tree called the tree of\nknowledge. Of what character this knowledge was is inferable from the\nsudden self-consciousness that followed the partaking of it. So that if\nwe please we may attribute directly to Eve's indiscretion the many\nevils of our morbid self-consciousness of the present day. But without\nindulging in unchivalrous reflections we may draw certain morals from it\nof both immediate and ultimate applicability.\n\nTo begin with, it is a most salutary warning to the introspective, and\nin the second place it is a striking instance of a myth which is not\na sun myth; for it is essentially of human regard, an attempt on man's\npart to explain that most peculiar attribute of his constitution,\nthe all-possessing sense of self. It looks certainly as if he was not\nover-proud of his person that he should have deemed its recognition\noccasion for the primal curse, and among early races the person is for\na good deal of the personality. What he lamented was not life but the\nunavoidable exertion necessary to getting his daily bread, for the\nquestion whether life were worth while was as futile then as now, and as\ninconceivable really as 4-dimensional space.\n\nWe are then conscious of individuality as a force within ourselves. But\nour knowledge by no means ends there; for we are aware of it in the case\nof others as well.\n\nAbout certain people there exists a subtle something which leaves its\nimpress indelibly upon the consciousness of all who come in contact\nwith them. This something is a power, but a power of so indefinable a\ndescription that we beg definition by calling it simply the personality\nof the man. It is not a matter of subsequent reasoning, but of direct\nperception. We feel it. Sometimes it charms us; sometimes it repels. But\nwe can no more be oblivious to it than we can to the temperature of\nthe air. Its possessor has but to enter the room, and insensibly we are\nconscious of a presence. It is as if we had suddenly been placed in the\nfield of a magnetic force.\n\nOn the other hand there are people who produce no effect upon us\nwhatever. They come and go with a like indifference. They are as\nunimportant psychically as if they were any other portion of the\nfurniture. They never stir us. We might live with them for fifty years\nand be hardly able to tell, for any influence upon ourselves, whether\nthey existed or not. They remind us of that neutral drab which certain\nreligious sects assume to show their own irrelevancy to the world. They\nare often most estimable folk, but they are no more capable of inspiring\na strong emotion than the other kind are incapable of doing so. And we\nsay the difference is due to the personality or want of personality of\nthe man. Now, in what does this so-called personality consist? Not in\nbodily presence simply, for men quite destitute of it possess the\nforce in question; not in character only, for we often disapprove of a\ncharacter whose attraction we are powerless to resist; not in intellect\nalone, for men more rational fail of stirring us as these unconsciously\ndo. In what, then? In life itself; not that modicum of it, indeed, which\nsuffices simply to keep the machine moving, but in the life principle,\nthe power which causes psychical change; which makes the individual\nsomething distinct from all other individuals, a being capable of\nproving sufficient, if need be, unto himself; which shows itself, in\nshort, as individuality. This is not a mere restatement of the case, for\nindividuality is an objective fact capable of being treated by physical\nscience. And as we know much more at present about physical facts than\nwe do of psychological problems, we may be able to arrive the sooner at\nsolution.\n\nIndividuality, personality, and the sense of self are only three\ndifferent aspects of one and the same thing. They are so many various\nviews of the soul according as we regard it from an intrinsic, an\naltruistic, or an egoistic standpoint. For by individuality is not meant\nsimply the isolation in a corporeal casing of a small portion of the\nuniversal soul of mankind. So far as mind goes, this would not be\nindividuality at all, but the reverse. By individuality we mean that\nbundle of ideas, thoughts, and daydreams which constitute our separate\nidentity, and by virtue of which we feel each one of us at home within\nhimself. Now man in his mind-development is bound to become more and\nmore distinct from his neighbor. We can hardly conceive a progress so\nuniform as not to necessitate this. It would be contrary to all we\nknow of natural law, besides contradicting daily experience. For each\nsuccessive generation bears unmistakable testimony to the fact. Children\nof the same parents are never exactly like either their parents or one\nanother, and they often differ amazingly from both. In such instances\nthey revert to type, as we say; but inasmuch as the race is steadily\nadvancing in development, such reversion must resemble that of an estate\nwhich has been greatly improved since its previous possession. The\nappearance of the quality is really the sprouting of a seed whose\noriginal germ was in some sense coeval with the beginning of things.\nThis mind-seed takes root in some cases and not in others, according to\nthe soil it finds. And as certain traits develop and others do not,\none man turns out very differently from his neighbor. Such inevitable\ndistinction implies furthermore that the man shall be sensible of it.\nConsciousness is the necessary attribute of mental action. Not only is\nit the sole way we have of knowing mind; without it there would be no\nmind to know. Not to be conscious of one's self is, mentally speaking,\nnot to be. This complex entity, this little cosmos of a world, the \"I,\"\nhas for its very law of existence self-consciousness, while personality\nis the effect it produces upon the consciousness of others.\n\nBut we may push our inquiry a step further, and find in imagination\nthe cause of this strange force. For imagination, or the image-making\nfaculty, may in a certain sense be said to be the creator of the world\nwithin. The separate senses furnish it with material, but to it alone is\ndue the building of our castles, on premises of fact or in the air. For\nthere is no impassable gulf between the two. Coleridge's distinction\nthat imagination drew possible pictures and fancy impossible ones, is\nitself, except as a classification, an impossible distinction to draw;\nfor it is only the inconceivable that can never be. All else is purely a\nmatter of relation. We may instance dreams which are usually considered\nto rank among the most fanciful creations of the mind. Who has not in\nhis dreams fallen repeatedly from giddy heights and invariably escaped\nunhurt? If he had attempted the feat in his waking moments he would\nassuredly have been dashed to pieces at the bottom. And so we say the\nthing is impossible. But is it? Only under the relative conditions of\nhis mass and the earth's. If the world he happens to inhabit were not\nits present size, but the size of one of the tinier asteroids, no such\ndisastrous results would follow a chance misstep. He could there walk\noff precipices when too closely pursued by bears--if I remember rightly\nthe usual childish cause of the same--with perfect impunity. The\nbear could do likewise, unfortunately. We should have arrived at our\nconclusion even quicker had we decreased the size both of the man and\nhis world. He would not then have had to tumble actually so far, and\nwould therefore have arrived yet more gently at the foot. This turns\nout, then, to be a mere question of size. Decrease the scale of the\npicture, and the impossible becomes possible at once. All fancies are\nnot so easily reducible to actual facts as the one we have taken, but\nall, perhaps, eventually may be explicable in the same general way.\nAt present we certainly cannot affirm that anything may not be thus\nexplained. For the actual is widening its field every day. Even in this\nlittle world of our own we are daily discovering to be fact what we\nshould have thought fiction, like the sailor's mother the tale of\nthe flying fish. Beyond it our ken is widening still more. Gulliver's\ntravels may turn out truer than we think. Could we traverse the\ninter-planetary ocean of ether, we might eventually find in Jupiter\nthe land of Lilliput or in Ceres some old-time country of the\nBrobdignagians. For men constituted muscularly like ourselves would have\nto be proportionately small in the big planet and big in the small\none. Still stranger things may exist around other suns. In those bright\nparticular stars--which the little girl thought pinholes in the dark\ncanopy of the sky to let the glory beyond shine through--we are finding\nconditions of existence like yet unlike those we already know. To our\ngroping speculations of the night they almost seem, as we gaze on them\nin their twinkling, to be winking us a sort of comprehension. Conditions\nmay exist there under which our wildest fancies may be commonplace\nfacts. There may be\n\n   \"Some Xanadu where Kublai can\n    a stately pleasure dome decree,\"\n\nand carry out his conceptions to his own disillusionment, perhaps. For\nif the embodiment of a fancy, however complete, left nothing further\nto be wished, imagination would have no incentive to work. Coleridge's\ndistinction does very well to separate, empirically, certain kinds of\nimaginative concepts from certain others; but it has no real foundation\nin fact. Nor presumably did he mean it to have. But it serves, not\ninaptly, as a text to point out an important scientific truth, namely,\nthat there are not two such qualities of the mind, but only one. For\notherwise we might have supposed the fact too evident to need mention.\nImagination is the single source of the new, the one mainspring of\npsychical advance; reason, like a balance-wheel, only keeping the\naction regular. For reason is but the touchstone of experience, our own,\ninherited, or acquired from others. It compares what we imagine with\nwhat we know, and gives us answer in terms of the here and the now,\nwhich we call the actual. But the actual is really nothing but the\nlocal. It does not mark the limits of the possible.\n\nThat imagination has been the moving spirit of the psychical world is\nevident, whatever branch of human thought we are pleased to examine. We\nare in the habit, in common parlance, of making a distinction between\nthe search after truth and the search after beauty, calling the\none science and the other art. Now while we are not slow to impute\nimagination to art, we are by no means so ready to appreciate its\nconnection with science. Yet contrary, perhaps, to exogeric ideas on the\nsubject, it is science rather than art that demands imagination of her\nvotaries. Not that art may not involve the quality to a high degree, but\nthat a high degree of art is quite compatible with a very small amount\nof imagination. On the one side we may instance painting. Now painting\nbegins its career in the humble capacity of copyist, a pretty poor\ncopyist at that. At first so slight was its skill that the rudest\nsymbols sufficed. \"This is a man\" was conventionally implied by a\nfew scratches bearing a very distant relationship to the real thing.\nGradually, owing to human vanity and a growing taste, pictures improved.\nCombinations were tried, a bit from one place with a piece from another;\na sort of mosaic requiring but a slight amount of imagination. Not that\nimagination of a higher order has not been called into play, although\neven now pictures are often happy adaptations rather than creations\nproper. Some masters have been imaginative; others, unfortunately for\nthemselves and still more for the public, have not. For that the art may\nattain a high degree of excellence for itself and much distinction for\nits professors, without calling in the aid of imagination, is evident\nenough on this side of the globe, without travelling to the other.\n\nTake, on the other hand, a branch of science which, to the average\nlayman, seems peculiarly unimaginative, the science of mathematics.\nYet at the risk of appearing to cast doubts upon the validity of its\nconclusions, it might be called the most imaginative product of\nhuman thought; for it is simply one vast imagination based upon a few\nso-called axioms, which are nothing more nor less than the results of\nexperience. It is none the less imaginative because its discoveries\nalways accord subsequently with fact, since man was not aware of them\nbeforehand. Nor are its inevitable conclusions inevitable to any save\nthose possessed of the mathematician's prophetic sight. Once discovered,\nit requires much less imagination to understand them. With the light\ncoming from in front, it is an easy matter to see what lies behind one.\n\nSo with other fabrics of human thought, imagination has been spinning\nand weaving them all. From the most concrete of inventions to the most\nabstract of conceptions the same force reveals itself upon examination;\nfor there is no gulf between what we call practical and what we consider\ntheoretical. Everything abstract is ultimately of practical use, and\neven the most immediately utilitarian has an abstract principle at\nits core. We are too prone to regard the present age of the world as\npreeminently practical, much as a middle-aged man laments the witching\nfancies of his boyhood. But, and there is more in the parallel than\nanalogy, if the man be truly imaginative he is none the less so at\nforty-five than he was at twenty, if his imagination have taken on a\nmore critical form; for this latter half of the nineteenth century is\nperhaps the most imaginative period the world's history has ever known.\nWhile with one hand we are contriving means of transit for our ideas,\nand even our very voices, compared to which Puck's girdle is anything\nbut talismanic, with the other we are stretching out to grasp the action\nof mind on mind, pushing our way into the very realm of mind itself.\n\nHistory tells the same story in detail; for the history of mankind,\nimperfectly as we know it, discloses the fact that imagination, and not\nthe power of observation nor the kindred capability of perception, has\nbeen the cause of soul-evolution.\n\nThe savage is but little of an imaginative being. We are tempted, at\ntimes, to imagine him more so than he is, for his fanciful folk-lore.\nThe proof of which overestimation is that we find no difficulty in\nimagining what he does, and even of imagining what he probably imagined,\nand finding our suppositions verified by discovery. Yet his powers of\nobservation may be marvellously developed. The North American Indian\ntracks his foe through the forest by signs unrecognizable to a white\nman, and he reasons most astutely upon them, and still that very man\nturns out to be a mere child when put before problems a trifle out of\nhis beaten path. And all because his forefathers had not the power to\nimagine something beyond what they actually saw. The very essence of the\nforce of imagination lies in its ability to change a man's habitat for\nhim. Without it, man would forever have remained, not a mollusk, to be\nsure, but an animal simply. A plant cannot change its place, an animal\ncannot alter its conditions of existence except within very narrow\nbounds; man is free in the sense nothing else in the world is.\n\nWhat is true of individuals has been true of races. The most imaginative\nraces have proved the greatest factors in the world's advance.\n\nNow after this look at our own side of the world, let us turn to the\nother; for it is this very psychological fact that mental progression\nimplies an ever-increasing individualization, and that imagination is\nthe force at work in the process which Far Eastern civilization,\ntaken in connection with our own, reveals. In doing this, it explains\nincidentally its own seeming anomalies, the most unaccountable of which,\napparently, is its existence.\n\nWe have seen how impressively impersonal the Far East is. Now if\nindividuality be the natural measure of the height of civilization which\na nation has reached, impersonality should betoken a relatively laggard\nposition in the race. We ought, therefore, to find among these people\ncertain other characteristics corroborative of a less advanced state of\ndevelopment. In the first place, if imagination be the impulse of which\nincrease in individuality is the resulting motion, that quality should\nbe at a minimum there. The Far Orientals ought to be a particularly\nunimaginative set of people. Such is precisely what they are. Their lack\nof imagination is a well-recognized fact. All who have been brought in\ncontact with them have observed it, merchants as strikingly as students.\nIndeed, the slightest intercourse with them could not fail to make\nit evident. Their matter-of-fact way of looking at things is truly\ndistressing, coming as it does from so artistic a people. One notices\nit all the more for the shock. To get a prosaic answer from a man whose\nappearance and surroundings betoken better things is not calculated to\ndull that answer's effect. Aston, in a pamphlet on the Altaic tongues,\ncites an instance which is so much to the point that I venture to repeat\nit here. He was a true Chinaman, he says, who, when his English master\nasked him what he thought of\n\n   \"That orbed maiden\n    With white fires laden\n    Whom mortals call the moon,\"\n\nreplied, \"My thinkee all same lamp pidgin\" (pidgin meaning thing in the\nmongrel speech, Chinese in form and English in diction, which goes by\nthe name of pidgin English).\n\nTheir own tongues show the same prosaic character, picturesque as they\nappear to us at first sight. That effect is due simply to the novelty\nto us of their expressions. To talk of a pass as an \"up-down\" has a\nrefreshing turn to our unused ear, but it is a much more descriptive\nthan imaginative figure of speech. Nor is the phrase \"the being (so)\nis difficult,\" in place of \"thank you,\" a surprisingly beautiful bit of\nimagery, delightful as it sounds for a change. Our own tongue has, in\nits daily vocabulary, far more suggestive expressions, only familiarity\nhas rendered us callous to their use. We employ at every instant words\nwhich, could we but stop to think of them, would strike us as poetic\nin the ideas they call up. As has been well said, they were once happy\nthoughts of some bright particular genius bequeathed to posterity\nwithout so much as an accompanying name, and which proved so popular\nthat they soon became but symbols themselves.\n\nTheir languages are paralleled by their whole life. A lack of any\nfanciful ideas is one of the most salient traits of all Far Eastern\nraces, if indeed a sad dearth of anything can properly be spoken of as\nsalient. Indirectly their want of imagination betrays itself in their\nevery-day sayings and doings, and more directly in every branch of\nthought. Originality is not their strong point. Their utter ignorance of\nscience shows this, and paradoxical as it may seem, their art, in\nspite of its merit and its universality, does the same. That art and\nimagination are necessarily bound together receives no very forcible\nconfirmation from a land where, nationally speaking, at any rate, the\nfirst is easily first and the last easily last, as nations go. It is to\nquite another quality that their artistic excellence must be ascribed.\nThat the Chinese and later the Japanese have accomplished results\nat which the rest of the world will yet live to marvel, is due to\ntheir--taste. But taste or delicacy of perception has absolutely nothing\nto do with imagination. That certain of the senses of Far Orientals are\nwonderfully keen, as also those parts of the brain that directly respond\nto them, is beyond question; but such sensitiveness does not in the\nleast involve the less earth-tied portions of the intellect. A peculiar\nresponsiveness to natural beauty, a sort of mental agreement with its\nearthly environment, is a marked feature of the Japanese mind.\nBut appreciation, however intimate, is a very different thing from\noriginality. The one is commonly the handmaid of the other, but the\nother by no means always accompanies the one.\n\nSo much for the cause; now for the effect which we might expect to find\nif our diagnosis be correct.\n\nIf the evolving force be less active in one race than in another, three\nrelative results should follow. In the first place, the race in question\nwill at any given moment be less advanced than its fellow; secondly, its\nrate of progress will be less rapid; and lastly, its individual members\nwill all be nearer together, just as a stream, in falling from a cliff,\nstarts one compact mass, then gradually increasing in speed, divides\ninto drops, which, growing finer and finer and farther and farther\napart, descend at last as spray. All three of these consequences are\nvisible in the career of the Far Eastern peoples. The first result\nscarcely needs to be proved to us, who are only too ready to believe it\nwithout proof. It is, nevertheless, a fact. Viewed unprejudicedly, their\ncivilization is not so advanced a one as our own. Although they are\ncertainly our superiors in some very desirable particulars, their whole\nscheme is distinctly more aboriginal fundamentally. It is more finished,\nas far as it goes, but it does not go so far. Less rude, it is more\nrudimentary. Indeed, as we have seen, its surface-perfection really\nshows that nature has given less thought to its substance. One may say\nof it that it is the adult form of a lower type of mind-specification.\n\nThe second effect is scarcely less patent. How slow their progress\nhas been, if for centuries now it can be called progress at all,\nis world-known. Chinese conservatism has passed into a proverb. The\npendulum of pulsation in the Middle Kingdom long since came to a stop\nat the medial point of rest. Centre of civilization, as they call\nthemselves, one would imagine that their mind-machinery had got caught\non their own dead centre, and now could not be made to move. Life, which\nelsewhere is a condition of unstable equilibrium, there is of a fatally\nstable kind. For the Chinaman's disinclination to progress is something\nmore than vis inertiae; it has become an ardent devotion to the status\nquo. Jostled, he at once settles back to his previous condition again;\nmuch as more materially, after a lifetime spent in California, at his\ndeath his body is punctiliously embalmed and sent home across five\nthousand miles of sea for burial. With the Japanese the condition of\naffairs is somewhat different. Their tendency to stand still is of a\npurely passive kind. It is a state of neutral equilibrium, stationary\nof itself but perfectly responsive to an impulse from without. Left to\ntheir own devices, they are conservative enough, but they instantly\ncopy a more advanced civilization the moment they get a chance. This\nproclivity on their part is not out of keeping with our theory. On the\ncontrary, it is precisely what was to have been expected; for we see the\nvery same apparent contradiction in characters we are thrown with every\nday. Imitation is the natural substitute for originality. The less\nstrong a man's personality the more prone is he to adopt the ideas of\nothers, on the same principle that a void more easily admits a foreign\nbody than does space that is already occupied; or as a blank piece of\npaper takes a dye more brilliantly for not being already tinted itself.\n\nThe third result, the remarkable homogeneity of the people, is not,\nperhaps, so universally appreciated, but it is equally evident on\ninspection, and no less weighty in proof. Indeed, the Far Eastern\nstate of things is a kind of charade on the word; for humanity there\nis singularly uniform. The distance between the extremes of\nmind-development in Japan is much less than with us. This lack of\ndivergence exists not simply in certain lines of thought, but in\nall those characteristics by which man is parted from the brutes. In\nreasoning power, in artistic sensibility, in delicacy of perception, it\nis the same story. If this were simply the impression at first sight,\nno deductions could be drawn from it, for an impression of racial\nsimilarity invariably marks the first stage of acquaintance of one\npeople by another. Even in outward appearance it is so. We find it\nat first impossible to tell the Japanese apart; they find it equally\nimpossible to differentiate us. But the present resemblance is not a\nmatter of first impressions. The fact is patent historically. The men\nwhom Japan reveres are much less removed from the common herd than is\nthe case in any Western land. And this has been so from the earliest\ntimes. Shakspeares and Newtons have never existed there. Japanese\nhumanity is not the soil to grow them. The comparative absence of genius\nis fully paralleled by the want of its opposite. Not only are the paths\nof preeminence untrodden; the purlieus of brutish ignorance are likewise\nunfrequented. On neither side of the great medial line is the departure\nof individuals far or frequent. All men there are more alike;--so much\nalike, indeed, that the place would seem to offer a sort of forlorn hope\nfor disappointed socialists. Although religious missionaries have not\nmet with any marked success among the natives, this less deserving class\nof enthusiastic disseminators of an all-possessing belief might do\nwell to attempt it. They would find there a very virgin field of a most\npromisingly dead level. It is true, human opposition would undoubtedly\nprevent their tilling it, but Nature, at least, would not present quite\nsuch constitutional obstacles as she wisely does with us.\n\nThe individual's mind is, as it were, an isolated bit of the race mind.\nThe same set of traits will be found in each. Mental characteristics\nthere are a sort of common property, of which a certain undifferentiated\nportion is indiscriminately allotted to every man at birth. One soul\nresembles another so much, that in view of the patriarchal system\nunder which they all exist, there seems to the stranger a peculiar\nappropriateness in so strong a family likeness of mind. An idea of how\nlittle one man's brain differs from his neighbor's may be gathered from\nthe fact, that while a common coolie in Japan spends his spare time\nin playing a chess twice as complicated as ours, the most advanced\nphilosopher is still on the blissfully ignorant side of the pons\nasinorum.\n\nWe find, then, that in all three points the Far East fulfils what our\ntheory demanded.\n\nThere is one more consideration worthy of notice. We said that the\nenvironment had not been the deus ex materia in the matter; but that the\nsoul itself possessed the germ of its own evolution. This fact does\nnot, however, preclude another, that the environment has helped in the\nprocess. Change of scene is beneficial to others besides invalids.\nHow stimulating to growth a different habitat can prove, when at all\nfavorable, is perhaps sufficiently shown in the case of the marguerite,\nwhich, as an emigrant called white-weed, has usurped our fields. The\nsame has been no less true of peoples. Now these Far Eastern peoples, in\ncomparison with our own forefathers, have travelled very little. A race\nin its travels gains two things: first it acquires directly a great\ndeal from both places and peoples that it meets, and secondly it is\nconstantly put to its own resources in its struggle for existence,\nand becomes more personal as the outcome of such strife. The changed\nconditions, the hostile forces it finds, necessitate mental ingenuity\nto adapt them and influence it unconsciously. To see how potent these\ninfluences prove we have but to look at the two great branches of the\nAryan family, the one that for so long now has stayed at home, and the\none that went abroad. Destitute of stimulus from without, the Indo-Aryan\nmind turned upon itself and consumed in dreamy metaphysics the\nimagination which has made its cousins the leaders in the world's\nprogress to-day. The inevitable numbness of monotony crept over the\nstay-at-homes. The deadly sameness of their surroundings produced its\nunavoidable effect. The torpor of the East, like some paralyzing poison,\nstole into their souls, and they fell into a drowsy slumber only to\ndream in the land they had formerly wrested from its possessors. Their\nbirthright passed with their cousins into the West.\n\nIn the case of the Altaic races which we are considering, cause and\neffect mutually strengthened each other. That they did not travel more\nis due primarily to a lack of enterprise consequent upon a lack of\nimagination, and then their want of travel told upon their imagination.\nThey were also unfortunate in their journeying. Their travels were\nprematurely brought to an end by that vast geographical Nirvana the\nPacific Ocean, the great peaceful sea as they call it themselves. That\nthey would have journeyed further is shown by the way their dreams went\neastward still. They themselves could not for the preventing ocean, and\nthe lapping of its waters proved a nation's lullaby.\n\nOne thing, I think, then, our glance at Far Eastern civilization has\nmore than suggested. The soul, in its progress through the world, tends\ninevitably to individualization. Yet the more we perceive of the cosmos\nthe more do we recognize an all-pervading unity in it. Its soul must\nbe one, not many. The divine power that made all things is not itself\nmultifold. How to reconcile the ever-increasing divergence with\nan eventual similarity is a problem at present transcending our\ngeneralizations. What we know would seem to be opposed to what we\nmust infer. But perception of how we shall merge the personal in the\nuniversal, though at present hidden from sight, may sometime come to\nus, and the seemingly irreconcilable will then turn out to involve no\ncontradiction at all. For this much is certain: grand as is the great\nconception of Buddhism, majestic as is the idea of the stately rest it\nwould lead us to, the road here below is not one the life of the world\ncan follow. If earthly existence be an evil, then Buddhism will help us\nignore it; but if by an impulse we cannot explain we instinctively crave\nactivity of mind, then the great gospel of Gautama touches us not; for\nto abandon self--egoism, that is, not selfishness is the true vacuum\nwhich nature abhors. As for Far Orientals, they themselves furnish proof\nagainst themselves. That impersonality is not man's earthly goal they\nunwittingly bear witness; for they are not of those who will survive.\nArtistic attractive people that they are, their civilization is like\ntheir own tree flowers, beautiful blossoms destined never to bear fruit;\nfor whatever we may conceive the far future of another life to be, the\nimmediate effect of impersonality cannot but be annihilating. If these\npeople continue in their old course, their earthly career is closed.\nJust as surely as morning passes into afternoon, so surely are these\nraces of the Far East, if unchanged, destined to disappear before the\nadvancing nations of the West. Vanish they will off the face of the\nearth and leave our planet the eventual possession of the dwellers where\nthe day declines. Unless their newly imported ideas really take root, it\nis from this whole world that Japanese and Koreans, as well as Chinese,\nwill inevitably be excluded. Their Nirvana is already being realized;\nalready it has wrapped Far Eastern Asia in its winding-sheet, the shroud\nof those whose day was but a dawn, as if in prophetic keeping with the\nnames they gave their homes,--the Land of the Day's Beginning, and the\nLand of the Morning Calm.","title":"The Soul of the Far East","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":43719}