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diff --git a/1409-0.txt b/1409-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec994ba --- /dev/null +++ b/1409-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4088 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1409 *** + +THE SOUL OF THE FAR EAST + +By Percival Lowell + + +Contents + + Chapter 1. Individuality + + Chapter 2. Family + + Chapter 3. Adoption + + Chapter 4. Language + + Chapter 5. Nature and Art + + Chapter 6. Art + + Chapter 7. Religion + + Chapter 8. Imagination + + + + +Chapter 1. Individuality. + +The boyish belief that on the other side of our globe all things are +of necessity upside down is startlingly brought back to the man when he +first sets foot at Yokohama. If his initial glance does not, to be sure, +disclose the natives in the every-day feat of standing calmly on their +heads, an attitude which his youthful imagination conceived to be a +necessary consequence of their geographical position, it does at least +reveal them looking at the world as if from the standpoint of that +eccentric posture. For they seem to him to see everything topsy-turvy. +Whether it be that their antipodal situation has affected their brains, +or whether it is the mind of the observer himself that has hitherto been +wrong in undertaking to rectify the inverted pictures presented by +his retina, the result, at all events, is undeniable. The world stands +reversed, and, taking for granted his own uprightness, the stranger +unhesitatingly imputes to them an obliquity of vision, a state of mind +outwardly typified by the cat-like obliqueness of their eyes. + +If the inversion be not precisely of the kind he expected, it is none +the less striking, and impressibly more real. If personal experience has +definitely convinced him that the inhabitants of that under side of our +planet do not adhere to it head downwards, like flies on a ceiling,--his +early a priori deduction,--they still appear quite as antipodal, +mentally considered. Intellectually, at least, their attitude sets +gravity at defiance. For to the mind's eye their world is one huge, +comical antithesis of our own. What we regard intuitively in one way +from our standpoint, they as intuitively observe in a diametrically +opposite manner from theirs. To speak backwards, write backwards, read +backwards, is but the a b c of their contrariety. The inversion extends +deeper than mere modes of expression, down into the very matter of +thought. Ideas of ours which we deemed innate find in them no home, +while methods which strike us as preposterously unnatural appear to +be their birthright. From the standing of a wet umbrella on its handle +instead of its head to dry to the striking of a match away in place +of toward one, there seems to be no action of our daily lives, however +trivial, but finds with them its appropriate reaction--equal but +opposite. Indeed, to one anxious of conforming to the manners and +customs of the country, the only road to right lies in following +unswervingly that course which his inherited instincts assure him to be +wrong. + +Yet these people are human beings; with all their eccentricities they +are men. Physically we cannot but be cognizant of the fact, nor mentally +but be conscious of it. Like us, indeed, and yet so unlike are they +that we seem, as we gaze at them, to be viewing our own humanity in +some mirth-provoking mirror of the mind,--a mirror that shows us our own +familiar thoughts, but all turned wrong side out. Humor holds the glass, +and we become the sport of our own reflections. But is it otherwise at +home? Do not our personal presentments mock each of us individually +our lives long? Who but is the daily dupe of his dressing-glass, and +complacently conceives himself to be a very different appearing person +from what he is, forgetting that his right side has become his left, and +vice versa? Yet who, when by chance he catches sight in like manner of +the face of a friend, can keep from smiling at the caricatures which the +mirror's left-for-right reversal makes of the asymmetry of that +friend's features,--caricatures all the more grotesque for being utterly +unsuspected by their innocent original? Perhaps, could we once see +ourselves as others see us, our surprise in the case of foreign peoples +might be less pronounced. + +Regarding, then, the Far Oriental as a man, and not simply as +a phenomenon, we discover in his peculiar point of view a new +importance,--the possibility of using it stereoptically. For his +mind-photograph of the world can be placed side by side with ours, and +the two pictures combined will yield results beyond what either alone +could possibly have afforded. Thus harmonized, they will help us +to realize humanity. Indeed it is only by such a combination of two +different aspects that we ever perceive substance and distinguish +reality from illusion. What our two eyes make possible for material +objects, the earth's two hemispheres may enable us to do for mental +traits. Only the superficial never changes its expression; the +appearance of the solid varies with the standpoint of the observer. +In dreamland alone does everything seem plain, and there all is +unsubstantial. + +To say that the Japanese are not a savage tribe is of course +unnecessary; to repeat the remark, anything but superfluous, on the +principle that what is a matter of common notoriety is very apt to +prove a matter about which uncommonly little is known. At present we +go halfway in recognition of these people by bestowing upon them a +demi-diploma of mental development called semi-civilization, neglecting, +however, to specify in what the fractional qualification consists. +If the suggestion of a second moiety, as of something directly +complementary to them, were not indirectly complimentary to ourselves, +the expression might pass; but, as it is, the self-praise is rather too +obvious to carry conviction. For Japan's claim to culture is not based +solely upon the exports with which she supplements our art, nor upon the +paper, china, and bric-a-brac with which she adorns our rooms; any more +than Western science is adequately represented in Japan by our popular +imports there of kerosene oil, matches, and beer. Only half civilized +the Far East presumably is, but it is so rather in an absolute than a +relative sense; in the sense of what might have been, not of what is. It +is so as compared, not with us, but with the eventual possibilities of +humanity. As yet, neither system, Western nor Eastern, is perfect enough +to serve in all things as standard for the other. The light of truth +has reached each hemisphere through the medium of its own mental +crystallization, and this has polarized it in opposite ways, so that now +the rays that are normal to the eyes of the one only produce darkness +to those of the other. For the Japanese civilization in the sense of not +being savagery is the equal of our own. It is not in the polish that the +real difference lies; it is in the substance polished. In politeness, in +delicacy, they have as a people no peers. Art has been their mistress, +though science has never been their master. Perhaps for this very reason +that art, not science, has been the Muse they courted, the result has +been all the more widespread. For culture there is not the attainment +of the few, but the common property of the people. If the peaks of +intellect rise less eminent, the plateau of general elevation stands +higher. But little need be said to prove the civilization of a land +where ordinary tea-house girls are models of refinement, and common +coolies, when not at work, play chess for pastime. + +If Japanese ways look odd at first sight, they but look more odd on +closer acquaintance. In a land where, to allow one's understanding the +freer play of indoor life, one begins, not by taking off his hat, but by +removing his boots, he gets at the very threshold a hint that humanity +is to be approached the wrong end to. When, after thus entering a +house, he tries next to gain admittance to the mind of its occupant, the +suspicion becomes a certainty. He discovers that this people talk, so +to speak, backwards; that before he can hope to comprehend them, or +make himself understood in return, he must learn to present his thoughts +arranged in inverse order from the one in which they naturally suggest +themselves to his mind. His sentences must all be turned inside out. He +finds himself lost in a labyrinth of language. The same seems to be true +of the thoughts it embodies. The further he goes the more obscure the +whole process becomes, until, after long groping about for some means of +orienting himself, he lights at last upon the clue. This clue consists +in "the survival of the unfittest." + +In the civilization of Japan we have presented to us a most interesting +case of partially arrested development; or, to speak esoterically, +we find ourselves placed face to face with a singular example of a +completed race-life. For though from our standpoint the evolution of +these people seems suddenly to have come to an end in mid-career, +looked at more intimately it shows all the signs of having fully run its +course. Development ceased, not because of outward obstruction, but from +purely intrinsic inability to go on. The intellectual machine was not +shattered; it simply ran down. To this fact the phenomenon owes its +peculiar interest. For we behold here in the case of man the same +spectacle that we see cosmically in the case of the moon, the spectacle +of a world that has died of old age. No weak spot in their social +organism destroyed them from within; no epidemic, in the shape of +foreign hordes, fell upon them from without. For in spite of the fact +that China offers the unique example of a country that has simply lived +to be conquered, mentally her masters have invariably become her pupils. +Having ousted her from her throne as ruler, they proceeded to sit at +her feet as disciples. Thus they have rather helped than hindered her +civilization. + +Whatever portion of the Far East we examine we find its mental history +to be the same story with variations. However unlike China, Korea, and +Japan are in some respects, through the careers of all three we can +trace the same life-spirit. It is the career of the river Jordan rising +like any other stream from the springs among the mountains only to fall +after a brief existence into the Dead Sea. For their vital force +had spent itself more than a millennium ago. Already, then, their +civilization had in its deeper developments attained its stature, and +has simply been perfecting itself since. We may liken it to some stunted +tree, that, finding itself prevented from growth, bastes the more +luxuriantly to put forth flowers and fruit. For not the final but the +medial processes were skipped. In those superficial amenities with +which we more particularly link our idea of civilization, these peoples +continued to grow. Their refinement, if failing to reach our standard +in certain respects, surpasses ours considering the bare barbaric +basis upon which it rests. For it is as true of the Japanese as of +the proverbial Russian, though in a more scientific sense, that if you +scratch him you will find the ancestral Tartar. But it is no less true +that the descendants of this rude forefather have now taken on a polish +of which their own exquisite lacquer gives but a faint reflection. The +surface was perfected after the substance was formed. Our word finish, +with its double meaning, expresses both the process and the result. + +There entered, to heighten the bizarre effect, a spirit common in minds +that lack originality--the spirit of imitation. Though consequent enough +upon a want of initiative, the results of this trait appear anything but +natural to people of a more progressive past. The proverbial collar and +pair of spurs look none the less odd to the stranger for being a mental +instead of a bodily habit. Something akin to such a case of unnatural +selection has there taken place. The orderly procedure of natural +evolution was disastrously supplemented by man. For the fact that in +the growth of their tree of knowledge the branches developed out of all +proportion to the trunk is due to a practice of culture-grafting. + +From before the time when they began to leave records of their actions +the Japanese have been a nation of importers, not of merchandise, but of +ideas. They have invariably shown the most advanced free-trade spirit +in preferring to take somebody else's ready-made articles rather than +to try to produce any brand-new conceptions themselves. They continue +to follow the same line of life. A hearty appreciation of the things of +others is still one of their most winning traits. What they took they +grafted bodily upon their ancestral tree, which in consequence came to +present a most unnaturally diversified appearance. For though not unlike +other nations in wishing to borrow, if their zeal in the matter was +slightly excessive, they were peculiar in that they never assimilated +what they took. They simply inserted it upon the already existing +growth. There it remained, and throve, and blossomed, nourished by that +indigenous Japanese sap, taste. But like grafts generally, the foreign +boughs were not much modified by their new life-blood, nor was the tree +in its turn at all affected by them. Connected with it only as separable +parts of its structure, the cuttings might have been lopped off again +without influencing perceptibly the condition of the foster-parent stem. +The grafts in time grew to be great branches, but the trunk remained +through it all the trunk of a sapling. In other words, the nation grew +up to man's estate, keeping the mind of its childhood. + +What is thus true of the Japanese is true likewise of the Koreans and of +the Chinese. The three peoples, indeed, form so many links in one long +chain of borrowing. China took from India, then Korea copied China, and +lastly Japan imitated Korea. In this simple manner they successively +became possessed of a civilization which originally was not the property +of any one of them. In the eagerness they all evinced in purloining +what was not theirs, and in the perfect content with which they then +proceeded to enjoy what they had taken, they remind us forcibly of +that happy-go-lucky class in the community which prefers to live on +questionable loans rather than work itself for a living. Like those same +individuals, whatever interest the Far Eastern people may succeed in +raising now, Nature will in the end make them pay dearly for their lack +of principal. + +The Far Eastern civilization resembles, in fact, more a mechanical +mixture of social elements than a well differentiated chemical compound. +For in spite of the great variety of ingredients thrown into its +caldron of destiny, as no affinity existed between them, no combination +resulted. The power to fuse was wanting. Capability to evolve anything +is not one of the marked characteristics of the Far East. Indeed, the +tendency to spontaneous variation, Nature's mode of making experiments, +would seem there to have been an enterprising faculty that was exhausted +early. Sleepy, no doubt, from having got up betimes with the dawn, these +dwellers in the far lands of the morning began to look upon their day +as already well spent before they had reached its noon. They grew old +young, and have remained much the same age ever since. What they were +centuries ago, that at bottom they are to-day. Take away the European +influence of the last twenty years, and each man might almost be his +own great-grandfather. In race characteristics he is yet essentially the +same. The traits that distinguished these peoples in the past have been +gradually extinguishing them ever since. Of these traits, stagnating +influences upon their career, perhaps the most important is the great +quality of impersonality. + +If we take, through the earth's temperate zone, a belt of country +whose northern and southern edges are determined by certain limiting +isotherms, not more than half the width of the zone apart, we shall find +that we have included in a relatively small extent of surface almost +all the nations of note in the world, past or present. Now if we examine +this belt, and compare the different parts of it with one another, we +shall be struck by a remarkable fact. The peoples inhabiting it grow +steadily more personal as we go west. So unmistakable is this gradation +of spirit, that one is tempted to ascribe it to cosmic rather than +to human causes. It is as marked as the change in color of the human +complexion observable along any meridian, which ranges from black at +the equator to blonde toward the pole. In like manner, the sense of +self grows more intense as we follow in the wake of the setting sun, and +fades steadily as we advance into the dawn. America, Europe, the Levant, +India, Japan, each is less personal than the one before. We stand at the +nearer end of the scale, the Far Orientals at the other. If with us the +I seems to be of the very essence of the soul, then the soul of the Far +East may be said to be Impersonality. + +Curious as this characteristic is as a fact, it is even more interesting +as a factor. For what it betokens of these peoples in particular may +suggest much about man generally. It may mark a stride in theory, if a +standstill in practice. Possibly it may help us to some understanding +of ourselves. Not that it promises much aid to vexed metaphysical +questions, but as a study in sociology it may not prove so vain. + +And for a thing which is always with us, its discussion may be said to +be peculiarly opportune just now. For it lies at the bottom of the most +pressing questions of the day. Of the two great problems that stare the +Western world in the face at the present moment, both turn to it for +solution. Agnosticism, the foreboding silence of those who think, +socialism, communism, and nihilism, the petulant cry of those who do +not, alike depend ultimately for the right to be upon the truth or the +falsity of the sense of self. + +For if there be no such actual thing as individuality, if the feeling +we call by that name be naught but the transient illusion the Buddhists +would have us believe it, any faith founded upon it as basis vanishes as +does the picture in a revolving kaleidoscope,--less enduring even than +the flitting phantasmagoria of a dream. If the ego be but the passing +shadow of the material brain, at the disintegration of the gray matter +what will become of us? Shall we simply lapse into an indistinguishable +part of the vast universe that compasses us round? At the thought we +seem to stand straining our gaze, on the shore of the great sea of +knowledge, only to watch the fog roll in, and hide from our view even +those headlands of hope that, like beseeching hands, stretch out into +the deep. + +So more materially. If individuality be a delusion of the mind, what +motive potent enough to excite endeavor in the breast of an ordinary +mortal remains? Philosophers, indeed, might still work for the +advancement of mankind, but mankind itself would not continue long to +labor energetically for what should profit only the common weal. Take +away the stimulus of individuality, and action is paralyzed at once. +For with most men the promptings of personal advantage only afford +sufficient incentive to effort. Destroy this force, then any +consideration due it lapses, and socialism is not only justified, it +is raised instantly into an axiom of life. The community, in that case, +becomes itself the unit, the indivisible atom of existence. Socialism, +then communism, then nihilism, follow in inevitable sequence. That even +the Far Oriental, with all his numbing impersonality, has not touched +this goal may at least suggest that individuality is a fact. + +But first, what do we know about its existence ourselves? + +Very early in the course of every thoughtful childhood an event takes +place, by the side of which, to the child himself, all other events sink +into insignificance. It is not one that is recognized and chronicled +by the world, for it is wholly unconnected with action. No one but the +child is aware of its occurrence, and he never speaks of it to others. +Yet to that child it marks an epoch. So intensely individual does it +seem that the boy is afraid to avow it, while in reality so universal +is it that probably no human being has escaped its influence. Though +subjective purely, it has more vividness than any external event; +and though strictly intrinsic to life, it is more startling than any +accident of fate or fortune. This experience of the boy's, at once so +singular and yet so general, is nothing less than the sudden revelation +to him one day of the fact of his own personality. + +Somewhere about the time when sensation is giving place to sensitiveness +as the great self-educator, and the knowledge gained by the five bodily +senses is being fused into the wisdom of that mental one we call common +sense, the boy makes a discovery akin to the act of waking up. All at +once he becomes conscious of himself; and the consciousness has about +it a touch of the uncanny. Hitherto he has been aware only of matter; +he now first realizes mind. Unwarned, unprepared, he is suddenly ushered +before being, and stands awe-struck in the presence of--himself. + +If the introduction to his own identity was startling, there is nothing +reassuring in the feeling that this strange acquaintanceship must last. +For continue it does. It becomes an unsought intimacy he cannot shake +off. Like to his own shadow he cannot escape it. To himself a man cannot +but be at home. For years this alter ego haunts him, for he imagines it +an idiosyncrasy of his own, a morbid peculiarity he dare not confide +to any one, for fear of being thought a fool. Not till long afterwards, +when he has learned to live as a matter of course with his ever-present +ghost, does he discover that others have had like familiars themselves. + +Sometimes this dawn of consciousness is preceded by a long twilight of +soul-awakening; but sometimes, upon more sensitive and subtler natures, +the light breaks with all the suddenness of a sunrise at the equator, +revealing to the mind's eye an unsuspected world of self within. But in +whatever way we may awake to it, the sense of personality, when first +realized, appears already, like the fabled Goddess of Wisdom, full grown +in the brain. From the moment when we first remember ourselves we seem +to be as old as we ever seem to others afterwards to become. We grow, +indeed, in knowledge, in wisdom, in experience, as our years increase, +but deep down in our heart of hearts we are still essentially the same. +To be sure, people pay us more deference than they did, which suggests +a doubt at times whether we may not have changed; small boys of a +succeeding generation treat us with a respect that causes us inwardly to +smile, as we think how little we differ from them, if they but knew it. +For at bottom we are not conscious of change from that morning, long +ago, when first we realized ourselves. We feel just as young now as we +felt old then. We are but amused at the world's discrimination where we +can detect no difference. + +Every human being has been thus "twice born": once as matter, once as +mind. Nor is this second birth the birthright only of mankind. All the +higher animals probably, possibly even the lower too, have experienced +some such realization of individual identity. However that may be, +certainly to all races of men has come this revelation; only the degree +in which they have felt its force has differed immensely. It is one +thing to the apathetic, fatalistic Turk, and quite another matter to an +energetic, nervous American. Facts, fancies, faiths, all show how wide +is the variance in feelings. With them no introspective [greek]cnzhi +seauton overexcites the consciousness of self. But with us; as with +those of old possessed of devils, it comes to startle and stays to +distress. Too apt is it to prove an ever-present, undesirable double. +Too often does it play the part of uninvited spectre at the feast, +whose presence no one save its unfortunate victim suspects. The haunting +horror of his own identity is to natures far less eccentric than Kenelm +Chillingly's only too common a curse. To this companionship, paradoxical +though it sound, is principally due the peculiar loneliness of +childhood. For nothing is so isolating as a persistent idea which one +dares not confide. + +And yet,--stranger paradox still,--was there ever any one willing to +exchange his personality for another's? Who can imagine foregoing his +own self? Nay, do we not cling even to its outward appearance? Is there +a man so poor in all that man holds dear that he does not keenly resent +being accidentally mistaken for his neighbor? Surely there must be +something more than mirage in this deep-implanted, widespread instinct +of human race. + +But however strong the conviction now of one's individuality, is there +aught to assure him of its continuance beyond the confines of its +present life? Will it awake on death's morrow and know itself, or +will it, like the body that gave it lodgment, disintegrate again into +indistinguishable spirit dust? Close upon the heels of the existing +consciousness of self treads the shadow-like doubt of its hereafter. +Will analogy help to answer the grewsome riddle of the Sphinx? Are the +laws we have learned to be true for matter true also for mind? Matter we +now know is indestructible; yet the form of it with which we once were +so fondly familiar vanishes never to return. Is a like fate to be the +lot of the soul? That mind should be capable of annihilation is as +inconceivable as that matter should cease to be. Surely the spirit we +feel existing round about us on every side now has been from ever, and +will be for ever to come. But that portion of it which we each know as +self, is it not like to a drop of rain seen in its falling through the +air? Indistinguishable the particle was in the cloud whence it came; +indistinguishable it will become again in the ocean whither it is bound. +Its personality is but its passing phase from a vast impersonal on the +one hand to an equally vast impersonal on the other. Thus seers preached +in the past; so modern science is hinting to-day. With us the idea seems +the bitter fruit of material philosophy; by them it was looked upon as +the fairest flower of their faith. What is dreaded now as the impious +suggestion of the godless four thousand years ago was reverenced as a +sacred tenet of religion. + +Shorter even than his short threescore years and ten is that soul's life +of which man is directly cognizant. Bounded by two seemingly impersonal +states is the personal consciousness of which he is made aware: the one +the infantile existence that precedes his boyish discovery, the other +the gloom that grows with years,--two twilights that fringe the two +borders of his day. But with the Far Oriental, life is all twilight. For +in Japan and China both states are found together. There, side by side +with the present unconsciousness of the babe exists the belief in a +coming unconsciousness for the man. So inseparably blended are the two +that the known truth of the one seems, for that very bond, to carry +with it the credentials of the other. Can it be that the personal, +progressive West is wrong, and the impersonal, impassive East right? +Surely not. Is the other side of the world in advance of us in +mind-development, even as it precedes us in the time of day; or just as +our noon is its night, may it not be far in our rear? Is not its seeming +wisdom rather the precociousness of what is destined never to go far? + +Brought suddenly upon such a civilization, after the blankness of a +long ocean voyage, one is reminded instinctively of the feelings of that +bewildered individual who, after a dinner at which he had eventually +ceased to be himself, was by way of pleasantry left out overnight in a +graveyard, on their way home, by his humorously inclined companions; and +who, on awaking alone, in a still dubious condition, looked around +him in surprise, rubbed his eyes two or three times to no purpose, and +finally muttered in a tone of awe-struck conviction, "Well, either I'm +the first to rise, or I'm a long way behind time!" + +Whether their failure to follow the natural course of evolution results +in bringing them in at the death just the same or not, these people are +now, at any rate, stationary not very far from the point at which we +all set out. They are still in that childish state of development +before self-consciousness has spoiled the sweet simplicity of nature. An +impersonal race seems never to have fully grown up. + +Partly for its own sake, partly for ours, this most distinctive feature +of the Far East, its marked impersonality, is well worthy particular +attention; for while it collaterally suggests pregnant thoughts about +ourselves, it directly underlies the deeper oddities of a civilization +which is the modern eighth wonder of the world. We shall see this as we +look at what these people are, at what they were, and at what they hope +to become; not historically, but psychologically, as one might perceive, +were he but wise enough, in an acorn, besides the nut itself, two oaks, +that one from which it fell, and that other which from it will rise. +These three states, which we may call its potential past, present, and +future, may be observed and studied in three special outgrowths of a +race's character: in its language, in its every-day thoughts, and in its +religion. For in the language of a people we find embalmed the spirit +of its past; in its every-day thoughts, be they of arts or sciences, is +wrapped up its present life; in its religion lie enfolded its dreamings +of a future. From out each of these three subjects in the Far East +impersonality stares us in the face. Upon this quality as a foundation +rests the Far Oriental character. It is individually rather than +nationally that I propose to scan it now. It is the action of a +particle in the wave of world-development I would watch, rather than +the propagation of the wave itself. Inferences about the movement of the +whole will follow of themselves a knowledge of the motion of its parts. + +But before we attack the subject esoterically, let us look a moment at +the man as he appears in his relation to the community. Such a glance +will suggest the peculiar atmosphere of impersonality that pervades the +people. + +However lacking in cleverness, in merit, or in imagination a man may +be, there are in our Western world, if his existence there be so much as +noticed at all, three occasions on which he appears in print. His birth, +his marriage, and his death are all duly chronicled in type, perhaps as +sufficiently typical of the general unimportance of his life. Mention of +one's birth, it is true, is an aristocratic privilege, confined to the +world of English society. In democratic America, no doubt because all +men there are supposed to be born free and equal, we ignore the first +event, and mention only the last two episodes, about which our national +astuteness asserts no such effacing equality. + +Accepting our newspaper record as a fair enough summary of the biography +of an average man, let us look at these three momentous occasions in the +career of a Far Oriental. + + + +Chapter 2. Family. + +In the first place, then, the poor little Japanese baby is ushered into +this world in a sadly impersonal manner, for he is not even accorded the +distinction of a birthday. He is permitted instead only the much less +special honor of a birth-year. Not that he begins his separate existence +otherwise than is the custom of mortals generally, at a definite instant +of time, but that very little subsequent notice is ever taken of the +fact. On the contrary, from the moment he makes his appearance he is +spoken of as a year old, and this same age he continues to be considered +in most simple ease of calculation, till the beginning of the next +calendar year. When that epoch of general rejoicing arrives, he is +credited with another year himself. So is everybody else. New Year's day +is a common birthday for the community, a sort of impersonal anniversary +for his whole world. A like reckoning is followed in China and Korea. +Upon the disadvantages of being considered from one's birth up at least +one year and possibly two older than one really is, it lies beyond our +present purpose to expatiate. It is quite evident that woman has had no +voice in the framing of such a chronology. One would hardly imagine +that man had either, so astronomic is the system. A communistic age +is however but an unavoidable detail of the general scheme whose most +suggestive feature consists in the subordination of the actual birthday +of the individual to the fictitious birthday of the community. For it is +not so much the want of commemoration shown the subject as the character +of the commemoration which is significant. Some slight notice is indeed +paid to birthdays during early childhood, but even then their observance +is quite secondary in importance to that of the great impersonal +anniversaries of the third day of the third moon and the fifth day of +the fifth moon. These two occasions celebrated the coming of humanity +into the world with an impersonality worthy of the French revolutionary +calendar. The first of them is called the festival of girls, and +commemorates the birth of girls generally, the advent of the universal +feminine, as one may say. The second is a corresponding anniversary for +boys. Owing to its sex, the latter is the greater event of the two, and +in consequence of its most conspicuous feature is styled the festival of +fishes. The fishes are hollow paper images of the "tai" from four to six +feet in length, tied to the top of a long pole planted in the ground and +tipped with a gilded ball. Holes in the paper at the mouth and the +tail enable the wind to inflate the body so that it floats about +horizontally, swaying hither and thither, and tugging at the line after +the manner of a living thing. The fish are emblems of good luck, and are +set up in the courtyard of every house where a son has been born during +the year. On this auspicious day Tokio is suddenly transformed into +eighty square miles of aquarium. + +For any more personal purpose New Year's day eclipses all particular +anniversaries. Then everybody congratulates everybody else upon +everything in general, and incidentally upon being alive. Such +substitution of an abstract for a concrete birthday, although +exceedingly convenient for others, must at least conduce to +self-forgetfulness on the part of its proper possessor, and tend +inevitably to merge the identity of the individual in that of the +community. + +It fares hardly better with the Far Oriental in the matter of marriage. +Although he is, as we might think, the person most interested in the +result, he is permitted no say in the affair whatever. In fact, it +is not his affair at all, but his father's. His hand is simply made a +cat's-paw of. The matter is entirely a business transaction, entered +into by the parent and conducted through regular marriage brokers. In +it he plays only the part of a marionette. His revenge for being thus +bartered out of what might be the better half of his life, he takes +eventually on the next succeeding generation. + +His death may be said to be the most important act of his whole life. +For then only can his personal existence be properly considered to +begin. By it he joins the great company of ancestors who are to these +people of almost more consequence than living folk, and of much more +individual distinction. Particularly is this the case in China and +Korea, but the same respect, though in a somewhat less rigid form, +is paid the dead in Japan. Then at last the individual receives that +recognition which was denied him in the flesh. In Japan a mortuary +tablet is set up to him in the house and duly worshipped; on the +continent the ancestors are given a dwelling of their own, and even +more devotedly reverenced. But in both places the cult is anything but +funereal. For the ancestral tombs are temples and pleasure pavilions at +the same time, consecrated not simply to rites and ceremonies, but to +family gatherings and general jollification. And the fortunate defunct +must feel, if he is still half as sentient as his dutiful descendants +suppose, that his earthly life, like other approved comedies, has ended +well. + +Important, however, as these critical points in his career may be +reckoned by his relatives, they are scarcely calculated to prove equally +epochal to the man himself. In a community where next to no note is +ever taken of the anniversary of his birth, some doubt as to the special +significance of that red-letter day may not unnaturally creep into +his own mind. While in regard to his death, although it may be highly +flattering for him to know that he will certainly become somebody when +he shall have ceased, practically, to be anybody, such tardy recognition +is scarcely timely enough to be properly appreciated. Human nature is so +earth-tied, after all, that a post-mundane existence is very apt to seem +immaterial as well as be so. + +With the old familiar landmarks of life obliterated in this wholesale +manner, it is to be doubted whether one of us, placed in the midst of +such a civilization, would know himself. He certainly would derive but +scanty satisfaction from the recognition if he did. Even Nirvana might +seem a happy limbo by comparison. With a communal, not to say a cosmic, +birthday, and a conventional wife, he might well deem his separate +existence the shadow of a shade and embrace Buddhism from mere force of +circumstances. + +Further investigation would not shake his opinion. For a far-oriental +career is thoroughly in keeping with these, its typical turning-points. +From one end of its course to the other it is painfully impersonal. +In its regular routine as in its more salient junctures, life presents +itself to these races a totally different affair from what it seems to +us. The cause lies in what is taken to be the basis of socio-biology, if +one may so express it. + +In the Far East the social unit, the ultimate molecule of existence, is +not the individual, but the family. + +We occidentals think we value family. We even parade our pretensions so +prominently as sometimes to tread on other people's prejudices of a like +nature. Yet we scarcely seem to appreciate the inheritance. For with a +logic which does us questionable credit, we are proud of our ancestors +in direct proportion to their remoteness from ourselves, thus permitting +Democracy to revenge its insignificance by smiling at our self-imposed +satire. To esteem a man in inverse ratio to the amount of remarkable +blood he has inherited is, to say the least, bathetic. Others, again, +make themselves objectionable by preferring their immediate relatives +to all less connected companions, and cling to their cousins so closely +that affection often culminates in matrimony, nature's remonstrances +notwithstanding. But with all the pride or pleasure which we take in +the members of our particular clan, our satisfaction really springs from +viewing them on an autocentric theory of the social system. In our own +eyes we are the star about which, as in Joseph's dream, our relatives +revolve and upon which they help to shed an added lustre. Our Ptolemaic +theory of society is necessitated by our tenacity to the personal +standpoint. This fixed idea of ours causes all else seemingly to +rotate about it. Such an egoistic conception is quite foreign to +our longitudinal antipodes. However much appearances may agree, the +fundamental principles upon which family consideration is based are +widely different in the two hemispheres. For the far-eastern social +universe turns on a patricentric pivot. + +Upon the conception of the family as the social and political unit +depends the whole constitution of China. The same theory somewhat +modified constitutes the life-principle of Korea, of Japan, and of their +less advanced cousins who fill the vast centre of the Asiatic continent. +From the emperor on his throne to the common coolie in his hovel it is +the idea of kinship that knits the entire body politic together. The +Empire is one great family; the family is a little empire. + +The one developed out of the other. The patriarchal is, as is well +known, probably the oldest political system in the world. All nations +may be said to have experienced such a paternal government, but most +nations outgrew it. + +Now the interesting fact about the yellow branch of the human race is, +not that they had so juvenile a constitution, but that they have it; +that it has persisted practically unchanged from prehistoric ages. It +is certainly surprising in this kaleidoscopic world whose pattern is +constantly changing as time merges one combination of its elements +into another, that on the other side of the globe this set should have +remained the same. Yet in spite of the lapse of years, in spite of +the altered conditions of existence, in spite of an immense advance in +civilization, such a primitive state of society has continued there to +the present day, in all its essentials what it was when as nomads the +race forefathers wandered peacefully or otherwise over the plains of +Central Asia. The principle helped them to expand; it has simply cramped +them ever since. For, instead of dissolving like other antiquated views, +it has become, what it was bound to become if it continued to last, +crystallized into an institution. It had practically reached this +condition when it received a theoretical, not to say a theological +recognition which gave it mundane immortality. A couple of millenniums +ago Confucius consecrated filial duty by making it the basis of the +Chinese moral code. His hand was the finishing touch of fossilification. +For since the sage set his seal upon the system no one has so much as +dreamt of changing it. The idea of confuting Confucius would be an +act of impiety such as no Chinaman could possibly commit. Not that +the inadmissibility of argument is due really to the authority of the +philosopher, but that it lies ingrained in the character of the people. +Indeed the genius of the one may be said to have consisted in divining +the genius of the other. Confucius formulated the prevailing practice, +and in so doing helped to make it perpetual. He gave expression to the +national feeling, and like expressions, generally his, served to stamp +the idea all the more indelibly upon the national consciousness. + +In this manner the family from a natural relation grew into a highly +unnatural social anachronism. The loose ties of a roving life became +fetters of a fixed conventionality. Bonds originally of mutual advantage +hardened into restrictions by which the young were hopelessly tethered +to the old. Midway in its course the race undertook to turn round and +face backwards, as it journeyed on. Its subsequent advance could be +nothing but slow. + +The head of a family is so now in something of a corporeal sense. From +him emanate all its actions; to him are responsible all its parts. Any +other member of it is as incapable of individual expression as is the +hand, or the foot, or the eye of man. Indeed, Confucian doctors of +divinity might appropriately administer psychically to the egoistic +the rebuke of the Western physician to the too self-analytic youth who, +finding that, after eating, his digestion failed to give him what he +considered its proper sensations, had come to consult the doctor as to +how it ought to feel. "Feel! young man," he was answered, "you ought +not to be aware that you have a digestion." So with them, a normally +constituted son knows not what it is to possess a spontaneity of his +own. Indeed, this very word "own," which so long ago in our own tongue +took to itself the symbol of possession, well exemplifies his dependent +state. China furnishes the most conspicuous instance of the want +of individual rights. A Chinese son cannot properly be said to own +anything. The title to the land he tills is vested absolutely in the +family, of which he is an undivided thirtieth, or what-not. Even the +administration of the property is not his, but resides in the family, +represented by its head. The outward symbols of ownership testify to the +fact. The bourns that mark the boundaries of the fields bear the names +of families, not of individuals. The family, as such, is the proprietor, +and its lands are cultivated and enjoyed in common by all the +constituents of the clan. In the tenure of its real estate, the Chinese +family much resembles the Russian Mir. But so far as his personal state +is concerned, the Chinese son outslaves the Slav. For he lives at home, +under the immediate control of the paternal will--in the most complete +of serfdoms, a filial one. Even existence becomes a communal affair. +From the family mansion, or set of mansions, in which all its members +dwell, to the family mausoleum, to which they will all eventually be +borne, a man makes his life journey in strict company with his kin. + +A man's life is thus but an undivisible fraction of the family life. How +essentially so will appear from the following slight sketch of it. + +To begin at the beginning, his birth is a very important event--for the +household, at which no one fails to rejoice except the new-comer. He +cries. The general joy, however, depends somewhat upon his sex. If the +baby chances to be a boy, everybody is immensely pleased; if a girl, +there is considerably less effusion shown. In the latter case the +more impulsive relatives are unmistakably sorry; the more philosophic +evidently hope for better luck next time. Both kinds make very pretty +speeches, which not even the speakers believe, for in the babe lottery +the family is considered to have drawn a blank. A delight so engendered +proves how little of the personal, even in prospective, attaches to its +object. The reason for the invidious distinction in the matter of sex +lies of course in an inordinate desire for the perpetuation of the +family line. The unfortunate infant is regarded merely in the light of +a possible progenitor. A boy is already potentially a father; whereas a +girl, if she marry at all, is bound to marry out of her own family into +another, and is relatively lost. The full force of the deprivation is, +however, to some degree tempered by the almost infinite possibilities of +adoption. Daughters are, therefore, not utterly unmitigable evils. + +From the privacy of the domestic circle, the infant's entrance into +public life is performed pick-a-back. Strapped securely to the shoulders +of a slightly older sister, out he goes, consigned to the tender mercies +of a being who is scarcely more than a baby herself. The diminutiveness +of the nurse-perambulators is the most surprising part of the +performance. The tiniest of tots may be seen thus toddling round with +burdens half their own size. Like the dot upon the little i, the baby's +head seems a natural part of their childish ego. + +An economy of the kind in the matter of nurses is highly suggestive. +That it should be practicable thus to entrust one infant to another +proves the precociousness of children. But this surprising maturity +of the young implies by a law too well known to need explanation, the +consequent immaturity of the race. That which has less to grow up +to, naturally grows up to its limit sooner. It may even be questioned +whether it does not do so with the more haste; on the same principle +that a runner who has less distance to travel not only accomplishes his +course quicker, but moves with relatively greater speed, or as a small +planet grows old not simply sooner, but comparatively faster than a +larger one. Jupiter is still in his fiery youth, while the moon is +senile in decrepid old age, and yet his separate existence began +long before hers. Either hypothesis will explain the abnormally +early development of the Chinese race, and its subsequent career of +inactivity. Meanwhile the youthful nurse, in blissful ignorance of +the evidence which her present precocity affords against her future +possibilities, pursues her sports with intermittent attention to her +charge, whose poor little head lolls about, now on one side and now +on the other, in a most distressingly loose manner, an uninterested +spectator of the proceedings. + +As soon as the babe gets a trifle bigger he ceases to be ministered +to and begins his long course of ministering to others. His home life +consists of attentive subordination. The relation his obedience bears +to that of children elsewhere is paralleled perhaps sufficiently by +the comparative importance attached to precepts on the subject in the +respective moral codes. The commandment "honor thy father" forms a tithe +of the Mosaic law, while the same injunction constitutes at least one +half of the Confucian precepts. To the Chinese child all the parental +commands are not simply law to the letter, they are to be anticipated +in the spirit. To do what he is told is but the merest fraction of his +duty; theoretically his only thought is how to serve his sire. The pious +Aeneas escaping from Troy exemplifies his conduct when it comes to +a question of domestic precedence,--whose first care, it will be +remembered, was for his father, his next for his son, and his last for +his wife. He lost his wife, it may be noted in passing. Filial piety +is the greatest of Chinese virtues. Indeed, an undutiful son is +a monstrosity, a case of moral deformity. It could now hardly be +otherwise. For a father sums up in propria persona a whole pedigree of +patriarchs whose superimposed weight of authority is practically divine. +This condition of servitude is never outgrown by the individual, as it +has never been outgrown by the race. + +Our boy now begins to go to school; to a day school, it need hardly be +specified, for a boarding school would be entirely out of keeping with +the family life. Here, he is given the "Trimetrical Classic" to start +on, that he may learn the characters by heart, picking up incidentally +what ideas he may. This book is followed by the "Century of Surnames," a +catalogue of all the clan names in China, studied like the last for the +sake of the characters, although the suggestion of the importance of the +family contained in it is probably not lost upon his youthful mind. Next +comes the "Thousand Character Classic," a wonderful epic as a feat of +skill, for of the thousand characters which it contains not a single +one is repeated, an absence of tautology not properly appreciated by the +enforced reader. Reminiscences of our own school days vividly depict the +consequent disgust, instead of admiration, of the boy. Three more books +succeed these first volumes, differing from one another in form, but +in substance singularly alike, treating, as they all do, of history +and ethics combined. For tales and morals are inseparably associated by +pious antiquity. Indeed, the past would seem to have lived with special +reference to the edification of the future. Chinamen were abnormally +virtuous in those golden days, barring the few unfortunates whom fate +needed as warning examples of depravity for succeeding ages. Except +for the fact that instruction as to a future life forms no part of +the curriculum, a far-eastern education may be said to consist of +Sunday-school every day in the week. For no occasion is lost by the +erudite authors, even in the most worldly portions of their work, +for preaching a slight homily on the subject in hand. The dictum of +Dionysius of Halicarnassus that "history is philosophy teaching by +example" would seem there to have become modified into "history is +filiosophy teaching by example." For in the instructive anecdotes every +other form of merit is depicted as second to that of being a dutiful +son. To the practice of that supreme virtue all other considerations are +sacrificed. The student's aim is thus kept single. At every turn of the +leaves, paragons of filial piety shame the youthful reader to the pitch +of emulation by the epitaphic records of their deeds. Portraits of the +past, possibly colored, present that estimable trait in so exalted +a type that to any less filial a people they would simply deter +competition. Yet the boy implicitly believes and no doubt resolves to +rival what he reads. A specimen or two will amply suggest the rest. In +one tale the hero is held up to the unqualified admiration of posterity +for having starved to death his son, in an extreme case of family +destitution, for the sake of providing food enough for his aged father. +In another he unhesitatingly divorces his wife for having dared to poke +fun, in the shape of bodkins, at some wooden effigies of his parents +which he had had set up in the house for daily devotional contemplation. +Finally another paragon actually sells himself in perpetuity as a slave +that he may thus procure the wherewithal to bury with due honor his +anything but worthy progenitor, who had first cheated his neighbors and +then squandered his ill-gotten gains in riotous living. Of these tales, +as of certain questionable novels in a slightly different line, the +eventual moral is considered quite competent to redeem the general +immorality of the plot. + +Along such a curriculum the youthful Chinaman is made to run. A very +similar system prevails in Japan, the difference between the two +consisting in quantity rather than quality. The books in the two cases +are much the same, and the amount read differs surprisingly little when +we consider that in the one case it is his own classics the student is +reading, in the other the Chinaman's. + +If he belong to the middle class, as soon as his schooling is over he is +set to learn his father's trade. To undertake to learn any trade but his +father's would strike the family as simply preposterous. Why should +he adopt another line of business? And, if he did, what other business +should he adopt? Is his father's occupation not already there, a part +of the existing order of things; and is he not the son of his father and +heir therefore of the paternal skill? Not that such inherited aptness is +recognized scientifically; it is simply taken for granted instinctively. +It is but a halfhearted intuition, however, for the possibility of an +inheritance from the mother's side is as out of the question as if her +severance from her own family had an ex post facto effect. As for +his individual predilection in the matter, nature has considerately +conformed to custom by giving him none. He becomes a cabinet-maker, +for instance, because his ancestors always have been cabinet-makers. He +inherits the family business as a necessary part of the family name. He +is born to his trade, not naturally selected because of his fitness for +it. But he usually is amply qualified for the position, for generations +of practice, if only on one side of the house, accumulate a vast deal +of technical skill. The result of this system of clan guilds in all +branches of industry is sufficiently noticeable. The almost infinite +superiority of Japanese artisans over their European fellow-craftsmen +is world-known. On the other hand the tendency of the occupation in the +abstract to swallow up the individual in the concrete is as evident to +theory as it is patent in practice. Eventually the man is lost in the +manner. The very names of trades express the fact. The Japanese word for +cabinet-maker, for example, means literally cutting-thing-house, and +is now applied as distinctively to the man as to his shop. Nominally as +well as practically the youthful Japanese artisan makes his introduction +to the world, much after the manner of the hero of Lecocq's comic opera, +the son of the house of Marasquin et Cie. + +If instead of belonging to the lower middle class our typical youth be +born of bluer blood, or if he be filled with the same desires as if he +were so descended, he becomes a student. Having failed to discover in +the school-room the futility of his country's self-vaunted learning, he +proceeds to devote his life to its pursuit. With an application which +is eminently praiseworthy, even if its object be not, he sets to work to +steep himself in the classics till he can perceive no merit in anything +else. As might be suspected, he ends by discovering in the sayings +of the past more meaning than the simple past ever dreamed of putting +there. He becomes more Confucian than Confucius. Indeed, it is fortunate +for the reputation of the sage that he cannot return to earth, for he +might disagree to his detriment with his own commentators. + +Such is the state of things in China and Korea. Learning, however, +is not dependent solely on individual interest for its wonderfully +flourishing condition in the Middle Kingdom, for the government abets +the practice to its utmost. It is itself the supreme sanction, for its +posts are the prizes of proficiency. Through the study of the classics +lies the only entrance to political power. To become a mandarin one must +have passed a series of competitive examinations on these very subjects, +and competition in this impersonal field is most keen. For while popular +enthusiasm for philosophy for philosophy's sake might, among any people, +eventually show symptoms of fatigue, it is not likely to flag where the +outcome of it is so substantial. Erudition carries there all earthly +emoluments in its train. For the man who can write the most scholastic +essay on the classics is forthwith permitted to amass much honor and +more wealth by wronging his less accomplished fellow-citizens. China +is a student's paradise where the possession of learning is instantly +convertible into unlimited pelf. + +In Japan the study of the classics was never pursued professionally. +It was, however, prosecuted with much zeal en amateur. The Chinese +bureaucratic system has been wanting. For in spite of her students, +until within thirty years Japan slumbered still in the Knight-time of +the Middle Ages, and so long as a man carried about with him continually +two beautiful swords he felt it incumbent upon him to use them. The +happy days of knight-errantry have passed. These same cavaliers +of Samurai are now thankful to police the streets in spectacles +necessitated by the too diligent study of German text, and arrest chance +disturbers of the public peace for a miserably small salary per month. + +Our youth has now reached the flowering season of life, that brief +May time when the whole world takes on the rose-tint, and when by all +dramatic laws he ought to fall in love. He does nothing of the kind. +Sad to say, he is a stranger to the feeling. Love, as we understand the +word, is a thing unknown to the Far East; fortunately, indeed, for the +possession there of the tender passion would be worse than useless. Its +indulgence would work no end of disturbance to the community at large, +beside entailing much misery upon its individual victim. Its exercise +would probably be classed with kleptomania and other like excesses of +purely personal consideration. The community could never permit the +practice, for it strikes at the very root of their whole social system. + +The immense loss in happiness to these people in consequence of the +omission by the too parsimonious Fates of that thread, which, with us, +spins the whole of woman's web of life, and at least weaves the warp of +man's, is but incidental to the present subject; the effect of the loss +upon the individuality of the person himself is what concerns us now. + +If there is one moment in a man's life when his interest for the world +at large pales before the engrossing character of his own emotions, it +is assuredly when that man first falls in love. Then, if never before, +the world within excludes the world without. For of all our human +passions none is so isolating as the tenderest. To shut that one other +being in, we must of necessity shut all the rest of mankind out; and we +do so with a reckless trust in our own self-sufficiency which has about +it a touch of the sublime. The other millions are as though they were +not, and we two are alone in the earth, which suddenly seems to have +grown unprecedentedly beautiful. Indeed, it only needs such judicious +depopulation to make of any spot an Eden. Perhaps the early Jewish +myth-makers had some such thought in mind when they wrote their idyl of +the cosmogony. The human traits are true to-day. Then at last our souls +throw aside their conventional wrappings to stand revealed as they +really are. Certain of comprehension, the thoughts we have never dared +breathe to any one before, find a tongue for her who seems fore-destined +to understand. The long-closed floodgates of feeling are thrown wide, +and our personality, pent up from the time of its inception for very +mistrust, sweeps forth in one uncontrollable rush. For then the most +reticent becomes confiding; the most self-contained expands. Then every +detail of our past lives assumes an importance which even we had not +divined. To her we tell them all,--our boyish beliefs, our youthful +fancies, the foolish with the fine, the witty with the wise, the little +with the great. Nothing then seems quite unworthy, as nothing seems +quite worthy enough. Flowers and weeds that we plucked upon our pathway, +we heap them in her lap, certain that even the poorest will not be +tossed aside. Small wonder that we bring as many as we may when she +bends her head so lovingly to each. + +As our past rises in reminiscence with all its oldtime reality, no less +clearly does our future stand out to us in mirage. What we would be +seems as realizable as what we were. Seen by another beside ourselves, +our castles in the air take on something of the substance of +stereoscopic sight. Our airiest fancies seem solid facts for their +reality to her, and gilded by lovelight, they glitter and sparkle like +a true palace of the East. For once all is possible; nothing lies beyond +our reach. And as we talk, and she listens, we two seem to be floating +off into an empyrean of our own like the summer clouds above our heads, +as they sail dreamily on into the far-away depths of the unfathomable +sky. + +It would be more than mortal not to believe in ourselves when another +believes so absolutely in us. Our most secret thoughts are no longer +things to be ashamed of, for she has sanctioned them. Whatever doubt may +have shadowed us as to our own imaginings disappears before the smile +of her appreciation. That her appreciation may be prejudiced is not a +possibility we think of then. She understands us, or seems to do so to +our own better understanding of ourselves. Happy the man who is thus +understood! Happy even he who imagines that he is, because of her eager +wish to comprehend; fortunate, indeed, if in this one respect he never +comes to see too clearly. + +No such blissful infatuation falls to the lot of the Far Oriental. +He never is the dupe of his own desire, the willing victim of his +self-illusion. He is never tempted to reveal himself, and by thus +revealing, realize. No loving appreciation urges him on toward the +attainment of his own ideal. That incitement to be what he would seem to +be, to become what she deems becoming, he fails to feel. Custom has so +far fettered fancy that even the wish to communicate has vanished. He +has now nothing to tell; she needs no ear to hear. For she is not his +love; she is only his wife,--what is left of a romance when the romance +is left out. Worse still, she never was anything else. He has not so +much as a memory of her, for he did not marry her for love; he may not +love of his own accord, nor for the matter of that does he wish to do +so. If by some mischance he should so far forget to forget himself, it +were much better for him had he not done so, for the choice of a bride +is not his, nor of a bridegroom hers. Marriage to a Far Oriental is +the most important mercantile transaction of his whole life. It is, +therefore, far too weighty a matter to be entrusted to his youthful +indiscretion; for although the person herself is of lamentably little +account in the bargain, the character of her worldly circumstances is +most material to it. So she is contracted for with the same care one +would exercise in the choice of any staple business commodity. The +particular sample is not vital to the trade, but the grade of goods is. +She is selected much as the bride of the Vicar of Wakefield chose her +wedding-gown, only that the one was at least cut to suit, while the +other is not. It is certainly easier, if less fitting, to get a wife as +some people do clothes, not to their own order, but ready made; all the +more reason when the bargain is for one's son, not one's self. So the +Far East, which looks at the thing from a strictly paternal standpoint +and ignores such trifles as personal preferences, takes its boy to the +broker's and fits him out. That the object of such parental care does +not end by murdering his unfortunate spouse or making way with himself +suggests how dead already is that individuality which we deem to be of +the very essence of the thing. + +Marriage is thus a species of investment contracted by the existing +family for the sake of the prospective one, the actual participants +being only lay figures in the affair. Sometimes the father decides the +matter himself; sometimes he or the relative who stands in loco parentis +calls for a plebiscit on the subject; for such an extension of the +suffrage has gradually crept even into patriarchal institutions. The +family then assemble, sit in solemn conclave on the question, and +decide it by vote. Of course the interested parties are not asked their +opinion, as it might be prejudiced. The result of the conference must +be highly gratifying. To have one's wife chosen for one by vote of one's +relatives cannot but be satisfactory--to the electors. The outcome of +this ballot, like that of universal suffrage elsewhere, is at the best +unobjectionable mediocrity. Somehow such a result does not seem quite +to fulfil one's ideal of a wife. It is true that the upper classes +of impersonal France practise this method of marital selection, their +conseils de famille furnishing in some sort a parallel. But, as is well +known, matrimony among these same upper classes is largely form devoid +of substance. It begins impressively with a dual ceremony, the civil +contract, which amounts to a contract of civility between the parties, +and a religious rite to render the same perpetual, and there it is too +apt to end. + +So much for the immediate influence on the man; the eventual effect on +the race remains to be considered. Now, if the first result be anything, +the second must in the end be everything. For however trifling it be in +the individual instance, it goes on accumulating with each successive +generation, like compound interest. The choosing of a wife by family +suffrage is not simply an exponent of the impersonal state of things, it +is a power toward bringing such a state of things about. A hermit seldom +develops to his full possibilities, and the domestic variety is no +exception to the rule. A man who is linked to some one that toward him +remains a cipher lacks surroundings inciting to psychological growth, +nor is he more favorably circumstanced because all his ancestors have +been similarly circumscribed. + +As if to make assurance doubly sure, natural selection here steps in +to further the process. To prove this with all the rigidity of +demonstration desirable is in the present state of erotics beyond our +power. Until our family trees give us something more than mere skeletons +of dead branches, we must perforce continue ignorant of the science +of grafts. For the nonce we must be content to generalize from our own +premises, only rising above them sufficiently to get a bird's-eye view +of our neighbor's estates. Such a survey has at least one advantage: the +whole field of view appears perfectly plain. + +Surveying the subject, then, from this ego-altruistic position, we can +perceive why matrimony, as we practise it, should result in increasing +the personality of our race: for the reason namely that psychical +similarity determines the selection. At first sight, indeed, such +a natural affinity would seem to have little or nothing to do with +marriage. As far as outsiders are capable of judging, unlikes appear to +fancy one another quite as gratuitously as do likes. Connubial couples +are often anything but twin souls. Yet our own dual use of the word +"like" bears historic witness to the contrary. For in this expression +we have a record from early Gothic times that men liked others for being +like themselves. Since then, our feelings have not changed materially, +although our mode of showing them is slightly less intense. In those +simple days stranger and enemy were synonymous terms, and their +objects were received in a corresponding spirit. In our present refined +civilization we hurl epithets instead of spears, and content ourselves +with branding as heterodox the opinions of another which do not happen +to coincide with our own. The instinct of self-development naturally +begets this self-sided view. We insensibly find those persons congenial +whose ideas resemble ours, and gravitate to them, as leaves on a pond do +to one another, nearer and nearer till they touch. Is it likely, then, +that in the most important case of all the rule should suddenly cease +to hold? Is it to be presumed that even Socrates chose Xantippe for her +remarkable contrariety to himself? + +Mere physical attraction is another matter. Corporeally considered, men +not infrequently fall in love with their opposites, the phenomenally +tall with the painfully short, the unnecessarily stout with the +distressingly slender. But even such inartistic juxtapositions are much +less common than we are apt at times to think. For it must never be +forgotten that the exceptional character of the phenomena renders them +conspicuous, the customary more consorted combinations failing to excite +attention. + +Besides, there exists a reason for physical incongruity which does not +hold psychically. Nature sanctions the one while she discountenances the +other. Instead of the forethought she once bestowed upon the body, it +receives at her hands now but the scantiest attention. Its development +has ceased to be an object with her. For some time past almost all her +care has been devoted to the evolution of the soul. The consequence is +that physically man is much less specialized than many other animals. +In other words, he is bodily less advanced in the race for competitive +extermination. He belongs to an antiquated, inefficient type of mammal. +His organism is still of the jack-of-all-trades pattern, such as +prevailed generally in the more youthful stages of organic life--one not +specially suited to any particular pursuit. Were it not for his cerebral +convolutions he could not compete for an instant in the struggle for +existence, and even the monkey would reign in his stead. But brain +is more effective than biceps, and a being who can kill his opponent +farther off than he can see him evidently needs no great excellence of +body to survive his foe. + +The field of competition has thus been transferred from matter to mind, +but the fight has lost none of its keenness in consequence. With the +same zeal with which advantageous anatomical variations were seized upon +and perpetuated, psychical ones are now grasped and rendered hereditary. +Now if opposites were to fancy and wed one another, such fortunate +improvements would soon be lost. They would be scattered over the +community at large even it they escaped entire neutralization. To +prevent so disastrous a result nature implants a desire for resemblance, +which desire man instinctively acts upon. + +Complete compatibility of temperament is of course a thing not to be +expected nor indeed to be desired, since it would defeat its own end +by allowing no room for variation. A fairly broad basis of agreement, +however, exists even when least suspected. This common ground of content +consists of those qualities held to be most essential by the individuals +concerned, although not necessarily so appearing to other people. +Sometimes, indeed, these qualities are still in the larvae state of +desires. They are none the less potent upon the man's personality on +that account, for the wish is always father to its own fulfilment. + +The want of conjugal resemblance not only works mediately on the +child, it works mutually on the parents; for companionship, as is well +recognized, tends to similarity. Now companionship is the last thing to +be looked for in a far-eastern couple. Where custom requires a wife to +follow dutifully in the wake of her husband, whenever the two go out +together, there is small opportunity for intercourse by the way, even +were there the slightest inclination to it, which there is not. +The appearance of the pair on an excursion is a walking satire on +sociability, for the comicality of the connection is quite unperceived +by the performers. In the privacy of the domestic circle the separation, +if less humorous, is no less complete. Each lives in a world of his own, +largely separate in fact in China and Korea, and none the less in fancy +in Japan. On the continent a friend of the husband would see little or +nothing of the wife, and even in Japan he would meet her much as we meet +an upper servant in a friend's house. Such a semi-attached relationship +does not conduce to much mutual understanding. + +The remainder of our hero's uneventful existence calls for no particular +comment. As soon as he has children borne him he is raised ipso facto +from the position of a common soldier to that of a subordinate officer +in the family ranks. But his opportunities for the expression of +individuality are not one whit increased. He has simply advanced a peg +in a regular hierarchy of subjection. From being looked after himself +he proceeds to look after others. Such is the extent of the change. +Even should he chance to be the eldest son of the eldest son, and +thus eventually end by becoming the head of the family, he cannot +consistently consider himself. There is absolutely no place in his +social cosmos for so particular a thing as the ego. + +With a certain grim humor suggestive of metaphysics, it may be said of +his whole life that it is nothing but a relative affair after all. + + + +Chapter 3. Adoption. + +But one may go a step farther in this matter of the family, and by so +doing fare still worse with respect to individuality. There are certain +customs in vogue among these peoples which would seem to indicate that +even so generic a thing as the family is too personal to serve them for +ultimate social atom, and that in fact it is only the idea of the family +that is really important, a case of abstraction of an abstract. These +suggestive customs are the far-eastern practices of adoption and +abdication. + +Adoption, with us, is a kind of domestic luxury, akin to the keeping +of any other pets, such as lap-dogs and canaries. It is a species of +self-indulgence which those who can afford it give themselves when +fortune has proved unpropitious, an artificial method of counteracting +the inequalities of fate. That such is the plain unglamoured view of the +procedure is shown by the age at which the object is adopted. Usually +the future son or daughter enters the adoptive household as an infant, +intentionally so on the part of the would-be parents. His ignorance of +a previous relationship largely increases his relative value; for the +possibility of his making comparisons in his own mind between a former +state of existence and the present one unfavorable to the latter is +not pleasant for the adopters to contemplate. He is therefore acquired +young. The amusement derived from his company is thus seen to be +distinctly paramount to all other considerations. No one cares so +heartily to own a dog which has been the property of another; a fortiori +of a child. It is clearly, then, not as a necessity that the babe is +adopted. If such were the case, if like the ancient Romans all a man +wanted was the continuance of the family line, he would naturally wait +until the last practicable moment; for he would thus save both care and +expense. In the Far East adoption is quite a different affair. There +it is a genealogical necessity--like having a father or mother. It is, +indeed, of almost more importance. For the great desideratum to these +peoples is not ancestors but descendants. Pedigrees in the land of +the universal opposite are not matters of bequest but of posthumous +reversion. A man is not beholden to the past, he looks forward to the +future for inherited honors. No fame attaches to him for having had an +illustrious grandfather. On the contrary, it is the illustrious grandson +who reflects some of his own greatness back upon his grandfather. If +a man therefore fail to attain eminence himself, he always has another +chance in his descendants; for he will of necessity be ennobled through +the merits of those who succeed him. Such is the immemorial law of the +land. Fame is retroactive. This admirable system has only one objection: +it is posthumous in its effect. An ambitious man who unfortunately lacks +ability himself has to wait too long for vicarious recognition. The +objection is like that incident to the making of a country seat out of +a treeless plain by planting the same with saplings. About the time the +trees begin to be worth having the proprietary landscape-gardener dies +of old age. However, as custom permits a Far Oriental no ancestral +growth of timber, he is obliged to lay the seeds of his own family +trees. Natural offspring are on the whole easier to get, and more +satisfactory when got. Hence the haste with which these peoples rush +into matrimony. If in despite of his precipitation fate perversely +refuse to grant him children, he must endeavor to make good the omission +by artificial means. He proceeds to adopt somebody. True to instinct, he +chooses from preference a collateral relative. In some far-eastern lands +he must so restrict himself by law. In Korea, for instance, he can only +adopt an agnate and one of a lower generation than his own. But in +Japan his choice is not so limited. In so praiseworthy an act as the +perpetuation of his unimportant family line, it is deemed unwise in that +progressive land to hinder him from unconsciously bettering it by the +way. He is consequently permitted to adopt anybody. As people are by no +means averse to being adopted, the power to adopt whom he will gives him +more voice in the matter of his unnatural offspring than he ever had in +the selection of a more natural one. + +The adopted changes his name, of course, to take that of the family he +enters. As he is very frequently grown up and extensively known at the +time the adoption takes place, his change of cognomen occasions at first +some slight confusion among his acquaintance. This would be no worse, +however, than the change with us from the maid to the matron, and +intercourse would soon proceed smoothly again if people would only rest +content with one such domestic migration. But they do not. The fatal +facility of the process tempts them to repeat it. The result is +bewildering: a people as nomadic now in the property of their persons as +their forefathers were in their real estate. A man adopts another to-day +to unadopt him to-morrow and replace him by somebody else the day after. +So profoundly unimportant to them is their social identity, that they +bandy it about with almost farcical freedom. Perhaps it is fitting +that there should be some slight preparation in this world for a future +transmigration of souls. Still one fails to conceive that the practice +can be devoid of disadvantages even to its beneficiaries. To foreigners +it proves disastrously perplexing. For if you chance upon a man whom you +have not met for some time, you can never be quite sure how to accost +him. If you begin, "Well met, Green, how goes it?" as likely as not he +replies, "Finely. But I am no longer Green; I have become Brown. I was +adopted last month by my maternal grandfather." You of course apologize +for your unfortunate mistake, carefully note his change of hue for a +future occasion, and behold, on meeting him the next time you find he +has turned Black. Such a chameleon-like cognomen is very unsettling to +your idea of his identity, and can hardly prove reassuring to his own. +The only persons who reap any benefit from the doubt are those, with us +unhappy, individuals who possess the futile faculty of remembering faces +without recalling their accompanying names. + +Girls, as a rule, are not adopted, being valueless genealogically. A +niece or grandniece to whom one has taken a great fancy might of course +be adopted there as elsewhere, but it would be distinctly out of the +every-day run, as she could never be included in the household on strict +business principles. + +The practice of adopting is not confined to childless couples. Others +may find themselves in quite as unfortunate a predicament. A man may +be the father of a large and thriving family and yet be as destitute +patriarchally as if he had not a child to his name. His offspring may +be of the wrong sex; they may all be girls. In this untoward event +the father has something more on his hands than merely a houseful of +daughters to dispose of. In addition to securing sons-in-law, he must, +unless he would have his ancestral line become extinct, provide +himself with a son. The simplest procedure in such a case is to combine +relationships in a single individual, and the most self-evident person +to select for the dual capacity is the husband of the eldest daughter. +This is the course pursued. Some worthy young man is secured as spouse +for the senior sister; he is at the same time formally taken in as a son +by the family whose cognomen he assumes, and eventually becomes the head +of the house. Strange to say, this vista of gradually unfolding honors +does not seem to prove inviting. Perhaps the new-comer objects to +marrying the whole family, a prejudice not without parallel elsewhere. +Certainly the opportunity is not appreciated. Indeed, to "go out as a +son-in-law," as the Japanese idiom hath it, is considered demeaning +to the matrimonial domestic. Like other household help he wears too +patently the badge of servitude. "If you have three koku of rice to your +name, don't do it," is the advice of the local proverb--a proverb whose +warning against marrying for money is the more suggestive for being +launched in a land where marrying for love is beyond the pale of +respectability. To barter one's name in this mercenary manner is looked +upon as derogatory to one's self-respect, although, as we have seen, to +part with it for any less direct remuneration is not attended with the +slightest loss of personal prestige. As practically the unfortunate had +none to lose in either event, it would seem to be a case of taking away +from a man that which he hath not. So contumacious a thing is custom. +It is indeed lucky that popular prejudice interposes some limit to this +fictitious method of acquiring children. A trifling predilection for the +real thing in sonships is absolutely vital, even to the continuance of +the artificial variety. For if one generation ever went in exclusively +for adoption, there would be no subsequent generation to adopt. + +As it to give the finishing touch to so conventional a system of +society, a man can leave it under certain circumstances with even +greater ease than he entered it. He can become as good as dead without +the necessity of making way with himself. Theoretically, he can cease to +live while still practically existing; for it is always open to the head +of a family to abdicate. + +The word abdicate has to our ears a certain regal sound. We +instinctively associate the act with a king. Even the more democratic +expression resign suggests at once an office of public or quasi public +character. To talk of abdicating one's private relationships sounds +absurd; one might as well talk of electing his parents, it would seem to +us. Such misunderstanding of far-eastern social possibilities comes from +our having indulged in digressions from our more simple nomadic habits. +If in imagination we will return to our ancestral muttons and the then +existing order of things, the idea will not strike us as so strange; for +in those early bucolic days every father was a king. Family economics +were the only political questions in existence then. The clan was the +unit. Domestic disputes were state disturbances, and clan-claims the +only kind of international quarrels. The patriarch was both father to +his people and king. + +As time widened the family circle it eventually reached a point where +cohesion ceased to be possible. The centrifugal tendency could no +longer be controlled by the centripetal force. It split up into separate +bodies, each of them a family by itself. In their turn these again +divided, and so the process went on. This principle has worked +universally, the only difference in its action among different races +being the greater or less degree of the evolving motion. With us the +social system has been turning more and more rapidly with time. In the +Far East its force, instead of increasing, would seem to have decreased, +enabling the nebula of its original condition to keep together as a +single mass, so that to-day a whole nation, resembling a nebula indeed +in homogeneity, is swayed by a single patriarchal principle. Here, on +the contrary, so rapid has the motion become that even brethren find +themselves scattered to the four winds. + +An Occidental father and an Oriental head of a family are no longer +really correlative terms. The latter more closely resembles a king +in his duties, responsibilities, and functions generally. Now, in the +Middle Ages in Europe, when a king grew tired of affairs of state, he +abdicated. So in the Far East, when the head of a family has had enough +of active life, he abdicates, and his eldest son reigns in his stead. + +From that moment he ceases to belong to the body politic in any active +sense. Not that he is no longer a member of society nor unamenable to +its general laws, but that he has become a respectable declasse, as it +were. He has entered, so to speak, the social nirvana, a not unfitting +first step, as he regards it, toward entering the eventual nirvana +beyond. Such abdication now takes place without particular cause. After +a certain time of life, and long before a man grows old, it is the +fashion thus to make one's bow. + + + +Chapter 4. Language. + +A man's personal equation, as astronomers call the effect of his +individuality, is kin, for all its complexity, to those simple +algebraical problems which so puzzled us at school. To solve either we +must begin by knowing the values of the constants that enter into its +expression. Upon the a b c's of the one, as upon those of the other, +depend the possibilities of the individual x. + +Now the constants in any man's equation are the qualities that he has +inherited from the past. What a man does follows from what he is, which +in turn is mostly dependent upon what his ancestors have been; and +of all the links in the long chain of mind-evolution, few are more +important and more suggestive than language. Actions may at the moment +speak louder than words, but methods of expression have as tell-tale a +tongue for bygone times as ways of doing things. + +If it should ever fall to my lot to have to settle that exceedingly +vexed Eastern question,--not the emancipation of ancient Greece from the +bondage of the modern Turk, but the emancipation of the modern college +student from the bond of ancient Greek,--I should propose, as a solution +of the dilemma, the addition of a course in Japanese to the college list +of required studies. It might look, I admit, like begging the question +for the sake of giving its answer, but the answer, I think, would +justify itself. + +It is from no desire to parade a fresh hobby-horse upon the university +curriculum that I offer the suggestion, but because I believe that a +study of the Japanese language would prove the most valuable of ponies +in the academic pursuit of philology. In the matter of literature, +indeed, we should not be adding very much to our existing store, but we +should gain an insight into the genesis of speech that would put us +at least one step nearer to being present at the beginnings of human +conversation. As it is now, our linguistic learning is with most of us +limited to a knowledge of Aryan tongues, and in consequence we not only +fall into the mistake of thinking our way the only way, which is bad +enough, but, what is far worse, by not perceiving the other possible +paths we quite fail to appreciate the advantages or disadvantages of +following our own. We are the blind votaries of a species of ancestral +language-worship, which, with all its erudition, tends to narrow our +linguistic scope. A study of Japanese would free us from the fetters of +any such family infatuation. The inviolable rules and regulations of our +mother-tongue would be found to be of relative application only. For we +should discover that speech is a much less categorical matter than +we had been led to suppose. We should actually come to doubt +the fundamental necessity of some of our most sacred grammatical +constructions; and even our reverenced Latin grammars would lose that +air of awful absoluteness which so impressed us in boyhood. + +An encouraging estimate of a certain missionary puts the amount of +study needed by the Western student for the learning of Japanese as +sufficient, if expended nearer home, to equip him with any three modern +European languages. It is certainly true that a completely strange +vocabulary, an utter inversion of grammar, and an elaborate system of +honorifics combine to render its acquisition anything but easy. In its +fundamental principles, however, it is alluringly simple. + +In the first place, the Japanese language is pleasingly destitute of +personal pronouns. Not only is the obnoxious "I" conspicuous only by +its absence; the objectionable antagonistic "you" is also entirely +suppressed, while the intrusive "he" is evidently too much of a third +person to be wanted. Such invidious distinctions of identity apparently +never thrust their presence upon the simple early Tartar minds. I, +you, and he, not being differences due to nature, demanded, to their +thinking, no recognition of man. + +There is about this vagueness of expression a freedom not without its +charm. It is certainly delightful to be able to speak of yourself as if +you were somebody else, choosing mentally for the occasion any one +you may happen to fancy, or, it you prefer, the possibility of soaring +boldly forth into the realms of the unconditioned. + +To us, at first sight, however, such a lack of specification appears +wofully incompatible with any intelligible transmission of ideas. So +communistic a want of discrimination between the meum and the tuum--to +say nothing of the claims of a possible third party--would seem to be +as fatal to the interchange of thoughts as it proves destructive to the +trafficking in commodities. Such, nevertheless, is not the result. On +the contrary, Japanese is as easy and as certain of comprehension as is +English. On ninety occasions out of a hundred, the context at once makes +clear the person meant. + +In the very few really ambiguous cases, or those in which, for the sake +of emphasis, a pronoun is wanted, certain consecrated expressions are +introduced for the purpose. For eventually the more complex social +relations of increasing civilization compelled some sort of distant +recognition. Accordingly, compromises with objectionable personality +were effected by circumlocutions promoted to a pronoun's office, +becoming thus pro-pronouns, as it were. Very noncommittal expressions +they are, most of them, such as: "the augustness," meaning you; "that +honorable side," or "that corner," denoting some third person, the exact +term employed in any given instance scrupulously betokening the relative +respect in which the individual spoken of is held; while with a candor, +an indefiniteness, or a humility worthy so polite a people, the I is +known as "selfishness," or "a certain person," or "the clumsy one." + +Pronominal adjectives are manufactured in the same way. "The stupid +father," "the awkward son," "the broken-down firm," are "mine." Were +they "yours," they would instantly become "the august, venerable +father," "the honorable son," "the exalted firm." [1] + +Even these lame substitutes for pronouns are paraded as sparingly as +possible. To the Western student, who brings to the subject a brain +throbbing with personality, hunting in a Japanese sentence for personal +references is dishearteningly like "searching in the dark for a black +hat which is n't there;" for the brevet pronouns are commonly not on +duty. To employ them with the reckless prodigality that characterizes +our conversation would strike the Tartar mind like interspersing his +talk with unmeaning italics. He would regard such discourse much as we +do those effusive epistles of a certain type of young woman to her +most intimate girl friends, in which every other word is emphatically +underlined. + +For the most part, the absolutely necessary personal references are +introduced by honorifics; that is, by honorary or humble expressions. +Such is a portion of the latter's duty. They do a great deal of +unnecessary work besides. + +These honorifics are, taken as a whole, one of the most interesting +peculiarities of Japanese, as also of Korean, just as, taken in detail, +they are one of its most dangerous pitfalls. For silence is indeed +golden compared with the chagrin of discovering that a speech which you +had meant for a compliment was, in fact, an insult, or the vexation of +learning that you have been industriously treating your servant with the +deference due a superior,--two catastrophes sure to follow the attempts +of even the most cautious of beginners. The language is so thoroughly +imbued with the honorific spirit that the exposure of truth in all its +naked simplicity is highly improper. Every idea requires to be more or +less clothed in courtesy before it is presentable; and the garb demanded +by etiquette is complex beyond conception. To begin with, there are +certain preliminary particles which are simply honorific, serving no +other purpose whatsoever. In addition to these there are for every +action a small infinity of verbs, each sacred to a different degree +of respect. For instance, to our verb "to give" corresponds a complete +social scale of Japanese verbs, each conveying the idea a shade more +politely than its predecessor; only the very lowest meaning anything +so plebeian as simply "to give." Sets of laudatory or depreciatory +adjectives are employed in the same way. Lastly, the word for "is," +which strictly means "exists," expresses this existence under three +different forms,--in a matter-of-fact, a flowing, or an inflated style; +the solid, liquid, and gaseous states of conversation, so to speak, to +suit the person addressed. But three forms being far too few for the +needs of so elaborate a politeness, these are supplemented by many +interpolated grades. + +Terms of respect are applied not only to those mortals who are held in +estimation higher than their fellows, but to all men indiscriminately as +well. The grammatical attitude of the individual toward the speaker is +of as much importance as his social standing, I being beneath contempt, +and you above criticism. + +Honorifics are used not only on all possible occasions for courtesy, but +at times, it would seem, upon impossible ones; for in some instances the +most subtle diagnosis fails to reveal in them a relevancy to anybody. +That the commonest objects should bear titles because of their +connection with some particular person is comprehensible, but what +excuse can be made for a phrase like the following, "It respectfully +does that the august seat exists," all of which simply means "is," and +may be applied to anything, being the common word--in Japanese it is all +one word now--for that apparently simple idea. It would seem a sad +waste of valuable material. The real reason why so much distinguished +consideration is shown the article in question lies in the fact that +it is treated as existing with reference to the person addressed, and +therefore becomes ipso facto august. + +Here is a still subtler example. You are, we will suppose, at a +tea-house, and you wish for sugar. The following almost stereotyped +conversation is pretty sure to take place. I translate it literally, +simply prefacing that every tea-house girl, usually in the first +blush of youth, is generically addressed as "elder sister,"--another +honorific, at least so considered in Japan. + + You clap your hands. (Enter tea-house maiden.) + + You. Hai, elder sister, augustly exists there sugar? + + The T. H. M. The honorable sugar, augustly is it? + + You. So, augustly. + + The T. H. M. He (indescribable expression of assent). + (Exit tea-house maiden to fetch the sugar.) + +Now, the "augustlies" go almost without saying, but why is the sugar +honorable? Simply because it is eventually going to be offered to you. +But she would have spoken of it by precisely the same respectful title, +if she had been obliged to inform you that there was none, in which case +it never could have become yours. Such is politeness. We may note, +in passing, that all her remarks and all yours, barring your initial +question, meant absolutely nothing. She understood you perfectly from +the first, and you knew she did; but then, if all of us were to say only +what were necessary, the delightful art of conversation would soon be +nothing but a science. + +The average Far Oriental, indeed, talks as much to no purpose as his +Western cousin, only in his chit-chat politeness replaces personalities. +With him, self is suppressed, and an ever-present regard for others is +substituted in its stead. + +A lack of personality is, as we have seen, the occasion of this +courtesy; it is also its cause. + +That politeness should be one of the most marked results of +impersonality may appear surprising, yet a slight examination will show +it to be a fact. Looked at a posteriori, we find that where the one +trait exists the other is most developed, while an absence of the second +seems to prevent the full growth of the first. This is true both in +general and in detail. Courtesy increases, as we travel eastward round +the world, coincidently with a decrease in the sense of self. Asia is +more courteous than Europe, Europe than America. Particular races show +the same concomitance of characteristics. France, the most impersonal +nation of Europe, is at the same time the most polite. + +Considered a priori, the connection between the two is not far to seek. +Impersonality, by lessening the interest in one's self, induces one +to take an interest in others. Introspection tends to make of man a +solitary animal, the absence of it a social one. The more impersonal +the people, the more will the community supplant the individual in the +popular estimation. The type becomes the interesting thing to man, as +it always is to nature. Then, as the social desires develop, politeness, +being the means to their enjoyment, develops also. + +A second omission in Japanese etymology is that of gender. That words +should be credited with sex is a verbal anthropomorphism that would seem +to a Japanese exquisitely grotesque, if so be that it did not strike him +as actually immodest. For the absence of gender is simply symptomatic +of a much more vital failing, a disregard of sex. Originally, as their +language bears witness, the Japanese showed a childish reluctance +to recognizing sex at all. Usually a single sexless term was held +sufficient for a given species, and did duty collectively for both +sexes. Only where a consideration of sex thrust itself upon them, beyond +the possibility of evasion, did they employ for the male and the female +distinctive expressions. The more intimate the relation of the object +to man, the more imperative the discriminating name. Hence human beings +possessed a fair number of such special appellatives; for a man is +a palpably different sort of person from his grandmother, and a +mother-in-law from a wife. But it is noteworthy that the artificial +affinities of society were as carefully differentiated as the +distinctions due to sex, while ancestral relationships were deemed more +important than either. + +Animals, though treated individually most humanely, are vouchsafed but +scant recognition on the score of sex. With them, both sexes share one +common name, and commonly, indeed, this answers quite well enough. In +those few instances where sex enters into the question in a manner not +to be ignored, particles denoting "male" or "female" are prefixed to the +general term. How comparatively rare is the need of such specification +can be seen from the way in which, with us, in many species, the name of +one sex alone does duty indifferently for both. That of the male is the +one usually selected, as in the case of the dog or horse. If, however, +it be the female with which man has most to do, she is allowed to bestow +her name upon her male partner. Examples of the latter description occur +in the use of "cows" for "cattle," and "hens" for "fowls." A Japanese +can say only "fowl," defined, if absolutely necessary, as "he-fowl" or +"she-fowl." + +Now such a slighting of one of the most potent springs of human action, +sex, with all that the idea involves, is not due to a pronounced +misogynism on the part of these people, but to a much more effective +neglect, a great underlying impersonality. Indifference to woman is +but included in a much more general indifference to mankind. The fact +becomes all the more evident when we descend from sex to gender. That +Father Ocean does not, in their verbal imagery, embrace Mother Earth, +with that subtle suggestion of humanity which in Aryan speech the gender +of the nouns hints without expressing, is not due to any lack of poesy +in the Far Oriental speaker, but to the essential impersonality of +his mind, embodied now in the very character of the words he uses. A +Japanese noun is a crystallized concept, handed down unchanged from +the childhood of the Japanese race. So primitive a conception does it +represent that it is neither a total nor a partial symbol, but rather +the outcome of a first vague generality. The word "man," for instance, +means to them not one man, still less mankind, but that indefinite +idea which struggles for embodiment in the utterance of the infant. It +represents not a person, but a thing, a material fact quite innocent +of gender. This early state of semi-consciousness the Japanese never +outgrew. The world continued to present itself to their minds as a +collection of things. Nor did their subsequent Chinese education change +their view. Buddhism simply infused all things with the one universal +spirit. + +As to inanimate objects, the idea of supposing sex where there is not +even life is altogether too fanciful a notion for the Far Eastern mind. + +Impersonality first fashioned the nouns, and then the nouns, by their +very impersonality, helped keep impersonal the thought and fettered +fancy. All those temptings to poesy which to the Aryan imagination lie +latent in the sex with which his forefathers humanized their words, +never stir the Tartar nor the Chinese soul. They feel the poetry +of nature as much as, indeed much more than, we; but it is a poetry +unassociated with man. And this, too, curiously enough, in spite of the +fact that to explain the cosmos the Chinamen invented, or perhaps only +adapted, a singularly sexual philosophy. For possibly, like some other +portions of their intellectual wealth, they stole it from India. The +Chinese conception of the origin of the world is based on the idea of +sex. According to their notions the earth was begotten. It is true +that with them the cosmos started in an abstract something, which +self-produced two great principles; but this pair once obtained, matters +proceeded after the analogy of mankind. The two principles at work were +themselves abstract enough to have satisfied the most unimpassioned of +philosophers. They were simply a positive essence and a negative one, +correlated to sunshine and shadow, but also correlated to male and +female forces. Through their mutual action were born the earth and the +air and the water; from these, in turn, was begotten man. The cosmical +modus operandi was not creative nor evolutionary, but sexual. The whole +scheme suggests an attempt to wed abstract philosophy with primitive +concrete mythology. + +The same sexuality distinguishes the Japanese demonology. Here the +physical replaces the philosophical; instead of principles we find +allegorical personages, but they show just the same pleasing propensity +to appear in pairs. + +This attributing of sexes to the cosmos is not in the least incompatible +with an uninterested disregard of sex where it really exists. It is +one thing to admit the fact as a general law of the universe, and quite +another to dwell upon it as an important factor in every-day affairs. + +How slight is the Tartar tendency to personification can be seen from +a glance at these same Japanese gods. They are a combination of defunct +ancestors and deified natural phenomena. The evolving of the first half +required little imagination, for fate furnished the material ready made; +while in conjuring up the second moiety, the spirit-evokers showed even +less originality. Their results were neither winsome nor sublime. The +gods whom they created they invested with very ordinary humanity, +the usual endowment of aboriginal deity, together with the customary +superhuman strength. If these demigods differed from others of their +class, it was only in being more commonplace, and in not meddling much +with man. Even such personification of natural forces, simple enough +to be self-suggested, quickly disappeared. The various awe-compelling +phenomena soon ceased to have any connection with the anthropomorphic +noumena they had begotten. For instance, the sun-goddess, we are +informed, was one day lured out of a cavern, where she was sulking in +consequence of the provoking behavior of her younger brother, by her +curiosity at the sight of her own face in a mirror, ingeniously placed +before the entrance for the purpose. But no Japanese would dream now of +casting any such reflections, however flattering, upon the face of the +orb of day. The sun has become not only quite sexless to him, but +as devoid of personality as it is to any Western materialist. Lesser +deities suffered a like unsubstantial transformation. The thunder-god, +with his belt of drums, upon which he beats a devil's tattoo until he +is black in the face, is no longer even indirectly associated with the +storm. As for dryads and nymphs, the beautiful creatures never inhabited +Eastern Asia. Anthropoid foxes and raccoons, wholly lacking in those +engaging qualities that beget love, and through love remembrance, take +their place. Even Benten, the naturalized Venus, who, like her Hellenic +sister, is said to have risen from the sea, is a person quite incapable +of inspiring a reckless infatuation. + +Utterly unlike was this pantheon to the pantheon of the Greeks, the +personifying tendency of whose Aryan mind was forever peopling nature +with half-human inhabitants. Under its quickening fancy the very clods +grew sentient. Dumb earth awoke at the call of its desire, and the +beings its own poesy had begotten made merry companionship for man. Then +a change crept over the face of things. Faith began to flicker, for want +of facts to feed its flame. Little by little the fires of devotion burnt +themselves out. At last great Pan died. The body of the old belief +was consumed. But though it perished, its ashes preserved its form, an +unsubstantial presentment of the past, to crumble in a twinkling at +the touch of science, but keeping yet to the poet's eye the lifelike +semblance of what once had been. The dead gods still live in our +language and our art. Even to-day the earth about us seems semiconscious +to the soul, for the memories they have left. + +But with the Far Oriental the exorcising feeling was fear. He never fell +in love with his own mythological creations, and so he never embalmed +their memories. They were to him but explanations of facts, and had no +claims upon his fancy. His ideal world remained as utterly impersonal as +if it had never been born. + +The same impersonality reappears in the matter of number. Grammatically, +number with them is unrecognized. There exist no such things as plural +forms. This singularity would be only too welcome to the foreign +student, were it not that in avoiding the frying-pan the Tartars fell +into the fire. For what they invented in place of a plural was quite +as difficult to memorize, and even more cumbrous to express. Instead +of inflecting the noun and then prefixing a number, they keep the noun +unchanged and add two numerals; thus at times actually employing more +words to express the objects than there are objects to express. One +of these numerals is a simple number; the other is what is known as an +auxiliary numeral, a word as singular in form as in function. Thus, for +instance, "two men" become amplified verbally into "man two individual," +or, as the Chinaman puts it, in pidgin English, "two piecey man." For in +this respect Chinese resembles Japanese, though in very little else, +and pidgin English is nothing but the literal translation of the +Chinese idiom into Anglo-Saxon words. The necessity for such elaborate +qualification arises from the excessive simplicity of the Japanese +nouns. As we have seen, the noun is so indefinite a generality that +simply to multiply it by a number cannot possibly produce any definite +result. No exact counterpart of these nouns exists in English, but +some idea of the impossibility of the process may be got from our +word "cattle," which, prolific though it may prove in fact, remains +obstinately incapable of verbal multiplication. All Japanese nouns being +of this indefinite description, all require auxiliary numerals. But +as each one has its own appropriate numeral, about which a mistake is +unpardonable, it takes some little study merely to master the etiquette +of these handles to the names of things. + +Nouns are not inflected, their cases being expressed by postpositions, +which, as the name implies, follow, in becoming Japanese inversion, +instead of preceding the word they affect. To make up, nevertheless, for +any lack of perplexity due to an absence of inflections, adjectives, en +revanche, are most elaborately conjugated. Their protean shapes are as +long as they are numerous, representing not only times, but conditions. +There are, for instance, the root form, the adverbial form, the +indefinite form, the attributive form, and the conclusive form, the two +last being conjugated through all the various voices, moods, and tenses, +to say nothing of all the potential forms. As one change is superposed +on another, the adjective ends by becoming three or four times its +original length. The fact is, the adjective is either adjective, adverb, +or verb, according to occasion. In the root form it also helps to make +nouns; so that it is even more generally useful than as a journalistic +epithet with us. As a verb, it does duty as predicate and copula +combined. For such an unnecessary part of speech as a real copula does +not exist in Japanese. In spite of the shock to the prejudices of the +old school of logicians, it must be confessed that the Tartars get on +very well without any such couplings to their trains of thought. But +then we should remember that in their sentences the cart is always put +before the horse, and so needs only to be pushed, not pulled along. + +The want of a copula is another instance of the primitive character of +the tongue. It has its counterpart in our own baby-talk, where a quality +is predicated of a thing simply by placing the adjective in apposition +with the noun. + +That the Japanese word which is commonly translated "is" is in no sense +a copula, but an ordinary intransitive verb, referring to a natural +state, and not to a logical condition, is evident in two ways. In +the first place, it is never used to predicate a quality directly. A +Japanese does not say, "The scenery is fine," but simply, "Scenery, +fine." Secondly, wherever this verb is indirectly employed in such a +manner, it is followed, not by an adjective, but by an adverb. Not "She +is beautiful," but "She exists beautifully," would be the Japanese way of +expressing his admiration. What looks at first, therefore, like a copula +turns out to be merely an impersonal intransitive verb. + +A negative noun is, of course, an impossibility in any language, just +as a negative substantive, another name for the same thing, is a direct +contradiction in terms. No matter how negative the idea to be given, it +must be conveyed by a positive expression. Even a void is grammatically +quite full of meaning, although unhappily empty in fact. So much is +common to all tongues, but Japanese carries its positivism yet further. +Not only has it no negative nouns, it has not even any negative pronouns +nor pronominal adjectives,--those convenient keepers of places for +the absent. "None" and "nothing" are unknown words in its vocabulary, +because the ideas they represent are not founded on observed facts, +but upon metaphysical abstractions. Such terms are human-born, not +earth-begotten concepts, and so to the Far Oriental, who looks at things +from the point of view of nature, not of man, negation takes another +form. Usually it is introduced by the verbs, because the verbs, for the +most part, relate to human actions, and it is man, not nature, who is +responsible for the omission in question. After all, it does seem more +fitting to say, "I am ignorant of everything," than "I know nothing." It +is indeed you who are wanting, not the thing. + +The question of verbs leads us to another matter bearing on the subject +of impersonality; namely, the arrangement of the words in a Japanese +sentence. The Tartar mode of grammatical construction is very nearly +the inverse of our own. The fundamental rule of Japanese syntax is, that +qualifying words precede the words they qualify; that is, an idea is +elaborately modified before it is so much as expressed. This practice +places the hearer at some awkward preliminary disadvantage, inasmuch as +the story is nearly over before he has any notion what it is all about; +but really it puts the speaker to much more trouble, for he is obliged +to fashion his whole sentence complete in his brain before he starts +to speak. This is largely in consequence of two omissions in Tartar +etymology. There are in Japanese no relative pronouns and no temporal +conjunctions; conjunctions, that is, for connecting consecutive events. +The want of these words precludes the admission of afterthoughts. +Postscripts in speech are impossible. The functions of relatives are +performed by position, explanatory or continuative clauses being made +to precede directly the word they affect. Ludicrous anachronisms, not +unlike those experienced by Alice in her looking-glass journey, are +occasioned by this practice. For example, "The merry monarch who ended +by falling a victim to profound melancholia" becomes "To profound +melancholia a victim by falling ended merry monarch," and +the sympathetic hearer weeps first and laughs afterward, when +chronologically he should be doing precisely the opposite. + +A like inversion of the natural order of things results from the absence +of temporal conjunctions. In Japanese, though nouns can be added, +actions cannot; you can say "hat and coat," but not "dressed and came." +Conjunctions are used only for space, never for time. Objects that +exist together can be joined in speech, but it is not allowable thus +to connect consecutive events. "Having dressed, came" is the Japanese +idiom. To speak otherwise would be to violate the unities. For a +Japanese sentence is a single rounded whole, not a bunch of facts +loosely tied together. It is as much a unit in its composition as +a novel or a drama is with us. Such artistic periods, however, are +anything but convenient. In their nicely contrived involution they +strikingly resemble those curious nests of Chinese boxes, where +entire shells lie closely packed one within another,--a very marvel +of ingenious and perfectly unnecessary construction. One must be +antipodally comprehensive to entertain the idea; as it is, the idea +entertains us. + +On the same general plan, the nouns precede the verbs in the sentence, +and are in every way the more important parts of speech. The consequence +is that in ordinary conversation the verbs come so late in the day that +they not infrequently get left out altogether. For the Japanese are much +given to docking their phrases, a custom the Germans might do well to +adopt. Now, nouns denote facts, while verbs express action, and action, +as considered in human speech, is mostly of human origin. In this +precedence accorded the impersonal element in language over the +personal, we observe again the comparative importance assigned the two. +In Japanese estimation, the first place belongs to nature, the second +only to man. + +As if to mark beyond a doubt the insignificance of the part man plays +in their thought, sentences are usually subjectless. Although it is a +common practice to begin a phrase with the central word of the idea, +isolated from what follows by the emphasizing particle "wa" (which +means "as to," the French "quant a"), the word thus singled out for +distinction is far more likely to be the object of the sentence than +its subject. The habit is analogous to the use of our phrase "speaking +of,"--that is, simply an emphatic mode of introducing a fresh thought; +only that with them, the practice being the rule and not the exception, +no correspondingly abrupt effect is produced by it. Ousted thus from +the post of honor, the subject is not even permitted the second place. +Indeed, it usually fails to put in an appearance anywhere. You may +search through sentence after sentence without meeting with the +slightest suggestion of such a thing. When so unusual an anomaly as a +motive cause is directly adduced, it owes its mention, not to the fact +of being the subject, but because for other reasons it happens to be the +important word of the thought. The truth is, the Japanese conception of +events is only very vaguely subjective. An action is looked upon more +as happening than as being performed, as impersonally rather than +personally produced. The idea is due, however, to anything but +philosophic profundity. It springs from the most superficial of childish +conceptions. For the Japanese mind is quite the reverse of abstract. Its +consideration of things is concrete to a primitive degree. The language +reflects the fact. The few abstract ideas these people now possess are +not represented, for the most part, by pure Japanese, but by imported +Chinese expressions. The islanders got such general notions from their +foreign education, and they imported idea and word at the same time. + +Summing up, as it were, in propria persona the impersonality of Japanese +speech, the word for "man," "hito," is identical with, and probably +originally the same word as "hito," the numeral "one;" a noun and a +numeral, from which Aryan languages have coined the only impersonal +pronoun they possess. On the one hand, we have the German "mann;" on +the other, the French "on". While as if to give the official seal to +the oneness of man with the universe, the word mono, thing, is applied, +without the faintest implication of insult, to men. + +Such, then, is the mould into which, as children, these people learn +to cast their thought. What an influence it must exert upon their +subsequent views of life we have but to ask of our own memories to know. +With each one of us, if we are to advance beyond the steps of the last +generation, there comes a time when our growing ideas refuse any longer +to fit the childish grooves in which we were taught to let them run. How +great the wrench is when this supreme moment arrives we have all felt +too keenly ever to forget. We hesitate, we delay, to abandon the beliefs +which, dating from the dawn of our being, seem to us even as a part of +our very selves. From the religion of our mother to the birth of our +boyish first love, all our early associations send down roots so deep +that long after our minds have outgrown them our hearts refuse to give +them up. Even when reason conquers at last, sentiment still throbs at +the voids they necessarily have left. + +In the Far East, this fondness for the old is further consecrated by +religion. The worship of ancestors sets its seal upon the traditions of +the past, to break which were impious as well as sad. The golden age, +that time when each man himself was young, has lingered on in the +lands where it is always morning, and where man has never passed to +his prosaic noon. Befitting the place is the mind we find there. As its +language so clearly shows, it still is in that early impersonal state +to which we all awake first before we become aware of that something we +later know so well as self. + +Particularly potent with these people is their language, for a reason +that also lends it additional interest to us,--because it is their own. +Among the mass of foreign thought the Japanese imitativeness has caused +the nation to adopt, here is one thing which is indigenous. Half of the +present speech, it is true, is of Chinese importation, but conservatism +has kept the other half pure. From what it reveals we can see how each +man starts to-day with the same impersonal outlook upon life the race +had reached centuries ago, and which it has since kept unchanged. The +man's mind has done likewise. + + +[1] Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain: The Japanese Language. + + + +Chapter 5. Nature and Art. + +We have seen how impersonal is the form which Far Eastern thought +assumes when it crystallizes into words. Let us turn now to a +consideration of the thoughts themselves before they are thus +stereotyped for transmission to others, and scan them as they find +expression unconsciously in the man's doings, or seek it consciously in +his deeds. + +To the Far Oriental there is one subject which so permeates and pervades +his whole being as to be to him, not so much a conscious matter of +thought as an unconscious mode of thinking. For it is a thing which +shapes all his thoughts instead of constituting the substance of one +particular set of them. That subject is art. To it he is born as to +a birthright. Artistic perception is with him an instinct to which he +intuitively conforms, and for which he inherits the skill of countless +generations. From the tips of his fingers to the tips of his toes, in +whose use he is surprisingly proficient, he is the artist all over. +Admirable, however, as is his manual dexterity, his mental altitude +is still more to be admired; for it is artistic to perfection. His +perception of beauty is as keen as his comprehension of the cosmos is +crude; for while with science he has not even a speaking acquaintance, +with art he is on terms of the most affectionate intimacy. + +To the whole Far Eastern world science is a stranger. Such nescience is +patent even in matters seemingly scientific. For although the Chinese +civilization, even in the so-called modern inventions, was already old +while ours lay still in the cradle, it was to no scientific spirit that +its discoveries were due. Notwithstanding the fact that Cathay was the +happy possessor of gunpowder, movable type, and the compass before +such things were dreamt of in Europe, she owed them to no knowledge of +physics, chemistry, or mechanics. It was as arts, not as sciences, they +were invented. And it speaks volumes for her civilization that she burnt +her powder for fireworks, not for firearms. To the West alone belongs +the credit of manufacturing that article for the sake of killing people +instead of merely killing time. + +The scientific is not the Far Oriental point of view. To wish to know +the reasons of things, that irrepressible yearning of the Western +spirit, is no characteristic of the Chinaman's mind, nor is it a Tartar +trait. Metaphysics, a species of speculation that has usually proved +peculiarly attractive to mankind, probably from its not requiring any +scientific capital whatever, would seem the most likely place to seek +it. But upon such matters he has expended no imagination of his own, +having quietly taken on trust from India what he now professes. As for +science proper, it has reached at his hands only the quasimorphologic +stage; that is, it consists of catalogues concocted according to the +ingenuity of the individual and resembles the real thing about as much +as a haphazard arrangement of human bones might be expected to resemble +a man. Not only is the spirit of the subject left out altogether, +but the mere outward semblance is misleading. For pseudo-scientific +collections of facts which never rise to be classifications of phenomena +forms to his idea the acme of erudition. His mathematics, for example, +consists of a set of empiric rules, of which no explanation is ever +vouchsafed the taught for the simple reason that it is quite unknown to +the teacher. It is not even easy to decide how much of what there is +is Jesuitical. Of more recent sciences he has still less notion, +particularly of the natural ones. Physics, chemistry, geology, and the +like are matters that have never entered his head. Even in studies more +immediately connected with obvious everyday life, such as language, +history, customs, it is truly remarkable how little he possesses the +power of generalization and inference. His elaborate lists of facts are +imposing typographically, but are not even formally important, while his +reasoning about them is as exquisite a bit of scientific satire as could +well be imagined. + +But with the arts it is quite another matter. While you will search in +vain, in his civilization, for explanations of even the most simple +of nature's laws, you will meet at every turn with devices for the +beautifying of life, which may stand not unworthily beside the products +of nature's own skill. Whatever these people fashion, from the toy of +an hour to the triumphs of all time, is touched by a taste unknown +elsewhere. To stroll down the Broadway of Tokio of an evening is a +liberal education in everyday art. As you enter it there opens out in +front of you a fairy-like vista of illumination. Two long lines of gayly +lighted shops, stretching off into the distance, look out across two +equally endless rows of torch-lit booths, the decorous yellow gleam +of the one contrasting strangely with the demoniacal red flare of the +other. This perspective of pleasure fulfils its promise. As your feet +follow your eyes you find yourself in a veritable shoppers' paradise, +the galaxy of twinkle resolving into worlds of delight. Nor do you long +remain a mere spectator; for the shops open their arms to you. No +cold glass reveals their charms only to shut you off. Their wares lie +invitingly exposed to the public, seeming to you already half your own. +At the very first you come to you stop involuntarily, lost in admiration +over what you take to be bric-a-brac. It is only afterwards you learn +that the object of your ecstasy was the commonest of kitchen crockery. +Next door you halt again, this time in front of some leathern +pocket-books, stamped with designs in color to tempt you instantly to +empty your wallet for more new ones than you will ever have the means to +fill. If you do succeed in tearing yourself away purse-whole, it is +only to fall a victim to some painted fans of so exquisite a make and +decoration that escape short of possession is impossible. Opposed as +stubbornly as you may be to idle purchase at home, here you will find +yourself the prey of an acute case of shopping fever before you know it. +Nor will it be much consolation subsequently to discover that you have +squandered your patrimony upon the most ordinary articles of every-day +use. If in despair you turn for refuge to the booths, you will but +have delivered yourself into the embrace of still more irresistible +fascinations. For the nocturnal squatters are there for the express +purpose of catching the susceptible. The shops were modestly attractive +from their nature, but the booths deliberately make eyes at you, and +with telling effect. The very atmosphere is bewitching. The lurid +smurkiness of the torches lends an appropriate weirdness to the figure +of the uncouthly clad pedlar who, with the politeness of the arch-fiend +himself, displays to an eager group the fatal fascinations of some new +conceit. Here the latest thing in inventions, a gutta-percha rat, which, +for reasons best known to the vender, scampers about squeaking with a +mimicry to shame the original, holds an admiring crowd spellbound with +mingled trepidation and delight. There a native zoetrope, indefatigable +round of pleasure, whose top fashioned after the type of a turbine wheel +enables a candle at the centre ingeniously to supply both illumination +and motive power at the same time, affords to as many as can find room +on its circumference a peep at the composite antics of a consecutively +pictured monkey in the act of jumping a box. Beyond this "wheel of life" +lies spread out on a mat a most happy family of curios, the whole of +which you are quite prepared to purchase en bloc. While a little farther +on stands a flower show which seems to be coyly beckoning to you as the +blossoms nod their heads to an imperceptible breeze. So one attraction +fairly jostles its neighbor for recognition from the gay thousands that +like yourself stroll past in holiday delight. Chattering children in +brilliant colors, voluble women and talkative men in quieter but no less +picturesque costumes, stream on in kaleidoscopic continuity. And you, +carried along by the current, wander thus for miles with the tide of +pleasure-seekers, till, late at night, when at last you turn reluctantly +homeward, you feel as one does when wakened from some too delightful +dream. + +Or instead of night, suppose it day and the place a temple. With those +who are entering you enter too through the outer gateway into the +courtyard. At the farther end rises a building the like of which for +richness of effect you have probably never beheld or even imagined. In +front of you a flight of white stone steps leads up to a terrace +whose parapet, also of stone, is diapered for half its height and open +latticework the rest. This piazza gives entrance to a building or set +of buildings whose every detail challenges the eye. Twelve pillars of +snow-white wood sheathed in part with bronze, arranged in four rows, +make, as it were, the bones of the structure. The space between the +centre columns lies open. The other triplets are webbed in the middle +and connected, on the sides and front, by grilles of wood and bronze +forming on the outside a couple of embrasures on either hand the +entrance in which stand the guardian Nio, two colossal demons, Gog +and Magog. Instead of capitals, a frieze bristling with Chinese lions +protects the top of the pillars. Above this in place of entablature +rises tier upon tier of decoration, each tier projecting beyond the one +beneath, and the topmost of all terminating in a balcony which encircles +the whole second story. The parapet of this balcony is one mass of +ornament, and its cornice another row of lions, brown instead of white. +The second story is no less crowded with carving. Twelve pillars make +its ribs, the spaces between being filled with elaborate woodwork, while +on top rest more friezes, more cornices, clustered with excrescences of +all colors and kinds, and guarded by lions innumerable. To begin to tell +the details of so multi-faceted a gem were artistically impossible. It +is a jewel of a thousand rays, yet whose beauties blend into one as the +prismatic tints combine to white. And then, after the first dazzle of +admiration, when the spirit of curiosity urges you to penetrate the +centre aisle, lo and behold it is but a gate! The dupe of unexpected +splendor, you have been paying court to the means of approach. It is +only a portal after all. For as you pass through, you catch a glimpse +of a building beyond more gorgeous still. Like in general to the first, +unlike it in detail, resembling it only as the mistress may the maid. +But who shall convince of charm by enumerating the features of a face! +From the tiles of its terrace to the encrusted gables that drape it as +with some rich bejewelled mantle falling about it in the most graceful +of folds, it is the very eastern princess of a building standing in the +majesty of her court to give you audience. + +A pebbly path, a low flight of stone steps, a pause to leave your shoes +without the sill, and you tread in the twilight of reverence upon the +moss-like mats within. The richness of its outer ornament, so impressive +at first, is, you discover, but prelude to the lavish luxury of its +interior. Lacquer, bronze, pigments, deck its ceiling and its sides +in such profusion that it seems to you as if art had expanded, in the +congenial atmosphere, into a tropical luxuriance of decoration, and grew +here as naturally on temples as in the jungle creepers do on trees. Yet +all is but setting to what the place contains; objects of bigotry and +virtue that appeal to the artistic as much as to the religious instincts +of the devout. More sacred still are the things treasured in the sanctum +of the priests. There you will find gems of art for whose sake only +the most abnormal impersonality can prevent you from breaking the +tenth commandment. Of the value set upon them you can form a distant +approximation from the exceeding richness and the amazing number of the +silk cloths and lacquered boxes in which they are so religiously kept. +As you gaze thus, amid the soul-satisfying repose of the spot, at some +masterpiece from the brush of Motonobu, you find yourself wondering, in +a fanciful sort of way, whether Buddhist contemplation is not after all +only another name for the contemplation of the beautiful, since devotees +to the one are ex officio such votaries of the other. + +Dissimilar as are these two glimpses of Japanese existence, in one point +the bustling street and the hushed temple are alike,--in the nameless +grace that beautifies both. + +This spirit is even more remarkable for its all-pervasiveness than +for its inherent excellence. Both objectively and subjectively its +catholicity is remarkable. It imbues everything, and affects everybody. +So universally is it applied to the daily affairs of life that there may +be said to be no mechanical arts in Japan simply because all such +have been raised to the position of fine arts. The lowest artisan is +essentially an artist. Modern French nomenclature on the subject, in +spite of the satire to which the more prosaic Anglo-Saxon has subjected +it, is peculiarly applicable there. To call a Japanese cook, for +instance, an artist would be but the barest acknowledgment of fact, for +Japanese food is far more beautiful to look at than agreeable to eat; +while Tokio tailors are certainly masters of drapery, if they are +sublimely oblivious to the natural modelings of the male or female form. + +On the other hand, art is sown, like the use of tobacco, broadcast among +the people. It is the birthright of the Far East, the talent it never +hides. Throughout the length and breadth of the land, and from the +highest prince to the humblest peasant, art reigns supreme. + +Now such a prevalence of artistic feeling implies of itself +impersonality in the people. At first sight it might seem as if science +did the same, and that in this respect the one hemisphere offset the +other, and that consequently both should be equally impersonal. But in +the first place, our masses are not imbued with the scientific spirit, +as theirs are with artistic sensibility. Who would expect of a mason +an impersonal interest in the principles of the arch, or of a plumber +a non-financial devotion to hydraulics? Certainly one would be wrong in +crediting the masses in general or European waiters in particular with +much abstract love of mathematics, for example. In the second place, +there is an essential difference in the attitude of the two subjects +upon personality. Emotionally, science appeals to nobody, art to +everybody. Now the emotions constitute the larger part of that complex +bundle of ideas which we know as self. A thought which is not tinged to +some extent with feeling is not only not personal; properly speaking, it +is not even distinctively human, but cosmical. In its lofty superiority +to man, science is unpersonal rather than impersonal. Art, on the other +hand, is a familiar spirit. Through the windows of the senses she finds +her way into the very soul of man, and makes for herself a home there. +But it is to his humanity, not to his individuality, that she whispers, +for she speaks in that universal tongue which all can understand. + +Examples are not wanting to substantiate theory. It is no mere +coincidence that the two most impersonal nations of Europe and Asia +respectively, the French and the Japanese, are at the same time the most +artistic. Even politeness, which, as we have seen, distinguishes both, +is itself but a form of art,--the social art of living agreeably with +one's fellows. + +This impersonality comes out with all the more prominence when we pass +from the consideration of art in itself to the spirit which actuates +that art, and especially when we compare their spirit with our own. +The mainsprings of Far Eastern art may be said to be three: Nature, +Religion, and Humor. Incongruous collection that they are, all +three witness to the same trait. For the first typifies concrete +impersonality, the second abstract impersonality, while the province of +the last is to ridicule personality generally. Of the trio the first is +altogether the most important. Indeed, to a Far Oriental, so fundamental +a part of himself is his love of Nature that before we view its mirrored +image it will be well to look the emotion itself in the face. The Far +Oriental lives in a long day-dream of beauty. He muses rather than +reasons, and all musing, so the word itself confesses, springs from +the inspiration of a Muse. But this Muse appears not to him, as to the +Greeks, after the fashion of a woman, nor even more prosaically after +the likeness of a man. Unnatural though it seem to us, his inspiration +seeks no human symbol. His Muse is not kin to mankind. She is too +impersonal for any personification, for she is Nature. + +That poet whose name carries with it a certain presumption of +infallibility has told us that "the proper study of mankind is man;" and +if material advancement in consequence be any criterion of the fitness +of a particular mental pursuit, events have assuredly justified the +saying. Indeed, the Levant has helped antithetically to preach the same +lesson, in showing us by its own fatal example that the improper +study of mankind is woman, and that they who but follow the fair will +inevitably degenerate. + +The Far Oriental knows nothing of either study, and cares less. The +delight of self-exploration, or the possibly even greater delight of +losing one's self in trying to fathom femininity, is a sensation equally +foreign to his temperament. Neither the remarkable persistence of one's +own characteristics, not infrequently matter of deep regret to their +possessor, nor the charmingly unaccountable variability of the fairer +sex, at times quite as annoying, is a phenomenon sufficient to stir his +curiosity. Accepting, as he does, the existing state of things more as +a material fact than as a phase in a gradual process of development, he +regards humanity as but a small part of the great natural world, instead +of considering it the crowning glory of the whole. He recognizes man +merely as a fraction of the universe,--one might almost say as a vulgar +fraction of it, considering the low regard in which he is held,--and +accords him his proportionate share of attention, and no more. + +In his thought, nature is not accessory to man. Worthy M. Perichon, of +prosaic, not to say philistinic fame, had, as we remember, his travels +immortalized in a painting where a colossal Perichon in front almost +completely eclipsed a tiny Mont Blanc behind. A Far Oriental +thinks poetry, which may possibly account for the fact that in his +mind-pictures the relative importance of man and mountain stands +reversed. "The matchless Fuji," first of motifs in his art, admits no +pilgrim as its peer. + +Nor is it to woman that turn his thoughts. Mother Earth is fairer, in +his eyes, than are any of her daughters. To her is given the heart that +should be theirs. The Far Eastern love of Nature amounts almost to a +passion. To the study of her ever varying moods her Japanese admirer +brings an impersonal adoration that combines oddly the aestheticism of +a poet with the asceticism of a recluse. Not that he worships in secret, +however. His passion is too genuine either to find disguise or seek +display. With us, unfortunately, the love of Nature is apt to be +considered a mental extravagance peculiar to poets, excusable in exact +ratio to the ability to give it expression. For an ordinary mortal to +feel a fondness for Mother Earth is a kind of folly, to be carefully +concealed from his fellows. A sort of shamefacedness prevents him from +avowing it, as a boy at boarding-school hides his homesickness, or a lad +his love. He shrinks from appearing less pachydermatous than the rest. +Or else he flies to the other extreme, and affects the odd; pretends, +poses, parades, and at last succeeds half in duping himself, half in +deceiving other people. But with Far Orientals the case is different. +Their love has all the unostentatious assurance of what has received the +sanction of public opinion. Nor is it still at that doubtful, hesitating +stage when, by the instrumentality of a third, its soul-harmony can +suddenly be changed from the jubilant major key into the despairing +minor. No trace of sadness tinges his delight. He has long since passed +this melancholy phase of erotic misery, if so be that the course of his +true love did not always run smooth, and is now well on in matrimonial +bliss. The very look of the land is enough to betray the fact. In Japan +the landscape has an air of domesticity about it, patent even to the +most casual observer. Wherever the Japanese has come in contact with +the country he has made her unmistakably his own. He has touched her to +caress, not injure, and it seems as if Nature accepted his fondness as +a matter of course, and yielded him a wifely submission in return. +His garden is more human, even, than his house. Not only is everything +exquisitely in keeping with man, but natural features are actually +changed, plastic to the imprint of their lord and master's mind. Bushes, +shrubs, trees, forget to follow their original intent, and grow as he +wills them to; now expanding in wanton luxuriance, now contracting into +dwarf designs of their former selves, all to obey his caprice and please +his eye. Even stubborn rocks lose their wildness, and come to seem a +part of the almost sentient life around them. If the description of such +dutifulness seems fanciful, the thing itself surpasses all supposition. +Hedges and shrubbery, clipped into the most fantastic shapes, accept the +suggestion of the pruning-knife as if man's wishes were their own whims. +Manikin maples, Tom Thumb trees, a foot high and thirty years old, with +all the gnarls and knots and knuckles of their fellows of the forest, +grow in his parterres, their native vitality not a whit diminished. And +they are not regarded as monstrosities but only as the most natural of +artificialities; for they are a part of a horticultural whole. To walk +into a Japanese garden is like wandering of a sudden into one of those +strange worlds we see reflected in the polished surface of a concave +mirror, where all but the observer himself is transformed into a +fantastic miniature of the reality. In that quaint fairyland diminutive +rivers flow gracefully under tiny trees, past mole-hill mountains, +till they fall at last into lilliputian lakes, almost smothered for the +flowers that grow upon their banks; while in the extreme distance of a +couple of rods the cone of a Fuji ten feet high looks approvingly down +upon a scene which would be nationally incomplete without it. + +But besides the delights of domesticity which the Japanese enjoys daily +in Nature's company, he has his acces de tendresse, too. When he feels +thus specially stirred, he invites a chosen few of his friends, equally +infatuated, and together they repair to some spot noted for its scenery. +It may be a waterfall, or some dreamy pond overhung by trees, or the +distant glimpse of a mountain peak framed in picture-wise between the +nearer hills; or, at their appropriate seasons, the blossoming of +the many tree flowers, which in eastern Asia are beautiful beyond +description. For he appreciates not only places, but times. One spot is +to be seen at sunrise, another by moonlight; one to be visited in the +spring-time, another in the fall. But wherever or whenever it be, a +tea-house, placed to command the best view of the sight, stands ready to +receive him. For nature's beauties are too well recognized to remain +the exclusive property of the first chance lover. People flock to view +nature as we do to see a play, and privacy is as impossible as it is +unsought. Indeed, the aversion to publicity is simply a result of the +sense of self, and therefore necessarily not a feature of so +impersonal a civilization. Aesthetic guidebooks are written for +the nature-enamoured, descriptive of these views which the Japanese +translator quaintly calls "Sceneries," and which visitors come not only +from near but from far to gaze upon. In front of the tea-house proper +are rows of summer pavilions, in one of which the party make themselves +at home, while gentle little tea-house girls toddle forth to serve them +the invariable preliminary tea and confections. Each man then produces +from up his sleeve, or from out his girdle, paper, ink, and brush, and +proceeds to compose a poem on the beauty of the spot and the feelings +it calls up, which he subsequently reads to his admiring companions. +Hot sake is next served, which is to them what beer is to a German or +absinthe to a blouse; and there they sit, sip, and poetize, passing +their couplets, as they do their cups, in honor to one another. At +last, after drinking in an hour or two of scenery and sake combined, the +symposium of poets breaks up. + +Sometimes, instead of a company of friends, a man will take his family, +wife, babies, and all, on such an outing, but the details of his holiday +are much the same as before. For the scenery is still the centre of +attraction, and in the attendant creature comforts Far Eastern etiquette +permits an equal enjoyment to man, woman, and child. + +This love of nature is quite irrespective of social condition. All +classes feel its force, and freely indulge the feeling. Poor as well as +rich, low as well as high, contrive to gratify their poetic instincts +for natural scenery. As for flowers, especially tree flowers, or +those of the larger plants, like the lotus or the iris, the Japanese +appreciation of their beauty is as phenomenal as is that beauty itself. +Those who can afford the luxury possess the shrubs in private; those who +cannot, feast their eyes on the public specimens. From a sprig in a vase +to a park planted on purpose, there is no part of them too small or +too great to be excluded from Far Oriental affection. And of the two +"drawing-rooms" of the Mikado held every year, in April and November, +both are garden-parties: the one given at the time and with the title of +"the cherry blossoms," and the other of "the chrysanthemum." + +These same tree flowers deserve more than a passing notice, not simply +because of their amazing beauty, which would arrest attention anywhere, +but for the national attitude toward them. For no better example of the +Japanese passion for nature could well be cited. If the anniversaries +of people are slightingly treated in the land of the sunrise, the same +cannot be said of plants. The yearly birthdays of the vegetable world +are observed with more than botanic enthusiasm. The regard in which +they are held is truly emotional, and it not actually individual in +its object, at least personal to the species. Each kind of tree as its +season brings it into flower is made the occasion of a festival. For the +beauty of the blossoming receives the tribute of a national admiration. +From peers to populace mankind turns out to witness it. Nor are these +occasions few. Spring in the Far East is one long chain of flower fetes, +and as spring begins by the end of January and lasts till the middle of +June, opportunities for appreciating each in turn are not half spoiled +by a common contemporaneousness. People have not only occasion but time +to admire. Indeed, spring itself is suitably respected by being dated +conformably to fact. Far Orientals begin their year when Nature begins +hers, instead of starting anachronously as we do in the very middle of +the dead season, much as our colleges hold their commencements, on the +last in place at on the first day of the academic term. So previous +has the haste of Western civilization become. The result is that our +rejoicing partakes of the incongruity of humor. The new year exists only +in name. In the Far East, on the other band, the calendar is made to fit +the time. Men begin to reckon their year some three weeks later than the +Western world, just as the plum-tree opens its pink white petals, as it +were, in rosy reflection of the snow that lies yet upon the ground. +But the coldness of the weather does not in the least deter people from +thronging the spot in which the trees grow, where they spend hours in +admiration, and end by pinning appropriate poems on the twigs for later +comers to peruse. Fleeting as the flowers are in fact, they live forever +in fancy. For they constitute one of the commonest motifs of both +painting and poetry. A branch just breaking into bloom seen against the +sunrise sky, or a bough bending its blossoms to the bosom of a stream, +is subject enough for their greatest masters, who thus wed, as it +were, two arts in one,--the spirit of poesy with pictorial form. This +plum-tree is but a blossom. Precocious harbinger of a host of flowers, +its gay heralding over, it vanishes not to be recalled, for it bears no +edible fruit. + +The next event in the series might fairly be called phenomenal. Early in +April takes place what is perhaps as superb a sight as anything in this +world, the blossoming of the cherry-trees. Indeed, it is not easy to do +the thing justice in description. If the plum invited admiration, the +cherry commands it; for to see the sakura in flower for the first time +is to experience a new sensation. Familiar as a man may be with cherry +blossoms at home, the sight there bursts upon him with the dazzling +effect of a revelation. Such is the profusion of flowers that the tree +seems to have turned into a living mass of rosy light. No leaves break +the brilliance. The snowy-pink petals drape the branches entirely, yet +so delicately, one deems it all a veil donned for the tree's nuptials +with the spring. For nothing could more completely personify the spirit +of the spring-time. You can almost fancy it some dryad decked for her +bridal, in maidenly day-dreaming too lovely to last. For like the plum +the cherry fails in its fruit to fulfil the promise of its flower. + +It would be strange indeed if so much beauty received no recognition, +but it is even more strange that recognition should be so complete and +so universal as it is. Appreciation is not confined to the cultivated +few; it is shown quite as enthusiastically by the masses. The popularity +of the plants is all-embracing. The common people are as sensitive to +their beauty as are the upper classes. Private gratification, roseate +as it is, pales beside the public delight. Indeed, not content with what +revelation Nature makes of herself of her own accord, man has multiplied +her manifestations. Spots suitable to their growth have been peopled by +him with trees. Sometimes they stand in groups like star-clusters, as in +Oji, crowning a hill; sometimes, as at Mukojima, they line an avenue +for miles, dividing the blue river on the one hand from the blue-green +rice-fields on the other,--a floral milky way of light. But wherever the +trees may be, there at their flowering season are to be found throngs +of admirers. For in crowds people go out to see the sight, multitudes +streaming incessantly to and fro beneath their blossoms as the time of +day determines the turn of the human tide. To the Occidental stranger +such a gathering suggests some social loadstone; but none exists. In the +cherry-trees alone lies the attraction. + +For one week out of the fifty-two the cherry-tree stands thus glorified, +a vision of beauty prolonged somewhat by the want of synchronousness +of the different kinds. Then the petals fall. What was a nuptial veil +becomes a winding-sheet, covering the sod as with winter's winding-sheet +of snow, destined itself to disappear, and the tree is nothing but a +common cherry-tree once more. + +But flowers are by no means over because the cherry blossoms are past. A +brief space, and the same crowds that flocked to the cherry turn to the +wistaria. Gardens are devoted to the plants, and the populace greatly +given to the gardens. There they go to sit and gaze at the grape-like +clusters of pale purple flowers that hang more than a cubit long over +the wooden trellis, and grow daily down toward their own reflections in +the pond beneath, vying with one another in Narcissus-like endeavor. +And the people, as they sip their tea on the veranda opposite, behold a +doubled delight, the flower itself and its mirrored image stretching to +kiss. + +After the wistaria comes the tree-peony, and then the iris, with its +trefoil flowers broader than a man may span, and at all colors under the +sky. To one who has seen the great Japanese fleur-de-lis, France looks +ludicrously infelicitous in her choice of emblem. + +But the list grows too long, limited as it is only by its own annual +repetition. We have as yet reached but the first week in June; the +summer and autumn are still to come, the first bringing the lotus for +its crown, and the second the chrysanthemum. And lazily grand the lotus +is, itself the embodiment of the spirit of the drowsy August air, the +very essence of Buddha-like repose. The castle moats are its special +domain, which in this its flowering season it wrests wholly from their +more proper occupant--the water. A dense growth of leather-like leaves, +above which rise in majestic isolation the solitary flowers, encircles +the outer rampart, shutting the castle in as it might be the palace of +the Sleeping Beauty. In the delightful dreaminess that creeps over one +as he stands thus before some old daimyo's former abode in the heart of +Japan, he forgets all his metaphysical difficulties about Nirvana, for +he fancies he has found it, one long Lotus afternoon. + +And then last, but in some sort first, since it has been taken for the +imperial insignia, comes the chrysanthemum. The symmetry of its shape +well fits it to symbolize the completeness of perfection which the +Mikado, the son of heaven, mundanely represents. It typifies, too, the +fullness of the year; for it marks, as it were, the golden wedding of +the spring, the reminiscence in November of the nuptials of the May. Its +own color, however, is not confined to gold. It may be of almost any +hue and within the general limits of a circle of any form. Now it is a +chariot wheel with petals for spokes; now a ball of fire with lambent +tongues of flame; while another kind seems the button of some natural +legion of honor, and still another a pin-wheel in Nature's own +day-fireworks. + +Admired as a thing of beauty for its own sake, it is also used merely +as a material for artistic effects; for among the quaintest of such +conceits are the Japanese Jarley chrysanthemum works. Every November in +the florists' gardens that share the temple grounds at Asakusa may be +seen groups of historical and mythological figures composed entirely +of chrysanthemum flowers. These effigies are quite worthy of comparison +with their London cousins, being sufficiently life-like to terrify +children and startle anybody. To come suddenly, on turning a +corner, upon a colossal warrior, deterrently uncouth and frightfully +battle-clad, in the act of dispatching a fallen foe, is a sensation +not instantly dispelled by the fact that he is made of flowers. The +practice, at least, bears witness to an artistic ingenuity of no mean +merit, and to a horticulture ably carried on, if somewhat eccentrically +applied. + +From the passing of the chrysanthemum dates the dead season. But it is +suitably short-lived. Sometimes as early as November, the plum-tree is +already blossoming again. + +Even from so imperfectly gathered a garland it will be seen that the +Japanese do not lack for opportunities to admire, nor do they turn +coldly away from what they are given. Indeed, they may be said to live +in a chronic state of flower-fever; but in spite of the vast amount of +admiration which they bestow on plants, it is not so much the quantity +of that admiration as the quality of it which is remarkable. The intense +appreciation shown the subject by the Far Oriental is something whose +very character seems strange to us, and when in addition we consider +that it permeates the entire people from the commonest coolie to the +most aesthetic courtier, it becomes to our comprehension a state of +things little short of inexplicable. To call it artistic sensibility is +to use too limited a term, for it pervades the entire people; rather +is it a sixth sense of a natural, because national description; for the +trait differs from our corresponding feeling in degree, and especially +in universality enough to merit the distinction. Their care for tree +flowers is not confined to a cultivation, it is a cult. It approaches +to a sort of natural nature-worship, an adoration in which nothing is +personified. For the emotion aroused in the Far Oriental is just +as truly an emotion as it was to the Greek; but whereas the Greek +personified its object, the Japanese admires that object for what it is. +To think of the cherry-tree, for instance, as a woman, would be to his +mind a conception transcending even the limits of the ludicrous. + + + +Chapter 6. Art. + +That nature, not man, is their beau ideal, the source of inspiration +to them, is evident again on looking at their art. The same spirit that +makes of them such wonderful landscape gardeners and such wonder-full +landscape gazers shows itself unmistakably in their paintings. + +The current impression that Japanese pictorial ambition, and consequent +skill, is confined to the representation of birds and flowers, though +entirely erroneous as it stands, has a grain of truth behind it. This +idea is due to the attitude of the foreign observers, and was in fact a +tribute to Japanese technique rather than an appreciation of Far Eastern +artistic feeling. The truth is, the foreigners brought to the subject +their own Western criteria of merit, and judged everything by these +standards. Such works naturally commended themselves most as had least +occasion to deviate from their canons. The simplest pictures, therefore, +were pronounced the best. Paintings of birds and flowers were thus +admitted to be fine, because their realism spoke for itself. Of the +exquisite poetic feeling of their landscape paintings the foreign +critics were not at first conscious, because it was not expressed in +terms with which they were familiar. + +But first impressions, here as elsewhere, are valuable. One is very apt +to turn to them again from the reasoning of his second thoughts. Flora +and fauna are a conspicuous feature of Far Asiatic art, because they +enter as details of the subject-matter of the artist's thoughts and +day-dreams. These birds and flowers are his sujets de genre. Where we +should select a phase of human life for effective isolation, they choose +instead a bit of nature. A spray of grass or a twig of cherry-blossoms +is motif enough for them. To their thought its beauty is amply +suggestive. For to the Far Oriental all nature is sympathetically +sentient. His admiration, instead of being centred on man, embraces the +universe. His art reflects it. + +Leaving out of consideration, for the moment, minor though still +important distinctions in tone, treatment, and technique, the great +fundamental difference between Western and Far Eastern art lies in its +attitude toward humanity. + +With us, from the time of the Greeks to the present day, man has been +the cynosure of artistic eyes; with them he has never been vouchsafed +more than a casual, not to say a cursory glance, even woman failing +to rivet his attention. One of our own writers has said that, without +passing the bounds of due respect, a man is permitted two looks at +any woman he may meet, one to recognize, one to admire. A Japanese +ordinarily never dreams of taking but one,--if indeed he goes so far as +that,--the first. It is the omitting to take that second look that has +left him what he is. Not that Fortune has been unpropitious; only blind. +Fate has offered him opportunity enough; too much, perhaps. For in Japan +the exposure of the female form is without a parallel in latitude. Never +nude, it is frequently naked. The result artistically is much the same, +though the cause be different. For it is a fatal mistake to suppose the +Japanese an immodest people. According to their own standards, they are +exceedingly modest. No respectable Japanese woman would, for instance, +ever for a moment turn out her toes in walking. It is considered +immodest to do so. Their code is, however, not so whimsical as this bit +of etiquette might suggest. The intent is with them the touchstone of +propriety. In their eyes a state of nature is not a state of indecency. +Whatever exposure is required for convenience is right; whatever +unnecessary, wrong. Such an Eden-like condition of society would seem to +be the very spot for a something like the modern French school of art to +have developed in. And yet it is just that study of the nude which has +from immemorial antiquity been entirely neglected in the Far East. An +ancient Greek, to say nothing of a modern Parisian, would have shocked a +Japanese. Yet we are shocked by them. We are astounded at the sights we +see in their country villages, while they in their turn marvel at the +exhibitions they witness in our city theatres. At their watering-places +the two sexes bathe promiscuously together in all the simplicity +of nature; but for a Japanese woman to appear on the stage in any +character, however proper, would be deemed indecent. The difference +between the two hemispheres may be said to consist in an artless liberty +on the one hand, and artistic license on the other. Their unwritten code +of propriety on the subject seems to be, "You must see, but you may not +observe." + +These people live more in accordance with their code of propriety +than we do with ours. All classes alike conform to it. The adjective +"respectable," used above as a distinction in speaking of woman, was in +reality superfluous, for all women there, as far as appearance goes, are +respectable. Even the most abandoned creature does not betray her status +by her behavior. The reason of this uniformity and its psychological +importance I shall discuss later. + +This form of modesty, a sort of want of modesty of form, has no +connection whatever with sex. It applies with equal force to the +male figure, which is even more exposed than the female, and offers +anatomical suggestions invaluable alike to the artistic and medical +professions,--suggestions that are equally ignored by both. The coolies +are frequently possessed of physiques which would have delighted Michael +Angelo; and as for the phenomenal corpulency of the wrestlers, it would +have made of the place a very paradise for Rubens. In regard to the +doctors,--for to call them surgeons would be to give a name to what does +not exist,--a lack of scientific zeal has been the cause of their not +investigating what tempts too seductively, we should imagine, to be +ignored. Acupuncture, or the practice of sticking long pins into any +part of the patient's body that may happen to be paining him, pretty +much irrespective of anatomical position, is the nearest approach to +surgery of which they are guilty, and proclaims of itself the in corpore +vili character of the thing operated upon. + +Nor does the painter owe anything to science. He represents humanity +simply as he sees it in its every-day costume; and it betokens the +highest powers of generalized observation that he produces the results +he does. In his drawings, man is shown, not as he might look in the +primitive, or privitive, simplicity of his ancestral Garden of Eden, but +as he does look in the ordinary wear and tear of his present garments. +Civilization has furnished him with clothes, and he prefers, when he has +his picture taken, to keep them on. + +In dealing with man, the Far Oriental artist is emphatically a realist; +it is when he turns to nature that he becomes ideal. But by ideal is not +meant here conventional. That term of reproach is a misnomer, founded +upon a mistake. His idealism is simply the outcome of his love, which, +like all human love, transfigures its object. The Far Oriental has +plenty of this, which, if sometimes a delusion, seems also second +sight, but it is peculiarly impersonal. His color-blindness to the warm, +blood-red end of the spectrum of life in no wise affects his perception +of the colder beauty of the great blues and greens of nature. To their +poetry he is ever sensitive. His appreciation of them is something +phenomenal, and his power of presentation worthy his appreciation. + +A Japanese painting is a poem rather than a picture. It portrays an +emotion called up by a scene, and not the scene itself in all its +elaborate complexity. It undertakes to give only so much of it as is +vital to that particular feeling, and intentionally omits all irrelevant +details. It is the expression caught from a glimpse of the soul of +nature by the soul of man; the mirror of a mood, passing, perhaps, in +fact, but perpetuated thus to fancy. Being an emotion, its intensity +is directly proportional to the singleness with which it possesses the +thoughts. The Far Oriental fully realizes the power of simplicity. This +principle is his fundamental canon of pictorial art. To understand his +paintings, it is from this standpoint they must be regarded; not as +soulless photographs of scenery, but as poetic presentations of the +spirit of the scenes. The very charter of painting depends upon its +not giving us charts. And if with us a long poem be a contradiction in +terms, a full picture is with them as self-condemnatory a production. +From the contemplation of such works of art as we call finished, one is +apt, after he has once appreciated Far Eastern taste, to rise with an +unpleasant feeling of satiety, as if he has eaten too much at the feast. + +Their paintings, by comparison, we call sketches. Is not our would-be +slight unwittingly the reverse? Is not a sketch, after all, fuller of +meaning, to one who knows how to read it, than a finished affair, which +is very apt to end with itself, barren of fruit? Does not one's own +imagination elude one's power to portray it? Is it not forever flitting +will-o'-the-wisp-like ahead of us just beyond exact definition? For +the soul of art lies in what art can suggest, and nothing is half so +suggestive as the half expressed, not even a double entente. To hint +a great deal by displaying a little is more vital to effect than the +cleverest representation of the whole. The art of partially revealing +is more telling, even, than the ars celare artem. Who has not suspected +through a veil a fairer face than veil ever hid? Who has not been +delightedly duped by the semi-disclosures of a dress? The principle +is just as true in any one branch of art as it is of the attempted +developments by one of the suggestions of another. Yet who but has thus +felt its force? Who has not had a shock of day-dream desecration on +chancing upon an illustrated edition of some book whose story he had +lain to heart? Portraits of people, pictures of places, he does not +know, and yet which purport to be his! And I venture to believe that to +more than one of us the exquisite pathos of the Bride of Lammermoor is +gone when Lucia warbles her woes, be it never so entrancingly, to an +admiring house. It almost seems as if the garish publicity of using her +name for operatic title were a special intervention of the Muse, that we +might the less connect song with story,--two sensations that, like two +lights, destroy one another by mutual interference. + +Against this preference shown the sketch it may be urged that to +appreciate such suggestions presupposes as much art in the public as in +the painter. But the ability to appreciate a thing when expressed is but +half that necessary to express it. Some understanding must exist in +the observer for any work to be intelligible. It is only a question of +degree. The greater the art-sense in the person addressed, the more had +better be left to it. Now in Japan the public is singularly artistic. +In fact, the artistic appreciation of the masses there is something +astonishing to us, accustomed to our immense intellectual differences +between man and man. Sketches are thus peculiarly fitting to such a +land. + +Besides, there is a quiet modesty about the sketch which is itself +taking. To attempt the complete even in a fractional bit of the cosmos, +like a picture, has in it a difficulty akin to the logical one +of proving a universal negative. The possibilities of failure are +enormously increased, and failure is less forgiven for the assumption. +Art might perhaps not unwisely follow the example of science in such +matters where an exhaustive work, which takes the better part of a +lifetime to produce, is invariably entitled by its erudite author an +Elementary Treatise on the subject in hand. + +To aid the effect due to simplicity of conception steps in the Far +Oriental's wonderful technique. His brush-strokes are very few in +number, but each one tells. They are laid on with a touch which is +little short of marvelous, and requires heredity to explain its skill. +For in his method there is no emending, no super-position, no change +possible. What he does is done once and for all. The force of it +grows on you as you gaze. Each stroke expresses surprisingly much, and +suggests more. Even omissions are made significant. In his painting it +is visibly true that objects can be rendered conspicuous by their very +absence. You are quite sure you see what on scrutiny you discover to +be only the illusion of inevitable inference. The Far Oriental artist +understands the power of suggestion well; for imagination always fills +in the picture better than the brush, however perfect be its skill. + +Even the neglect of certain general principles which we consider vital +to effect, such as the absence of shadows and the lack of perspective, +proves not to be of the importance we imagine. We discover in these +paintings how immaterial, artistically, was Peter Schlimmel's sad loss, +and how perfectly possible it is to make bits of discontinuous distance +take the place effectively of continuous space. + +Far Eastern pictures are epigrams rather than descriptions. They present +a bit of nature with the terseness of a maxim of La Rochefoucault, and +they delight as aphorisms do by their insight and the happy conciseness +of its expression. Few aphorisms are absolutely true, but then boldness +more than makes up for what they lack in verity. So complex a subject is +life that to state a truth with all its accompanying limitations is to +weaken it at once. Exceptions, while demonstrating the rule, do not tend +to emphasize it. And though the whole truth is essential to science, +such exhaustiveness is by no means a canon of art. + +Parallels are not wanting at home. What they do with space in their +paintings do we not with time in the case of our comedies, those acted +pictures of life? Should we not refuse to tolerate a play that insisted +on furnishing us with a full perspective of its characters' past? And +yet of the two, it is far perferable, artistically, to be given too much +in sequence than too much at once. The Chinese, who put much less into +a painting than what we deem indispensable, delight in dramas that last +six weeks. + +To give a concluding touch of life to my necessarily skeleton-like +generalities, memory pictures me a certain painting of Okio's which I +fell in love with at first sight. It is of a sunrise on the coast of +Japan. A long line of surf is seen tumbling in to you from out a bank +of mist, just piercing which shows the blood-red disk of the rising sun, +while over the narrow strip of breaking rollers three cranes are slowly +sailing north. And that is all you see. You do not see the shore; you do +not see the main; you are looking but at the border-land of that great +unknown, the heaving ocean still slumbering beneath its chilly coverlid +of mist, out of which come the breakers, and the sun, and the cranes. + +So much for the more serious side of Japanese fancy; a look at the +lighter leads to the same conclusion. + +Hand in hand with his keen poetic sensibility goes a vivid sense of +humor,--two traits that commonly, indeed, are found Maying together over +the meadows of imagination. For, as it might be put, + + "The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers + Is also the first to be touched by the fun." + +The Far Oriental well exemplifies this fact. His art, wherever fun is +possible, fairly bubbles over with laughter. From the oldest masters +down to Hokusai, it is constantly welling up in the drollest conceits. +It is of all descriptions, too. Now it lurks in merry ambush, like the +faint suggestion of a smile on an otherwise serious face, so subtile +that the observer is left wondering whether the artist could have meant +what seems more like one's own ingenious discovery; now it breaks out +into the broadest of grins, absurd juxtapositions of singularly happy +incongruities. For Hokusai's caricatures and Hendschel's sketches might +be twins. If there is a difference, it lies not so much in the artist's +work as in the greater generality of its appreciation. Humor flits +easily there at the sea-level of the multitude. For the Japanese +temperament is ever on the verge of a smile which breaks out with +catching naivete at the first provocation. The language abounds in puns +which are not suffered to lie idle, and even poetry often hinges on +certain consecrated plays on words. From the very constitution of the +people there is of course nothing selfish in the national enjoyment. A +man is quite as ready to laugh at his own expense as at his neighbor's, +a courtesy which his neighbor cordially returns. + +Now the ludicrous is essentially human in its application. The principle +of the synthesis of contradictories, popularly known by the name of +humor, is necessarily limited in its field to man. For whether it have +to do wholly with actions, or partly with the words that express them, +whether it be presented in the shape of a pun or a pleasantry, it is in +incongruous contrasts that its virtue lies. It is the unexpected that +provokes the smile. Now no such incongruity exists in nature; man enjoys +a monopoly of the power of making himself ridiculous. So pleasant is +pleasantry that we do indeed cultivate it beyond its proper pale. But +it is only by personifying Nature, and gratuitously attributing to her +errors of which she is incapable, that we can make fun of her; as, for +instance, when we hold the weather up to ridicule by way of impotent +revenge. But satires upon the clown-like character of our climate, +which, after the lamest sort of a spring, somehow manages a capital +fall, would in the Far East be as out of keeping with fancy as with +fact. To a Japanese, who never personifies anything, such innocent irony +is unmeaning. Besides, it would be also untrue. For his May carries no +suggestion of unfulfilment in its name. + +Those Far Eastern paintings which have to do with man fall for the +most part under one of two heads, the facetious and the historical. The +latter implies no particularly intimate concern for man in himself, for +the past has very little personality for the present. As for the former, +its attention is, if anything, derogatory to him, for we are always shy +of making fun of what we feel to be too closely a part of ourselves. +But impersonality has prevented the Far Oriental from having much amour +propre. He has no particular aversion to caricaturing himself. Few +Europeans, perhaps, would have cared to perpetrate a self-portrait +like one painted by the potter Kinsei, which was sold me one day as an +amusing tour de force by a facetious picture-dealer. It is a composite +picture of a new kind, a Japanese variety of type face. The great +potter, who was also apparently no mean painter, has combined three +aspects of himself in a single representation. At first sight the +portrait appears to be simply a full front view of a somewhat moon-faced +citizen; but as you continue to gaze, it suddenly dawns on you that +there are two other individuals, one on either side, hob-nobbing in +profile with the first, the lines of the features being ingeniously made +to do double duty; and when this aspect of the thing has once struck +you, you cannot look at the picture without seeing all three citizens +simultaneously. The result is doubtless more effective as a composition +than flattering as a likeness. + +Far Eastern sculpture, by its secondary importance among Far Eastern +arts, witnesses again to the secondary importance assigned to man at our +mental antipodes. In this art, owing to its necessary limitations, the +representation of nature in its broader sense is impossible. For in the +first place, whatever the subject, it must be such as it is possible +to present in one continuous piece; disconnected adjuncts, as, for +instance, a flock of birds flying, which might be introduced with great +effect in painting, being here practically beyond the artist's reach. +Secondly, the material being of uniform appearance, as a rule, color, +or even shading, vital points in landscape portrayal, is out of the +question, unless the piece were subsequently painted, as in Grecian +sculptures, a custom which is not practised in China or Japan. Lastly, +another fact fatal to the representation of landscape is the size. The +reduced scale of the reproduction suggests falsity at once, a falsity +whose belittlement the mind can neither forget nor forgive. Plain +sculpture is therefore practically limited to statuary, either of men or +animals. The result is that in their art, where landscape counts for +so much, sculpture plays a very minor part. In what little there is, +Nature's place is taken by Buddha. For there are two classes of statues, +divided the one from the other by that step which separates the sublime +from the ridiculous, namely, the colossal and the diminutive. There is +no happy human mean. Of the first kind are the beautiful bronze +figures of the Buddha, like the Kamakura Buddha, fifty feet high and +ninety-seven feet round, in whose face all that is grand and noble lies +sleeping, the living representation of Nirvana; and of the second, those +odd little ornaments known as netsuke, comical carvings for the most +part, grotesque figures of men and monkeys, saints and sinners, gods and +devils. Appealing bits of ivory, bone, or wood they are, in which the +dumb animals are as speaking likenesses as their human fellows. + +The other arts show the same motif in their decorations. Pottery and +lacquer alike witness the respective positions assigned to the serious +and the comic in Far Eastern feeling. + +The Far Oriental makes fun of man and makes love to Nature; and it +almost seems as if Nature heard his silent prayer, and smiled upon him +in acceptance; as if the love-light lent her face the added beauty +that it lends the maid's. For nowhere in this world, probably, is +she lovelier than in Japan: a climate of long, happy means and short +extremes, months of spring and months of autumn, with but a few weeks +of winter in between; a land of flowers, where the lotus and the cherry, +the plum and wistaria, grow wantonly side by side; a land where +the bamboo embosoms the maple, where the pine at last has found its +palm-tree, and the tropic and the temperate zones forget their separate +identity in one long self-obliterating kiss. + + + +Chapter 7. Religion. + +In regard to their religion, nations, like individuals, seem singularly +averse to practising what they have preached. Whether it be that his +self-constructed idols prove to the maker too suggestive of his own +intellectual chisel to deceive him for long, or whether sacred soil, +like less hallowed ground, becomes after a time incapable of responding +to repeated sowings of the same seed, certain it is that in spiritual +matters most peoples have grown out of conceit with their own +conceptions. An individual may cling with a certain sentiment to the +religion of his mother, but nations have shown anything but a foolish +fondness for the sacred superstitions of their great-grandfathers. To +the charm of creation succeeds invariably the bitter-sweet after-taste +of criticism, and man would not be the progressive animal he is if he +long remained in love with his own productions. + +What his future will be is too engrossing a subject, and one too deeply +shrouded in mystery, not to be constantly pictured anew. No wonder that +the consideration at that country toward which mankind is ever being +hastened should prove as absorbing to fancy as contemplated earthly +journeys proverbially are. Few people but have laid out skeleton tours +through its ideal regions, and perhaps, as in the mapping beforehand of +merely mundane travels, one element of attraction has always consisted +in the possible revision of one's routes. + +Besides, there is a fascination about the foreign merely because it is +such. Distance lends enchantment to the views of others, and never +more so than when those views are religious visions. An enthusiast has +certainly a greater chance of being taken for a god among a people who +do not know him intimately as a man. So with his doctrines. The imported +is apt to seem more important than the home-made; as the far-off +bewitches more easily than the near. But just as castles in the air do +not commonly become the property of their builders, so mansions in the +skies almost as frequently have failed of direct inheritance. Rather +strikingly has this proved the case with what are to-day the two most +powerful religions of the world,--Buddhism and Christianity. Neither is +now the belief of its founder's people. What was Aryan-born has become +Turanian-bred, and what was Semitic by conception is at present Aryan by +adoption. The possibilities of another's hereafter look so much rosier +than the limitations of one's own present! + +Few pastimes are more delightful than tossing pebbles into some still, +dark pool, and watching the ripples that rise responsive, as they run in +ever widening circles to the shore. Most of us have felt its fascination +second only to that of the dotted spiral of the skipping-stone, a +fascination not outgrown with years. There is something singularly +attractive in the subtle force that for a moment sways each particle +only to pass on to the next, a motion mysterious in its immateriality. +Some such pleasure must be theirs who have thrown their thoughts into +the hearts of men, and seen them spread in waves of feeling, whose +sphere time widens through the world. For like the mobile water is the +mind of man,--quick to catch emotions, quick to transmit them. Of all +waves of feeling, this is not the least true of religious ones, that, +starting from their birthplace, pass out to stir others, who have but +humanity in common with those who professed them first. Like the ripples +in the pool, they leave their initial converts to sink back again into +comparative quiescence, as they advance to throw into sudden tremors +hordes of outer barbarians. In both of the great religions in question +this wave propagation has been most marked, only the direction it +took differed. Christianity went westward; Buddhism travelled east. +Proselytes in Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy find counterparts in +Eastern India, Burmah, and Thibet. Eventually the taught surpassed their +teachers both in zeal and numbers. Jerusalem and Benares at last gave +place to Rome and Lassa as sacerdotal centres. Still the movement +journeyed on. Popes and Lhamas remained where their predecessors +had founded sees, but the tide of belief surged past them in its +irresistible advance. Farther yet from where each faith began are to +be found to-day the greater part of its adherents. The home that the +Western hemisphere seems to promise to the one, the extreme Orient +affords the other. As Roman Catholicism now looks to America for its +strength, so Buddhism to-day finds its worshippers chiefly in China and +Japan. + +But though the Japanese may be said to be all Buddhists, Buddhist is by +no means all that they are. At the time of their adoption of the great +Indian faith, the Japanese were already in possession of a system of +superstition which has held its own to this day. In fact, as the state +religion of the land, it has just experienced a revival, a +regalvanizing of its old-time energy, at the hands of some of the native +archaeologists. Its sacred mirror, held up to Nature, has been burnished +anew. Formerly this body of belief was the national faith, the Mikado, +the direct descendant of the early gods, being its head on earth. His +reinstatement to temporal power formed a very fitting first step toward +reinvesting the cult with its former prestige; a curious instance, +indeed, of a religious revival due to archaeological, not to religious +zeal. + +This cult is the mythological inheritance of the whole eastern seaboard +of Asia, from Siam to Kamtchatka. In Japan it is called Shintoism. The +word "Shinto" means literally "the way of the gods," and the letter +of its name is a true exponent of the spirit of the belief. For its +scriptures are rather an itinerary of the gods' lives than a guide to +that road by which man himself may attain to immortality. Thus with a +certain fitness pilgrimages are its most noticeable rites. One cannot +journey anywhere in the heart of Japan without meeting multitudes of +these pilgrims, with their neat white leggings and their mushroom-like +hats, nor rest at night at any inn that is not hung with countless +little banners of the pilgrim associations, of which they all are +members. Being a pilgrim there is equivalent to being a tourist here, +only that to the excitement of doing the country is added a sustaining +sense of the meritoriousness of the deed. Oftener than not the objective +point of the devout is the summit of some noted mountain. For peaks +are peculiarly sacred spots in the Shinto faith. The fact is perhaps an +expression of man's instinctive desire to rise, as if the bodily act +in some wise betokened the mental action. The shrine in so exalted +a position is of the simplest: a rude hut, with or without the only +distinctive emblems of the cult, a mirror typical of the god and the +pendent gohei, or zigzag strips of paper, permanent votive offerings +of man. As for the belief itself, it is but the deification of those +natural elements which aboriginal man instinctively wonders at or fears, +the sun, the moon, the thunder, the lightning, and the wind; all, in +short, that he sees, hears, and feels, yet cannot comprehend. He clothes +his terrors with forms which resemble the human, because he can conceive +of nothing else that could cause the unexpected. But the awful shapes he +conjures up have naught in common with himself. They are far too fearful +to be followed. Their way is the "highway of the gods," but no Jacob's +ladder for wayward man. + +In this externality to the human lies the reason that Shintoism and +Buddhism can agree so well, and can both join with Confucianism in +helping to form that happy family of faith which is so singular a +feature of Far Eastern religious capability. It is not simply that the +two contrive to live peaceably together; they are actually both of them +implicitly believed by the same individual. Millions of Japanese +are good Buddhists and good Shintoists at the same time. That such a +combination should be possible is due to the essential difference in the +character of the two beliefs. The one is extrinsic, the other intrinsic, +in its relations to the human soul. Shintoism tells man but little about +himself and his hereafter; Buddhism, little but about himself and +what he may become. In examining Far Eastern religion, therefore, for +personality, or the reverse, we may dismiss Shintoism as having no +particular bearing upon the subject. The only effect it has is indirect +in furthering the natural propensity of these people to an adoration of +nature. + +In Korea and in China, again, Confucianism is the great moral law, as by +reflection it is to a certain extent in Japan. But that in its turn +may be omitted in the present argument; inasmuch as Confucius taught +confessedly and designedly only a system of morals, and religiously +abstained from pronouncing any opinion whatever upon the character or +the career of the human soul. + +Taouism, the third great religion of China, resembles Shintoism to this +extent, that it is a body of superstition, and not a form of philosophy. +It undertakes to provide nostrums for spiritual ills, but is dumb as to +the constitution of the soul for which it professes to prescribe. +Its pills are to be swallowed unquestioningly by the patient, and are +warranted to cure; and owing to the two great human frailties, fear +and credulity, its practice is very large. Possessing, however, no +philosophic diploma, it is without the pale of the present discussion. + +The demon-worship of Korea is a mild form of the same thing with the +hierarchy left out, every man there being his own spiritual adviser. +An ordinary Korean is born with an innate belief in malevolent spirits, +whom he accordingly propitiates from time to time. One of nobler birth +propitiates only the spirits of his own ancestors. + +We come, then, by a process of elimination to a consideration of +Buddhism, the great philosophic faith of the whole Far East. + +Not uncommonly in the courtyard of a Japanese temple, in the solemn +half-light of the sombre firs, there stands a large stone basin, cut +from a single block, and filled to the brim with water. The trees, the +basin, and a few stone lanterns--so called from their form, and not +their function, for they have votive pebbles where we should look for +wicks--are the sole occupants of the place. Sheltered from the +wind, withdrawn from sound, and only piously approached by man, this +antechamber of the god seems the very abode of silence and rest. It +might be Nirvana itself, human entrance to an immortality like the god's +within, so peaceful, so pervasive is its calm; and in its midst is the +moss-covered monolith, holding in its embrace the little imprisoned pool +of water. So still is the spot and so clear the liquid that you know the +one only as the reflection of the other. Mirrored in its glassy surface +appears everything around it. As you peer in, far down you see a tiny +bit of sky, as deep as the blue is high above, across which slowly sail +the passing clouds; then nearer stand the trees, arching overhead, as if +bending to catch glimpses of themselves in that other world below; and +then, nearer yet--yourself. + +Emblem of the spirit of man is this little pool to Far Oriental eyes. +Subtile as the soul is the incomprehensible water; so responsive to +light that it remains itself invisible; so clear that it seems illusion! +Though portrayer so perfect of forms about it, all we know of the thing +itself is that it is. Through none of the five senses do we perceive it. +Neither sight, nor hearing, nor taste, nor smell, nor touch can tell us +it exists; we feel it to be by the muscular sense alone, that blind and +dumb analogue for the body of what consciousness is for the soul. Only +when disturbed, troubled, does the water itself become visible, and then +it is but the surface that we see. So to the Far Oriental this still +little lake typifies the soul, the eventual purification of his own; a +something lost in reflection, self-effaced, only the alter ego of the +outer world. + +For contemplation, not action, is the Far Oriental's ideal of life. The +repose of self-adjustment like that to which our whole solar system +is slowly tending as its death,--this to him appears, though from no +scientific deduction, the end of all existence. So he sits and ponders, +abstractly, vaguely, upon everything in general,--synonym, alas, to +man's finite mind, for nothing in particular,--till even the sense +of self seems to vanish, and through the mist-like portal of +unconsciousness he floats out into the vast indistinguishable sameness +of Nirvana's sea. + +At first sight Buddhism is much more like Christianity than those of us +who stay at home and speculate upon it commonly appreciate. As a system +of philosophy it sounds exceedingly foreign, but it looks unexpectedly +familiar as a faith. Indeed, the one religion might well pass for the +counterfeit presentment of the other. The resemblance so struck the +early Catholic missionaries that they felt obliged to explain the +remarkable similarity between the two. With them ingenuous surprise +instantly begot ingenious sophistry. Externally, the likeness was so +exact that at first they could not bring themselves to believe that the +Buddhist ceremonials had not been filched bodily from the practices of +the true faith. Finding, however, that no known human agency had acted +in the matter, they bethought them of introducing, to account for +things, a deus ex machina in the shape of the devil. They were so +pleased with this solution of the difficulty that they imparted it +at once with much pride to the natives. You have indeed got, they +graciously if somewhat gratuitously informed them, the outward semblance +of the true faith, but you are in fact the miserable victims of an +impious fraud. Satan has stolen the insignia of divinity, and is now +masquerading before you as the deity; your god is really our devil,--a +recognition of antipodal inversion truly worthy the Jesuitical mind! + +Perhaps it is not matter for great surprise that they converted but few +of their hearers. The suggestion was hardly so diplomatic as might have +been expected from so generally astute a body; for it could not make +much difference what the all-presiding deity was called, if his actions +were the same, since his motives were beyond human observation. Besides, +the bare idea of a foreign bogus was not very terrifying. The Chinese +possessed too many familiar devils of their own. But there was another +and a much deeper reason, which we shall come to later, why Christianity +made but little headway in the Far East. + +But it is by no means in externals only that the two religions are +alike. If the first glance at them awakens that peculiar sensation which +most of us have felt at some time or other, a sense of having seen all +this before, further scrutiny reveals a deeper agreement than merely in +appearances. + +In passing from the surface into the substance, it may be mentioned +incidentally that the codes of morality of the two are about on a level. +I say incidentally, for so far as its practice, certainly, is concerned, +it not its preaching, morality has no more intimate connection with +religion than it has with art or politics. If we doubt this, we have but +to examine the facts. Are the most religious peoples the most moral? It +needs no prolonged investigation to convince us that they are not. If +proof of the want of a bond were required, the matter of truth-telling +might be adduced in point. As this is a subject upon which a slight +misconception exists in the minds of some evangelically persuaded +persons, and because, what is more generally relevant, the presence of +this quality, honesty in word and deed, has more than almost any other +one characteristic helped to put us in the van of the world's advance +to-day, it may not unfittingly be cited here. + +The argument in the case may be put thus. Have specially religious races +been proportionally truth-telling ones? If not, has there been any +other cause at work in the development of mankind tending to increase +veracity? The answer to the first question has all the simplicity of +a plain negative. No such pleasing concomitance of characteristics +is observable to-day, or has been presented in the past. Permitting, +however, the dead past to bury its shortcomings in oblivion, let us look +at the world as we find it. We observe, then, that the religious spirit +is quite as strong in Asia as it is in Europe; if anything, that at the +present time it is rather stronger. The average Brahman, Mahometan, +or Buddhist is quite as devout as the ordinary Roman Catholic or +Presbyterian. If he is somewhat less given to propagandism, he is not +a whit less regardful of his own salvation. Yet throughout the Orient +truth is a thing unknown, lies of courtesy being de rigueur and lies +of convenience de raison; while with us, fortunately, mendacity is +generally discredited. But we need not travel so far for proof. The same +is evident in less antipodal relations. Have the least religious nations +of Europe been any less truthful than the most bigoted? Was fanatic +Spain remarkable for veracity? Was Loyola a gentleman whose assertions +carried conviction other than to the stake? Were the eminently mundane +burghers whom he persecuted noted for a pious superiority to fact? Or, +to narrow the field still further, and scan the circle of one's own +acquaintance, are the most believing individuals among them worthy of +the most belief? Assuredly not. + +We come, then, to the second point. Has there been any influence at work +to differentiate us in this respect from Far Orientals? There has. Two +separate causes, in fact, have conduced to the same result. The one is +the development of physical science; the other, the extension of trade. +The sole object of science being to discover truth, truth-telling is a +necessity of its existence. Professionally, scientists are obliged to be +truthful. Aliter of a Jesuit. + +So long as science was of the closet, its influence upon mankind +generally was indirect and slight; but so soon as it proceeded to stalk +into the street and earn its own living, its veracious character began +to tell. When out of its theories sprang inventions and discoveries that +revolutionized every-day affairs and changed the very face of things, +society insensibly caught its spirit. Man awoke to the inestimable value +of exactness. From scientists proper, the spirit filtered down through +every stratum of education, till to-day the average man is born exact to +a degree which his forefathers never dreamed of becoming. To-day, as +a rule, the more intelligent the individual, the more truthful he is, +because the more innately exact in thought, and thence in word and +action. With us, to lie is a sign of a want of cleverness, not of an +excess of it. + +The second cause, the extension of trade, has inculcated the same regard +for veracity through the pocket. For with the increase of business +transactions in both time and space, the telling of the truth has become +a financial necessity. Without it, trade would come to a standstill at +once. Our whole mercantile system, a modern piece of mechanism unknown +to the East till we imported it thither, turns on an implicit belief +in the word of one's neighbor. Our legal safeguards would snap like +red tape were the great bond of mutual trust once broken. Western +civilization has to be truthful, or perish. + +And now for the spirits of the two beliefs. + +The soul of any religion realizes in one respect the Brahman idea of the +individual soul of man, namely, that it exists much after the manner of +an onion, in many concentric envelopes. Man, they tell us, is composed +not of a single body simply, but of several layers of body, each shell +as it were respectively inclosing another. The outermost is the merely +material body, of which we are so directly cognizant. This encases a +second, more spiritual, but yet not wholly free from earthly affinities. +This contains another, still more refined; till finally, inside of all +is that immaterial something which they conceive to constitute the +soul. This eventual residuum exemplifies the Franciscan notion of pure +substance, for it is a thing delightfully devoid of any attributes +whatever. + +We may, perhaps, not be aware of the existence of such an elaborate +set of encasings to our own heart of hearts, nor of a something so +very indefinite within, but the most casual glance at any religion will +reveal its truth as regards the soul of a belief. We recognize the fact +outwardly in the buildings erected to celebrate its worship. Not among +the Jews alone was the holy of holies kept veiled, to temper the divine +radiance to man's benighted understanding. Nor is the chancel-rail of +Christianity the sole survivor of the more exclusive barriers of olden +times, even in the Western world. In the Far East, where difficulty of +access is deemed indispensable to dignity, the material approaches +are still manifold and imposing. Court within court, building after +building, isolate the shrine itself from the profane familiarity of +the passers-by. But though the material encasings vary in number and +in exclusiveness, according to the temperament of the particular +race concerned, the mental envelopes exist, and must exist, in both +hemispheres alike, so long as society resembles the crust of the earth +on which it dwells,--a crust composed of strata that grow denser as one +descends. What is clear to those on top seems obscure to those below; +what are weighty arguments to the second have no force at all upon +the first. There must necessarily be grades of elevation in individual +beliefs, suited to the needs and cravings of each individual soul. A +creed that fills the shallow with satisfaction leaves but an aching +void in the deep. It is not of the slightest consequence how the belief +starts; differentiated it is bound to become. The higher minds alone +can rest content with abstract imaginings; the lower must have concrete +realities on which to pin their faith. With them, inevitably, ideals +degenerate into idols. In all religions this unavoidable debasement has +taken place. The Roman Catholic who prays to a wooden image of Christ +is not one whit less idolatrous than the Buddhist who worships a bronze +statue of Amida Butzu. All that the common people are capable of seeing +is the soul-envelope, for the soul itself they are unable to appreciate. +Spiritually they are undiscerning, because imaginatively they are blind. + +Now the grosser soul-envelopes of the two great European and Asiatic +faiths, though differing in detail, are in general parallel in +structure. Each boasts its full complement of saints, whose congruent +catalogues are equally wearisome in length. Each tells its circle of +beads to help it keep count of similarly endless prayers. For in both, +in the popular estimation, quantity is more effective to salvation +than quality. In both the believer practically pictures his heaven for +himself, while in each his hell, with a vividness that does like credit +to its religious imagination, is painted for him by those of the cult +who are themselves confident of escaping it. Into the lap of each mother +church the pious believer drops his little votive offering with the same +affectionate zeal, and in Asia, as in Europe, the mites of the many make +the might of the mass. + +But behind all this is the religion of the few,--of those to whom +sensuous forms cannot suffice to represent super-sensuous cravings; +whose god is something more than an anthropomorphic creation; to whom +worship means not the cramping of the body, but the expansion of the +soul. + +The rays of the truth, like the rays of the sun, which universally seems +to have been man's first adoration, have two properties equally inherent +in their essence, warmth and light. And as for the life of all things +on this globe both attributes of sunshine are necessary, so to the +development of that something which constitutes the ego both qualities +of the truth are vital. We sometimes speak of character as if it were +a thing wholly apart from mind; but, in fact, the two things are so +interwoven that to perceive the right course is the strongest possible +of incentives to pursue it. In the end the two are one. Now, while +clearness of head is all-important, kindness of heart is none the less +so. The first, perhaps, is more needed in our communings with ourselves, +the second in our commerce with others. For, dark and dense bodies +that we are, we can radiate affection much more effectively than we can +reflect views. + +That Christianity is a religion of love needs no mention; that Buddhism +is equally such is perhaps not so generally appreciated. But just as the +gospel of the disciple who loved and was loved the most begins its story +by telling us of the Light that came into the world, so none the less +surely could the Light of Asia but be also its warmth. Half of the +teachings of Buddhism are spent in inculcating charity. Not only to men +is man enjoined to show kindliness, but to all other animals as well. +The people practise what their scriptures preach. The effect indirectly +on the condition of the brutes is almost as marked as its more direct +effect on the character of mankind. In heart, at least, Buddhism and +Christianity are very close. + +But here the two paths to a something beyond an earthly life diverge. Up +to this point the two religions are alike, but from this point on they +are so utterly unlike that the very similarity of all that went before +only suffices to make of the second the weird, life-counterfeiting +shadow of the first. As in a silhouette, externally the contours are all +there, but within is one vast blank. In relation to one's neighbor the +two beliefs are kin, but as regards one's self, as far apart as the West +is from the East. For here, at this idea of self, we are suddenly aware +of standing on the brink of a fathomless abyss, gazing giddily down into +that great gulf which divides Buddhism from Christianity. We cannot see +the bottom. It is a separation more profound than death; it seems to +necessitate annihilation. To cross it we must bury in its depths all we +know as ourselves. + +Christianity is a personal religion; Buddhism, an impersonal one. In +this fundamental difference lies the world-wide opposition of the two +beliefs. Christianity tells us to purify ourselves that we may enjoy +countless aeons of that bettered self hereafter; Buddhism would have us +purify ourselves that we may lose all sense of self for evermore. + +For all that it preaches the essential vileness of the natural man, +Christianity is a gospel of optimism. While it affirms that at present +you are bad, it also affirms that this depravity is no intrinsic part +of yourself. It unquestioningly asserts that it is something foreign +to your true being. It even believes that in a more or less spiritual +manner your very body will survive. It essentially clings to the ego. +What it inculcates is really present endeavor sanctioned by the prospect +of future bliss. It tacitly takes for granted the desirability +of personal existence, and promises the certainty of personal +immortality,--a terror to evildoers, and a sustaining sense of coming +unalloyed happiness to the good. Through and through its teachings runs +the feeling of the fullness of life, that desire which will not die, +that wish of the soul which beats its wings against its earthly casement +in its longing for expansion beyond the narrow confines of threescore +years and ten. + +Buddhism, on the contrary, is the cri du coeur of pessimism. This life, +it says, is but a chain of sorrows. To multiply days is only to multiply +evil. These desires that urge us on are really cause of all our woe. We +think they are ourselves. We are mistaken. They are all illusion, and +we are victims of a mirage. This personality, this sense of self, is +a cruel deception and a snare. Realize once the true soul behind it, +devoid of attributes, therefore without this capacity for suffering, an +indivisible part of the great impersonal soul of nature: then, and +then only, will you have found happiness in the blissful quiescence of +Nirvana. + +With a certain poetic fitness, misery and impersonality were both +present in the occasion that gave the belief birth. Many have turned +to the consolations of religion by reason of their own wretchedness; +Gautama sought its help touched by the woes of others whom, in his own +happy life journey, he chanced one day to come across. Shocked by the +sight of human disease, old age, and death, sad facts to which hitherto +he had been sedulously kept a stranger, he renounced the world that he +might find for it an escape from its ills. But bliss, as he conceived +it, lay not in wanting to be something he was not, but in actual want of +being. His quest for mankind was immunity from suffering, not the active +enjoyment of life. In this negative way of looking at happiness, +he acted in strict conformity with the spirit of his world. For the +doctrine of pessimism had already been preached. It underlay the whole +Brahman philosophy, and everybody believed it implicitly. Already the +East looked at this life as an evil, and had affirmed for the individual +spirit extinction to be happier than existence. The wish for an end +to the ego, the hope to be eventually nothing, Gautama accepted for a +truism as undeniably as the Brahmans did. What he pronounced false was +the Brahman prospectus of the way to reach this desirable impersonal +state. Their road, be said, could not possibly land the traveller where +it professed, since it began wrong, and ended nowhere. The way, he +asserted, is within a man. He has but to realize the truth, and from +that moment he will see his goal and the road that leads there. There +is no panacea for human ills, of external application. The Brahman +homoeopathic treatment of sin is folly. The slaughtering of men and +bulls cannot possibly bring life to the soul. To mortify the body for +the sins of the flesh is palpably futile, for in desire alone lies all +the ill. Quench the desire, and the deeds will die of inanition. Man +himself is sole cause of his own misery. Get rid, then, said the Buddha, +of these passions, these strivings for the sake of self, that hold the +true soul a prisoner. They have to do with things which we know are +transitory: how can they be immortal themselves? We recognize them as +subject to our will; they are, then, not the I. + +As a man, he taught, becomes conscious that he himself is something +distinct from his body, so, if he reflect and ponder, he will come to +see that in like manner his appetites, ambitions, hopes, are really +extrinsic to the spirit proper. Neither heart nor head is truly the man, +for he is conscious of something that stands behind both. Behind desire, +behind even the will, lies the soul, the same for all men, one with the +soul of the universe. When he has once realized this eternal truth, +the man has entered Nirvana. For Nirvana is not an absorption of the +individual soul into the soul of all things, since the one has always +been a part of the other. Still less is it utter annihilation. It is +simply the recognition of the eternal oneness of the two, back through +an everlasting past on through an everlasting future. + +Such is the belief which the Japanese adopted, and which they profess +to-day. Such to them is to be the dawn of death's to-morrow; a blessed +impersonal immortality, in which all sense of self, illusion that it +is, shall itself have ceased to be; a long dreamless sleep, a beatified +rest, which no awakening shall ever disturb. + +Among such a people personal Christianity converts but few. They accept +our material civilization, but they reject our creeds. To preach a +prolongation of life appears to them like preaching an extension of +sorrow. At most, Christianity succeeds only in making them doubters of +what lies beyond this life. But though professing agnosticism while they +live, they turn, when the shadows of death's night come on, to the bosom +of that faith which teaches that, whatever may have been one's earthly +share of happiness, "'tis something better not to be." + +Strange it seems at first that those who have looked so long to the +rising sun for inspiration should be they who live only in a sort of +lethargy of life, while those who for so many centuries have turned +their faces steadily to the fading glory of the sunset should be the +ones who have embodied the spirit of progress of the world. Perhaps the +light, by its very rising, checks the desire to pursue; in its setting +it lures one on to follow. + +Though this religion of impersonality is not their child, it is their +choice. They embraced it with the rest that India taught them, centuries +ago. But though just as eager to learn of us now as of India then, +Christianity fails to commend itself. This is not due to the fact that +the Buddhist missionaries came by invitation, and ours do not. Nor is it +due to any want of personal character in these latter, but simply to an +excess of it in their doctrines. + +For to-day the Far East is even more impersonal in its religion than are +those from whom that religion originally came. India has returned again +to its worship of Brahma, which, though impersonal enough, is less so +than is the gospel of Gautama. For it is passively instead of actively +impersonal. + +Buddhism bears to Brahmanism something like the relation that +Protestantism does to Roman Catholicism. Both bishops and Brahmans +undertake to save all who shall blindly commit themselves to +professional guidance, while Buddhists and Protestants alike believe +that a man's salvation must be brought about by the action of the man +himself. The result is, that in the matter of individuality the two +reformed beliefs are further apart than those against which they +severally protested. For by the change the personal became more +personal, and the impersonal more impersonal than before. The +Protestant, from having tamely allowed himself to be led, began to take +a lively interest in his own self-improvement; while the Buddhist, +from a former apathetic acquiescence in the doctrine of the universally +illusive, set to work energetically towards self-extinction. Curious +labor for a mind, that of devoting all its strength to the thinking +itself out of existence! Not content with being born impersonal, a Far +Oriental is constantly striving to make himself more so. + +We have seen, then, how in trying to understand these peoples we +are brought face to face with impersonality in each of those three +expressions of the human soul, speech, thought, yearning. We have looked +at them first from a social standpoint. We have seen how singularly +little regard is paid the individual from his birth to his death. How +he lives his life long the slave of patriarchal customs of so puerile +a tendency as to be practically impossible to a people really grown up. +How he practises a wholesale system of adoption sufficient of itself to +destroy any surviving regard for the ego his other relations might +have left. How in his daily life he gives the minimum of thought to +the bettering himself in any worldly sense, and the maximum of polite +consideration to his neighbor. How, in short, he acts toward himself as +much as possible as if he were another, and to that other as if he +were himself. Then, not content with standing stranger like upon the +threshold, we have sought to see the soul of their civilization in its +intrinsic manifestations. We have pushed our inquiry, as it were, +one step nearer its home. And the same trait that was apparent +sociologically has been exposed in this our antipodal phase of psychical +research. We have seen how impersonal is his language, the principal +medium of communication between one soul and another; how impersonal +are the communings of his soul with itself. How the man turns to +nature instead of to his fellowman in silent sympathy. And how, when he +speculates upon his coming castles in the air, his most roseate desire +is to be but an indistinguishable particle of the sunset clouds and +vanish invisible as they into the starry stillness of all-embracing +space. + +Now what does this strange impersonality betoken? Why are these peoples +so different from us in this most fundamental of considerations to +any people, the consideration of themselves? The answer leads to some +interesting conclusions. + + + +Chapter 8. Imagination. + +If, as is the case with the moon, the earth, as she travelled round +her orbit turned always the same face inward, we might expect to find, +between the thoughts of that hemisphere which looked continually to the +sun, and those of the other peering eternally out at the stars, +some such difference as actually exists between ourselves and our +longitudinal antipodes. For our conception of the cosmos is of a +sunlit world throbbing with life, while their Nirvana finds not unfit +expression in the still, cold, fathomless awe of the midnight sky. That +we cannot thus directly account for the difference in local coloring +serves but to make that difference of more human interest. The +dissimilarity between the Western and the Far Eastern attitude of mind +has in it something beyond the effect of environment. For it points to +the importance of the part which the principle of individuality plays +in the great drama daily enacting before our eyes, and which we know as +evolution. It shows, as I shall hope to prove, that individuality bears +the same relation to the development of mind that the differentiation +of species does to the evolution of organic life: that the degree of +individualization of a people is the self-recorded measure of its place +in the great march of mind. + +All life, whether organic or inorganic, consists, as we know, in +a change from a state of simple homogeneity to one of complex +heterogeneity. The process is apparently the same in a nebula or a +brachiopod, although much more intricate in the latter. The immediate +force which works this change, the life principle of things, is, in the +case of organic beings, a subtle something which we call spontaneous +variation. What this mysterious impulse may be is beyond our present +powers of recognition. As yet, the ultimates of all things lie hidden +in the womb of the vast unknown. But just as in the case of a man we can +tell what organs are vital, though we are ignorant what the vital spark +may be, so in our great cosmical laws we can say in what their power +resides, though we know not really what they are. Whether mind be but a +sublimated form of matter, or, what amounts to the same thing, matter +a menial kind of mind, or whether, which seems less likely, it be a +something incomparable with substance, of one thing we are sure, the +same laws of heredity govern both. In each a like chain of continuity +leads from the present to the dim past, a connecting clue which we can +follow backward in imagination. Now what spontaneous variation is to the +material organism, imagination, apparently, is to the mental one. Just +as spontaneous variation is constantly pushing the animal or the plant +to push out, as a vine its tendrils, in all directions, while natural +conditions are as constantly exercising over it a sort of unconscious +pruning power, so imagination is ever at work urging man's mind out and +on, while the sentiment of the community, commonly called common sense, +which simply means the point already reached by the average, is as +steadily tending to keep it at its own level. The environment helps, in +the one case as in the other, to the shaping of the development. Purely +physical in the first, it is both physical and psychical in the +second, the two reacting on each other. But in either case it is only a +constraining condition, not the divine impulse itself. Precisely, then, +as in the organism, this subtle spirit checked in one direction finds +a way to advance in another, and produces in consequence among an +originally similar set of bodies a gradual separation into species +which grow wider with time, so in brain evolution a like force for like +reasons tends inevitably to an ever-increasing individualization. + +Now what evidence have we that this analogy holds? Let us look at the +facts, first as they present themselves subjectively. + +The instinct of self-preservation, that guardian angel so persistent to +appear when needed, owes its summons to another instinct no less strong, +which we may call the instinct of individuality; for with the same +innate tenacity with which we severally cling to life do we hold to +the idea of our own identity. It is not for the philosophic desire of +preserving a very small fraction of humanity at large that we take such +pains to avoid destruction; it is that we insensibly regard death as +threatening to the continuance of the ego, in spite of the theories of +a future life which we have so elaborately developed. Indeed, the +psychical shrinking is really the quintessence of the physical fear. We +cleave to the abstract idea closer even than to its concrete embodiment. +Sooner would we forego this earthly existence than surrender that +something we know as self. For sufficient cause we can imagine courting +death; we cannot conceive of so much as exchanging our individuality for +another's, still less of abandoning it altogether; for gradually a man, +as he grows older, comes to regard his body as, after all, separable +from himself. It is the soul's covering, rendered indispensable by the +climatic conditions of our present existence, one without which we +could no longer continue to live here. To forego it does not necessarily +negative, so far as we yet know, the possibility of living elsewhere. +Some more congenial tropic may be the wandering spirit's fate. But to +part with the sense of self seems to be like taking an eternal farewell +of the soul. The Western mind shrinks before the bare idea of such a +thought. + +The clinging to one's own identity, then, is now an instinct, whatever +it may originally have been. It is a something we inherited from our +ancestors and which we shall transmit more or less modified to our +descendants. How far back this consciousness has been felt passes +the possibilities of history to determine, since the recording of it +necessarily followed the fact. All we know is that its mention is coeval +with chronicle, and its origin lost in allegory. The Bible, one of the +oldest written records in the world, begins with a bit of mythology of +a very significant kind. When the Jews undertook to trace back their +family tree to an idyllic garden of Eden, they mentioned as growing +there beside the tree of life, another tree called the tree of +knowledge. Of what character this knowledge was is inferable from the +sudden self-consciousness that followed the partaking of it. So that if +we please we may attribute directly to Eve's indiscretion the many +evils of our morbid self-consciousness of the present day. But without +indulging in unchivalrous reflections we may draw certain morals from it +of both immediate and ultimate applicability. + +To begin with, it is a most salutary warning to the introspective, and +in the second place it is a striking instance of a myth which is not +a sun myth; for it is essentially of human regard, an attempt on man's +part to explain that most peculiar attribute of his constitution, +the all-possessing sense of self. It looks certainly as if he was not +over-proud of his person that he should have deemed its recognition +occasion for the primal curse, and among early races the person is for +a good deal of the personality. What he lamented was not life but the +unavoidable exertion necessary to getting his daily bread, for the +question whether life were worth while was as futile then as now, and as +inconceivable really as 4-dimensional space. + +We are then conscious of individuality as a force within ourselves. But +our knowledge by no means ends there; for we are aware of it in the case +of others as well. + +About certain people there exists a subtle something which leaves its +impress indelibly upon the consciousness of all who come in contact +with them. This something is a power, but a power of so indefinable a +description that we beg definition by calling it simply the personality +of the man. It is not a matter of subsequent reasoning, but of direct +perception. We feel it. Sometimes it charms us; sometimes it repels. But +we can no more be oblivious to it than we can to the temperature of +the air. Its possessor has but to enter the room, and insensibly we are +conscious of a presence. It is as if we had suddenly been placed in the +field of a magnetic force. + +On the other hand there are people who produce no effect upon us +whatever. They come and go with a like indifference. They are as +unimportant psychically as if they were any other portion of the +furniture. They never stir us. We might live with them for fifty years +and be hardly able to tell, for any influence upon ourselves, whether +they existed or not. They remind us of that neutral drab which certain +religious sects assume to show their own irrelevancy to the world. They +are often most estimable folk, but they are no more capable of inspiring +a strong emotion than the other kind are incapable of doing so. And we +say the difference is due to the personality or want of personality of +the man. Now, in what does this so-called personality consist? Not in +bodily presence simply, for men quite destitute of it possess the +force in question; not in character only, for we often disapprove of a +character whose attraction we are powerless to resist; not in intellect +alone, for men more rational fail of stirring us as these unconsciously +do. In what, then? In life itself; not that modicum of it, indeed, which +suffices simply to keep the machine moving, but in the life principle, +the power which causes psychical change; which makes the individual +something distinct from all other individuals, a being capable of +proving sufficient, if need be, unto himself; which shows itself, in +short, as individuality. This is not a mere restatement of the case, for +individuality is an objective fact capable of being treated by physical +science. And as we know much more at present about physical facts than +we do of psychological problems, we may be able to arrive the sooner at +solution. + +Individuality, personality, and the sense of self are only three +different aspects of one and the same thing. They are so many various +views of the soul according as we regard it from an intrinsic, an +altruistic, or an egoistic standpoint. For by individuality is not meant +simply the isolation in a corporeal casing of a small portion of the +universal soul of mankind. So far as mind goes, this would not be +individuality at all, but the reverse. By individuality we mean that +bundle of ideas, thoughts, and daydreams which constitute our separate +identity, and by virtue of which we feel each one of us at home within +himself. Now man in his mind-development is bound to become more and +more distinct from his neighbor. We can hardly conceive a progress so +uniform as not to necessitate this. It would be contrary to all we +know of natural law, besides contradicting daily experience. For each +successive generation bears unmistakable testimony to the fact. Children +of the same parents are never exactly like either their parents or one +another, and they often differ amazingly from both. In such instances +they revert to type, as we say; but inasmuch as the race is steadily +advancing in development, such reversion must resemble that of an estate +which has been greatly improved since its previous possession. The +appearance of the quality is really the sprouting of a seed whose +original germ was in some sense coeval with the beginning of things. +This mind-seed takes root in some cases and not in others, according to +the soil it finds. And as certain traits develop and others do not, +one man turns out very differently from his neighbor. Such inevitable +distinction implies furthermore that the man shall be sensible of it. +Consciousness is the necessary attribute of mental action. Not only is +it the sole way we have of knowing mind; without it there would be no +mind to know. Not to be conscious of one's self is, mentally speaking, +not to be. This complex entity, this little cosmos of a world, the "I," +has for its very law of existence self-consciousness, while personality +is the effect it produces upon the consciousness of others. + +But we may push our inquiry a step further, and find in imagination +the cause of this strange force. For imagination, or the image-making +faculty, may in a certain sense be said to be the creator of the world +within. The separate senses furnish it with material, but to it alone is +due the building of our castles, on premises of fact or in the air. For +there is no impassable gulf between the two. Coleridge's distinction +that imagination drew possible pictures and fancy impossible ones, is +itself, except as a classification, an impossible distinction to draw; +for it is only the inconceivable that can never be. All else is purely a +matter of relation. We may instance dreams which are usually considered +to rank among the most fanciful creations of the mind. Who has not in +his dreams fallen repeatedly from giddy heights and invariably escaped +unhurt? If he had attempted the feat in his waking moments he would +assuredly have been dashed to pieces at the bottom. And so we say the +thing is impossible. But is it? Only under the relative conditions of +his mass and the earth's. If the world he happens to inhabit were not +its present size, but the size of one of the tinier asteroids, no such +disastrous results would follow a chance misstep. He could there walk +off precipices when too closely pursued by bears--if I remember rightly +the usual childish cause of the same--with perfect impunity. The +bear could do likewise, unfortunately. We should have arrived at our +conclusion even quicker had we decreased the size both of the man and +his world. He would not then have had to tumble actually so far, and +would therefore have arrived yet more gently at the foot. This turns +out, then, to be a mere question of size. Decrease the scale of the +picture, and the impossible becomes possible at once. All fancies are +not so easily reducible to actual facts as the one we have taken, but +all, perhaps, eventually may be explicable in the same general way. +At present we certainly cannot affirm that anything may not be thus +explained. For the actual is widening its field every day. Even in this +little world of our own we are daily discovering to be fact what we +should have thought fiction, like the sailor's mother the tale of +the flying fish. Beyond it our ken is widening still more. Gulliver's +travels may turn out truer than we think. Could we traverse the +inter-planetary ocean of ether, we might eventually find in Jupiter +the land of Lilliput or in Ceres some old-time country of the +Brobdignagians. For men constituted muscularly like ourselves would have +to be proportionately small in the big planet and big in the small +one. Still stranger things may exist around other suns. In those bright +particular stars--which the little girl thought pinholes in the dark +canopy of the sky to let the glory beyond shine through--we are finding +conditions of existence like yet unlike those we already know. To our +groping speculations of the night they almost seem, as we gaze on them +in their twinkling, to be winking us a sort of comprehension. Conditions +may exist there under which our wildest fancies may be commonplace +facts. There may be + + "Some Xanadu where Kublai can + a stately pleasure dome decree," + +and carry out his conceptions to his own disillusionment, perhaps. For +if the embodiment of a fancy, however complete, left nothing further +to be wished, imagination would have no incentive to work. Coleridge's +distinction does very well to separate, empirically, certain kinds of +imaginative concepts from certain others; but it has no real foundation +in fact. Nor presumably did he mean it to have. But it serves, not +inaptly, as a text to point out an important scientific truth, namely, +that there are not two such qualities of the mind, but only one. For +otherwise we might have supposed the fact too evident to need mention. +Imagination is the single source of the new, the one mainspring of +psychical advance; reason, like a balance-wheel, only keeping the +action regular. For reason is but the touchstone of experience, our own, +inherited, or acquired from others. It compares what we imagine with +what we know, and gives us answer in terms of the here and the now, +which we call the actual. But the actual is really nothing but the +local. It does not mark the limits of the possible. + +That imagination has been the moving spirit of the psychical world is +evident, whatever branch of human thought we are pleased to examine. We +are in the habit, in common parlance, of making a distinction between +the search after truth and the search after beauty, calling the +one science and the other art. Now while we are not slow to impute +imagination to art, we are by no means so ready to appreciate its +connection with science. Yet contrary, perhaps, to exogeric ideas on the +subject, it is science rather than art that demands imagination of her +votaries. Not that art may not involve the quality to a high degree, but +that a high degree of art is quite compatible with a very small amount +of imagination. On the one side we may instance painting. Now painting +begins its career in the humble capacity of copyist, a pretty poor +copyist at that. At first so slight was its skill that the rudest +symbols sufficed. "This is a man" was conventionally implied by a +few scratches bearing a very distant relationship to the real thing. +Gradually, owing to human vanity and a growing taste, pictures improved. +Combinations were tried, a bit from one place with a piece from another; +a sort of mosaic requiring but a slight amount of imagination. Not that +imagination of a higher order has not been called into play, although +even now pictures are often happy adaptations rather than creations +proper. Some masters have been imaginative; others, unfortunately for +themselves and still more for the public, have not. For that the art may +attain a high degree of excellence for itself and much distinction for +its professors, without calling in the aid of imagination, is evident +enough on this side of the globe, without travelling to the other. + +Take, on the other hand, a branch of science which, to the average +layman, seems peculiarly unimaginative, the science of mathematics. +Yet at the risk of appearing to cast doubts upon the validity of its +conclusions, it might be called the most imaginative product of +human thought; for it is simply one vast imagination based upon a few +so-called axioms, which are nothing more nor less than the results of +experience. It is none the less imaginative because its discoveries +always accord subsequently with fact, since man was not aware of them +beforehand. Nor are its inevitable conclusions inevitable to any save +those possessed of the mathematician's prophetic sight. Once discovered, +it requires much less imagination to understand them. With the light +coming from in front, it is an easy matter to see what lies behind one. + +So with other fabrics of human thought, imagination has been spinning +and weaving them all. From the most concrete of inventions to the most +abstract of conceptions the same force reveals itself upon examination; +for there is no gulf between what we call practical and what we consider +theoretical. Everything abstract is ultimately of practical use, and +even the most immediately utilitarian has an abstract principle at +its core. We are too prone to regard the present age of the world as +preeminently practical, much as a middle-aged man laments the witching +fancies of his boyhood. But, and there is more in the parallel than +analogy, if the man be truly imaginative he is none the less so at +forty-five than he was at twenty, if his imagination have taken on a +more critical form; for this latter half of the nineteenth century is +perhaps the most imaginative period the world's history has ever known. +While with one hand we are contriving means of transit for our ideas, +and even our very voices, compared to which Puck's girdle is anything +but talismanic, with the other we are stretching out to grasp the action +of mind on mind, pushing our way into the very realm of mind itself. + +History tells the same story in detail; for the history of mankind, +imperfectly as we know it, discloses the fact that imagination, and not +the power of observation nor the kindred capability of perception, has +been the cause of soul-evolution. + +The savage is but little of an imaginative being. We are tempted, at +times, to imagine him more so than he is, for his fanciful folk-lore. +The proof of which overestimation is that we find no difficulty in +imagining what he does, and even of imagining what he probably imagined, +and finding our suppositions verified by discovery. Yet his powers of +observation may be marvellously developed. The North American Indian +tracks his foe through the forest by signs unrecognizable to a white +man, and he reasons most astutely upon them, and still that very man +turns out to be a mere child when put before problems a trifle out of +his beaten path. And all because his forefathers had not the power to +imagine something beyond what they actually saw. The very essence of the +force of imagination lies in its ability to change a man's habitat for +him. Without it, man would forever have remained, not a mollusk, to be +sure, but an animal simply. A plant cannot change its place, an animal +cannot alter its conditions of existence except within very narrow +bounds; man is free in the sense nothing else in the world is. + +What is true of individuals has been true of races. The most imaginative +races have proved the greatest factors in the world's advance. + +Now after this look at our own side of the world, let us turn to the +other; for it is this very psychological fact that mental progression +implies an ever-increasing individualization, and that imagination is +the force at work in the process which Far Eastern civilization, +taken in connection with our own, reveals. In doing this, it explains +incidentally its own seeming anomalies, the most unaccountable of which, +apparently, is its existence. + +We have seen how impressively impersonal the Far East is. Now if +individuality be the natural measure of the height of civilization which +a nation has reached, impersonality should betoken a relatively laggard +position in the race. We ought, therefore, to find among these people +certain other characteristics corroborative of a less advanced state of +development. In the first place, if imagination be the impulse of which +increase in individuality is the resulting motion, that quality should +be at a minimum there. The Far Orientals ought to be a particularly +unimaginative set of people. Such is precisely what they are. Their lack +of imagination is a well-recognized fact. All who have been brought in +contact with them have observed it, merchants as strikingly as students. +Indeed, the slightest intercourse with them could not fail to make +it evident. Their matter-of-fact way of looking at things is truly +distressing, coming as it does from so artistic a people. One notices +it all the more for the shock. To get a prosaic answer from a man whose +appearance and surroundings betoken better things is not calculated to +dull that answer's effect. Aston, in a pamphlet on the Altaic tongues, +cites an instance which is so much to the point that I venture to repeat +it here. He was a true Chinaman, he says, who, when his English master +asked him what he thought of + + "That orbed maiden + With white fires laden + Whom mortals call the moon," + +replied, "My thinkee all same lamp pidgin" (pidgin meaning thing in the +mongrel speech, Chinese in form and English in diction, which goes by +the name of pidgin English). + +Their own tongues show the same prosaic character, picturesque as they +appear to us at first sight. That effect is due simply to the novelty +to us of their expressions. To talk of a pass as an "up-down" has a +refreshing turn to our unused ear, but it is a much more descriptive +than imaginative figure of speech. Nor is the phrase "the being (so) +is difficult," in place of "thank you," a surprisingly beautiful bit of +imagery, delightful as it sounds for a change. Our own tongue has, in +its daily vocabulary, far more suggestive expressions, only familiarity +has rendered us callous to their use. We employ at every instant words +which, could we but stop to think of them, would strike us as poetic +in the ideas they call up. As has been well said, they were once happy +thoughts of some bright particular genius bequeathed to posterity +without so much as an accompanying name, and which proved so popular +that they soon became but symbols themselves. + +Their languages are paralleled by their whole life. A lack of any +fanciful ideas is one of the most salient traits of all Far Eastern +races, if indeed a sad dearth of anything can properly be spoken of as +salient. Indirectly their want of imagination betrays itself in their +every-day sayings and doings, and more directly in every branch of +thought. Originality is not their strong point. Their utter ignorance of +science shows this, and paradoxical as it may seem, their art, in +spite of its merit and its universality, does the same. That art and +imagination are necessarily bound together receives no very forcible +confirmation from a land where, nationally speaking, at any rate, the +first is easily first and the last easily last, as nations go. It is to +quite another quality that their artistic excellence must be ascribed. +That the Chinese and later the Japanese have accomplished results +at which the rest of the world will yet live to marvel, is due to +their--taste. But taste or delicacy of perception has absolutely nothing +to do with imagination. That certain of the senses of Far Orientals are +wonderfully keen, as also those parts of the brain that directly respond +to them, is beyond question; but such sensitiveness does not in the +least involve the less earth-tied portions of the intellect. A peculiar +responsiveness to natural beauty, a sort of mental agreement with its +earthly environment, is a marked feature of the Japanese mind. +But appreciation, however intimate, is a very different thing from +originality. The one is commonly the handmaid of the other, but the +other by no means always accompanies the one. + +So much for the cause; now for the effect which we might expect to find +if our diagnosis be correct. + +If the evolving force be less active in one race than in another, three +relative results should follow. In the first place, the race in question +will at any given moment be less advanced than its fellow; secondly, its +rate of progress will be less rapid; and lastly, its individual members +will all be nearer together, just as a stream, in falling from a cliff, +starts one compact mass, then gradually increasing in speed, divides +into drops, which, growing finer and finer and farther and farther +apart, descend at last as spray. All three of these consequences are +visible in the career of the Far Eastern peoples. The first result +scarcely needs to be proved to us, who are only too ready to believe it +without proof. It is, nevertheless, a fact. Viewed unprejudicedly, their +civilization is not so advanced a one as our own. Although they are +certainly our superiors in some very desirable particulars, their whole +scheme is distinctly more aboriginal fundamentally. It is more finished, +as far as it goes, but it does not go so far. Less rude, it is more +rudimentary. Indeed, as we have seen, its surface-perfection really +shows that nature has given less thought to its substance. One may say +of it that it is the adult form of a lower type of mind-specification. + +The second effect is scarcely less patent. How slow their progress +has been, if for centuries now it can be called progress at all, +is world-known. Chinese conservatism has passed into a proverb. The +pendulum of pulsation in the Middle Kingdom long since came to a stop +at the medial point of rest. Centre of civilization, as they call +themselves, one would imagine that their mind-machinery had got caught +on their own dead centre, and now could not be made to move. Life, which +elsewhere is a condition of unstable equilibrium, there is of a fatally +stable kind. For the Chinaman's disinclination to progress is something +more than vis inertiae; it has become an ardent devotion to the status +quo. Jostled, he at once settles back to his previous condition again; +much as more materially, after a lifetime spent in California, at his +death his body is punctiliously embalmed and sent home across five +thousand miles of sea for burial. With the Japanese the condition of +affairs is somewhat different. Their tendency to stand still is of a +purely passive kind. It is a state of neutral equilibrium, stationary +of itself but perfectly responsive to an impulse from without. Left to +their own devices, they are conservative enough, but they instantly +copy a more advanced civilization the moment they get a chance. This +proclivity on their part is not out of keeping with our theory. On the +contrary, it is precisely what was to have been expected; for we see the +very same apparent contradiction in characters we are thrown with every +day. Imitation is the natural substitute for originality. The less +strong a man's personality the more prone is he to adopt the ideas of +others, on the same principle that a void more easily admits a foreign +body than does space that is already occupied; or as a blank piece of +paper takes a dye more brilliantly for not being already tinted itself. + +The third result, the remarkable homogeneity of the people, is not, +perhaps, so universally appreciated, but it is equally evident on +inspection, and no less weighty in proof. Indeed, the Far Eastern +state of things is a kind of charade on the word; for humanity there +is singularly uniform. The distance between the extremes of +mind-development in Japan is much less than with us. This lack of +divergence exists not simply in certain lines of thought, but in +all those characteristics by which man is parted from the brutes. In +reasoning power, in artistic sensibility, in delicacy of perception, it +is the same story. If this were simply the impression at first sight, +no deductions could be drawn from it, for an impression of racial +similarity invariably marks the first stage of acquaintance of one +people by another. Even in outward appearance it is so. We find it +at first impossible to tell the Japanese apart; they find it equally +impossible to differentiate us. But the present resemblance is not a +matter of first impressions. The fact is patent historically. The men +whom Japan reveres are much less removed from the common herd than is +the case in any Western land. And this has been so from the earliest +times. Shakspeares and Newtons have never existed there. Japanese +humanity is not the soil to grow them. The comparative absence of genius +is fully paralleled by the want of its opposite. Not only are the paths +of preeminence untrodden; the purlieus of brutish ignorance are likewise +unfrequented. On neither side of the great medial line is the departure +of individuals far or frequent. All men there are more alike;--so much +alike, indeed, that the place would seem to offer a sort of forlorn hope +for disappointed socialists. Although religious missionaries have not +met with any marked success among the natives, this less deserving class +of enthusiastic disseminators of an all-possessing belief might do +well to attempt it. They would find there a very virgin field of a most +promisingly dead level. It is true, human opposition would undoubtedly +prevent their tilling it, but Nature, at least, would not present quite +such constitutional obstacles as she wisely does with us. + +The individual's mind is, as it were, an isolated bit of the race mind. +The same set of traits will be found in each. Mental characteristics +there are a sort of common property, of which a certain undifferentiated +portion is indiscriminately allotted to every man at birth. One soul +resembles another so much, that in view of the patriarchal system +under which they all exist, there seems to the stranger a peculiar +appropriateness in so strong a family likeness of mind. An idea of how +little one man's brain differs from his neighbor's may be gathered from +the fact, that while a common coolie in Japan spends his spare time +in playing a chess twice as complicated as ours, the most advanced +philosopher is still on the blissfully ignorant side of the pons +asinorum. + +We find, then, that in all three points the Far East fulfils what our +theory demanded. + +There is one more consideration worthy of notice. We said that the +environment had not been the deus ex materia in the matter; but that the +soul itself possessed the germ of its own evolution. This fact does +not, however, preclude another, that the environment has helped in the +process. Change of scene is beneficial to others besides invalids. +How stimulating to growth a different habitat can prove, when at all +favorable, is perhaps sufficiently shown in the case of the marguerite, +which, as an emigrant called white-weed, has usurped our fields. The +same has been no less true of peoples. Now these Far Eastern peoples, in +comparison with our own forefathers, have travelled very little. A race +in its travels gains two things: first it acquires directly a great +deal from both places and peoples that it meets, and secondly it is +constantly put to its own resources in its struggle for existence, +and becomes more personal as the outcome of such strife. The changed +conditions, the hostile forces it finds, necessitate mental ingenuity +to adapt them and influence it unconsciously. To see how potent these +influences prove we have but to look at the two great branches of the +Aryan family, the one that for so long now has stayed at home, and the +one that went abroad. Destitute of stimulus from without, the Indo-Aryan +mind turned upon itself and consumed in dreamy metaphysics the +imagination which has made its cousins the leaders in the world's +progress to-day. The inevitable numbness of monotony crept over the +stay-at-homes. The deadly sameness of their surroundings produced its +unavoidable effect. The torpor of the East, like some paralyzing poison, +stole into their souls, and they fell into a drowsy slumber only to +dream in the land they had formerly wrested from its possessors. Their +birthright passed with their cousins into the West. + +In the case of the Altaic races which we are considering, cause and +effect mutually strengthened each other. That they did not travel more +is due primarily to a lack of enterprise consequent upon a lack of +imagination, and then their want of travel told upon their imagination. +They were also unfortunate in their journeying. Their travels were +prematurely brought to an end by that vast geographical Nirvana the +Pacific Ocean, the great peaceful sea as they call it themselves. That +they would have journeyed further is shown by the way their dreams went +eastward still. They themselves could not for the preventing ocean, and +the lapping of its waters proved a nation's lullaby. + +One thing, I think, then, our glance at Far Eastern civilization has +more than suggested. The soul, in its progress through the world, tends +inevitably to individualization. Yet the more we perceive of the cosmos +the more do we recognize an all-pervading unity in it. Its soul must +be one, not many. The divine power that made all things is not itself +multifold. How to reconcile the ever-increasing divergence with +an eventual similarity is a problem at present transcending our +generalizations. What we know would seem to be opposed to what we +must infer. But perception of how we shall merge the personal in the +universal, though at present hidden from sight, may sometime come to +us, and the seemingly irreconcilable will then turn out to involve no +contradiction at all. For this much is certain: grand as is the great +conception of Buddhism, majestic as is the idea of the stately rest it +would lead us to, the road here below is not one the life of the world +can follow. If earthly existence be an evil, then Buddhism will help us +ignore it; but if by an impulse we cannot explain we instinctively crave +activity of mind, then the great gospel of Gautama touches us not; for +to abandon self--egoism, that is, not selfishness is the true vacuum +which nature abhors. As for Far Orientals, they themselves furnish proof +against themselves. That impersonality is not man's earthly goal they +unwittingly bear witness; for they are not of those who will survive. +Artistic attractive people that they are, their civilization is like +their own tree flowers, beautiful blossoms destined never to bear fruit; +for whatever we may conceive the far future of another life to be, the +immediate effect of impersonality cannot but be annihilating. If these +people continue in their old course, their earthly career is closed. +Just as surely as morning passes into afternoon, so surely are these +races of the Far East, if unchanged, destined to disappear before the +advancing nations of the West. Vanish they will off the face of the +earth and leave our planet the eventual possession of the dwellers where +the day declines. Unless their newly imported ideas really take root, it +is from this whole world that Japanese and Koreans, as well as Chinese, +will inevitably be excluded. Their Nirvana is already being realized; +already it has wrapped Far Eastern Asia in its winding-sheet, the shroud +of those whose day was but a dawn, as if in prophetic keeping with the +names they gave their homes,--the Land of the Day's Beginning, and the +Land of the Morning Calm. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Soul of the Far East, by Percival Lowell + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1409 *** |