The Soul of the Far East | Page 9

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