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The Soul of the Far East-Part8_Percival Lowell(1855-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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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 exquisitelygrotesque, 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 femaledistinctive 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 effectiveneglect, 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 partialsymbol, 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




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