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 spontaneousvariation, 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 thoughtfulchildhood 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