in the Oriental civilization, whose psychic defects they accordingly necessarily inherit through the laws of social heredity.  Such observations have no relevancy to our main problem.  We freely admit that Oriental civilization manifests striking deficiencies of development of the higher mental faculties, although it is not nearly so great as many assert; but we contend that these deficiencies are due to something else than the inherent psychic nature of the Oriental individual.  Innumerable causes have combined to produce the Oriental social order and to determine its slow development.  These cannot be stated in a sentence, nor in a paragraph.

In the final analysis, however, the causes which produce the characteristic features of Japanese social order are the real sources of the differentiating intellectual traits now characterizing the Japanese.  Introduce a new social heredity,—­a new system of education,—­one which relegates a mechanical memory to the background,—­one which exalts powers of rational observation of the profound causal relations of the phenomena of nature, and which sets a premium on such observation, analysis, and generalization, and the results will show the inherent psychic nature of the Oriental to be not different from that of the Occidental.

XX

PHILOSOPHICAL ABILITY

We are now prepared to consider whether or not the Japanese have philosophical ability.  The average educated Japanese believe such to be the case.  The rapidity and ease with which the upper classes have abandoned their superstitious faiths is commonly attributed by themselves to the philosophical nature of their minds.  Similarly the rapid spread of so-called rationalism and Unitarian thought and Higher Criticism among once earnest Christians, during the past decade, they themselves ascribe to their interest in philosophical questions, and to their ability in handling philosophical problems.

Foreigners, on the other hand, usually deny them the possession of philosophical ability.

Dr. Peery, in his volume entitled “The Gist of Japan,” says:  “By nature, I think, they are more inclined to be practical than speculative.  Abstract theological ideas have little charm for them.  There is a large element in Japan that simulates a taste for philosophical study.  Philosophy and metaphysics are regarded by them as the profoundest of all branches of learning, and in order to be thought learned they profess great interest in these studies.  Not only are the highly metaphysical philosophies of the East studied, but the various systems of the West are looked into likewise.  Many of the people are capable of appreciating these philosophies, too; but they do it for a purpose.”  Other writers make the same general charge of philosophical incompetence.  One or two quotations from Dr. Knox’s writings were given on this subject, under the head of Imitation.[AM]