As an extreme case, look for a moment at their imitativeness.  Although imitation is considered a proof of deficient originality, and thus of imagination, yet reflection shows that this depends on the nature of the imitation.  Japanese imitation has not been, except possibly for short periods, of that slavish nature which excludes the work of the imagination.  Indeed, the impulse to imitation rests on the imagination.  But for this faculty picturing the state of bliss or power secured in consequence of adopting this or that feature of an alien civilization, the desire to imitate could not arise.  In view, moreover, of the selective nature of Japanese imitation, we are further warranted in ascribing to the people no insignificant development of the imagination.

In illustration, consider Japan’s educational system.  Established no doubt on Occidental models, it is nevertheless a distinctly Japanese institution.  Its buildings are as characteristically Japonicized Occidental school buildings as are its methods of instruction.  Japanese railroads and steamers, likewise constructed in Japan, are similarly Japonicized—­adapted to the needs and conditions of the people.  To our eyes this of course signifies no improvement, but assuredly, without such modification, our Western railroads and steamers would be white elephants on their hands, expensive and difficult of operation.

What now is the sociological interpretation of the foregoing facts?  How are the fanciful, visionary, and idealistic characteristics, on the one hand, and, on the other, the prosaic, matter-of-fact, and relatively unimaginative characteristics, related to the social order?

It is not difficult to account for the presence of accentuated visionariness in Japan.  Indeed, this quality is conspicuous among the descendants of the military and literary classes; and this fact furnishes us the clew.  “From time immemorial,” to use a phrase common on the lips of Japanese historians, up to the present era, the samurai as a class were quite separated from the practical world; they were comfortably supported by their liege lords; entirely relieved from the necessity of toiling for their daily bread, they busied themselves not only with war and physical training, but with literary accomplishments, that required no less strenuous mental exertions.

Furthermore, in a class thus freed from daily toil, there was sure to arise a refined system of etiquette and of rank distinctions.  Even a few centuries of life would, under such conditions, develop highly nervous individuals in large numbers, hypersensitive in many directions.  These men, by the very development of their nervous constitutions, would become the social if not the practical leaders of their class; high-spirited, and with domineering ideas and scheming ambitions, they would set the fashion to all their less nervously developed fellows.  Freed from the exacting conditions of a practical life, they would inevitably fly off on tangents more or less impractical, visionary.