Now what is the cause of this characteristic of the Japanese?  It is commonly attributed by writers of the impersonal school to the “impersonality” of the Oriental mind.  “Impersonality” is not only the occasion, it is the cause of the politeness of the Japanese people.  “Self is suppressed, and an ever-present regard for others is substituted in its stead.”  “Impersonality, by lessening the interest in one’s self, induces one to take interest in others."[CO] Politeness is, in these passages, attributed to the impersonal nature of the Japanese mind.  The following quotations show that this characteristic is conceived of as inherent in race and mind structure, not in the social order, as is here maintained.  “The nation grew up to man’s estate, keeping the mind of its childhood."[CP] “In race characteristics, he is yet essentially the same....  Of these traits ... perhaps the most important is the great quality of impersonality."[CQ] “The peoples inhabiting it [the earth’s temperate zone] grow steadily more personal as we go West.  So unmistakable is this gradation that one is almost tempted to ascribe it to cosmical rather than human causes....  The essence of the soul of the Far East may be said to be impersonality."[CR]

In his chapter on “Imagination,” Mr. Lowell seeks to explain the cause of the “impersonality” of the Orient.  He attributes it to their marked lack of the faculty of “imagination”—­the faculty of forming new and original ideas.  Lacking this faculty, there has been relatively little stimulus to growth, and hence no possibility of differentiation and thus of individualization.

If politeness were due to the “impersonal” nature of the race mind, it would be impossible to account for the rise and decline of Japanese etiquette, for it should have existed from the beginning, and continued through all time, nor could we account for the gross impoliteness that is often met with in recent years.  The Japanese themselves deplore the changes that have taken place.  They testify that the older forms of politeness were an integral element of the feudal system and were too often a thin veneer of manner by no means expressive of heart interest.  None can be so absolutely rude as they who are masters of the forms of politeness, but have not the kindly heart.  The theory of “impersonality” does not satisfactorily account for the old-time politeness of Japan.

The explanation here offered for the development and decline of politeness is that they are due to the nature of the social order.  Thoroughgoing feudalism long maintained, with its social ranks and free use of the sword, of necessity develops minute unwritten rules of etiquette; without the universal observance of these customs, life would be unbearable and precarious, and society itself would be impossible.  Minute etiquette is the lubricant of a feudal social order.  The rise and fall of Japan’s phenomenal system of feudal etiquette is synchronous with that of her feudal system, to which it is due rather than to the asserted “impersonality” of the race mind.