It is incumbent on advocates of the biological view to point out in detail the distinguishing inherent traits of the Orient.  Let them also catalogue the essential psychic characteristics of Occidentals.  Such an attempt is seldom made.  And when it is made it is singularly unconvincing.  Although Prof.  Le Bon states that the mental constitution of races is as distinctive and unaltering as their anatomical characteristics, he fails to tell us what they are.  This is a vital omission.  If the differences are as distinct as he asserts, it would seem to be an easy matter to describe them.  Whatever the clothing adopted, it is an easy matter for one to distinguish a European from an Asiatic, an Englishman from an Italian, a Japanese from a Korean, a Chinaman from a Hindu.  The anatomical characteristics of races are clear and easily described.  If the psychic characteristics are equally distinct, why do not they who assert this distinctness describe and catalogue these differences?

Occasionally a popular writer makes something of an attempt in this direction, but with astonishingly slight results.  A recent writer in the London Daily Mail has illustrated afresh the futility of all attempts to catalogue the distinguishing characteristics of the Oriental.  He names the inferior position assigned to women, the licentiousness of men, licensed prostitution, lack of the play instinct among Oriental boys, scorn of Occidental civilization, and the rude treatment of foreigners.  Many of his statements of facts are sadly at fault.  But supposing them to be true, are they the differentiating characteristics of the Orient?  Consider for a moment what was the position of woman in ancient times in the Occident, and what was the moral character of Occidental men?  Is not prostitution licensed to-day in the leading cities of Europe?  And is there not an unblushing prostitution in the larger cities of England and America which would put to shame the licensed prostitution of Japan?  Are Orientals and their civilization universally esteemed and considerately treated in the Occident?  Surely none of these are uniquely Oriental characteristics, distinguishing them from Occidental peoples as clearly as the anatomical characteristics of oblique eyes and yellow skin.

Mr. Percival Lowell has made a careful philosophical effort to discover the essential psychic nature of the Orient.  He describes it, as we have seen, as “Impersonality.”  The failure of his effort we have sufficiently considered.

There remain a few other characterizations of the Orient that we may well examine briefly.

It has been stated that the characteristic psychic trait distinguishing the East from the West is that the former is intuitive, while the latter is logical.  In olden times Oriental instruction relied on the intuitions of the student.  No reliance was placed on the logical process.  Religion, so far as it was not ceremony and magic, was intuitional, “Satori,” “Enlightenment,” was the keyword.  Each man attains enlightenment by himself—­through a flash of intuition.  Moral instruction likewise was intuitional.  Dogmatic statements were made whose truth the learner was to discover for himself; no effort was made to explain them.  Teaching aimed to go direct to the point, not stopping to explain the way thither.