If the characterization we are considering is meant to signify that the Orient possesses a power of appreciation not possessed by the West, then it seems to me an error.  The Occident is not deficient in appreciation.  A better statement of the difference suggested by the above characterization is that Western civilization is an expression of Will, whereas Eastern civilization is an expression of subordination to the superior—­to Fate.  This feature of Oriental character is due to the fact that the Orient is still as a whole communal in its social order, whereas the Occident is individualistic.  In the West each man makes his own fortune; his position in society rests on his own individual energy.  He is free to exert it at will.  Society praises him in proportion as he manifests energy, grit, independence, and persistence.  The social order selects such men and advances them in political, in business, in social, and in academic life.  The energetic, active characteristics of the West are due, then, to the high development of individualism.  The entire Occidental civilization is an expression of free will.

The communal nature of the Orient has not systematically given room for individual progress.  The independent, driving man has been condemned socially.  Submission, absolute and perpetual, to parents, to lord, to ancestors, to Fate, has been the ruling idea of each man’s life.  Controlled by such ideas, the easy-going, time-ignoring, dreaming, contemplative life—­if you so choose to call it—­of the Orient is a necessary consequence.

But has this characteristic become congenital, or is it still only social?  Is dreamy appreciation now an inborn racial characteristic of Oriental mind, while active driving energy is the corresponding essential trait of Occidental mind?  Or may these characteristics change with the social order?  I have no hesitancy whatever in advocating the latter position.  The way in which Young Japan, clad in European clothing, using watches and running on “railroad time,” has dropped the slow-going style of Old Japan and has acquired habits of rapid walking, direct clear-cut conversation, and punctuality in business and travel (comparatively speaking) proves conclusively the correctness of my contention.  New Japan is entering into the hurry and bustle of Occidental life, because, in contact with the West, she has adopted in a large measure, though not yet completely, the individualism of the West.

As time goes on, Japanese civilization will increasingly manifest the phenomena of will, and will proportionally become assimilated to the civilization of the West.  But the ultimate cause of this transformation in civilization will be the increasing introduction of individualism into the social order.  And this is possible only because the so-called racial characteristics are sociological, and not biological.  The transformation of “race soul” therefore does not depend on the intermarriage of diverse races, but only on the adoption of new ideas and practices through social intercourse.