These qualities of intellect result in rather unusual gifts of making a seizure?' or picturesque mental presentation of the con crete object, or of some form of statement in which the general principle is embodied or ap plied. Such is apt to be the character of the work done by the form of imagination that suits- best the other characteristics of the senti mental temperament. The Japanese language has remained, almost down to the present time, in the synthetic stage. It has an enormous va riety of verbs and verbal expressions for the various modifications of activity such as are expressed in English by the words, put," uto go,a ((to etc., when followed by differ ent prepositions (a form of speech of which the Japanese language makes comparatively lit tle use, since it has relatively few post-posi tions). The general form of action has never been analyzed out of its varied forms of appli cation; but each one of these forms has been seized by the mind as a totality and apprehended in this its natural synthesis, so to say. Hence, on the other hand, there is a wonderful power of suggestiveness in single words or phrases; as, for example, when all the longing, love and sweet sadness of parting from friends is com pressed into the word or when one returns thanks for an invitation to dinner of the day before, by simply saying sakujitsu (°yes terda?). This concrete and picturesque char acter of the working of the imagination is both illustrated and intensified by the many peri phrases which the recognition of class distino tions and of specialized forms of personal rela tion has tended both to produce and to enforce. Thus the impression of subtlety, complexity and indirectness of mental characteristics is re newed and magnified.
It cannot be denied that the excellencies of the intellectual activities which characterize the Japanese have their correlated deficiencies. And these deficiencies are, in the main, just those which customarily belong to the sentimental temperament. Patient, prolonged and carefully guarded observation of fact, with the judgment held in suspense until it can be tested by a sufficient accumulation of cases or by the well known methods of scientific induction based upon experiment, is neither natural nor easy for this temperament. Truths are discovered or proved, not so much by any strict adherence to logical processes as by a kind of mental seizure which depends upon the working of a lively and picturesque imagination suggesting to the curi ous intellect an answer to its problem. It still remains doubtful, then, whether the higher forms of mathematics, logic, physics, chemistry and even the psychological sciences win receive an accession to their accumulated store of clear ly ascertained and defensible principles, corre sponding to the amount expended upon educa tion by the New japan. Still, inasmuch as in tellectual curiosity and lively imagination count for much even in these sciences, the laudable ambition and exceptional talents of a few may in time make up for the deficiencies of the many in this regard.
The development of philosophy in Japan is characterized by the same temperamental fea tures. It has hitherto taken two principal di
rections and has been either practical —a phi losophy of conduct — or speculative as a semi religious and intuitively mystical theory of re ality and of human life. The practical philoso phy of Japan has derived its inspiration and its form of development chiefly from the Confu cian ethics; it has therefore been ffie guide of notable statesmen and warriors, the doctrine of great teachers (who in Japan as everywhere else in the world, have been the chief influences for molding the national life and national des tiny), and the inspirer of the spirit of Bushido of the Samurai class, who have been the strength alike of the Old and of the New Japan. The speculative form of philosophy has derived its sources principally from Buddhism. But nowhere else has the stimulus of the Buddhistic view of the world and of human life produced such a variety of more or less harmonious, but also, in their details, conspicuously or subtly conflicting speculations, as among the Japanese. In general these speculations, which are essen tially considered different varieties of one kind of philosophy, follow the Indian type. They are poetical, mystical, intuitive, symbolic and generally vague and inconclusive. They do not, however, anywhere attain the symmetry or pro portions of the best examples of the speculative thinking of India. A philosophy that aims to base itself frankly and intelligently upon the particular sciences, and to attain a systematic and scientific whole by the use of logical meth ods, is neither easy nor congenial for the senti mental temperament. But the Oriental type of philosophy, as modified by the mental character istics of the Japanese, has its own place and value in the development of human reflective thinking.
The race-temperament and mental character istics of the Japanese have shown themselves most conspicuously, and even resplendently, in two ways : the chivalry of war and the exqui site sympathy, taste and skill of art. Brave, proud-spirited, governed by sentiments attached to the forms of action becoming to the class, or rank, and appropriate for personal relations, rather than by considerations of either a utili tarian or strictly ethical character—such has been, in general, the character of the Japanese in war. Even through that unhappy period, dur ing which the feudal lords and military chief tains were occupied with the attempt to ex terminate each other, the same character was maintained essentially unchanged. To act as `in honor whether under the principle of noblesse oblige, or under the sense of obliga tion to render unquestioning service to one's superior, has been the rule of the true-spirited Japanese. And no Christian knighthood in mediaeval Europe produced higher examples of devotion to honor and to duty — however mis taken the particular form which this devotion may have taken — than have characterized the entire history of Japan. Indeed, the way in which the spirit of chivalry descended upon all the orders of the people in their conduct of their war with Russia is one of the marvels of human history.